The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1885-03-26
An American Creamery.

grocery In the town of Hartford, as
in New England generally, advertis-
es creamery butter" as the best,
and why, in certain states, scarcely
any dairy products are now made
except in factories. OF these there
are nearly four thousand in Ameri-
ca, or one to every nine hundred
milch. cows, in the dairy state of
New York, whilst American cream
cries, altogether, employ a capital
of two millions sterling, and eight
thousand hands; turn out five mil
lion pounds worth of milk, butter
and cheese per annum, and are rap
idly increasing in number.
The Maple Farm, q few miles
from Hartford, is an establishment
of which we have at present scarce
ly any example in England. There
] drove, one lovely spring afternoon,
our road to the butter mandatory
now crossing the rich creek bottoms
of the Connecticut river, now climb
ing over high basaltic ridges, whence
the eye wandered widely over ter
raced intervals carpeted with varie-
gated cropping. The beautiful
swallow taiP>butterfy Machaon J
was our constant companion; while
now and again a brilliant oriole
flashed from tree to tree, or an oc-
casional humming- bird crowned the
opening calyx of some wayside
flower with a diadem of quivering
jewels.
At length in retired valley, we
saw charming little wooden house
built in Queen Anne style, aesthetic
in color. and closely EMPOWERED with
newly leaved naples. At the door
was a farmers cart, whence a girl,
standing within an open gate, her
trim half-length framed with sunny
greenery, was receiving milk, weigh
ing it in a specially contrived pair
of scales, and dischsrging it into a
neighboring tank. When the last
is charged with the days supply,
it's contents are allowed to flow into
a number of deep circular setting
cans" which stand immersed in a
flowing stream of cold spring water.
Next morning, or twenty four hours
later, the cans are skinned by
means of long-handled conical la
die, which, at single dip, cakes of
all the cream. This then flows into
a steam jacketed vat, where its
temperature is raised to $50 in sum
mer, and 600 to $40 in winter, rem
dering it fit for churning. Old fash
Toned ''dasher" churns are employ
ed and are driven by a steam en-
CINE which furnishes all the motive
power required on the establish
ment, whether for dairying purpos-
es or the cleansing of vessels. The
butter, when formed, is worked
on a machine consisting of reVolv
ing table, which turns under a hut-
ed wooden roller, and thus mixes
and consOlidates the butter, while
the buttermilk flows away by a pc
ripheral channel. The butter is
brought again and again to the roll.
er by the attendant, using pair o.
wooden hands" but from first tc
last it is untouched by the fingers.
After working, it is placed in 6
mass, within an ice-chamber, whence
it is taken as required, and made
up into pats for the market. The
pats are packed in boxes, shaped
like a cake-tiH, each of which holds
fourteen pounds, and four of these
boxes are then dropped, one above
the other, into a deep tin cylinder
A fifth box, full of ice. tops them
up, and when the cylinder has been
closed with a locked cover, it is
ready for dispatch by rail.
Maple Farm receives milk from
thirty farmers, who are paid for at
the rate of 6s. sd. per hundred lbs.
and who subsequently buy back ali
the buttermilk at a half-peany per
gallon, both of these being summer
prices. No milk is received except
Of certain specific gravity, or at a
higher temperature than eighty de-
grees. The skim milk is sold to
pedlers, who retail it in the neigh
boring city of Hartford, and small
quantity Of pure cream, put up in
| bottles and sent ont ice cold, is dis
posed of at high prices by the same
means. This creamery only handles
FIVE thousand pounds of milk and
makes less than two hundred lbs.
of butter daily, and is therefore a
very small concern IN comparison
with the immense establishments of
New York and other dairy states.
Some of these handle twenty thous-
and pounds of milk, and make six
or seven hundred pounds of butter
daily, while they are like places in
the beauty and refinement of their
construction. Many OF the Ameri-
can creameries were originally start
ed, and almost all of them are now
owned, by associations of farmers,
who make large profits from these
undertakings. 1t is even said that
two well-known New York creame-
ry owners, who at one time ran
some twenty of these butter facto-
ries, were once offered and refused
$40, 900 for their profits of a single
year.
In one important and interesting
particular, Maple Farm is behind
the practice of the most advanced
creameries. The separation of
cream from milk, usually effected
slowly by gravitation, is now in
simultaneously produced by means
of centrifugal separators, one of
whose best examples, the laval ma
chine, was shown, for the first time
in England, at the Royal Agricul-
tural Society's meeting in 1879.
Milk from the tank is allowed to
run through tap into spheroid-
al vessel, about a foot in its larger
diameter, which rotates at a speed
of six or seven thousand revolutions
a minute. The heavier milk is st
once thrown out to the circumfer-
ence, while the lighter cream re-
mains nearer the centre of the ro-
tating vessel, and each is drawn eff
from its respective zone by suitable