The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1890-03-07
THE DAIRY.
Creamery Expense:

The times OF close competition and
the introduction of cooperative cream
cries as we'll as the low price of butter
have made it necessary fort creamery
man to reduce his expense to the mini
mum. in order that he may survive. 1t
is not policy to hire cheap workmen,
but it is policy to do away with them.
This can be done very readily if the
creamery is conveniently arrangcd.SOne
good man should be able to handle 10,-
600 pounds of milk per day, with a
separator. No one will doubt this when
We say that his principal work will be
the weighing, keeping up steam and
making the butter, say 500 pounds per
day. My idea of a creamery is easily
explained.
The institution should be provided
with n set of scales and two weigh cans,
and the milk platform should come up
to within eight inches of the weigh can,
enabling the workman to stand in the
pit, where he could weigh end inspect
the milk, then their should be q gradual
descent to the milk to flow into the re-
ceiving vat, from there it should be con
veyed to the heating vat, from which it
could run to the Operator, from the
separator the cream should be handily
conveyed to the cream vat and then to
the churn. This would necessitate. q
a fall of three feet from the milk plat
form to the bottom of the weighing pit,
three feet to the milk vat. two and one
half feet to the cream vat floor, and two
and one-balf feet more to the churn
floor, or a total of twelve and .one-half
feet from the milk platform to the churn,
floor. With two churns and q power
worker one man can easily handle TO-, 900
pounds of milk. +
In Nil creameries the power. should be
sufficient to run the machinery with q low
pressure. When a boiler and engine
are crowded to their full apaeity,:th there
is no economy. Another source of profit
of one creameryman over= another. is in
knowing that he 10 getting all of the
butter out of the milk, and that his
patrons are not Swimming or watering
their milk. AS n rule there are less
business principles applied to the
creamery business than any otherbranch
of manufacturing. Does a grain buyer
buy all of his grain at II price?. No
Neither does anyone buy or sell COM
modities on the slip-shoa plan that
milk is handled.
We have seen undulterated milk that
only produced two pounds of butter
from one hundrd pounds of milk, and
other milk that produced five pounds of
butter, I'LL go into the same vat at the
same price. A creamery should testthe
milk and refuse all that goes under less
than the average from the separator.
By testing the milk oncela week and
testing the skim milk from the separator
every day the erenmeryman would soon
locate the source of some of his losses.
A creameryman would think q butter
buyer crazy if he came every year and
offered the market price for butter with
ont looking Mt it. sStill he will buy milk
By weight only, when he has q greater
variation in real value than his butter
ever had. This is not business OF busi-
ness principles. The same may be said
Of the gathered cream business where
no test Is used.
Another source of profit to some is in
knowing how to feed the buttermilk
with the greatest profit. Experiments
show it TO be worth from 90 To 80 cents
per one hundred pounds, while some
creameries sell it for 25 to 50 cents per
barrel, which hold four hundredpounds,
or at less INT half it's yalue.-Cor.
Creamery journal.