The Portland daily press., 1878-09-12
AGRICULTURAL.


The time will soon come when the univer-
sal complaint among farmers will be, 1--WE
cannot get yellow butter after certain time,
no matter how or what we feed our cows"
In these times, when the counterfeit article
oleomargarine-meetst the real article In COM
petition in both our foreign and home mar
kets, 1t behooves our producers TO expert
ment and investigate, until they send such an
article to market that consumers VIII not
stop to compare the two, but purchase the
pure article with title or no regard to the
price asked. In our local markets we notice
some dairymen always get good price and
are enabled to return to their homes, while
others are obliged TO wait some days, and
often some weeks, before they make sale,
and then are forced to accept almost any
price offered. The difficulty lies partly in
the food, especially in the winter, but more
generally with the makers and surroundings,
such as temperature, milk room, setting,
churning, ETC., in a word, ignorance of the
manufacturers. In winter the cream should
never be colder than So degrees, and at churn-
ing should be brought to 60 or 62 degrees
II allowed to go above 65 degrees the color
and flavor are injured. 1t is liable to be.
come bitter before the cream rises, if the
temperature is too low; and if it freezes, the
cream rises at once, but is of poor quality.
yielding white butter; if kept in room
heated by day and cold at night, it will not
rise well and Is apt to be bitter and acid. 1t
is not easy to secure temperature sufficient
ly uniform. Some scald the milk when first
drawn from the COW. A common method in
England is to let it stand twelve hours, and
then place the vessel containing ii in larger
one, filled with boiling water, letting it stand
twelve hours longer. Before churning, the
cream pot is placed before the fire, and its
contents stirred occasionally to secure equal
warmth, until temperature of 55 degrees is
attained.
In the city of Philadelphia we have talked
with many dairymen who bring their butter
to that market, and they appear to expert
ence but little difficulty in making good but
ter all winter. One dairyman with whom we
happen to be acquainted, gets Is cents per
pound for his butter the year round, and he
keeps the temperature OF his milk room as
near 55 degrees as practicable.
Again, it takes much longer to churn the
cream as the cows advance in CESSATION, and
he takes special pains to have some cows drop
their calves in the fall so as to mix their
milk with that of COWS coming in in the
spring. He finds clover and hay, cut and
moistened, sprinkled with meal and wheat
shorts, the best food for making choice but
ter. As the food given makes great differ
ence in the favor of the butter, it is import
ant that no weeds be mixed with the hay.
He thinks clover inferior to timothy or any
other grass, and he does not feed cabbages or
turnips, on account of the flavor which he
thinks they impart. Cows differ greatly in
their qualities as butter makers, and in select
ing he finds it necessary to reject many ami
mails that would be valuable in the milk or
cheese business.
1t should be borne in mind, that TO get the
cream to rise as rapidly as possible is impor-
tant; for when milk is put into pan and al
lowed to stand until it throws up cream, the
portion of cream rising first to the surface is
richer in quality than that which rises in
second equal portion of time and so on the
cream progressively declining in quantity, so
long as any rises to the surface.-Tut, Field
and Farm