The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1892-10-05
VISIT TO A CREAMERY.
Butter Factory Which Is Profitable to
Owners and Patrons.

it enabled me few weeks ago, during
my summer outing, to march boldly up
to the door of the Forest City creamery
at Portland, Me-, and ask the managers
to give me an interview in the interests
of our dairy readers. They not only
gave me the interview, but also glass Of
delicious cream, the one as acceptable
as the other. I may say the first thing
that struck my eye as entered the door
of the creamery was large sign bear
ing the words ''No Smoking"
The principal products Of the soil i'm
mediately around Portland are hay and
potatoes apparently, with some ensilage
corn, yet the Forest City creamery uses
up the milk of no less than $500 cows,
and the farmhouses and grounds look as
though their owners were prosperous.
The COWS are fed largely on hay and
ensilage in the cold weather. The grain
they consume is mostly bought and ship
ped from farther south in the corn coun-
try. Still the great sweet corn canning
industry of Maine yields a quantity
of first class fodder, none of which is
wasted.
"How does the milk you get pan out in
butter fat?' asked the manager.
SIT is all the way from 80 to S per
cent" he answered. sit will average
steadily per cent"
He finds that they have been able to
grade up the richness of the milk In that
part of Maine decidedly in the years
they have run the creamery. The grad
ing up has been done by the admixture
of Jersey blood into the farm dairy,
very visible admixture indeed it has
proved in this case. The constant en-
deavor has also been to educate the pa
irons to be more clearly and careful in
the treatment of the milk. 1t comes IN
every day by the carload in great tin
cans, each can having slip attached
with the sender's name. The creamery
supplies the cans, finding that way most
satisfactory.
Each farmers milk is tried by the
Babcock test. If any mans product
does not come up to the standard fixed
by the creamery he is dropped from the
list of patrons. Thus there is an abso-
lutte necessity that the milk shall con-
tain it's right percentage of butter fat.
The milk car runs close up alongside the
creamery building. The cans are brought
inside upon truck; thence they are
lifted bodily up to the vat which con-
veys the milk to the cream separator.
The milk is warmed to about So degs.
for the separator. The managers also
purchase SKINNED cream from their
patrons where such arrangement is
made. But they find this, to the truth
of which / also testify: The separated
cream is smoother and of more even and
fine quality than the gathered cream.
believe the time will come when all
farmers having as many as half dozen
COWS will use a separator to get the
cream from the milk. The person who
could invent hand separator to fit such
dairy would have fortune aud be
benefactor to the farmer. Such sepa-
rator we must and will have.
The Portland creamery turns out at
present about 1000 pounds of butter
daily. Considerable cream is sold, too,
to ice cream makers and hotels. They
have three grades of cream, according
to richness. For instance the indi-
yidual who drinks glass of cream does
not want it to be as heavy as if he put
it into his coffee. Also the boarding
house keeper is profoundly interested in
having the cream she furnishes not so
rich that it will injure the digestion. l
asked what was done with the milk that
was left after the cream was taken from
it. | was told that much of it waS sold.
Perhaps it may be telling tales out of
school, but The fact is that much of this
SKINNED milk everywhere is bought by
milk dealers to mix with the honest
milk they get from the farmer, and thus
make the honest milk pan out good
deal longer and thinner than it other
wise would In fact, here in New
York, myself have thus been imposed
on by a rascally dealer, but I knew the
difference and stopped the milk. He
does not know to this day why
stopped it.
The Portland creamery proprietors
fatten several pigs on the milk they do
not sell. But wish creamerymen gen
orally would take into consideration
seriously the matter of fattening people
a little more on the buttermilk that they
have left. | believe that a money max
ing trade might be built up by every
creameryman and butter dairyman sim
ply in this matter of buttermilk. 1t is a
royal drink for hot weather, and health
full in both hot and cold weather.
The creamerymen. at Portland run
their machinery with an engine of 15-
horse power. They say that their plant
altogether has cost them about $4,000. A
considerable amount of this capital,
however, is invested in the hundreds of
heavy tin cans which they furnish for
the farmers to put milk in. They arr
about to enlarge their building. A new
kind of butter worker has also attracted
their attention, which they believe will
be superior to the present one in use In
most creameries. Briefly explained, it
is one that will move over the butter up
and down and around vertically instead
of in the present horizontal manner.
The buttermilk and water will thus