1889 
Ptunj 
THE NEW BUTTER EXTRACTOR. 
L. S. HARDIN. 
Recent improvements in butter-making \ 
the latest of all gets the butter directly 
from the fresh milk : much like the centri¬ 
fugal separator in appearance ; how the 
butter comes ; a temperature of from 52 
to 65 only needed ; extracts nearly all the 
butter in strictly prime condition ; a com¬ 
plete revolution in butter-making ; will the 
fresh-milk butter keep? 
Those of us who have kept abreast with 
dairy improvements during the past 10 or 15 
years have become somewhat accustomed to 
startling innovations. The crocks and 
pans of our grandmothers first gave way 
to the large pan that held a herd’s milk¬ 
ing; then came innumerable devices for 
cooling the milk with water. Deep setting 
then made its appearance without the use of 
ice, and proved a failure. Then cold water 
and subsequently the submerged practice 
came to the front as a success. Next in order, 
the centrifuge made its appearance to super¬ 
sede all other methods. All of these systems 
had but one object in view, and that was to 
obtain the cream, and the improved methods 
were really but slight improvements on the 
original crock and can; for where they left 
off the art of butter-making had but just 
begun. To get the butter requires about as 
much skill with the new as with the old process. 
When the first announcement came that a 
new candidate for dairy honors was in the 
field, no one thought much of it until it was 
known that the claim was to produce pure, 
first-class butter directly from fresh milk. 
This was so squarely in the face of all known 
principles of butter-making that no one credit¬ 
ed the claim. Therefore when I was called 
upon to be the first man to examine and write 
up this machine, it was with much skepticism 
that I entered into the “ assignment,” as news 
paper men call it. 
The machine in outward appearance resem¬ 
bles the ordinary separator so closely that 
no one would suspect it to be more than an 
improvement on that implement, and per¬ 
haps, correctly speaking, that is all it is; but 
it is a very remarkable improvement, about 
as great a one as the modern iron-clad is in 
advance of Fulton’s first steamboat. The 
milk enters the butter extractor just as it en¬ 
ters the separator and the skim-milk leaves 
it in the same manner; but instead of a tube 
at the side for the cream to come from, there 
is quite a large opening at the bottom of the 
churn from which the granular butter makes 
its escape. Isay “granular,” though by the 
slight movemeut of a lever or screw the butter 
can be made to come quite solid. It begins 
to make its appearance so soon as the ma¬ 
chine gets under full headway. Its revolving 
speed is about six thousand revolutions a 
minute, and it has a capacity of 500 gallons an 
hour. The very intelligent gentlemen in 
charge say it has five times the creaming ca¬ 
pacity of the ordinary separator; that is, it 
could turn out five times as much cream if 
the inner wall were removed so that the ma¬ 
chine would produce only cream. It could 
do this while running at the same speed as 
the separator. This is owiug to an improve¬ 
ment in the form of the drum. 
The secret of the butter attachment is this: 
The cream is first separated from the milk 
and then it finds an additional wall to climb 
in the center of the drum, and as it reaches the 
top of that wall, its weight causes it to fall in¬ 
to an inner compartment but it is not yet 
butter, though it looks like it; there is too 
much serum or milk in it, and this has been 
where others have stopped in the attempt to 
get pure butter. In order to accomplish fur¬ 
ther separation, a small instrument, like a 
bird-cage, without top or bottom and without 
any power to turn it except its own momen¬ 
tum, is placed in the center of the drum and 
gives just enough agitation to this thick cream 
to let the last particle of milk out from be¬ 
tween the globules of butter fat. These glob¬ 
ules then coalesce and foim granules just as 
the butter does in the churn when stopped at 
the right time in modern practice. 
One point struck me as very strange, and I 
am sorry that the inventor of this machine, 
Mr. Johnson, had lett for Copenhagen before 
I could get an explanation from him. The 
ordinary separator in order to work to advan¬ 
tage, must have the milk heated up to among 
the nineties, a degree fatal to all butter mak¬ 
ing; but this machine actually does its work 
with the milk all the time not above 65 degrees. 
It is claimed that it can work with milk as low 
as 52 degrees. The only explanation I could 
get was that all was owing to the improved 
form of the drum. The claims are that it 
secures more butter from the milk than any 
other method, leaving but 99-100 of 
one per cent, of fat in the skim-milk. 
This skim-milk is perfectly sweet and 
in the best condition for drinking or feed¬ 
ing. The butter is as fine as any that ever 
came under my observation, and is prized 
equally highly by all with whom I have talked, 
who have witnessed the machine’s work, and 
they number many of the celebrated dairy¬ 
men of the country. 
It is hard seriously to contemplate the tre¬ 
mendous revolution this machine is certain 
to accomplish in the dairy. If it did only 
half what I have seen it do, 1 would still look 
to see it drive all other methods out of prac¬ 
tice. According to my figuring, done in the 
rough, of course, it required about 22 
pounds of city milk to make a pound 
of butter, and the butter, as I said before, 
was as fine as the most masterly artist in but¬ 
ter-making could produce. This it does every 
time, if the milk is good. Here we see the 
butter-maker’s occupation “ gone,” for there 
is no setting of the milk, no curing and tem¬ 
pering and churning of the cream, and hard¬ 
ly any working for the butter, as it appears 
in perfect granules, is sprinkled with water 
and most of the milk is washed out of it, 
leaving it ready to be salted and put in the 
tub. The person who could not make a fine 
article of butter with this machine, would 
have a genius for failure, because he would 
really have nothing to do with it except to 
accept the article as it came from the ma¬ 
chine. 
The objection to sweet-milk butter founded 
on the fear that it will not keep is to be met by 
practice, though it is claimed that the gran¬ 
ular butter can be washed in sour milk, and 
that thus the virtue claimed for its keeping 
principle can be secured. I never was a be¬ 
liever in the sour theory; for I believe that a 
thing which has never begun to decay will 
keep better than one that has. I know noth¬ 
ing of the company that has the extractor in 
hand; but understand that it has already a 
large number of orders for machines and will 
soon begin their manufacture. 
DAIRY CONFERENCES IN CLINTON 
COUNTY, N. Y.—I. 
Number , location and capacity of the cream¬ 
eries ; methods of cream-raising in use; 
handling the milk, cream and butter ; kind 
of cows ; a test for butter-, good advice 
from Col. F. D. Curtis. 
Up the Saranac River, 16 miles west of 
Plattsburgh, 900 feet above the level of Lake 
Champlain, close to the foot-hills, within sight 
of the gray walls of Clinton prison, and in the 
shadow of the Adirondack and Lion Mountains, 
is a creamery at which the milk from 400 cows 
owned by 60 patrons, is each morning centri¬ 
fuged in a Danish Weston separator, milk be¬ 
ing delivered but once a day—in the morning. 
The creamery is one of six, which with a 
cheese factory, located at Peru, are owned 
and operated by Mr. A. D. Boomhower, and 
all of them are in Clinton County. The 
creameries are located at Saranac, Platts¬ 
burgh,Mooer’s,Mooer’s Forks,Ellenburgh Cen¬ 
ter, and Cherubusco Village. The average 
number of cows for each creamery is 
about 400. At four of the creameries, 
or “ butter factories,” as they are called 
there, the milk is bought of the patrons, by 
Mr. Boomhower, at an average price of 80 
cents per 100 pounds; at the other two and at 
the cheese factory the milk is made up for the 
patrons. The Danish Weston Centrifuge is 
used at all the creameries except at the one at 
Ellenburgh Center, where the Burrell & 
Whitman ice vat system is employed and 
where, at the time the conference was held— 
August 8—the best results were being obtain¬ 
ed; that is, the largest percentage of butter 
to that of milk creamed. No doubt this re¬ 
sult was due to the better pasture the cows had, 
and not to any superior advantage the process 
possesses over the centrifuge, as it is well 
known that all conditions being equal, the 
machine will extract more butter fat from a 
given number of pounds of milk than will any 
other cream-raising device; but there are 
many excellent butter-makers and experts 
who will toll oue that butter made from cen¬ 
trifugal cream is not of as good quality, nor 
will it keep as well as will butter made from 
cream raised by the Cooley or Stoddard pro¬ 
cess. They will tell you that it is of too 
“salvy” a nature with less grain; or, rather, 
that the machine seems to break the grain, 
thus leaving the butter in a sticky, salvy con¬ 
dition. 
At the Saranac creamery there are now be¬ 
ing delivered 7,500 pounds of milk each morn¬ 
ing; the maximum, during the “flush of feed,” 
in June, was 9,500 pounds; the ratio on Aug¬ 
ust 7th, was one pound of butter to 24 pounds 
of milk. No grain ration is now fed by any 
patron. The pasture is mostly upland, the 
grasses being wild or mountain. Much of 
the pasture land has never been plowed or 
seeded, and is partially covered with a second 
growth of white birch, poplar, spruce and 
pine, the original forest having found its way 
to the charcoal kilns, whence it went into the 
forges years ago. The water is excellent, be¬ 
ing from cold spring brooks, and the cows are 
salted, usually twice a week, in the stables. 
The milk is separated at a temperature of 
80 to 85 degrees, and the cream cooled down 
to 58 degrees as soon as possible. All milk is 
“ pooled;” therefore all the cream is delivered 
from the separator into one vat—a large one 
—in which ice is put to keep the temperature 
of the cream while being ripened at the de¬ 
sired degree, which is not above 60 degrees. 
The time occupied in ripening is 24 hours, 
when it is churned by steam power in a 
Blanchard box churn of 400 gallons capacity, 
revolved at 50 revolutions per minute. When 
put into the churn, the cream is at 58 degrees 
to 59 degrees; the temperature of the butter 
when the separation occurs is 62 degrees to 64 
degrees. Butter is worked on an old-fashioned 
hand lever worker, and salted with Warsaw 
salt—one ounce to the pound. It is packed in 
three, five, 10, 24, 32 and 62-pound packages, 
as preferred by customers. Nearly one-half 
of the product is sold to the hotels in the 
Adirondacks, at an average price of 21 cents; 
the remainder is packed in 62-pound Welch, 
spruce tubs, and put in cold-storage in the 
creamery buildings. There are about 2,500 
packages or 155,000 pounds now in store at 
the six creameries, which will be shipped, it 
is expected, about the first of November. 
The cows are mostly natives with a small 
number of low grades, mostly Ayrshire and 
Short-horns. 
The first special churning done at this 
creamery was of cream from the dairy of 
native cows belonging to Mr. Solomon Brelia, 
one of the patrons, and included 200 pounds of 
milk, drawn from the cows Saturday night 
and Sunday morning, mixed at the creamery 
and centrifuged Sunday morning at ten 
o’clock. It was put into a tin can, and 
cooled down to a temperature of 40 degrees 
where it was kept till 7 a. m. Tuesday, when 
it was taken out, and warmed ud to 65 degrees; 
at 11 o’clock it was cooled to 60 degrees, put 
into a Stoddard Churn, which was revolved 
by hand power at a speed of 60 revolutions. 
Separation occurred in 25 minutes ; butter¬ 
milk was drawn off and the butter washed in 
ice water in the churn until no milk was visi¬ 
ble in the water drawn off. Before the but¬ 
ter-milk was drawn off, a small handful of 
salt was put in the churn, to facilitate separa¬ 
tion. When taken from the churn, the but¬ 
ter was in the granular state, the granules 
being about as large as kernels of wheat. It 
was salted on the creamery worker, with 
Warsaw salt—one ounce to the pound—and 
worked till quite dry. When finished it was 
pronounced by Mr. W. H. Gilbert, of Rich¬ 
land, under whose supervision the work had 
been done, as of very good quality. Product 
8>^ pounds of butter ; ratio, one pound of but¬ 
ter to 24.24 pounds of milk. After dinner, 
the few ladies and gentlemen in attendance 
repaired to a large hall near by, where Mr. 
Gilbert explained the objects of the confer¬ 
ences and told how to raise cream, get the 
most there is in the milk, set and ripen it; 
work, salt and pack the butter, preserve and 
market it and to get the best price for it. Col. 
F. D. Curtis, of Kirby Homestead, talked to 
them in his pleasant, familiar way, telling 
them how to feed, what to feed, when to feed, 
and the breed of cows to feed to make dairy¬ 
ing profitable. The cows must be good ones, 
of whatever breed they may be; there are 
good cows amongst the natives, and there are 
very poor ones, just as there are amongst the 
“bloods.” Not all the Jersey, Guernsey, Hol¬ 
stein, Short-horn or Ayrshire cows are good 
butter cows. There are poor cows in all 
breeds. Don’t keep a cow, no matter of what 
breed she may be, or how much she cost you, 
that will not earn a profit. Hunt them out 
with the scales, and, when you find one that 
is sponging her living sell or shoot her. Milk 
only cows that will pay for their board and 
give you a surplus. Provide warm barns and 
stables. Seed pastures with milk-producing 
grasses; rid them of noxious weeds. Give the 
cows access to salt aud plenty of pure water 
every day. Feed a well-balanced grain ra¬ 
tion—cotton-seed meal, wheat bran, linseed 
meal, pea-meal and ground oats are the best 
feeds for milk production because they are 
foods that produce bone and muscle. Build si- 
Jos; study the science of breeding and feeding. 
Do not allow your cows to go on strike four or 
five months of the year. Chauge largely to 
winter.dairying. Three-fourths of the butter 
made is made during the months of June, 
July and August. Results, an over-supply, 
glutted markets, and low prices; make only 
butter of the best quality, which always com¬ 
mands the best prices. Three-fourths of the 
butter made and thrown on the market is fit 
only for grease. Don’t make that kind of 
butter. It is just as easy to make good butter 
as to make poor butter; but to do it you must 
have clean utensils; sweet, and neat dairy 
rooms and storage; stables kept free from 
filth and odors; clean and healthy cows, which 
must be fed and milked regularly bv careful, 
intelligent help. With such cows and appli¬ 
ances and the adoption of modern methods, 
you will succeed as a dairyman, making the 
business both pleasant and profitable; with¬ 
out them you will fail. c. w. j. 
CORRESPONDENTS’ VIEWS. 
Intensive versus Extensive Farming.— 
The year 1889 has demonstrated more than it 
has been shown ever before (in the Cotton 
Belt, at least,) the folly of extensive farming 
and the benefits to be derived from the inten¬ 
sive system. Every patch of cotton, within 
my own observation, that has been fertilized, 
no matter how poor the land, looks well, 
though, owing to a six weeks’ drought at 
planting time, we did not get a stand of cotton 
till June 10, two months later than usual. 
Since then we have had 45 days on which the 
ground has been too wet to put earth either to 
cotton or corn. As a consequence, there are 
hundreds of acres of both that are given up to 
grass and weeds, and are a standing monu¬ 
ment of the folly of pursuing the “ extensive ’ 
system. No cotton raiser should plant a 
greater number of acres than he can cultivate 
well regardless of seasons. If he will manure 
what he does plant, he will make far more, 
one year with another, than by farming on 
the “extensive” plan. Having less land in 
cotton, we can plant more in feed crops, keep 
fatter stock, and more of them, thereby in¬ 
creasing our supply of fertilizers, enabling us 
to plant a little more every year on the “in¬ 
tensive ” plan. g. h. f. 
Denmark, Mississippi. 
Preparing Corn Ground. —There are 
many ways of preparing the ground for corn, 
and each doubtless has points in its favor ac¬ 
cording to the soil to be planted aud the lati¬ 
tude of the locality. But here in northern 
Illinois we have a method of preparing sod 
for corn, which is growing in favor, though 
not generally known and adopted. The sod 
should not be pastured in the spring as a good 
giowth of grass is one of the chief elements of 
success. Then from the 10th to the 20th of 
May the sod should be plowed five or six inches 
deep with some plow that will cover well the 
grass and weeds and turn the sod over flat, or 
at least without kinking and breaking it too 
much so that it can be harrowed well with a 
smoothing harrow and a mellow seed-bed be 
prepared without disturbing the sod and tear- 
ing up the grass. We then plant two kernels 
to a hill about 18 inches apart, in rows one way 
with a two-horse planter: rows three feet 
10 inches apart. A cultivator can be used 
without tearing up the sod and the corn will 
respond grandly. We do not plaut till the 
first of Juue when all danger of cut-worms is 
past. I have a piece planted the 3d of Juue, 
which at the present writing I believe is ful¬ 
ly equal to any planted a month before on 
equally rich land. Many who saw me pre¬ 
paring the ground shook their heads and 
talked of failure, offering to help me out by 
giving me some extra early kind of seed corn. 
But I planted our common field varieties and 
I begin now to hear words of praise for my 
nice corn from those same individuals. Our 
soils are black loose loam on creek bottoms 
and yellow clay on the ridges. This is a lime¬ 
stone country. There may be nothing worth 
trying or novel in this for many of your read¬ 
ers, yet it may be useful to some. The most 
perfect field of corn I ever saw was raised in 
this way but they went through it once with, 
hoes and twice with a cultivator, w. s. s. 
Joe Davies County, III. 
Wmmrn’s XD^rK. 
CONDUCTED BY EMILY LOUISE TAPLIN. 
CHAT BY THE WAY. 
P ILLOW-SHAMS, according to the opin¬ 
ion of most men, are a nuisance aud a 
humbug, yet unquestionably, if one wishes a 
