Vermont farmer. [volume] (Newport, Orleans County, Vt.) 1870-1877, 1874-12-11
For the VERMONT FARMER.
BUTTER MAKING.

Some Of the requisites for good butter
making are we'll known out little practiced
Tn" city boy was about right when he wrote
home from visit 10 the country descrip'
ticn Of butter making and began by saying,
"First you get a cow" That is the FIRST req
uisite to making good butter proftably "a
COW that is good butter COW. There are
thousands of cows kept in Vermont that do
not pay for their keeping. You don't want
any Of these. You do not want to make
butter as a costly pastime, but as profta-
BILE business. Therefore sell to the butcher
every COW that does not pay profit above
the expense of keeping, interest on her val.
uc, and labor in the dairy. If this were
done, more than half the COWS in Vermont
would be in the butchers cart before spring
and the farmers Of the state would be better
off and in fairer way to make money from
their farms, even should they give away the
cows instead of selling them.
The next requisite is good feed. A liber-
al supply of good, wholesome food every
one knows is necessary to profit, but it must
also be of the right kind, if you would make
good butter. 1 have never known any harm
to arise from feeding carrots, but too many
raw potatoes will make the butter white and
injure its flavor, while many claim that tur-
nips and boets if fed too freely impart u
dsagreeablo flavor to the butter. 1t is well
authenticated fact that if the cows have to
drink impure water, or if old carrion is left
in the pasture, the milk will be ruined for
butter or cheese.
A third requisite is cleanliness. This
must be thorough and perfect throughout
TIE process from the care of the COW and her
surroundings to the day the butter reaches
the market. While the stable should be
warm, it should also have sufficient ventila-
tion to prevent the fouliDg Of the atmosphere.
The stencil in some stables, for want of
proper ventilation, is enough to knock a
mau down. l we'll remember when boy
working few days for neighbor when he
had the thrashers. He had half-witted
French boy who did his chores, and heard
the farmer and his wife several times com.
plain of the milk they thought the boy
was careless in milking, as the milk smelt
and tasted of the stable. was with the
boy and saw him milk once or twice, and
thought he was quite neat about it, though
could not account for the taint in the milk.
| now remember that the stable was warm,
close, and dark. l thought at the time that
the was a model farmer, he kept his stable
so warm. But l now further recollect that
when we opened the stable door the stencil
which came out would at first almost stiAe
us, and instead Of wondering that the milk
was taintei l only wonder that drop of it
could ever be used while the COWS were thus
stabbed
The necessity for perfect cleanliness in
the handling of the milk, cream and butter
in the dairy is perhaps set forth often
enough so l will leave that subject to 9TH
ers, but there is one more point which l wish
to speak of, and that is temperature. The
milk, the cream, and the butter after churn-
ing, should be kept at a nearly uniform tenn
perature, but especially it should not be al
lowed to rise ADORE 659 Butter is COM
posed of little globules of fatty matter, and
it the cream once gets warm enough to melt
these little globules of OIL or part of them,
the butter will not only have greasy fla
vor but it will be much more liable to be-
come rancid. Never work tho butter with
the hands. There are very few people
whose hands can be kept cold enough while
working over churning of butter to pre-
vent the melting of some of these particles.
These Immediately permeate the whole mass,
and the result is, poor butter Many wom-
en- are at times driven almost to despair, be-
cause having worked faithfully and well,
being scrupulously neat in every particular,
their butter will not rank first class, when
the whole fault is traceable to the fact that
their hands cannot be kept cool emo ugh. To
all would say, try the wooden butter
worker, or, if you haven't that, work your
butter with a wooden paddle before giving
up in despair. loLLIKorFER.