The Portland daily press., 1868-08-29
Butter Making.

The season for making butter for winters
use will soon arrive, and few hints in rela-
tion to the subject may not be out of place.
Good butter is a luxury and always COM
mands good price, but poor butter is abso-
lutely worse than none at all. It does seem
strange to us that so much poor butter is
made. There is no need of flooding the
market with such stuff. 1t costs no more
money, and very little more time to make
good sweet but ter than it does to manuiac-
ture a poor article. To make good butter
does not require the exercise of immense
brains, nor demand very profound philosophy.
The work is not difficult nor obstruse. A lit
tie knowledge and care will carry the dairy
woman safely through the work. True, a
good foundation must first be laid, and good
cows and good pasturage form that founda-
tion, and if farm wife does not make good
butter with these materials the fault lies at
her own door. She must be either ignorant,
or careless, or both.
Having good milk, the dairywoman must
not ''set it" in dirty pans, nor keep dirty
milkroom where flies and creeping things do
love to congregate. If she does, the cream
will become impregnated with disagreeable
odors which will surely find their way into
the butter. Again, the cream must not be
kept too long even in a clean place, and if it is
desirable to keep it a few days during warm
weather, a teacup of salt to a gallon OF cream,
says one writer, is recommended. The salt
may be placed in the crock first, or added aE
ter the first gallon is put in. As the quanti-
several times day until ready for churning.
Cream treated in this way will obviate the
necessity of using much salt when the butter
is made, If desired for immediate use The
quality, however, will depend in some good
degree on the manner in which the butter
milk is washed out. This work must be done
thoroughly and faithfully. A little neglect
here will produce much mischief. A writer
in the N. W. Farmer says: There is no pro-
cess of working or washing that will secure a
good article of butter, or that will get all the
buttermilk out, till it has stood short time,
when it must be washed the second time, af-
ter which it will keep long time. Butter
that has not been washed over the second
| time will not keep long in warm weather. /
don't care how much pains you take with it
the buttermilk that is lett in the butter be-
| coming sour, makes your butter rancid"
The buttermilk that is too often left in but
ter makes very improbable business for the
dairywoman; for she does not get more than
half price for her butter. Dealers who are
good judges and consumers who are not igno-
rant, will not pay very high price for butter
that is streaky and traversed by rivulets oi
brine and buttermik. We have seen such
butter, and it afforded anything but tempt
alton to purchase it. The appearance of such
butter is decidedly sckening and forcibly re-
minds one of soap BARREL The milk that
made this butter might have been excellent
when drawn from the cows, but how shock
| ingly it was wasted. And all for the want ol
a little care and neatness.
With good milk to begin with, it is not a
| difficult task to make good, sweet butter, and
it is strange, passing strange, that SO much
poor butter should be made! The rules for
| making it are few and simple, and intellects
of moderate capacity can easily comprehend
them. Then why In the name of heaven dc
we have so much poor butter? WhJ should
there be so many grades from soap-grease tt
sweet butter? There is no necessity for it
True indeed, neatness is next godliness, ant
especially in makers of butter. We occasion
ally find some first class butter in our market
and We hope and trust we shall have larger
proportion of such than we have had in years
past. 'fs ae.a
AGRICOLA.