246 
WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
“We skim very clean, stir the cream-pot whenever a skim¬ 
ming is poured in, and churn but once a week summer and 
winter. Just before the butter gathers we throw into the churn 
a bucket of ice-ccld water. This hardens the butter in small 
pai tides and makes a finer grain. In the hot months this prac¬ 
tice is unvarying. 
“In working we get out all the buttermilk, but do not apply 
the hand. A better way is to absorb the drops with a linen 
cloth wrung from cold water. The first working takes out all 
the milk; at the second we handle delicately, with fingers as 
cool as may be. The salt is less than an ounce to a pound, but 
not generally much less. The balls each weigh one pound, and 
receive a uniform stamp. On packing for market, each ball is 
wrapped in a linen cloth, with the name and stall of the 
marketman written upon it. Our tubs are made of cedar- 
plank, 1 1-2 to 2 inches thick, and lined with tin. On the 
inner face are little projections on which the shelves rest. The 
balls are not bruised or pressed at all, and pass into the hands 
of the consumer as firm, as perfect in outline, and as spotless 
as when they left the spring-house. 
“We find uniformity to be a prime virtue in the butter- 
maker. We produce the same article whether the cows stand 
knee-deep in white clover-blooms, or sun themselves on the 
lee-side of the barn in February. 
“ There is a small ice-chamber at the end of the oblong tub 
which we use in summer, so that in dog-days the heat within 
the tub does not get higher than 60 deg. Fahrenheit. I need not 
add that we observe a scrupulous, a religious neatness in every 
act, and in every utensil of the dairy. Milk which upon 
leaving the udder passes through an atmosphere loaded with 
stable fumes, will never make butter for which we can get a 
dollar per pound. No milk sours upon the floor of the milk- 
room ; none is permitted to decompose in the crevices of the 
milk-pans; the churn is scoured and scalded till no smell can 
be detected but the smell of white cedar. 
“Our customers take the napkins with the prints, wash, 
