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or two gallons (English) each. As soon as they are filled, they should be placed where they are to remain; or, should they be set in a cooler situation than the common shelves to cool a little during very hot weather, they should be removed with the utmost caution, so as to disturb the milk as little as possible.

The length of time that should elapse before the cream is separated, will depend on the degree of heat at the time, and the particular views of the owner of the dairy. In a moderately warm temperature of the air, if very fine butter be intended, it should not be allowed to stand more than six or eight hours. For ordinary good butter, it may safely be let stand twelve hours, or more: but where the dairy is so large as to afford a sufficient quantity of cream, and where the very best butter is intended (the milk being meant to be converted to some other use while yet sweet) it may be separated after standing only two, three, or four hours.

When the cream is to be taken off, the milk-pan should be placed on the table. The cream is then to be separated from the edges of the vefsel (to which it firmly adheres) by means of a thin ivory knife to be provided for that purpose, which should be made to run round the edges of the whole. The cream should then be drawn carefully toward one side by means of a skimming-dish, made of box or some kind of firm wood that admits of being worked to a very thin edge (better of ivory, if that can be obtained of a sufficient size), and then lifted carefully up, so as to take the whole of the cream without any of the milk, if pofsible.

only by practice; but it is of importance to the success of the dairy that it be well done; for, if any part of the cream be left, the quantity of butter will be diminished; and if any part of the milk be retained, its quality will be debased.

When the cream is thus obtained, it ought to be immediately put into a vefsel by itself, there to be kept till a proper quantity be collected for being made into butter: and no vefsel can be better adapted for that purpose, than a firm neat-made wooden barrel, of a size proportioned to the size of the dairy, open at one end, with a lid exactly fitted to close it. In the under part of this vessel, close to the bottom, should be placed a cock or spigot, for drawing off from time to time any thin serous part of the milk that may chance to be there collected; for, should this be allowed to remain there, it acts upon the cream in a powerful manner, and greatly diminishes the richness of the butter. The inside of the opening into the cock should be covered with a bit of close fine wire netting, or fine gauze, to keep back the cream, while the serum is allowed to pass; and the barrel on its stand should be inclined a little forward in the top, to allow the whole to run off.

Many persons who have had little experience in the dairy believe, that no butter can be of the finest quality, unless it be that which has been made from cream that has not been kept above one day; but this is a very great mistake. So far, indeed, is this opinion from being well founded, that it is in very few cases that even tolerably good butter can be obtained from cream that is no more than one day old. The separation of

butter from cream, as well as that of cream from milk, only takes place after the cream has attained a certain degree of acidity. If it be agitated before that kind of acidity has begun to take place, no butter can be obtained, and the agitation must be continued till the time that that sourness is produced, after which the butter begins to form. In summer, while the weather is warm, the beating may be, without very much difficulty, continued till the time that that sourness is produced, so that butter may thus be obtained; but in this case the process is long and tedious; and the butter is, for the most part, of a soft consistence, and tough and gluey to the touch. If this procefs be attempted during the cold weather in winter, butter can scarcely in any way be obtained, unless by the application of some great degree of heat, which sometimes afsists in producing a very inferior kind of butter, that is white, hard, and brittle, with very little taste, that is almost unfit for any culinary purpose whatever.

The judicious farmer, therefore, will not attempt to imitate this practice; but will allow his cream to remain in the vessel appropriated for keeping it, until it has acquired that proper degree of acidity which fits. it for being made into butter with great ease, by a very moderate degree of agitation, and by which process only can very fine butter be obtained.

How long cream must be kept before it attains the precise degree of acidity that is necefsary to form the very best butter, and how long it may be kept after that period before its quality be sensibly diminished, has never yet, in as far as I know, been ascertained by

doubt, vary according to circumstances. So little nicety, however, has been observed in this respect by practical farmers, and even by those who have a high reputation for making the best butter, that few of them ever think of observing any precise rule in this respect with regard to the different portions of their cream; they, in general, make into butter at once all the cream that they have collected since the former churning, however long or short that interval may have been; so that the cream of various ages is all made into butter at the same time: nor can I find any thing like a uniform rule established among them as to the time that should intervene between one churning and another, that being usually determined by casual or local considerations. From this circumstance, I should be led to suppose, that, if the cream be properly kept, it is of small moment. I am myself inclined to believe, that if it be kept in a due temperature, and no serous matter allowed to lodge about it, a very great latitude may safely be admitted in this respect. What is the utmost length of time that cream may be kept in our climate without rendering the butter made from it of a bad quality, I cannot say; but I can pronounce with certainty, that it may be kept good for a much longer time than is in general suspected, even for several weeks: nay, I have been assured in the most serious manner, that a lady who has now been dead many years, and who was noted for always having very fine butter of her own making, used to churn only twice or thrice during the season; but of this I cannot speak from my own knowledge. The subject is curious considered as a physical fact; but as to econo

mical purposes, it seems to be of little moment. It is enough that we know to a certainty, which is doubtlefs the case, that cream which has been kept three or four days in summer is in excellent condition for being made into butter; and I am inclined to believe, that from three days to seven may be found the best time, in general, to keep cream before churning it; though, if circumstances make it necefsary, a considerable latitude in this respect may be allowed.

If, however, any farmer should have such a quantity of cream as could afford a sufficiency to be worth while to churn it once a day, and should he find it would add either to his profit or his comforts to churn every day, there is nothing to prevent him from doing it. He needs only to provide a separate vefsel for holding the cream for each day that he means it should stand before it be churned: if three days, three vefsels; if four days, four vefsels; and so on. Thus he might churn every day cream of three days old, or of four, or any other number of days old that he may choose.

In some parts of the country a practice prevails, of churning the whole of the milk without separating any of the cream. In this way they obtain a greater weight of butter, though it be of an inferior quality. By careful management however, especially if a portion of the first drawn milk be separated, very good butter may be thus obtained. The operation of churning is in this case a very heavy employment; and, on many accounts, I think the practice is not to be recommended.

The vessel in which butter is made, usually called

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