Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1870-06-24
AChap6er ON butter.

No one thing enters so universally into
the husbandry of the country as the max.
ing of butter. The poor man has his
single COW; the rich, some fifty or more,
and the aggregate production of these
million dairies is immense. To add to
the amount or to improve the quality is
of consequence; and here are our recon-
mendations for doing both; The first
requisite is good cows They may yield
large quantity of milk, and yet not
make large quantity of butter, as the
per cent of butter in the milk is all the
way from three TO six of its strained
weight. The COWS must be well fed. Be
tween fair feeding and extra feeding sim
ply with grass and hay, there is differ
ence of from four TO six ounces of butter
a day. Cows should be MIXED at exact
ly the same time, morning and night with
an interval of as nearly twelve hours be-
tween as possible. They must be MIXED
quickly and clean. Immediately after
milking is done, the milk must
be strained into pans, and these
pans set on a milk rack in q
room where the temperature is as cool
and as even as possible. The milk should
be skinned in the summer as soon as it
has become thick, and if the dairy is
sufficiently large, the churning should be
done each day. If the experiment is at
all a success-which can only be ascer-
tanned by trial-church the buttermilk af
ter the first and most generous install
ment of butter has been removed. The
cream of some cows does not and will not
come as soon as that of others, and there is
likely to be considerable loss for this rea-
son. Strain the buttermilk, so that every
particle of butter may be saved and add
ed to the general mass. The observance
of these recommendations viii add from
three to six pounds week to any given
dairy of ten COWS, where the former
treatment has been careless, and the same
food given to good butter cows, instead
of poor ones, will make a difference of
from twenty-five to thirty-five per cent.
of the total product. Good butter can
not be made when the milk pail is not
clean and sweet. If it has not been thor
oughly scalded and dried Gin the sun when
possible) top end up, it will be neither.
Nor can 1t be done if shower of dust,
dried manure and scurf is permitted to
constantly fall into the pail from
the ud9er and side of the
cow while she is being MIXED in the
morning or at night. Nor can it if the
milk in the pals is left standing in the
barn-yard, waiting transportation to the
house, as nothing is so susceptible to
taints. Nor if the pans are not, equally
with the pail, clean and sweet, which can
only be secured in the summer by an
abundance of boiling water and scaldiug
sun. Nor can il, finally, if the milk
house is unshaded, or in the neighbor-
hood of a privy or hog pen, or when from
the cow to the butter mould there is not
absolute and complete cleanliness. The
cooler the temperature, the ess mani
pulatiUn with the hands, and the sooner
the churning is done after the cream, I'M
mixed with any foreign substance, has
been taken off and well stirred together,
the better. The best implements to use,
in making the best butter, are wooden
pals, zinc pans, a wooden crank churn,
one wooden scoop and two paddles, all
in the hands of a person immediately
clean herself, and who is liable to go into
Mysteries if all the processes and para
phernalia that pertain to the business are
not equally so.-HeGrth and Home.