Vermont farmer. [volume] (Newport, Orleans County, Vt.) 1870-1877, 1876-07-14

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and strong bail will, if carefully handled
outlast two light and cheap ones, while il will
cost but little more. Every TIN utensil used
for milk or cream should have the joints fill.
ed as smoothly as possible, with solder, so
there shall be no crevices in which particle
Of milk will lodge, making them very difficult
to- cleanse by ordinary washing. This pre-.
caution is particularly important in the case
Of pals or pans used for heating milk. II
the seams are left open, the milk collects in
them, and when cooked as it frequently is by
the heating process it becomes very difficult
to separate from the tin, and If left on is Ii
able to produce bad flavor in the milk or
cream which is afterwards put into them.
1t would pay to soak all tin pals and pans
for short time in cold water before washing,
If one had water both plentiful and convenient,
but few of us are SO blessed. Cold or warm
water only should be used for the first wash
ing whenever the milk is sour enough to cur
die in boiling water. Boiling water or steam
will kill the germs of taint and putrefaction
for the time being, but it will not remove the
particles Of sour milk as readily as moderate.
ly warm, or even cold water. After the
ing in boiling water makes purity sure but
if they were absolutely clean, scalding would
be unnecessary, and superhuous operation
But il was Of wooden utensils we intended
particularly to speak at this time.
Many people still use wooden milk pals /;
they are light and cheap, and, if they could
be kept perfectly sweet and clean, would not
be very Objectionable, but it is so impossible
to keep them sweet that we long ago discar-
ded them entirely, and have adopted tin in
stead. Tin ware usually rusts out before it
wears out, but tin milk pail seldom il ever
rusts, and good one will last many years
The objection to wood is that it shrinks and
aud swells every time it is washed. Clean
wood, with the pores all filled with hot wa.
ter, would probably absorb but little milk
during the half hour it is in use, but if the
material is dry, the milk is absorbed into the
pores, where it is soon locked up by the
swelling of the wood When the wood dries
again, the water of the milk dries out, but
the condensed milk, in the form of fat and
curd, is held in the substance of wood, and
after short exposure to the atmosphere be-
comes rancid and putrid. We have all
smiled at the innocence of the boy who sat
patiently waiting in the sun with gudgeou
grease on his clothes, that he might rub il
off when il got dry, but we do little better
when we expose wooden milk pals in the SUI
to dry. Grease once inside Of board will
stay there, and, like grease on cloth, will on
ly 60 deeper, and be more diffused through
the material, by heating in the sun. The
unftness Of wood for holding milk or cream
was we'll illustrated, in our own dairy, by ex.
animation of wooden cream stirrer which
had been in use long while.
1t was made of q ood sound, clean maple,
and after being properly shaped and smoothed d
was kept in the cream all the time, except
on churniDg days, when, with the rest of the
dairy utensils, it was washed, scaded and put
out in the sun to dry and sweeten. One day
we thought we would take it to the work
shop, and plane it over to take off the stains
which had accumulated near the line where
the cream was most exposed to the air.
What was our surprise to find the inside of
the wood extremely offensive on being exposed
while the outside was apparently sound and
sweet. That piece of wood did not go back
into the cream, nor has any wood been used
for stirring cream in our dairy since. We
now use glass for this purpose, and have no
fears Of faint being impaired to the cream
from this source. However Objectionable
wood may be for holding milk, which is so
readily absorbed into the pores, joints or
checks in the grain of the material, it is the
best of anything for making tools for hand.
ling butter.
Formerly, zinc was used for the lining of
churns, but it did not give entire satisfaction,
because of the tendency of the butter to ad.
here to it, making it difficult to handle. We
suppose all butter makers know that there
is nothing better for haLdling butter than
wood well soaked in water, but perhaps all
do not know exactly why it is so.
We have seen at a neighboring butter fac
tory large, nice looking marble table used
as butter worker, and at first were little
inclined to harbor slight feeling Of envy,
when we thought OF our own plain wooden
worker at home, but when the operator in
formed US that the butter would not clean
readily from the marble, and also that il
seemed to abstract the color from the butter
that adhered to it, we were more than ever
satisfied that good, clean, sweet, hard wood,
well soaked in pure water, is, on the whole,
the best material for butter paddles, butter
workers, aud butter mOulds. But why is il
that butter does not stick to wood as to met.
al2 Simply because the pores Of wood fill
full of water, and water and oily substances
do not readily mix. If wood is used dry,
butter will stick to it, because particles OF
butter enter the wood and one particle of
butter will adhere to another particle. II
we begin to work butter on table, or press
it in mould that is not saturated with water
the butter will enter the pores Of the wood
and we can do nothing with it, until we scad
out all the butter that is in the wood and FL
its place with water.
A clean piece Of wood may be prepared fol
handling butter by simply soaking in water
either hot or cold. Hot water fills the pores
quicker than cold, but there ends the differ
ence greasy tools must be scalded before
they can be used for butter Having fin
ished using wooden butter utensils, they
should be scaded in boiling water to remove
oil the grease that adheres, and then drieC
in IN airy place, but not in the sun.
We have Bullard churn that we have
used every week for more than three years
which no one but ourself has ever washed
1t is as sweet now as the day it was SEN
from the factory, its Odor only reminds on'
of the pine wood of which it is made, but i
has been dried only in the shade, and o
course, has not been excessively dry at any
time. Now, if we had dried it till the pore
of the wood were all exposed, and the sur
face full of little checks, which would haV'
absorbed portions of the cream, and held i
till it tainted, we should have had one Of tn
causes for poor butter. The oft repeated in
junction to "Keep everything about the dair.
perfectly clean" should be posted over tn
door OF every dairy loom, and another nigh
be added Don't dry wooden butter tool
all to pieces in the sun, and, it they do &c
too dry, see that they are swollen and flle'
completely full Of clean, cold water, befor