Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1885-10-16
1'HE END.
FARM AND FIRESIDE.
How Gilt Edged Butter is Made.

Orestes Pierce, widely known breeder
of Jerseys and writer of valuable articles
upon the breeding and management of
cattle, gives through the Breeders Gazette
description of the me thod followed on
his farm in making and marketing butter.
This description is worthy the careful
study of all who make butter, and especi
ally of those who. having it in their power
TO provide the needed appliances for max
ing butter of very high if not of the very
best quality, have no just idea of what is
needed. Mr.. Pierce says:
Our barn is as warm, comfortable, and
clean as it can be made; the food, after
much experimenting, has become clover
hay, sound corn meal and wheat middlings;
the ration per day is twelve pounds of hay,
eight pounds of middlings, and four
pounds of corn meal; water, with the chill
taken off, ad ibitum. This ration gives
us the largest yield of butter at smallest
cost We use sawdust and ground plaster
for bedding, which keeps the COWS and tie
up clean and sweet and does not soil the
udders or stick to them.
twenty-four hours being divided as nearly
as possible into equal periods. Each milk
er is required to milk rapidly in silence, to
strip his COW dry, and to use no violence
or harshness The milk is strained into
large cans, which at the close of milking
are taken to the dairy; there the milk is
again strained into deep-setting cans and
set in running spring water at an average
temperature of forty-eight degrees; it is
skinned in thirty-six hours, and the
cream placed to ripen in a warm place; it
is stirred twice day and its condition
judged by eye and taste; when ripe it
should be slightly souri, thickened and not
sticky when lightly touched with the fin3-
er.
Ripe cream is churned in a barre
churn. The churn is first scalded, then
rinsed with cold water, then the cream put
in and temperature taken. The tempera
ture should be sixty-two degrees in sum-
mer and siXty-four degrees i'll winter; if it
varies from this the cream must be heated
or cooled until it is right.
We churn slowly at first, stopping fire.
quently to allow the gas to escape; then
faster to forty revolutions per minute. AS
soon as the butter granules come we add
water, revolve few times and draw off
the buttermilk; then add more water and
draw off until it runs clear. In drawing
off we use a sieve of small meshes, for
more or less butter is apt to start out
and bother at times; with the sieve it can
be caught without trouble or delay. The
butter is taken from the churn with q
wooden ladle into wooden bowl, weighed,
and placed upon the worker; salt is usedat
the rate of half an ounce to the pound. The
butter is rolled out in sheet, salt sprink-
led over it, the sheet folded up and rolled
out; more salt sprinkled on and the process
repeated: SO on until the salt is all worked
in, but with as little working as possible,
care being taken to have the salt evenly
distributed through the butter.
Next we print the butter into half-pound
pats, do each pat up in separate piece of
muslin, then wrap it in a waxed paper and
put it in tin box just its size-a box much
the size and appearance of seidlitz pow
der box. Put the following on top of the
butter and put the cover on: extra fine
Jersey butter