LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
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 UNITED STATES OF AMEltiCA. 
 
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ASSO(;iATED DAIRIING: 
 
 CREAMERIES 
 
 CREAMERY BUTTER 
 
 CHEESE AND CHEESE-MAKING, 
 
 .<-r> r) DAIRY HOUSES AND THE REST BUTTER 
 
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 LANCASTER, PA. 
 
 S. H. ZAHM & CO., 
 1879. 
 
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 Copyriglit, 1S79, 
 S. H. ZAHM & CO. 
 
 STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY 
 
 THE INQITIRER P. & P. CO., 
 
 LANCASTER, PA. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 IF any among those who make and sell, or buy and eat, 
 the golden products of the dairy, may think it worth their 
 while to look into these pages, they are reminded that the 
 aim, as the title indicates, is to present these leading fea- 
 tures : the making of butter at creameries, the production 
 of cheese by the factory system, and the labor-saving methods 
 " now within the reach of every dairyman and dairywoman 
 in the land. Many of those who make our butter and cheese, 
 though they have not themselves departed from the earlier 
 ways, are yet well aware of the changing processes of these 
 later years, and of the wonderful results brought about by the 
 system of associated effort on the part of dairymen elsewhere; 
 to others it is all familiar as an oft-told tale; for years they 
 have helped through the whole of it, they have tested every 
 plan which has promised to benefit them, have sifted what 
 was of value and settled on that best suited to their wants. 
 Again, there are those who are conscious of the change mainly 
 as they feel it in the lessened prices they are receiving for 
 their products. If any among them all shall find anything 
 which will be of use in producing a better article at less cost 
 of time and labor, or having already reached the highest re- 
 sults, if it will show them how they can aid their neighbors 
 without loss to themselves, the charge of uselessness, at least, 
 cannot be brought against our little work. 
 
 The dealer in these articles, from the position he occu- 
 pies in relation to the other two interested classes, has often 
 
 (iii) 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 opportunities for acquiring information not possessed by them ; 
 but even he, perhaps, may find an idea here and there which 
 will suggest how the interests of all concerned may be ad- 
 vanced. 
 
 While it is sometimes true that the less we know about the 
 production of that which we eat the better it will be relished, 
 there will be found here, in the plain descriptions of the mod- 
 ern mode of manufacturing, nothing, it is hoped, that may 
 tend to dull any one's appetite for these standard articles, 
 which are, when properly made, at once toothsome luxuries 
 and substantial additions to the bill of fare. 
 
 Acknowledging our obligations to those who have kindly 
 given descriptions of their processes and apparatus, and to 
 the authors from whom we have quoted, it may not be 
 amiss to add, that those who wish to know more about the 
 subjects treated, will find much in regard to almost every- 
 thing connected with dairying, from the pens of its leading 
 exponents, in the voluminous reports of the Dairy Associa- 
 tions of the various States where the industry is prominent, 
 and especially in those of the American Dairymen's Associa- 
 tion, from its organization to the present time. 
 
 April, 1879. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 I. INTRODUCTORY, ^ 
 
 Origin and Growth, ........ 9 
 
 II. FOR AND AGAINST, i6 
 
 How TC Start, ......... 23 
 
 III. CREAMERS AND OTHER APPARATUS, 27 
 
 IV. METHODS OF CONDUCTING CREAMERIES AND MAKING 
 CREAMERY BUTTER, 36 
 
 V. CHEESE AND CHEESE MAKING, .52 
 
 VI. OUR DAIRY HOUSES, 63 
 
 The Best Butter, . . . . . . . ,69 
 
 Conclusion, ......... 73 
 
 (V) 
 
ASSOCIATED DAIRYING. 
 
 I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 DO you ask, ''What is a creamery?" Let me tell you 
 here — or better, come with me and see. We will look at 
 the surroundings first. Here are farms on all sides, and every 
 one has its herd of cows. The cow is the basis of the cream- 
 ery, and there are three hundred or more on the farms within 
 two miles ; that one there has ten, the next one four ; on that 
 large one yonder there are fifty. This one on the other side 
 of the road has twenty-eight' — six Jerseys, five Holstein, and 
 the rest we call natives, but they are none the worse for that. 
 We are almost there now ; it is that plain looking building, 
 out of which the spring seems to come. This man with the 
 milk cans on his wagon is going there too. 
 
 **What large cans they are !" Yes, those of the city milk 
 dealer would look small beside them. But here it is, we 
 will go inside. There is not much to be seen ; four huge 
 pans — three of them are full of milk, and the cans we saw 
 on the wagon just now are being emptied into the fourth. 
 One of these pans is filled every time the cows are milked ; 
 that one at the end has yesterday morning's milk; the 
 cream is thick on the top of it. The next one was 
 filled yesterday evening, this one this morning, and the 
 last one now. Each one holds fifteen hundred quarts of 
 milk, over three thousand pounds. Besides those pipes full 
 
 (7) 
 
8 ASSOCIATED DAIRYING. 
 
 of spring water and this delightfully cool air, there is not 
 much in this room, and we will go to the next. 
 
 The water in the pool here is cold, and those deep round 
 cans in it are full of cream ; there is a churn and a butter 
 worker, and these boxes and tubs are full of butter, and there 
 is more in the cellar below. In that room at the end they 
 make cheese. Now we can go. 
 
 '•' But you have not told us what a creamery is. We will 
 get our Webster and look for a definition." 
 
 You will not find it there. It is one of the new words 
 awaiting its turn to go into the next revised edition. It 
 was not common enough fifteen years ago to come under the 
 eye of the lexicographer. To-day it is to be found in every 
 agricultural journal, and in almost every country newspaper 
 that has market reports. But to many persons it conveys 
 rather an uncertain meaning. They see that creamers and 
 creameries are being discussed, and that creamery butter sells 
 for more than any other. If they ask the butter dealer what 
 it is, he will answer, "The best butter that I sell." If they 
 ask the maker of fancy dairy butter from June grass and white 
 clover hay, he says, ''It is the butter that is hurting my 
 business, but it is not as good as mine." 
 
 It may strike the patrons of some of the older of these in 
 stitutions as odd, that any one should not know anything 
 about what, to them is as familiar as the houses in which they 
 live. There are, however, a good many people who do not. 
 To these we would say, A creamery is an establishment where 
 the milk from a neighborhood is collected, and butter and 
 rheese made from it. 
 
 At fi^-st the name was only applied where both butter and 
 cheese were made. When butter alone was made it was a 
 butter factory; when cheese alone, a cheese factory. But 
 
ORIGIN AND GROWTH. 9 
 
 latterly, it is given when only butter is made from the 
 milk gathered in from the farms around. The milk depots 
 where milk is collected and shipped to the city markets bear 
 the appellation — sometimes, and of late all the new fix- 
 tures for setting milk for cream are called creamers, and it 
 naturally follows that the place where they are brought to- 
 gether and used will be a creamery. ^' Old Creamer" was a 
 pet name for one of the best cows the country ever held, and 
 cream, the root of them all, does not every one of us know 
 what that is? 
 
 Creameries are part of a system which has revolutionized 
 dairying in many sections of our country within the last quar- 
 ter of a century, and the origin, history and bearings of 
 which are well worth all the attention we can give them in 
 these pages. 
 
 ORIGIN AND GROWTH. 
 
 At first glance it may seem strange that all of the five thou- 
 sand creameries, butter factories and cheese factories in the 
 United States, with the exception of scarcely two hundred, are 
 north of latitude forty-one, and between the Hudson and the 
 Missouri, while of the eleven million cows which the country 
 probably now contains, fully seven million chew the cud and 
 give milk outside of these limits. These could supply miik 
 enough to run thirty thousand establishments, with over two 
 hundred cows to each. It is easy to see why there are none 
 in those sections where only a single cow or half-a-dozen are 
 kept on a place, mainly for the milk and butter they furnish 
 for home use, where the houses are far apart and the roads 
 often not good; but it is not so easy to understand why there 
 are as yet none in others where cows are plenty and the farms 
 small. In New York, which has more creameries and factor- 
 ies than any other State, the dairymen who support them 
 I* 
 
rO ASSOCIATED DAIRYING. 
 
 keep on an average but thirteen cows. This is less than the 
 average in many other localities, and the wonder is that in 
 these some plan of handling the milk, or at least the cream, 
 at one point under the eye of one skilled person, has not long 
 ago been devised, and thus a uniformity and improved quality 
 of product secured that will hardly be attained so long as the 
 work must be done by many hands overburdened by the num- 
 berless tasks that come to the workers on a farm. When the 
 idea first suggested itself to those who would be most inter- 
 ested and benefited by it, it is hard to guess, but it must have 
 occurred to more than one farmer and farmer's wife and 
 dairymaid long before the first factory was built. 
 
 The peasants of Switzerland and some other parts of 
 Europe have for a long time not only driven their cows and 
 goats and sheep together and pastured them through the sum- 
 mer under the care of one of their number, but they have had 
 the milk made into cheese in common and divided among the 
 owners in proportion to the number of animals each one had 
 in the common herd or flock. With them it was a necessity; 
 poor and possessed of but a few cows, they could not individ- 
 ually make cheese of the kind for which their wealthier neigh- 
 bors were finding a profitable sale; but by uniting they were 
 able to make the same kind and find a market, which each 
 could not have done alone, for it must be remembered that 
 the poor man's single cow or scanty flock will not give milk 
 enough in a day to make a Swiss cheese. 
 
 In this country, Mr. A. Picket, of Jefl"erson county, Wis- 
 consin, seems to have been one of the first to carry into prac- 
 tice the idea of co-operation in cheese-making. From a 
 paper read before the Wisconsin Dairyman's Association, by 
 Mr. J. G. Picket, we extract the following account of this 
 early effort : 
 
ORIGIN AND GROWTH. II 
 
 "The pioneer settlers of Wisconsin had arrived at that 
 point of refinement when they longed for cheese. My father 
 saw the opportunity, and so in the spring of 1841 set about 
 supplying the demand. He had driven from Ohio ten cows, 
 but he was satisfied that with that number he could not sup- 
 ply the demand. There were no cows to be bought, and had 
 there been any for sale there was no money to pay for them. 
 The idea suggested itself to my mother, Why not co-operate 
 with our neighbors in cheese-making? It was a capital and 
 original idea, and was at once adopted by the head of the 
 family. 
 
 '' The plans all being completed, on the first day of June, 
 1 841, my mother, with myself as assistant, made from the 
 milk of thirty cows, owned by six patrons, the first cheese, I 
 verily believe, made under the co-operative system in Wis- 
 consin. 
 
 "All the cattle belonging to a settlement in those days 
 grazed together in one herd, and at night the cows were all 
 driven to my father's yard and milked by their respective 
 owners, and the milk was weighed in pails by the old-fash- 
 ioned steel-yards. 
 
 " The little kitchen factory was operated on precisely the 
 same principles as are the mammoth cheese factories having 
 the patronage of a thousand cows at the present day; though 
 the implements were rude and to a modern cheese-maker 
 would seem wonderful. The patrons drew their respective 
 shares in cheese, instead of cash, and were happy. 
 
 " The experiment proved so satisfactory that in the follow- 
 ing year, 1842, five more cows were added by the arrival of 
 two new families, and the cheese became known from Madi- 
 son to Milwaukee." 
 
 This county had in 1877 forty-two cheese factories and 
 
12 ASSOCIATED DAIRYING. 
 
 creameries, which turned out butter and cheese by hun 
 dreds of tons. But the one started thirty-eight years ago, 
 long before any of these, owed its existence to the quick wit 
 of a woman ; one, too, who did not shrink from the added 
 duties which it brought upon her. At present a few of the 
 best cheese factories in the country are managed by women. 
 
 In 1844, Lewis M. Norton built a cheese factory in Goshen, 
 Conn. Here the milk was coagulated on the farms, and the 
 curds brought to the factory to be made into cheese. This 
 plan was afterwards tried in Ohio, but it was found that the 
 condition in which the curds from the different farms were 
 brought in varied so much that it was often impossible to 
 make good cheese. 
 
 There were doubtless other trials made in various parts of the 
 country, but to Jesse Williams, of Rome, Oneida county, 
 New York, is generally accorded the honor of originating the 
 system of associated dairying, which bears the distinctive title 
 of "American." The locality in which he lived was devoted 
 more to cheese-making than to butter, and like the others 
 already named, his efforts were exerted in the direction of 
 cheese. 
 
 The story of what he did is as simple as it is interesting. 
 Being an expert cheese -maker and able to produce a prime 
 article, he was enabled to contract the product of his dairy for 
 a whole year in advance. In the spring of 1851, one of his sons 
 being about to commence farming on his own account, the 
 father included both his own and the son's cheese in the con- 
 tract for that year. The young man had, however, never 
 paid special attention to the making of cheese while at home, 
 and had doubts as to his ability to produce an article that 
 would prove acceptable to the contracting parties. In the 
 discussions that followed as to what had best be done under 
 
ORIGIN AND GROWTH. 
 
 ^3 
 
 the circumstances, it was finally suggested that the milk should 
 all be taken to the father's dairy- house and the cheese made 
 under his supervision. The idea once acted on and success- 
 fully carried out, the plan would easily extend itself until it 
 included the farm dairies of a whole neighborhood. 
 
 From the circumstances connected with this early begin- 
 ning, it has more than once been said that this system was acci- 
 dental, like others that have brought about great changes in 
 meihods of labor and the conditions of society resulting there- 
 from. Whatever view of its origin we may take, it affords a 
 striking example of the general tendency of the age to re- 
 move the manufacture of most articles of universal use from the 
 hands of the isolated individual and concentrate it in work- 
 shops, where one man can do the work of ten — the spirit of 
 the age touching one of the most important branches of human 
 industry. 
 
 Though a beginning had now been made, the new system 
 did not at once assume great proportions. From the statistics 
 accessible it appears that not until three years later, in 1854, 
 was the next factory built. In that year four were started, 
 the year following two more, and the number slowly increased 
 until the first years of the war ; then they suddenly sprang up 
 all over the northern dairy districts. In 1864 there were over 
 four hundred in operation in New York, the single county of 
 Oneida having eighty, and they had extended East and West. 
 Last year there were eleven hundred and forty reported in 
 the State. 
 
 Butter factories came in somewhat later than cheese factor- 
 ies. There was one reason for making cheese on the associ- 
 ated plan that did not apply to butter. The last could be 
 made by the owner of even a single cow, because the cream 
 could be kept until there was enough to churn into butter; 
 
14 ASSOCIATED DAIRYING. 
 
 but the cheese that was wanted must be made from sweet milk, 
 and of this the owner of a few cows only (like the Swiss peas- 
 ant) could not command enough in a day to make a cheese, 
 and he was practically debarred from the business when work- 
 ing alone. 
 
 No other State has as many as New York. Maine has had 
 some sixty cheese factories, but for some reason they have 
 hardly met the expectations of their projectors. Vermont 
 has a number of creameries. In Northern Pennsylvania there 
 are about a hundred cheese factories, and their motto "full 
 cream " calls for the best that can be made. In several of 
 the counties on the southern border, creameries as well as 
 cheese factories are scattered at wide intervals. 
 
 In the dairy districts of Ohio they followed soon after the 
 great strides made in New York, and the largest butter-makers 
 in the world now conduct their operations in one of the 
 northern counties of that State. Cheese also is made in im- 
 mense quantities and in every variation of form and quality. 
 The Pentagon buildings of Straight and Son at Hudson are 
 probably the finest cheese-curing houses to be found anywhere. 
 
 In Illinois the first cheese factory was built in 1867, and 
 the first creamery in 1868, the latter was one of those which 
 have since made western creamery butter famous all over the 
 country, and helped so much in developing the dairy interests 
 of the West. 
 
 In Iowa the first creamery was started in 1872, and there 
 are now about one hundred built and in course of construe • 
 tion. A very fine one is located at Muscatine. The butter 
 of Iowa has received the highest awards at two great exhibi- 
 tions, one at the dairy exhibit at the Centennial, when John 
 Stewart, of Anamosa,* stood first, and the other at the 
 late International dairy fair at New York, where the premium 
 
 * Then of Manchester. 
 
ORIGIN AND GROWTH. 1 5 
 
 for the best butter made anywhere went to H. D. Sherman and 
 Co., of Monticello. The system has gained a strong foot- 
 hold here, and the State will in years to come furnish the 
 world with a large share of its butter and clieese. 
 
 In some other States besides these, a beginning has been 
 made. The system has found favor in Canada, and some of 
 the .finest dairy products of the present time find their way 
 into the markets of the world from here. 
 
 In England it has attracted much attention, and no wonder; 
 in certain lines of cheese the American has crowded their own 
 almost out of the market ; as a late English paper has it, *' Let 
 dairy farmers only use their eyes, and they will find this per- 
 severing Yankee pushing his cheese into every little shop 
 both in our towns and villages and even hawking them 
 to our door, whilst we are holding ours because he is selling 
 a better and a cheaper article." 
 
 In Russia there are some factories, and tlie government has 
 aided some of her young men in attaining a thorough knowl- 
 edge of the best processes, and acquiring skill in their 
 application ; and cheese and butter may be among the 
 things which this almost limitless empire will in the future 
 offer to the people of other countries. 
 
 Our own system differs from those of the old world because 
 the resources and genius of our people are different. Its ad- 
 vantages, in the words of Professor Arnold, one of its most un- 
 tiring champions, are that ''the parties engaged in it become 
 mutual instructors. First, by an examination of each other's 
 work; the manufactories being in a manner public and 
 open for inspection. Second, by organizations for mutual 
 giving and reception of information relating to their art, and 
 thus knowledge is developed by which milk is more profitably 
 produced, goods more skillfully and cheaply manufactured 
 and more systematically and successfully handled." 
 
II. 
 
 FOR AND AGAINST. HOW TO START. 
 
 WHEN the system first began to be discussed there were 
 urged for and against it the same reasons that we hear 
 to-day when it is suggested in a locality where it has never 
 been introduced ; but the experience of a quarter of a century 
 makes it possible to speak of many things about it with a cer- 
 tainty that could not be done when it was yet an untried 
 scheme. 
 
 In its favor can now be urged as facts what could then only 
 be held out as promises, that : 
 
 // will enable the milk producers of a neighborhood to have 
 their milk taken from their hands as soon as it is drawn from 
 the cow, aftd thus save them all further labor and care. 
 
 The expense of manufacturing is less when conducted at one 
 place with all the facilities, than wheii done at five or fifty 
 places. 
 
 It will raise the average quality of butter and cheese until 
 in many instances they equal, and in some instances surpass, 
 the best ever made in the neighborhood before its introduction. 
 
 The objections which are usually made to the system are 
 about as follows : 
 
 1. It entails additional labor in hauling the milk to the 
 creamery or factory. 
 
 2. It makes an additional expense to the farmer and dairy- 
 man, who must pay for doing work which could be done at 
 home without detriment to his other work. 
 
 (i6) 
 
FOR AND AGAINST. HOW TO START. 1 7 
 
 3. It discriminates against the production of good rich milk, 
 because poor or watered milk brings the same price per pound 
 or quart. 
 
 4. There is danger of the milk souring before it reaches the 
 creamery. 
 
 5. Milk will not yield as much butter when shaken about 
 as it must be in transporting, as when it is set for cream at 
 once when drawn and allowed to remain undisturbed. 
 
 6 The whey and skim milk are lost to the producer. 
 
 7. The factories are not in operation all the year round, and 
 there must consequently be some arrangement for making but- 
 ter and cheese at home part of the time. 
 
 8. The milk must be delivered at certain stated hours in 
 the morning, and it is often inconvenient to make every 
 thing else subservient to the requirements in regard to this. 
 
 9. // tends to overproduction. 
 
 That it saves labor and care are strong considerations 
 in its favor. In fully five-sixths of the farm dairies of 
 the country, the labor and care and watchfulness insepara- 
 ble from butter-making and cheese-makiilg by the old meth- 
 ods, bear heaviest on the women ; and anything that will 
 take away even a portion of these should be welcome. 
 As a rule it is only on those farms where dairying is the 
 main business or is done on a large scale that special help is 
 procured or men do the work. In itself there is nothing det- 
 rimental to health, but when as is often the case the produc- 
 tion of milk is secondary to other things in the economy of 
 the farm, yet the money to be got from it is too great an 
 item to drop, and the income will not allow sufficient help to 
 be hired, then the labor connected with handling the 
 milk when the work is done at home is the last straw that 
 breaks down the woman whose ordinary household duties are 
 
t8 associated dairying. 
 
 as much as her strength will bear, and she helps to swell the 
 list of women in ill-health which is already so large that it is 
 a text always within sight for the modern physiological lec- 
 turer to comment upon. It is not only that the work is got 
 rid of when the milk i^ sent away at once, but it is off the 
 inmd, which alone is often a great relief. 
 
 The objection that it makes more work for the farmer be- 
 cause he must hitch up a team and drive to the factory at 
 least once, or, where milk is to be delivered morning and 
 evening, twice a day, when if the butter was made at home, he 
 would need to market that only once or twice a week, or if 
 it were packed, or cheese made, still less frequently, would be 
 a valid one if it were necessary for him to haul the milk himself, 
 and in many places would be enough to prevent the system from 
 ever gaining a footing. But it is not necessary. We can re- 
 collect When in some of the thickly settled parts of the East the 
 farmer went twice a week *' in the early morning, before the 
 break of day" to the butcher shop to get his fresh beef; at 
 present it is delivered at his gate in these same localities by 
 the butcher's wagon, every day, if it is wanted, as far as ten 
 miles away from the shop. The same can be and is done at 
 the creamery with the milk. There will be some one easily 
 found in every neighborhood where there is a creamery, ready 
 and anxious for the job of gathering it up morning and evening, 
 or the proprietor or manager can contract to do it himself. 
 In many dairy districts, where dairying is the main work of 
 the farm and but a few acres in every hundred are plowed and 
 cultivated, there is not such a variety of work as where the farm- 
 ing is more of a mixed character. There the farmers prefer to 
 deliver the milk themselves, and the incessant rattling of their 
 wagons for a few hours in the morning and evening is a fea- 
 ture of rural life here that strikes the transient visitor at once 
 by its novelty. 
 
FOR AND AGAINST. HOW TO START. 1 9 
 
 In others the first-named plan is taken, and where the milk 
 from a thousand cows is to be collected, perhaps twenty thou- 
 sand pounds a day, as many as six teams over the same num- 
 ber of routes may be needed to bring it in within the hours 
 of delivery. Where only a few hundred cows are the extent 
 of the operations, and the farms are close by, two or even one 
 wagon can do it. 
 
 The second claim that the expense of manufacturing is less 
 than by the farm dairy method is clear. There is a great 
 saving in time. We have seen two men make up the milk of 
 four hundred and fifty cows into cheese, and have time enough 
 left to play in a base-ball club three afternoons in a week, and 
 without neglecting the cheese either. This was in the early 
 part of the season, before there were many cheeses on hand. 
 Later, when it accumulated in the curing-rooms, and needed 
 turning and rubbing daily, they had the assistance of a woman, 
 but still kept up the base-ball. Will any one suppose that if 
 this work had been done at, say twenty private dairies, it would 
 not, in the aggregate, have taken at least four times as long? 
 
 In butter-making the saving of time is also very great. It 
 has been estimated that it requires only from one-eighth to 
 one-tenth the time that it would at home by the old methods. 
 If the facilities afforded by the later methods of handling the 
 milk and raising the cream are at hand, the difference will 
 not be so striking, in fact it may be nearly equalized ; but it 
 is in the very nature of things more expensive to fit up ten 
 places instead of one, taking the difference in size into ac- 
 count. A one-horse wagon costs more in proportion than a 
 two-horse one, and so with everything where labor is an im- 
 portant element in the cost. There is, besides, the saving 
 effected in buying the material, salt, cheese-boxes, and other 
 articles in large quantities, as is done at a factory. 
 
20 ASSOCIATED DAIRYING. 
 
 It is true that there is an expense for hauling the milk and 
 making the butter and cheese, that must be paid for in money 
 or its equivalent, which might be ^*kept in the family." 
 This will have less weight when it is found that the money 
 receipts, after this expense has been deducted, are equal to 
 what they were when the work was done at home. 
 
 The third claim, that it will raise the average quality of 
 butter and cheese, has been proven quite true. There are 
 many first-class groceries where formerly there were a dozen 
 different grades of butter sold, and now only one, and that is 
 good, and comes from a creamery. An evenness is secured 
 'that cannot be attained otherwise. There is no excuse for 
 carelessness here. The manager has but this to manage, the 
 workman has only this work to do, and the skill that comes 
 from doing one thing, and one only, with all the opportuni- 
 ties for learning, must be his if he is fit for his place. 
 
 The butter-maker who uses the milk from his own dairy 
 only has one advantage — but how often he fails to improve it 
 — he can select his cows and the food for them until he has 
 exactly what will enable him, if he understands his business, 
 to make a higher quality of butter than can be made at a 
 creamery, unless it be an equally select one. When we 
 take the best creamery butter and place it alongside of the 
 products of the best fancy dairies, there will be but few, 
 very few, indeed, of the latter that will surpass it in all the 
 qualities that make butter of the highest excellence ; and 
 even if there were many more than there are of these, the 
 truth would still remain that for the vast majority of dairymen 
 it would improve the butter many degrees. Nowhere has it 
 made such a change as in the west. Not more than a dozen 
 years ago the men. who wrote about dairying were agreed, 
 without exception almost, that the west could not compete 
 
FOR AND AGAINST. HOW TO START. 21 
 
 with what were then considered the natural dairy regions 
 They pointed to the butter from there and called it ''grease;" 
 but to-day that same country, from which nature was supposed 
 to have withheld her dairy gifts, is selling its creamery pro- 
 ducts, tons on tons, in the open market, at higher figures than 
 the old dairy centres can get for theirs. 
 
 In regard to the difference in the quality of milk, it will 
 usually be found that the milk from the ordinary herds differs 
 more in quantity than in richness. Good feed and treatment 
 will increase the quantity of milk, but it will not (we know 
 this is disputed) increase the percentage of butter and cheese 
 much. Each pound or quart of milk will make about the 
 same quantity of butter. There will be more quarts, and 
 therefore more pounds of butter, but the general average at 
 the creamery will neither be increased nor decreased. Of 
 course, when a man has an exceptionally good butter herd — 
 one that will yield him a pound of butter for every eight 
 quarts of milk, he will not want to mix it with his neighbors', 
 that makes only a pound to sixteen quarts — he would be fool- 
 ish if he did at the same price per quart. This dif^culty can 
 be met by the plan recently put into operation in Wisconsin, 
 to which we shall refer further on. With watered milk there 
 is little trouble at a creamery — what with cream gauges, per 
 cent, glasses, and lactometers, there is very little chance to 
 add water without detection. Public opinion among dairy- 
 men in the vicinity of a creamery is so strong against this 
 practice, to say nothing of the law, that it furnishes, with the 
 tests that can always be made, an effectual safeguard. 
 
 Some of the creameries show a very full butter yield from a 
 given quantity of milk. We have in mind one where large 
 pans are used, that last year made in June one pound of butter 
 from every twenty-six and a half pounds of milk, and some 
 
2 2 ASSOCIATED DAIRYING. 
 
 reports which have come under our eye show as low as twenty- 
 one to the pound of butter, from ordinary cows, of course. 
 Some tests that have been made would go to show that the 
 cream will not all rise after the milk has been at rest for some 
 time, and is afterwards shaken up, but the yield above 
 referred to shows that actually more butter is got out 
 than is usual at home. Where the skim milk is sold or 
 cheese is made from it, no fault could be found on this score. 
 
 There is not much danger of the milk souring if the cans 
 are kept perfectly clean. There is sometimes in hot weather 
 a taint developed in milk soon after it is drawn, not only 
 when the milk is taken away, but at home. Much very bad 
 butter is made at these times, as well as cheese that will not 
 stay in the bandage. Heating the milk enough to check this 
 but not to scald it, and then cooling, is an effectual remedy. 
 This can be done more readily at the creamery and factory 
 than at the farm. 
 
 The whey and skim milk can be returned to the producer 
 if desired. They can take it home themselves when they 
 have brought the milk, taking as much as they had milk, 
 water enough will usually have been added to balance the 
 cream and caseine taken out. Sometimes an arrangement can 
 be made by which it can be run to some point, not too close, 
 and there fed to pigs or calves. 
 
 In the great cheese manufacturing centres the cows are 
 allowed to dry in the fall, and during the winter there is not 
 much milk to care for. The most inconvenience from facto- 
 ries not being in operation all the time is felt in the early 
 spring months, when many of the cows are fresh. Some 
 creameries are now operated all the year round, but in many 
 sections in the extreme north this does not seem desirable, and 
 would hardly be profitable if generally attempted. 
 
HOW TO START. 23 
 
 It is sometimes rather an inconvenience that the milk must 
 be delivered at certain hours ; but then, as the limits in the 
 morning are usually between half-past five and eight o'clock, 
 sometime during these two hours and a half will suit just as 
 well as if the whole day were open to choose from. When 
 the milk is taken away from the door, it must be ready in time, 
 and this will teach lessons of punctuality, which we must learn 
 in many things; in these days we are all more or less travelers 
 on the railways, and though the trains never wait, we gener- 
 ally manage to go when we want to. 
 
 It tends to overproduction. It looks that way now to some, 
 but we think it would hardly be fair to charge this on the sys- 
 tem. Dairying for many years was more profitable than most 
 other departments of farming, and there was a gradual and 
 steady extension of the industry which always follows when 
 anything pays, and the level is by and by reached. There is 
 not yet more butter and cheese than can be used, but the 
 price is low, and so are other things. If there is overproduc- 
 tion it will surely cure itself; the law of supply and demand 
 operates here as elsewhere, and if the system tends to give the 
 millions cheaper and better food, so much is gained to the 
 world at large. We quote from Willard' s Dairy Husbandry, 
 •'Aside from the burthens of toil, and the drudgery from 
 which this system operates to relieve our farmers, it has de- 
 veloped another great economic principle, the means of pro- 
 ducing food cheaply, a principle which the Creator in his in- 
 finite wisdom is now impressing upon the minds of people by 
 the establishment and wide dissemination of this system." 
 
 HOW TO START. 
 
 When the question of a creamery or no creamery, factory 
 or no factory, is once started in a community, the plan under 
 
24 ASSOCIATED DAIRYING. 
 
 which it is to be operated has a prominent place in the dis- 
 cussion. 
 
 In the early days they were for the most part run on the 
 co-operative plan. A few persons would agitate the subject 
 until finally a meeting would be called, and the milk pro- 
 ducers of a neighborhood would agree to organize an associa- 
 tion for the purpose of making cheese or butter. They would 
 elect officers — a president, secretary and treasurer — and form 
 a joint stock company for the purpose of raising funds to put 
 up the buildings and furnish the apparatus needed. 
 
 There would be a committee on building, and when it 
 once went into operation, a committee on management 
 and the sale of the products ; but it was soon found that to 
 put the management in the hands of one man would tend to 
 more promptness of action when anything needed to be done ; 
 and before long individuals put up buildings on their own 
 account, and conducted the business on the same basis as 
 before — that is, giving each patron of the factory a share of 
 the proceeds in proportion to the quantity of milk furnished 
 by each — after charging a certain fixed price per pound for 
 making and selling. 
 
 At present they are largely run on the plan of buying the 
 milk outright. The butter and cheese thus becomes at once 
 the property of the proprietor or conductor of the factory. 
 Those who furnish the milk know exactly what they are get- 
 ting, and the business for the manufacturer partakes more or 
 less of the risk attached to all enterprises where the raw mate- 
 rial is bought and the finished products taken into another 
 market at a future time. In some districts an individual or 
 firm now runs a number of factories ; one firm in Central New 
 York had the past season over twenty, and another in Ohio 
 thirteen. This wide control by one central power gives an 
 
HOW TO START. 25 
 
 opportunity to have a number of manufactories under the 
 care of persons of the very highest skill, and the selling also 
 being under the control of one person, reduces the expenses 
 of this part of the business to the minimum ; but the co- 
 operative feature does not belong to this modification of the 
 system. 
 
 One of the most popular plans is one already referred to, 
 namely, to appoint an experienced man as manager and 
 salesman. Every operation at the factory is conducted under 
 his personal oversight, and he does the selling at such times 
 from week to week, or month to month, as seem most likely 
 to bring the best returns. After every sale he settles with 
 the patrons, dividing the proceeds in proportion to the num- 
 ber of pounds of milk they have furnished, first deducting his 
 charges for making, which the past season averaged probably 
 one and a half cents per pound for cheese, and three cents 
 or more for butter, the manufacturer furnishing everything 
 but the milk. 
 
 From what has been said, it will be seen that two different 
 and distinct plans present themselves : 
 
 1. The co-operative, where everything is done by asso- 
 ciated effort, and the proceeds divided pro rata. 
 
 2. The commercial, where the milk is sold to the manu- 
 facturer at once. 
 
 The different modifications have already been alluded to. 
 The second is more in accordance with general business usages, 
 and the first offers a fine opportunity to test the value of co- 
 operation in production, which has often been held out as the 
 hope of the producing classes in the future. 
 
 The risks in the second method are of different kinds. 
 Sometimes when an individual builds a creamery on his own 
 account, and runs it a while, some trifling unpleasantness oc- 
 2 
 
26 ASSOCIATED DAIRYING. 
 
 curs and some of the patrons stop off with the milk, and he 
 loses on his investment, when if it was run on the co-operative 
 plan, and each had an interest in its success, they might con- 
 tinue on. It often takes considerable capital to tide over the 
 periods of depression in the trade. During the past year one 
 of the firms mentioned had contracted with some of the milk 
 producers for milk at one dollar per hundred pounds : had 
 they closed such contracts at all the twenty odd factories 
 which they were conducting, the loss to them would have 
 amounted to five hundred dollars a day ; but fortunately they 
 had not. The co-operative system would have distributed 
 the lessened income among the entire numer of patrons, pro- 
 bably eight hundred or more. There has been complaint, too, 
 at some where a fixed price is paid the manufacturer, and 
 in a few sections the dissatisfied dairymen propose putting up 
 new ones, and running them on their own account entirely. 
 
 It is these periods of low prices, that bring out the weak 
 spots in cny system. The dairy industry must at present take 
 its turn with the rest ; it has always been a profitable one, 
 and where conducted on correct principles will be likely to 
 remain so, though hardly ever to the same extent that it has 
 been. With the best cheese at twenty and twenty-five cents 
 a pound, as it was during the war and since, the profits were 
 too much above the average to continue. 
 
III. 
 
 CREAMERS* AND OTHER APPARATUS. 
 
 When the fixtures of a factory are spoken of, we recall at 
 once the costly and complicated machinery seen in 
 factories where cotton, or iron, or wood, are made into the 
 thousand and one articles which we see everywhere. In but- 
 ter and cheese making only a few and simple pieces are really 
 needed. The cream must be raised, preserved in good con- 
 dition, and churned ; the buiter worked, salted, packed and 
 marketed ; but there is nothing needed for doing either of 
 these, except the simplest fixtures, though there is here as 
 everywhere a wide difference between the best and the worst. 
 For cheese, the milk must be set and curded, the whey sepa- 
 rated, and the curd ground, salted, pressed and cured, and 
 neither of these operations needs complex apparatus. 
 
 Creamery apparatus and dairy apparatus do not differ es- 
 sentially. Size is the main distinction, and we shall here 
 speak of both, because what will answer for a large dairy 
 house will be nearly what is needed in a small creamery. We 
 cannot however touch this subject of apparatus and fixtures 
 without some reference to the different plans and vessels for 
 long years in use for cream raising. 
 
 In the order of time the earthen vessels come first, and 
 then shallow wooden tubs, which are still used for the pur- 
 pose in some foreign lands, followed by the shallow tin pans. 
 While there are yet many earthen pots or crocks used in 
 some sections, they have been gradually supplanted in the 
 dairies of this country by the tin pans, which are more 
 
 ( --1 ) 
 
28 ASSOCIATED DAIRYING. 
 
 easily cleaned and more conveniently handled. In some 
 essential points the former were superior; and those who use 
 them, though often told that they are behind the age, are not 
 so very far wrong after all. The deep cans or cooler pails now 
 used in many creameries and dairies come next. These, or 
 something similar, set in ice water, are used in the Swedish 
 system of deep setting which has attracted so much attention 
 within the last ten years. Tight boxes or tanks, made of 
 two-inch pine plank, hold the water, and when the tempera- 
 ture of this is kept about thirty-eight degrees with ice, the 
 cream rises in ten to twelve hours. The cans are from nine- 
 teen to twenty -five inches in depth and from eight to ten 
 inches in diameter, and are usually set in the water nearly to 
 their tops and left uncovered. When earthen pots were 
 used there was often a wooden tank with cover to hold the 
 water, in which they were set. Sometimes there was no cover 
 to the tank or box, and the milk vessels had round covers of 
 wood or slate, or a tin plate placed directly on them. This is 
 yet common enough where the milk is set in this way as well 
 as when it stands in cupboards; and on shelves in our kitchens, 
 as it does on thousands of farms, and when the cover fits 
 well, the outside air is pretty thoroughly excluded. Those 
 Avho have always insisted that the milk must be aired, have 
 of course not put on the covers, at least not until the airing 
 was completed. Tin covers are perhaps the best. In the 
 deep cans, when covered in this way, and in a cool or cold 
 place (not so cold as to freeze, however,) the milk keeps 
 sweet a long time, at least until all, .or nearly all, the cream 
 has come to the top. When the cans are set in water, they 
 can be made air-tight by having the cap extend down the 
 outside a few inches until the edge comes below the surface 
 of the water ; but care must be taken to lift the can high 
 
CREAMERS AND OTHER APPARATUS. 29 
 
 enough to have the cap entirely clear of the water when the 
 can is to be uncovered, otherwise the water will rush in when 
 the cap is drawn up ; and the water must never be allowed to 
 come within an inch of the* top of the can — if it does, there 
 may some of it run into the milk. 
 
 Of the various arrangements which have lately been brought 
 prominently before the public, and which use the deep can, 
 we shall refer to a few which will serve as types of all. 
 
 That of Mr. L. S. Hardin consists of a box with double 
 sides and a close-fitting door, so as to entirely exclude the 
 surrounding atmosphere. A shelf for ice is placed inside near 
 the top of the box. As it is the nature of heated air to ascend, 
 this secures a uniform temperature. A space of one inch is 
 left on each side of the shelf to allow the air to pass around 
 the ice. The cans are twelve to twenty inches deep, and 
 eight inches in diameter, and they have covers which fit over 
 them on the outside. At first the drippings from the ice were 
 allowed to fall on the cans and collect on the floor of the box, 
 so that the cans would stand in cold water to the depth of 
 several inches, but for the shelf there is now substituted a pan 
 containing a wooden rack. The ice is placed on the rack, 
 and the pan holds the water from the melting ice, and pro- 
 vision is made for running the water out above the cans. The 
 door is also extended all the way to the bottom, which makes 
 it easier to lift the cans in and out of the box. The milk is 
 allowed to stand from thirty-six to seventy-two hours before 
 skimming; is skimmed sweet, and can be used for cheese- 
 making or by those who buy sweet skim milk. 
 
 Some of the best butter makers in the country commend 
 this method, after having thoroughly tested it alongside of the 
 shallow pans, and the deep cans set as in the Swedish system. 
 
 The Cooley creamer, which is of later introduction, is also 
 
3° 
 
 ASSOCIATED DAIRYING. 
 
 a double-box, water tight, and opening by a lid on top. The 
 cans are of similar size and shape to those used in Hardin's. 
 The box is kept filled with water, and the cans with the milk 
 are entirely submerged — having water over top as well as 
 around them. The cover with which each can is fitted, is in 
 the shape of a deep tin dish, and, inverted on top of the can, 
 keeps out the water on the principle of the diving bell. It 
 is kept in place by a strip of wood running over top of it, 
 from side to side of the box. Each can is also fitted 
 with an ingenious attachment, by which the milk can first 
 be drawn out below, and the cream afterwards be poured 
 out, and there is also an arrangement for drawing off the milk 
 from each can without taking it out of the box. The box is 
 supplied with water through a pipe at the bottom, and near 
 the top there is an opening for the warmer water to pass off. 
 The time needed to raise the cream depends on the tempera- 
 ture at which the water is kept. At fifty to sixty degrees, it 
 will require from twenty-four hours upwards, but when broken 
 ice is kept in the water and the temperature reduced below 
 forty degrees, the cream will come up in ten or twelve hours. 
 We have seen very fine butter made from cream raised in this 
 creamer. It will be seen that both these methods provide for 
 a uniform temperature throughout the vessel in which the 
 milk cans are set; in the one the air inside of it is cooled, 
 in the other the water in which the cans are submerged. 
 
 The creamer of Mr. O. S. Bliss is constructed with refer- 
 ence to cooling from the top. The cans used in this are 
 about twelve inches in depth ; the diameter is seven inches at 
 the bottom, and ten at the top ; the box has double sides, like 
 the two just described, and opens partly on top and partly 
 at one side. The lower portion is water tight, and in this 
 the cans are placed in water nearly their full depth ; over 
 
CREAMERS AND OTHER APPARATUS. 3 1 
 
 tncin IS cL sheet-iron partition with holes cut in it to fit the 
 top of" the cans, their covers thus becoming, as it were, a part 
 of the paitition; on this the ice is placed in large pieces; 
 and the top of the milk in the cans receives the first effect 
 of the cooling process. In the latest form of this creamer 
 the cans are all connected at the bottom, so that the milk 
 to fill the whole of them can be strained in at one place, 
 and when the cieam has risen, the milk can first be drawn 
 from all without taking the cans out of the box, and after- 
 wards the cream can be drawn in the same way. This saver 
 all lifting and handling, and makes an arrangement so con 
 venient that it would seem nothing more could be desired 
 Long narrow tanks can be used in place of the cans if these 
 are preferred. 
 
 The manner of cooling from the top, is the essential prin- 
 ciple in this creamer. It is the result of much study and ex- 
 periment in cream raising on the part of Mr. Bliss, who is 
 well-known as the efficient Secretary of the Vermont Dairy- 
 man's Association, and, it will be seen, combines the advant- 
 ages of both the can and the pan system of setting. 
 
 The latter we shall now examine. We can however look 
 at only a few of the great number made. They are nearly 
 all patented, as are the several plans of deep setting just men 
 tioned. The pans are mostly rectangular in form, varying in 
 width from two feet to six, and in length from four feet to 
 twenty, and in depth from six to eighteen inches. When 
 they are six inches in depth, each square foot of surface will 
 contain about thirty-two pounds, or nearly three and three- 
 quarter gallons of milk. They should be made of the 
 best tin : dealers often lay stress on the fact that theirs is 
 X X X X (four cross). They are usually placed inside of an 
 outer receptacle, like the pan in form, only enough larger to 
 
32 ASSOCIATED DAIRYING. 
 
 leave a space between the two through which water can be 
 run; the outer is made of wood or galvanized iron. In 
 their simplest form they can be put together by any worker 
 in tin and wood, and fitted with faucets and pipes to supply 
 the water for cooling or warming the milk. As there are 
 many manufacturers who make a specialty of this kind of 
 work, and build largely, they can often furnish all that be- 
 longs to a complete pan or set of pans, all ready to put 
 together, shipped in compact shape, at a less price than the 
 materials alone will cost if bought separately away from the 
 commercial centres. 
 
 There are points of excellence claimed for all of those 
 most commonly used, but some have more than others. The 
 aim in all is to facilitate the work as much as possible, and 
 afford means of controlling the temperature ; but there are 
 different theories in regard to the proper temperature, and 
 the means of attaining it, and the pans are constructed on differ- 
 ent plans. We will describe several of those in common use 
 as plainly as we can, naming some special ones which will 
 give an idea of what is needed. 
 
 The "Iron-clad" pan is double, with the outer of galvan- 
 ized iron. It is set on standards two or two and a-half feet 
 from the floor. The outer pan fits the inner tightly at the 
 top, but leaves a space at the sides and below. The water 
 circulates freely around the inner pan, which contains the 
 milk, and the milk can be cooled in a short time after it is 
 poured in. The faucets and pipes are of the best material, 
 conveniently arranged, so there need be no stepping over the 
 pipes where they cross the floor, and everything is soldered 
 and attached in such a way that there can be no leakage nor 
 spattering of sour milk on the floor, which is important; and 
 all can be readily taken apart for cleaning. 
 
CREAMERS AND OTHER APPARATUS. 33 
 
 The milk pan is japanned on the outside, and the vat on 
 the inside, both where the water comes in contact with them. 
 Four are needed to complete a set where the milk is to stand 
 forty-eight hours before skimming ; a heating arrangement is 
 attached when wanted, by which the milk can be warmed to 
 any temperature desired. They are also sometimes furnished 
 with glass covers; these afford a good protection against flies 
 and dust. There are means of ventilation below the covers 
 to suit those who want the animal odor to escape. 
 
 The ''Smith Refrigerating Creamer, or Creamery Vat" is a 
 very complete piece of apparatus. It can be used as an ordin- 
 ary pan for setting milk for cream only, and also for making 
 cheese from the skim milk afterward. The inner pan is sur- 
 rounded by a wooden covering, with the usual space between 
 the two for the water to circulate. Two hollow tin partitions 
 run lengthwise; they are about one and a half inches 
 in thickness, and divide the creamer into three long narrow 
 compartments, lo or 12 inches wide, 18 inches deep. Cold 
 water, for cooling, is run through the hollow partitions as well 
 as around the sides, and there is a tight-fitting cover to it under 
 which ice-pans can be placed after the milk has been cooled 
 as low as can be done with water. There are small flues in 
 the cover that can be opened to allow any vapor that arises 
 to pass off. When it is desired to raise the temperature of 
 the milk, this is first done, either by running warm water in 
 place of cold around it, or by injecting steam directly into 
 it; and then it can be cooled either rapidly with ice, or 
 more slowly with water. After the cream has risen it can 
 either be skimmed off, or by means of a faucet in the bottom, 
 the milk can first be drawn off below, and then the cream run 
 off into the cream vat, or directly into the churn. If cheese is 
 to be made, the milk can remain, the partitions be removed, 
 
34 ASSOCIATED DAIRYING. 
 
 and the cheese made in the vat; or the milk can be run 
 directly into a cheese vat, if that can be placed a few feet 
 lower. This creamer received the highest award at the 
 International Dairy Fair in New York. 
 
 A "Creamer" used in some of the Iowa creameries, also 
 has long narrow compartments, and space for ice or 
 water around the milk ; it is much liked by those who have 
 it in use. 
 
 The Arctic milk cooler of Mr. I. H. Wanzer, also manufac- 
 tured and used in the west, has a cover, and cools the milk 
 from the top either by running cold spring water over the 
 cover, or by the use of ice for this purpose. Like all others 
 provided with tight covers, it can be set and filled with milk 
 in a room where other work is going on, as in the manufactur- 
 ing room of a creamery, which can not always be done with 
 open vessels without danger of contaminating the milk and 
 its products. 
 
 Of churns and butter workers there are great numbers. 
 The main thing aimed at in both of these now is to preserve 
 the grain of the butter unbroken while gathering it, and in- 
 corporating the salt most thoroughly. 
 
 The common cheese vat is oblong, sixteen or eighteen 
 inches deep, raised from the floor a foot or two, and is double, 
 with the outside of wood two inches thick, the inside of tin, 
 and a space between the tin and wood for water or steam to 
 warm the milk, or water to cool it. The curd knives are in 
 the form of a series of narrow blades, set in a frame one 
 above the other horizontally, or one alongside of the other 
 vertically. The curd mill is placed on top of the vat, and 
 has a cylinder with either pegs or knives. 
 
 The cheese presses are of various forms. In the large 
 creameries or factories a gang press is used, by which a num- 
 
CREAMERS AND OTHER APPARATUS. 35 
 
 ber of cheese are pressed at once. The hoops in which the 
 cheese are pressed are of the forms with which we are familiar 
 in the various sizes of cheese, and are of wood or galvanized 
 iron. 
 
lY. 
 
 METHODS OF CONDUCTING CREAMERIES AND MAKING 
 CREAMERY BUTTER. 
 
 IN the earlier days of associated dairying, when exception- 
 ally high prices were being obtained for cheese, it was 
 apparent to those who conducted the establishments where 
 butter alone was made, that the caseine of the skim-milk 
 could be put to better use than in feeding calves and pigs, 
 and they commenced turning it into cheese, and their butter 
 factory became a creamery of one kind ; but as the cream 
 was nearly all taken for butter, the product was a very thin 
 skim-cheese. 
 
 On the other hand, the cheese-makers saw that they could 
 take some of the cream out of their milk and turn it into 
 butter to their evident profit, and continue to make a fair 
 cheese, that would sell nearly or altogether at the same figures 
 as when the cream was all in. Their cheese factory then 
 became a creamery of another kind. By the last process 
 only the cream was taken for butter that raised over night 
 from the evening's milk at a temperature of 60 degrees. This 
 made delicious butter, because only the best of the cream was 
 obtained, and it was this butter that helped to establish the 
 reputation which creamery butter now bears. It will thus 
 be seen that there were two kinds of creameries, and as has 
 already been remarked, when butter alone was made the name 
 was not at first applied ; it will here be used in its wider 
 meaning, as now applied to the making of butter and cheese, 
 but not to cheese-making alone. 
 
 (36) 
 
MErHODS OF CONDUCTING CREAMERIES: 37 
 
 The different plans of operating a creamery may be best 
 presented by showing how creameries of the various kinds 
 ah^eady established are conducted. To describe what has 
 been done may be more satisfactory than to give the details 
 of what might be done. 
 
 Many of the older creameries are run on the pail and pool 
 system) where the spring water is made to flow through a 
 pool in the building, and the deep cans or coolers are used 
 for setting the milk. One of the most successful that we 
 know is operated in this way. It is located in Southern New 
 York, and is not a large one, taking the milk of only 200 
 cows. These are rather above the ordinary dairy cow ; a 
 sprinkling of Jerseys among them gives somewhat of a Jersey 
 character to the butter. 
 
 The building is 60 feet long and 25 feet wide, partly 
 two-story, built on ground sloping to the south, with its ends 
 north and south. The north end was excavated about eight 
 feet, and leveled. The south end was also leveled a few feet 
 lower than the other end. The foundation walls come two 
 feet above ground. The superstructure is of frame, with 
 eight -inch posts, boarded inside and outside, with an air- 
 space of eight inches between. It is two story, but as the 
 lower story runs against the bank at the north end, this has 
 been arranged for a cellar. 
 
 The pool is at the south end, twenty feet square. The 
 water flows in at the northwest corner, in an underground 
 pipe, from the spring a few yards away, at a temperature of 
 53 degrees, five or six gallons a minute, and has its outlet at 
 the southeast corner. The whole pool is kept under water to 
 the depth of about eighteen inches. It is in four divisions, 
 and the water can be raised or lowered in each one. It has 
 a floor of pine plank, under the water. On this the cans 
 
38 ASSOCIATED DAIRYING. 
 
 Stand. The cans are not covered ; they are scarcely ever 
 covered at any of the creameries. Loose planks are thrown 
 across from one division to the other, and are used to walk 
 on when the cans are carried in or removed from the water. 
 In the southwest corner is a small platform, close to the 
 water, on which the butter is worked in the warm weather. 
 
 The remainder of the lower story is divided into two 
 rooms. In the middle one stands the cheese vat, and the 
 cheese is made here. At the north, on the east side, is the 
 churning, and alongside is a room for the small boiler and 
 steam engine used in churning and furnishing the heat and 
 steam for cheese-making. The second story has a room in the 
 southeast corner for the butter and cheese-maker to sleep in, 
 and alongside of it is a store-room. All the rest of the story 
 is used as a cheese-curing room. The cheese are arranged on 
 tables and on tiers of shelves, one above the other. 
 
 The milk is delivered morning and evening, and fifty of 
 the deep cans hold one '' mess" of milk. As the milk stands 
 in the cans forty-eight hours before it is skimmed, two hun- 
 dred cans are required. Churning is done every day, and the 
 butter worked with an Orange county butter-worker, salted, 
 and allowed to stand some hours, and worked again, and is 
 then packed either in return tubs and sent to New York 
 fresh, or packed away in half firkins and placed in the cellar 
 for a future market. When the cows were in their full flow, 
 200 pounds of butter were made a day, and even the past dull 
 season none was sold under twenty-five cents a pound. The 
 milk was paid for on the basis of the butter market, and thir- 
 teen quarts of milk to a pound of butter. If the butter sold for 
 twenty-six cents a pound, the patrons would receive two 
 cents a quart for the milk. 
 
 The skimmed milk was made into cheese. Six of these, 
 
METHODS OF CONDUCTING CREAMERIES. 
 
 39 
 
 averaging 40 pounds each, were made a day, at the same 
 time when 200 pounds of butter a day were being made. The 
 yield of butter through the season was about 200 pounds to 
 each cow, and about the same of cheese. 
 
 One of the other kind — conducted on the plan of skim- 
 ming only the evening's milk — we saw in the afternoon of a 
 hot' day in August. When we went to it, we met on the 
 road an open, uncovered wagon, with two horses, contain- 
 ing ten large carrying cans, with a capacity varying from 
 200 to 450 pounds each. There were ten on the wagon, and 
 two vacant places showed that two had been taken off. The 
 driver stopped as we passed, and showed us the way to the 
 creamery, and also told us that his route extended a distance 
 of eight miles from it ; that he went twice a day, making 
 thirty-two miles going and returning each day. As we 
 passed on, we saw where the cans were left that had been on 
 his wagon when he started out. They stood before the gates 
 of two farm houses, on platforms of a single plank about 
 three feet from the ground, ready to receive the milk from 
 the evening's milking. In this way he drove on until the 
 end of his route was reached, leaving a can with each of 
 the patrons. The creamery soon came in sight. It was 
 one of the largest we ever saw — 130 feet long and 40 feet 
 wide. It was two stories high, with walls of blue stone, and 
 a good double-boarded frame superstructure. Towards even- 
 ing it commenced raining, and when the time came for 
 delivering the milk it was still raining rapidly; but no 
 account is taken of this. The farmers who delivered their own 
 milk came hurrying up to the receiving window, had their 
 cans hoisted up and drawn in by the lad at the crane. The 
 milk was poured into a weighing can on a scales that admitted 
 of weighing four different lots before the can needed to be 
 
40 ASSOCIATED DAIRYING. 
 
 emptied. The weight of each one's milk is put down in the 
 book, the gate of the weighing can opened, and the milk runs 
 along an open tin spout into the vats. The wagon drives 
 away and another takes its place. It was now growing dusk, 
 and the wagons that had been out gathering up milk were 
 coming in. There were three besides the one I had met, 
 but none had quite such a long route, though one of the 
 others had six miles and it took him five hours to make the 
 round trip. He started at three o'clock in the morning and in 
 the afternoon at the same hour and by eight was back at the 
 factory, but until he got home and his cans cleaned it was 
 nine. The milk was distributed through four vats that held 
 each 5C00 pounds of milk. Neither was quite half full, and 
 cold water was run around them to cool the milk as fast as 
 possible. It was stirred to help the cooling down to sixty 
 degrees; then it was allowed to remain at rest for the cream 
 to raise over night. The next morning it was skimmed. 
 The morning's milk, as soon as it came in, was distributed 
 through all the. vats and cheese made. At the time when 
 the cows were giving most milk, sixty-two cheese — three thou- 
 sand pounds — a day were made. The ni'lk was taken from 
 over eleven hundred cows. 
 
 The butter was made in a sub-cellar ; churning was done 
 every two or three days, and about one pound of butter was 
 made to every hundred pounds of milk. The cheese was 
 nearly full cream, and about 50,000 pounds were in the cur- 
 ing room at the time of our visit. Four men were employed 
 about ihe creamery, and one dollar a hundred pounds was paid 
 for the milk. The men who hauled the milk from a distance 
 got three dollars per cow for hauling. They had a contract 
 for the full season, to November, with the proprietor of the 
 creamery, and he deducted that amount from the patrons, at 
 
METHODS OF CONDUCTING CREAMERIES. 4 1 
 
 the final settlement with them at the close of the season. For 
 bringing it in from the immediate vicinity less would., as a 
 matter of course, be paid ; but to go eight miles, even far as it 
 may seem, the price paid seemed to us ample, as one man and 
 his two-horse team could easily bring the milk from 250 cows. 
 This building had four divisions on the first floor — a boiler 
 and engine room at one end, then the manufacturing room 
 with the four large vats, the press room with a large hori- 
 zontal gang-press, and finally an immense curing room. 
 There was also one room above this, very large, but not ex- 
 tending the whole length of the building. These two rooms 
 contained the cheese on hand. The ground sloped away from 
 the building on one side, and the whey was run down here in 
 a pipe into a tank, out of which it was pumped into the cans 
 in which the milk was brought, at least so much of it as was 
 wanted for the pigs and calves on the farms. 
 
 Everything was in nice shape, and showed good manage- 
 ment, and the butter and cheese which we tasted were good ; 
 but we could not help observing that it was less desirable to 
 collect the milk from such a large territory, than from the 
 immediate neighborhood, when cows enough were kept. The 
 milk is exposed to the heat too long, and where the roads are 
 rough and hilly — here they were level and good — the labor 
 of transportation is too great. 
 
 When large pans are used and no cheese made, the labor 
 about a creamery is much less than at either of those de- 
 scribed. One of these which occurs to us now is simply a 
 stone dairy-house enlarged, built on ground sloping to the 
 south — it were better north — the lower story half under 
 ground. There are six pans, six feet by sixteen, and they 
 occupy all of one room forty-four feet long by twenty wide, 
 leaving only narrow passage-ways between them, and along 
 
42 ASSOCIATED DAIRYING. 
 
 one side of the room between their ends and the wall. They 
 stand nearly against the wall on the north side, and the water 
 for cooling comes in through a pipe here. They hold the 
 milk of three hundred cows, and the milk stands in them 
 thirty-six hours before the cream is taken off. The milk is 
 run out below, and the cream is sometimes skimmed off, and 
 sometimes dipped out with a large scoop and run into the 
 cream-vat which stands in a separate room at the east end. 
 
 Water from the spring is kept around this tank all the time, 
 and the temperature of the cream never goes above sixty de- 
 grees. The churning is done in this room every other day, 
 by a power churn holding 150 gallons of cream. The power 
 is a small steam engine outside. The boiler, besides making 
 steam for this, also warms the water around the pans in cold 
 weather, for butter is made here all the year round. On the 
 south side of the milk room, shaded by a porch with vines 
 running up in front, is the work room, where the butter is 
 worked and some of it made into pound and half-pound 
 prints. There is a large lever press for doing this neatly and 
 expeditiously. It is marketed as soon as made, at least as 
 often as twice a week, and always sells for the highest market 
 price. Much of it goes to customers who will ''take no 
 other," and this brings more than market, price. There is 
 plenty of spring water here, and a great deal is needed, the 
 aim being to cool the milk as rapidly as possible until it is 
 brought down to 60 degrees, and then to keep the butter as 
 near to that temperature as possible all the time, until it goes 
 into the hands of the consumer. 
 
 Good butter can be made in more than one way, if the 
 three essentials — good milk, temperature, and cleanliness — 
 can be commanded. Two letters, both from manufacturers 
 of creamery butter of the highest class, are now before us. In 
 
METHODS OF CONDUCTING CREAMERIES. 43 
 
 regard to their mode of making butter, one says, '' We use a 
 patent milk vat which allows water to run around the milk. 
 We use ice, but not in the milk, and let the milk stand thirty- 
 six hours if it does not show signs of thickening. Never let 
 the milk thicken before we take off the cream. Churn at a 
 temperature of 58 to 60 degrees in summer, 62 to 65 degrees 
 in winter, in a square box revolving churn : do not let the 
 butter form in mass before we wash out the buttermilk : salt 
 one ounce per pound : set by twenty-four hours : then work 
 and wash thoroughly until all the buttermilk is out. Our 
 butter rooms are usually half below and half above ground. 
 This is the substance of our mode of manufacturing,' and we 
 have made, and shipped to Philadelphia, eight thousand 
 pounds per week." 
 
 The other writes, ''Our theory is that it is full as well to let 
 the cream remain on the milk until it has matured, say, from 
 twenty-four to thirty hours, but for fine butter, the less milk 
 you take off wfth the cream the better. We use the ordinary 
 deep cooler for setting our milk, from eight to nine inches in 
 diameter and twenty inches deep. According to our view, 
 the cream must stand at a proper temperature, for a sufficient 
 length of time after it is taken off, for it to go through the 
 ripening process. In other words, it should have a certain 
 degree of acidity before churning, and the less milk there is 
 in the cream to sour, the better flavored butter we will get. 
 We use the ordinary square box revolving churn, and none 
 but the best factory filled salt. In warm weather we receive 
 milk twice a day, but have never made any distinction be- 
 tween the night and morning's milk for fine butter. We ex- 
 pect to make this season fifteen hundred pounds a day in 
 two factories." 
 
 Washing the butter is, by many, preferred to working it, for 
 
44 ASSOCIATED DAIRYING. 
 
 removing the buttermilk. If done properly, it does this more 
 effectually than working. One of the best methods is that 
 in use at some of the creameries where fancy butter is made. 
 The churning is done as usual, with a moderate motion, till 
 the butter begins to come, with the contents of the churn 
 about 60 degrees. Cold water is then added at several intervals 
 until the temperature is reduced about 5 degrees, the churn- 
 ing being continued with a slower motion until all the butter 
 forms in small granules (which it will always do if the tem- 
 perature is low enough), and these will be free from but- 
 termilk in their interior. Of course they will rise to the 
 top in the churn, and may be dipped out into a bowl of cold 
 water, and washed by stirring until the milk is all out, 
 or the buttermilk may be run out of the churn if a strainer 
 is placed inside the opening, and the water poured in, and the 
 washing be done in the churn ; the water being withdrawn 
 and fresh added until the milk is all removed, which will 
 be when the water becomes only slightly discolored. This is 
 quickly and easily done. As soon as the water is drawn off, 
 it is ready to salt. In this condition the salting can be done 
 without much working. The grain remains unbroken, and 
 butter of the highest flavor and best quality is obtained. 
 There are those who believe that the aroma of butter is lost 
 by washing, but this need not be if it is properly done. 
 Washing in brine is still more effective. Mr. Lewis T. 
 Hawley, of Syracuse, N. Y., in a recent essay,* referring to 
 what he said in 1875 ^'•'^ regard to this method, which he had 
 practised for several years previous to that date, says, "In- 
 stead of transferring the butter into a sieve, as I have directed 
 in my old essay, I would draw off the buttermilk as soon as 
 the butter comes to the size of a wheat kernel, and pour on 
 
 * Transactions of American Dairymen's Association, 1879. 
 
METHODS OF CONDUCTING CREAMERIES. 45 
 
 cold saturated brine (made from pure dairy salt), enougti to 
 float the butter, and let it stand some thirty minutes. Then 
 draw off the brine, and float the butter again in cold saturated 
 brine, letting it stand some forty minutes. The object of 
 letting it stand in the brine is to more perfectly dissolve the 
 cheese matter and sugar of milk, so that when you draw off 
 the brine you leave the butter nearly or quite free from the 
 two substances, which, when coming in contact with oxygen, 
 form butyric and other acids, so deleterious to butter. Then 
 carefully transfer the butter in the same form, without any 
 working, into a thoroughly cleansed firkin or vessel (air-tight), 
 which you have partly filled with pure saturated cold brine. 
 When you have filled the firkin with butter, head it up, 
 having a hole in the head, so that the firkin can be filled full 
 of brine, and keep it in a cool, sweet place. 
 
 ''I predict that butter will be kept and sent to market in this 
 condition, and when customers use butter without salt, it can 
 be taken from the brine while in this pellet form, and washed 
 with fresh water entirely free from salt, and worked together 
 for the table; or, when wanted flavored with salt, it can be 
 worked into shape for use. In either case it can be placed in 
 market and on the table, in large or small quantities, superior 
 in quality to butter treated and shipped to market in the 
 usual way." 
 
 Messrs. Whitman & Burrell, of Little Falls, N. Y., give 
 a description of Prof. Arnold's patent process of making 
 butter and cheese from scalded milk, and buttermilk, the 
 product of scalded milk, which we include here. The method 
 as given, applies to milk as handled in large quantities, and 
 worked in their creamery vat; but, slightly modified, will 
 answer equally well when there is but a little, or with any of 
 the vats or pans in common use. They charge a small royalty 
 for its use. 
 
46 ASSOCIATED DAIRYING. 
 
 Their directions are as follows : 
 
 " Tst. Have the patrons bring the milk to the factory while 
 it is warm, immediately after it is drawn from the cows, and 
 run the milk directly into the vats from the weighing cans. 
 
 " 2d. After a portion of the milk is in the vat, and while 
 the rest is being received, turn a jet of steam directly from 
 the boiler (be particular that only pure clean water is used in 
 the boiler), into the milk, and heat the entire mass of milk 
 up in this way to 132 degrees Fahrenheit. If any of the milk 
 at any time has a bad flavor about it, if detected in time, dis- 
 card it, of course, but if it gets into the vat with the mass of 
 milk, then heat up to 140 degrees to 145 degrees ; then at 
 once turn on the cold water and run it around the tin vat and 
 also through the partitions ; this will cool the milk very 
 rapidly to the temperature of the water, and the cream, which 
 will begin to rise just as soon as the jet of steam used to heat 
 the milk is turned off, will be coming to the surface rapidly ; 
 then the application of the ice and salt in the ice pans will 
 rapidly thin the mass of milk again, as.it nears the freezing 
 point, and the cream will be gathered on the surface. 
 
 "Heating the milk serves two purposes. First, it kills any 
 taint in the milk, and destroys that which makes butter 
 become rancid ; and milk which is heated immediately after 
 being drawn from the cow to 130 degrees, and then cooled 
 as quickly as possible, will keep sweet very much longer than 
 milk not so treated. Observe that the milk is not heated up 
 sufficiently to give it a scalded flavor. The second im- 
 portant feature secured by heating the milk is, that when it is 
 thus hot the milk expands (milk is expanded, and therefore 
 thinner, at the freezing and boiling points), and while in 
 this state the cream globules are released. 
 
 ''3d. In the Arnold process, now under consideration, the 
 
METHODS OF CONDUCTING CREAMERIES. 47 
 
 cream from the milk, which has been treated as above de- 
 scribed, is at once placed in the churn while sweet, and the 
 temperature raised to 60 degrees or 62 degrees (the churning 
 point), by means of a jet of steam being thrown directly into 
 the cream. Now churn ; as soon as the butter comes, appear- 
 ing in kernels, so to speak, about the size of wheat, throw in 
 a pailful or so of clear cold water, and churn again for a 
 moment only. Do not gather the butter in the churn as is 
 usual, but at once draw off the buttermilk and run cold water 
 into the churn, and thoroughly rinse the butter once in this 
 way; then take the butter out carefully into the butter-bowls, 
 add and incorporate the salt with just as little working or 
 manipulating as possible, and then put aside until the next 
 day, when it should be worked again in such a way as not to 
 break the grain ; then pack and store in a room where the 
 temperature is about 60 degrees or 62 degrees. It can then 
 be shipped to market in three or four days afterwards, or kept 
 for months if desired ; for the heating of the milk, as before 
 stated, kills the germs in the milk that tend to make butter 
 rancid. While ordinarily good butter cannot be made from 
 sweet cream, by this plan most delicious butter is produced 
 of excellent keeping qualities. All butter for hot climates 
 should be made in this way. 
 
 "4th. But to return to the skimmed milk. While the 
 cream is being churned the skimmed milk should be heated up 
 for cheese-making to about Zd degrees, and by this time the 
 butter has 'come,' so that the sweet buttermilk can be drawn 
 off as heretofore described. Add all this sweet buttermilk to 
 the mass of skimmed milk, and then add the rennet and color- 
 ing, and proceed to make cheese as usual, gradually heating 
 up to 96 degrees or 98 degrees, etc. Let the whey become 
 somewhat sour or acid before separating the curd from ihe 
 
48 ASSOCIATED DAIRYING. 
 
 whey ; this course is better for skim-milk cheese than" pursu- 
 ing the Cheddar plan of cheese-making from full or un- 
 skimmed milk, which provides for running off the whey while 
 it is sweet, and then letting the curd itself become acid before 
 salting. By this Arnold process, run off the whey after it 
 becomes slightly acid, then pack the curd in the vat and keep 
 it warm by letting the cover of the vat down over it to exclude 
 the cold air ; after remaining in this way for a few moments, 
 cut the curd up into "chunks," and run through the curd 
 mill ; then salf and put to press. After the cheese are taken 
 from the press, try and keep them in a room where the tem- 
 perature can be kept at 70 degrees, and you will have a very 
 fine palatable cheese, considering that it is skimmed (no 
 cream worth speaking of being left in it). At all events the 
 skimmed cheese thus produced from scalded milk and butter- 
 milk — the product of scalded milk — will be decidely better 
 and bring more in market than the ordinary skims." 
 
 Heating the milk before it is set for cream is not new, but 
 it was never practiced to any great extent until within the 
 last few years. It is sometimes objected that it is too much 
 of a forcing process to heat milk to 130 or 140 degrees, and 
 then cool low down with ice. But there is no use in disputing 
 the fact that fine butter which keeps well is made in this way. 
 When the cooling is done with water alone, it takes more room 
 to hold and store the milk, because more time is required ; 
 and the butter too should be fine, for if the germs of taint 
 have been destroyed, there will be no danger of the milk spoil- 
 ing after heating, even if it must stand twenty-four or forty- 
 eight hours for the cream to rise. 
 
 In starting a creamery it is important to get what is 
 needed to turn out a good product. The building should be 
 constructed with reference to the work to be done. It need 
 
METHODS OF CONDUCTING CREAMERIES. 49 
 
 not be expensive. In some sections buildings that have once 
 served other purposes have been made to do duty for this. 
 If it can be cleaned, renovated and furnished with the proper 
 apparatus, there is no reason why a blacksmith shop, or a 
 distillery, even, should not be turned into a creamery, any 
 more than there is why it should not be changed into a 
 dwelling for men and women — and the last has often been 
 done. But it will generally be found better to put up a 
 building specially adapted to the purpose, unless where there 
 is already a well-built dairy house, to which the necessary ad- 
 ditions can be made that will fit it for the more extensive op- 
 erations. 
 
 Frame buildings are the cheapest, and, when placed on a 
 stone foundation, and tightly boarded inside and outside of 
 the frame, properly lined with building paper between the 
 boards, v/ith tight doors, and shutters to the windows, they 
 can be kept at a very even temperature when favorably lo- 
 cated. Cold spring water, when there is plenty of it, affords 
 the readiest means of reducing the temperature in warm 
 weather. An ice house is almost indispensable, and the 
 creamery can be cooled by first passing the outside air under 
 the ice before allowing it to enter. A sub-earth duct, as de- 
 scribed farther on, might afford one of the best means of 
 maintaining an equable temperature at all times. 
 
 It is not easy to give a plan of a creamery that would be 
 adapted to all situations. The descriptions of the several 
 kinds already given, will enable any one to comprehend 
 about what is needed ; and while as much money can be spent 
 on building and furnishing one as the purse will allow, or 
 the taste demand, it is not necessary that it should, in these 
 cheap times, cost more than ^2000, including all the appa- 
 rixtao for making butter and cheese from the milk of 600 cows. 
 3 
 
50 ASSOCIATED DAIRYING. 
 
 There are, in some places, dairy houses which are better 
 furnished than others around them. They contain, perhaps, 
 a horse-power or water-wheel for churning, or a butter 
 worker — which makes this part of the work easier there than at 
 the others, and all the cream from the other farms is brought 
 here to be churned, and the butter worked and prepared for 
 market, but each lot is kept separate, and is turned over to 
 the owner as soon as ready for market. It has been suggested 
 that if the cream could in all cases be raised at the farm, a 
 much wider scope of country could be covered by one 
 creamery's operation than is practicable when the whole of 
 the milk must be conveyed there, and it would also be more 
 easy to fix the exact value of each man's product, as the 
 cream does not vary as much as the milk. But the per- 
 centage of butter in cream does vary considerably. If it 
 is raised in open shallow pans, the cream will be thicker, and 
 yield more butter to the same quantity, than when raised in 
 deep cans and kept covered. In the latter there may be five 
 pounds of cream from the same milk tliat would in the open 
 pans give but three, and both turn out the same quantity of 
 butter. It would then be difficult to fix the exact value on 
 cream, unless raised under precisely the same conditions. 
 
 In Wisconsin a new departure in this direction has been 
 made the present winter, which promises to do much towards 
 the final settlement of the ''bad butter" question. Deep 
 cans of uniform size and construction are furnished to each 
 patron, and the cream is collected and paid for by the inch. 
 Tne cans are made with an opening in the centre of the bot- 
 tom from which a tube runs up to within five inches of the 
 top, where it turns and passes out through the side of the 
 can ; the water or air circulates through this tube, and cools 
 from the centre as well as from the outside, and the milk can 
 
METHODS OF CONDUCTING CREAMERIES. 5 1 
 
 Stand longer without souring than in other cans. A grad- 
 uated glass tube inserted at the side of the can shows the 
 amount of cream to the fraction of an inch. The can is, we 
 believe, patented. 
 
 The '' Badger State Creamery," which is the name of the 
 association having this in hand, propose to collect the cream 
 from the milk of 4000 cows, and extend tlieir operations over 
 the greater portion of the county in wliich the creamery is 
 located. Local collectors will be appointed, who will visit 
 each of the patrons every few days, take the cream from the 
 cans, and credit the amount. These will deliver it at con- 
 venient centres, to wagons passing directly through a num- 
 ber of the local districts, and thus save much driving. 
 
 This plan is attracting much attention, and if successful the 
 present season, will doubtless be further extended. The cream 
 can be collected at much less cost than the milk could be, and 
 there is the additional advantage of leaving the skim milk on 
 the farm. In those sections of the country away from the 
 markets, where local dealers now go from house to house 
 once a week and gather up the butter, if this plan were 
 adopted, instead of the weekly visit of the butter dealer, there 
 would be the semi-weekly or tri-weekly call of the cream col- 
 lector ; and there would be one, or at the most, two kinds of 
 butter made. We say two kinds because it might be found 
 desirable to keep the cream that was just right from that 
 which may, from any cause, show excessive sourness or taint; 
 but the butter that would be made could hardly fail to be an 
 improvement on that which the dealer now collects, and 
 the value of the cream could be gauged, certainly, with 
 more accuracy than can the value of the unnumbered grades 
 of butter which now pass through the hands of dealers. 
 
V. 
 
 CHEESE AND CHEESEMAKING. 
 
 IT is often pointed out that the consumption of cheese in 
 this country is less than we should expect, by comparison 
 with other countries ; and it is now generally conceded that 
 the cause is to be found in the inferior quality of much of the 
 cheese offered for sale at home. 
 
 Our cheese makers have for years made strong efforts to 
 supply the people of England with the sort of cheese they 
 wanted; and from the immense quantities sent there and sold, 
 it would seem they had succeeded. 
 
 It has been hoped that the introduction of cheese into the 
 army rations would help to increase the demand here, and so 
 it will to a limited extent ; but the twenty thousand men of 
 which the army consists are no more that the inhabitants of 
 one of our smaller cities, and many of our rural counties have 
 each more than three times as many. And if our markets 
 could be supplied with an article that would meet the tastes 
 of the people, it would increase the demand many hundreds 
 of times more than the army can. But the plain truth is, the 
 great bulk of the cheese sold in our groceries and from the 
 market stalls, is relished by comparatively few. Many of 
 those who eat it do so under protest, because it does not 
 taste like healthy food. A taste for it may be acquired, as it 
 may for many things that had better never go into the stomach. 
 If cheese of the right kind were to be obtained, much more 
 would be used. Made from unskimmed milk, it would be a 
 
 (52) 
 
CHEESE AND CHEESEMAKING. 53 
 
 cheaper article of food at higher prices than it now brings ; 
 cheaper, when its nutritive value is taken into account, than 
 beef. And yet there are many families who never have it on 
 their tables, because they have already tried so often to get 
 some that was good, and have failed, that they have given up 
 in disgust. At the late dairy fair in New York, it was our 
 good fortune to taste some Cheddar cheese from Somerset- 
 shire, England, that had a mild, rich, mellow, agreeable taste, 
 so far removed from the cheese ordinarily sold here, that one 
 v/onders how the same name could be applied to two articles 
 differing so widely. We had also an opportunity of tasting 
 some of the premium cheese from half a dozen different States, 
 and candor compels us to say, that while they were above the 
 average, in our opinion not many of them were of the kind that 
 must be made before the people of this country will generally 
 have cheese on their tables as a standard article of diet. 
 
 At the present time, when cheese is so low that it pays a 
 very small profit at best, and in many instances is made at a 
 loss, it will be well to inquire whether some radical change 
 must not be instituted in the methods and processes of 
 manufacture. 
 
 The factories which have been in operation heretofore, and 
 more besides, may be able to find sale for all they can make 
 in the markets they have built up. But there seems to be 
 room for another class, and it looks as if some of these might 
 best be located in districts where there are none at all at pre- 
 sent; and it is not at all unlikely that in the future we shall 
 find them scattered over the country, one or more in every 
 county in which enough milk is produced, not to make cheese 
 for export nor for the great city markets, but to supply the 
 local demand, and to do this, besides the larger cheese for 
 cutting by the grocerymen, make cheese of such a size that a 
 
54 ASSOCIATED DAIRYING. 
 
 household can take one entire every time they buy. This 
 would be a step towards reducing the cost to the consumer 
 without any reduction in the price received for it by the 
 maker. There would not then be a necessity for cutting by 
 the retailer and the loss by drying, to say nothing of the in- 
 convenience, and the addition which must be made to the 
 first cost to pay him for all this. 
 
 Let us make our meaning plain. In a locality where 
 cheese has never been made, but large quantities of butter — it 
 may be in a county or centre of fifty thousand people — a 
 crea:nery is started ; it makes butter only through the winter — 
 in summer the demand for butter is not so great, and in 
 former years the butter would have been packed ; but as win- 
 ter dairying becomes more and more extended, the difference 
 in price of butter in summer and winter is not so great, and 
 it will not pay to hold the summer's product. Part of the 
 summer's milk can then be made into cheese, or all, if de- 
 sired, and the cheese, which should be of the styles suited to 
 the demand, could be sold to the grocers or taken to the 
 market towns and sold direct by the maker; in this way the 
 m^irkets would not be so likely to become glutted, as would 
 inevitably be the case if the present mode and system were 
 indefinitely extended. 
 
 The fact that some regular cheese factories have been 
 erected in some of the butter-producing districts, and after a 
 few seasons' operations were closed, does not prove that the 
 plan suggested will not be found desirable. One reason for 
 the partial failure of some of these is to be found in the 
 fact that too great a return was expected for the milk. 
 The average quantity of milk to a pound of cheese is about 
 ten pounds, nearly five quarts. Often the only iiiilk sold in 
 these districts is that which goes into the villages or to the 
 
CHEESE AND CHEESEMAKING. 55 
 
 nearest town or city. For this a high price has been the rule — 
 not less than three cents per quart, sometimes eight — and when 
 it came to furnishing milk to the factory, the producers ex- 
 pected something like these figures; where in butter-making, 
 if the average is about twenty-six pounds of milk to a pound 
 of butter, and the butter averages twenty-five cents a pound, 
 they would have less than one cent a pound, or about two 
 cents a quart for the milk, if we estimate the value of the 
 skim-milk to be equal to the cost of making the butter. But 
 milk could not be bought for two cents a quart, and conse- 
 quently the factories could not compete with those in the 
 great dairy districts where milk is sold in unlimited quanti- 
 ties at one dollar per hundred pounds, and often less. 
 
 The kinds of cheese that would sell best would soon be dis- 
 covered. A small Cheddar loaf, or nutmeg, pineapple, or a 
 square cheese of small size, the "Young America," might be 
 tried, or some soft cheese for immediate sale. The present win- 
 ter a small soft cream cheese was sold in the groceries of New 
 York in one pound boxes at thirty-five cents a pound. Even 
 imitations of the strong-smelling foreign cheeses might find 
 some buyers, because, bad as these smell, their taste is often 
 very good ; but something different from these must be made 
 to sell to those whose taste has never been cultivated in that 
 direction, and also very different from the gum-biting stuff 
 which is the best that many grocers are now able to get. 
 
 The cheese-maker of the future will, without doubt, make 
 more of the kind of cheese that people can eat without doing 
 violence to their senses of taste and smell. If he does not, he 
 must expect to see less eaten rather than more ; for we are 
 guided by our taste in choosing what to eat, and when the 
 tongue or nose pronounce against cheese or any other article 
 of food, analysis showing the large proportion of nutritious 
 
56 ASSOCIATED DAIRYING. 
 
 matter it contains will be of no use, if it does not suit the 
 taste — we will get the equivalents in something else that 
 does, even if we must pay more for them. 
 
 A cheese factory is precisely similar to the large creamery 
 described in a former chapter, except that it has no provision 
 for making butter. The building, the vats for coagulating the 
 milk, the boiler for heatmg it, and the curd-mill and presses, 
 are all the same. The milk is brought in as there, but it is 
 not skimmed — instead of being allowed to remain at rest in the 
 vats during the night, it is stirred at intervals by hand, or a 
 stirring apparatus is attached which is run by the water as it 
 flows away, after cooling the milk in the vats. The vats are 
 only made half full in the evening, the morning milk being 
 distributed in the same way. Where the milk is only brought 
 once a day, as it may be in the cooler weather, there is, of 
 course, none to go into them in the evening._ 
 
 Before describing the process of making cheese, it may 
 be well to say something about rennet, which, as is well 
 known, is an important agent in the formation of cheese. 
 A rennet, as the dairymen of this country know it, is the 
 fourth or larger stomach of a calf; it is also called a "veil." 
 That from a calf which has lived altogether on milk is much 
 the best, and if it has gone entirely without food for the last 
 ten or twelve hours of its life the strength will be all the 
 greater. Care must be taken not to use too much water in 
 cleaning ; wiping lightly with a moistened cloth until it is 
 clean is the better way. If then blown up like a bladder and 
 hung up and dried, or preserved in salt, it will retain its power 
 of coagulating milk for years. 
 
 From this it would appear that during the time the calf had 
 gone hungry nature had prepared the active agent, whatever 
 it may be, for digesting the milk which the calf would drink. 
 
CHEESE AND CHEESEMAKING. 57 
 
 and collected it about the inner surface of the stomach ; and 
 also that the longer this goes on the stronger the rennet, until 
 the usual limit between the times of feeding is passed ; after 
 this the stomach becomes inflamed and is spoiled for the 
 cheese-maker's use. 
 
 There are different views held by scientific men in regard 
 to the manner in which rennet acts. The ferment or yeast- 
 plant which is the active agent in bread-raising, is an organ- 
 ized ferment — that is, it grows and develops like other plants, 
 a very small portion of it being enough to furnish the seed, so 
 to speak, for filling a large vessel, if the material in which it is 
 placed and the conditions are right. 
 
 The experiments of Hallier, the German microscopist, with 
 rennet, seemed to prove that it was a ferment of the same 
 character ; but of late another view, that it acts by contact, 
 and is an organic, but not an organized, ferment has been 
 prominently brought out, notably by Prof. Caldwell at the 
 last meeting of the American Dairymen's Association, who 
 also suggests that we may yet be able to find other organic 
 ferments in some of the vegetable juices to take the place of 
 rennet, and names the juice of the paw-paw (^Carica papaya) 
 as one which has been suggested. 
 
 Again, it is held that the action of rennet in coagulating 
 the milk and afterwards on the curd when this has been 
 pressed and put away to ripen, is similar to the digestive 
 process, and Prof. Arnold calls cheese '' the partially digested 
 coagulum of milk." This is ridiculed by some practical 
 cheese-makers. Without expressing any opinion, we may say 
 that this view looks as if it might be true. Whatever the 
 manner of its action, the fact remains that it has so far been 
 the most available of all that has ever been suggested or tried 
 for fitting the curd of milk for food in such a form that it 
 could readily be preserved for long periods of time. 
 3* 
 
58 ASSOCIATED DAIRYING. 
 
 The liquid or dry extracts of rennet which can now be 
 purchased bring it witliin the reach of those who could not 
 procure or use the veils. These extracts are prepared in for- 
 eign countries from the fresh rennets — those we have seen 
 came from Denmark. Many of the rennets, too, which are 
 used in this country are imported. In preparing rennet for 
 use the veils are cut in pieces and steeped in brine or boiled 
 whey a few days before it is Avanted. Dr. Voelcker gives the 
 mode of preparation at a noted English dairy as follows: 
 Slice the half of a lemon ; sprinkle it with about six ounces 
 of salt, then pour upon it one quart of boiling water : cover 
 the vessel to retain the steam. When cold put into the liquid 
 one fresh veil ; allow the whole to stand for two days, then 
 strain the liquid through a fine cloth and the rennet is ready 
 for use. This quantity is deemed sufficient to coagulate 
 six hundred gallons of milk. 
 
 The pieces of rennet should be rubbed several times while 
 being steeped to extract all the strength, and it is recom- 
 mended to make enough at once to last several weeks at least. 
 Sometimes enough is made to last two months; in this way 
 greater uniformity is secured than when it is made every {ew 
 days, the rennets not being all alike in strength ; but care 
 must be taken that there is no taint in any of them nor in the 
 whey used, or the whole batch may be spoiled. The steeping 
 is best done in stone jars, and the liquid had best be kept in 
 these until wanted for use. 
 
 There are many details connected with cheese-making that we 
 cannot attempt to explain here; the experienced cheese-maker 
 knows how to adapt himself to the variations in the milk, the 
 temperature and the kind of cheese he desires to make; but he 
 finds it hard to explain everything unless during the operation, 
 when the eye and the touch and smell can all be brought into 
 
CHEESE AND CHEESEMAKING. 59 
 
 play to determine the different conditions. The process, 
 however, as conducted in the best factories where cheese is 
 made from whole milk, may be outlined as follows : 
 
 The milk being in the vat, the first thing to be done is to 
 separate the whey, containing the sugar of milk, most of the 
 water and the mineral matter, from the caseine and the fat 
 which go into the cheese; the milk is brought to a tempera- 
 ture of 80 or 84 degrees — it is not often necessary to do this 
 by cooling, as it has usually been cooled sufficiently over 
 night or before being brought in. When it is too low, warm 
 v/ater or steam from the boiler must be applied around or in 
 the vat until it is right. The rennet is now poured in and 
 thoroughly mixed by stirring a minute or two ; the milk is 
 then kept at this temperature until it thickens ; as soon as it is 
 firm enough, which may be in an hour or less after the rennet 
 was put in, it is cut. The necessary degree of firmness is as- 
 certained by passing the finger along just under the surface — if 
 there is a distinct break or fracture in the curd in front of the 
 finger it is ready for cutting. This is done with a curd knife, 
 which consists of a series of knives set in a frame, from one- 
 third of an inch to several inches apart, as the curds are to 
 be coarse or fine ; the cutting may first be done horizontally, 
 dividing the cin-d into layers from top to bottom, and then 
 vertically lengthwise of the vat and crosswise from side to 
 side ; when finished, the curd will be left in cubes of perhaps 
 half an inch on a side when fine curds are made ; where 
 coarse curds, the divisions will be much larger. The 
 whey now separates and the curds begin to settle ; heat is 
 applied either with warm water around the vat or by inject- 
 ing steam directly into the vat, and stirring the whey and 
 curd, so that every particle, even to the centre of each bit of 
 curd, is gradually brought to the same degree of heat, about 
 
6o ASSOCIATED DAIRYING. 
 
 98 degrees, more or less, as the cheesing process is to be hast- 
 ened or retarded. When this stage has been reached, per- 
 haps two hours and a half from the time of beginning, the 
 heating is discontinued and the particles of curd allowed to 
 settle and pack on the bottom. Three distinct courses are 
 now open : the whey can be withdrawn at once — this is 
 usually done with a syphon over top of the vat, a strainer is 
 put in to prevent any of the curd passing out with the whey, 
 and the curd drained, ground, salted and pressed while per 
 fectly sweet. This was the practice in the earlier years of the 
 factory system, but much of the cheese made in this way did 
 not turn out well, and the plan of allowing the curd to 
 develop more or less acidity in the vat before salting and 
 pressing came into favor. This is what is known as the Eng- 
 lish Cheddar method, and the change the curd undergoes is 
 called '' cheddaring; " in this method the 'whey is with- 
 drawn early, or at least before showing much acidity, and one 
 end of the vat is lowered and the curd heaped up along the 
 sides and allowed to drain. As soon as it has become firmly 
 packed it is cut into pieces perhaps a foot square, and turned 
 over so that all shall change alike. This is done at intervals 
 until the curd is fit for salting, which is determined by its 
 consistency and general appearance and smell. It is now run 
 through the curd mill and salted and put to press. Another 
 plan is to allow the whey to remain until it becomes distinctly 
 acid; in the meanwhile stirring the curd to prevent it from 
 packing, and when the whey has been drawn and the curd 
 has drained, salt and press as before. From two to three 
 pounds of salt are used to a thousand pounds of milk, and 
 the cheese remain in the press until the following day, when 
 they are taken out and with their bandages around them are 
 placed on the shelves in the curing house, where they remain 
 from twenty days to two or three months or longer. 
 
CHEESE AND CHEESEMAKING. 6l 
 
 The daily routine at a cheese factory, beginning in the 
 morning at half- past four or five o'clock, will be first turning 
 and rubbing the cheese on hand, and receiving the milk as it 
 comes in till eight o'clock; then the working of the milk 
 in the vats begins ; the various manipulations occupy the time 
 till two or three o'clock in the afternoon, when the pressing 
 is generally finished; then there is the washing up, and from 
 six to eight in the evening milk is again received. The 
 proper curing or ripening of the cheese when made, which is 
 really the cheesing process — what goes before being only the 
 separation of the caseineand fat, and putting in proper form — 
 is most important. The curing house should be of a uniform 
 temperature ; about 70 degrees is considered best, but this will 
 depend somewhat on the amount of rennet used and how it 
 was worked. The caverns in the rocks where the French 
 Roquefort cheese are stored have currents of cold air passing 
 through them often as low as 40 degrees F. In the last few 
 years much attention has been given to cold storage; houses 
 kept cold with ice through the summer are used for storing 
 the cheese, but the results so far have not been so uniformly 
 successful as has been hoped for. 
 
 The process of cheesing is a complicated one ; butter-mak- 
 ing is for the most part a simple mechanical operation, but 
 cheese-making is more of a chemical process, and the ever 
 varying conditions of the milk and the temperature, which 
 must be watched in making and curing, require experience, 
 judgment and skill to turn out a uniformly good product, and it 
 is never advisable for one with no experience to commence the 
 business on a large scale. Men experienced in the business 
 whose services can be obtained are to be found in the princi- 
 pal cheese producing districts. They are paid from twenty to 
 fifty dollars and more per month- — one who is able to take 
 
62 ASSOCIATED DAIRYING. 
 
 charge of the entire business of a factory will command the 
 highest figures. 
 
 If any one should inquire, what is the best cheese? it 
 would be hard to answer. We have elsewhere indicated what 
 would probably be considered so by the largest number of 
 persons, but tastes differ very much. The cottage cheese 
 which is made from skimmed milk, which has been warmed 
 in the sun or on the stove till the whey separates, and eaten 
 fresh, is relished by almost every one, if not alone at least 
 with sugar or syrup ; by some it is preferred when it has 
 been allowed to stand awhile, until it rivals some of the 
 strong-smelling foreign cheese; each one of which has its ad- 
 miring devotees, who think nothing equal to their own pet 
 nasal irritator. The cheese properly made from whole milk 
 is something different from these ; as a food it can hardly 
 be overestimated, and it should be made in many places 
 where none is made now. 
 
 Arnold in his "American Dairying" says: *' The choicest 
 cheese, that which is the richest and highest flavored, must like 
 the choicest fruit be consumed not far from where it is pro- 
 duced." If this be true, and there is no reason to doubt it, 
 some of those who have found in the past a great profit 
 in making the finest butter may find in the future that by 
 taking equal pains they will be able to produce an article of 
 cheese that by its delicious flavor and higher value as food 
 will bring them a proportionately greater return for the time 
 and skill spent in its production. 
 
VI. 
 
 OUR DAIRY HOUSES. THE BEST BUTTER. CONCLUSION. 
 
 THERE are many places where associated dairying can 
 never be practiced ; there are others where it might be 
 to the advantage of all concerned, but will not be for a long 
 time, if ever; and even in its strongholds there are those who 
 prefer to have nothing to do with it, and to the private dairy 
 house we must continue to look for a large share of our butter. 
 
 We have already referred to the earthen crocks and the 
 small tin pans which are still what the majority of butter 
 makers use, to hold the milk for cream-raising, and among 
 them are some who turn out as fine butter as any that is 
 made, though they do it at what seems to be a greater ex- 
 penditure of time, trouble and labor, than need be with the 
 best modern appliances within reach. We know that some 
 of them will require proof of the most positive kind to con- 
 vince them that cream can be raised from milk as well, or as 
 completely, when it stands at a depth of twelve inches, as it 
 can in a shallow pan of three inches; but nevertheless it has 
 been done for years, and is being done now in many of the 
 best dairies in the country. 
 
 The earlier opinions in regard to the effect of temperature 
 on cream raising are yet firmly held by many, for reasons 
 which they consider self-evident ; but if any one has had his 
 faith in these two cardinal points so far shaken as to look for 
 more evidence, he can easily and at a very trifling outlay ob- 
 tain the means of testing the matter to his own satisfaction. 
 
 (63) 
 
64 ASSOCIATED DAIRYING. 
 
 Any tinsmith will for a dollar make a deep can like the pails 
 or coolers used so extensively in the creameries. Our own, 
 nineteen and a half inches deep and nine inches in diameter, 
 cost eighty cents with handle and cover, and any carpenter 
 can make a plain, water-tight box of pine plank like those 
 used in the dairies and butter factories of Sweden, large 
 enough to contain the cans, and the necessary water and ice, 
 and furnished with a tight-fitting lid, at a very slight addi- 
 tional cost. 
 
 In a few counties in Pennsylvania a modified form of tin 
 pail is used for setting -the milk : the depth is eight or ten 
 inches, the diameter six inches at the bottom and eight at the 
 top; by those who have used them they are preferred to 
 small pans. 
 
 This form is similar to that fixed on by Mr. Bliss as giving 
 the best results, in the numerous experiments which he has 
 made, and now used in his creamer, noticed under dairy ap- 
 paratus. His are, however, somewhat larger, and he has 
 found that while in the ordinary deep can there is a ring of 
 milk around the sides near the bottom from which the cream 
 is not all removed, in these it is uniformly separated all through. 
 A further recognition of the advantages which this form — 
 wider at top than at the bottom — has over the ordinary one 
 with straight sides, is to be found in the Fairlamb can, used 
 in the "Badger State" Creamery, already referred to, and 
 elsewhere. 
 
 Sixty degrees Fahrenheit was long supposed to be the only 
 temperature at which anything approaching the best results 
 could be obtained. Where cold spring-water could be had, or 
 a deep well-constructed cellar, this was the temperature most 
 easily attainable, and it came to be looked upon as the nat- 
 ural temperature for butter making. The Swedish systen 
 
OUR DAIRY HOUSES. 65 
 
 has, however, shown that cream can be raised in much less 
 time when the milk is set in water to which ice has been 
 added, at a temperature of from 50 degrees down to 35, and 
 large quantities of butter have been made in this way, of ex- 
 cellent long-keeping qualities. 
 
 When cream can be raised at these low temperatures, as is 
 often done, in ten to twenty-four hours, instead of thirty-six 
 or forty-eight, much is gained. The milk needs to be taken 
 care of only from one-fourth to one-half the time, and a less 
 number of vessels are required, less room to set them, and less 
 labor in handling them. 
 
 When cream is raised in the shortest time named above — 
 ten hours — it will always be thin and sweet. It may remain 
 sweet as long as forty-eight hours, or even longer at a low 
 temperature. But the longer it stands, the more it will 
 thicken. Being thin, there is more of it in proportion ; four 
 inches is not unusual from ordinary milk, and six inches from 
 good Jersey cows, on cans nineteen inches deep, and this 
 is sometimes urged as an objection because it adds to the 
 labor of churning ; but this is not nearly as much as the 
 labor saved in handling and taking care of the milk. 
 
 In regard to the saving of labor, we quote from Mr. 
 Hardin, *'In shallow setting, the labor consists in filling a 
 large number of pans, lifting them first on to the racks and 
 then off again, skimming a large surface while standing, and 
 at all times of day and night, when the best results are ob- 
 tained ; washing a large number of tins, keeping up a fire in 
 the milk room, fall, spring and winter, night and day; but 
 principally in the great amount of scrubbing to be done, 
 that a large room and all its surroundings should be kept 
 immaculately clean." This, as already shown, is greatly re. 
 duced by the use of deep cans or large pans. In the last it 
 
66 ASSOCIATED DAIRYING. 
 
 is reduced to the lowest point; but the milk cannot be cooled 
 as readily as in the cans, except where cooling from the top 
 is brought into play, as is done in Bliss's creamer, the 
 Smith's creamery vat, the creamery pan of the Northwest, 
 and others of that class. This is the most rapid way of cool- 
 ing, and if combined with cooling around the sides, will suit 
 those who believe in taking the "animal heat" as it is 
 termed, out of the milk in the shortest possible time. Those 
 who wish to keep the temperature gradually falling through 
 as long a time as practicable, can modify it to suit their 
 purpose. Whether the vessel for raising cream had bet- 
 ter stand in water or in the air depends on circumstances; 
 water as it is pumped from the earth or flows from the 
 spring has usually a temperature not far from 50 degrees, and 
 if enough of it can be had, any quantity of milk can with 
 proper arrangements be reduced to the same temperature ; 
 air has, in the latitude of 40° north, between the Rocky 
 mountains and the Atlantic, a mean annual temperature also 
 about the same or a little higher, but it varies from 10 de- 
 grees below zero to 100 degrees above, and this variation 
 would be fatal to cream-raising ; but the air can be kept at a 
 uniform temperature in a cellar or in a vault under ground, 
 or in a house in a sheltered position, properly built above 
 ground, without water at all, and when, in addition to these, 
 ice can be had, we have all that is needed to give us entire 
 control of the temperature. 
 
 In our best spring dairy houses the body of the milk is 
 surrounded by water, the surface exposed to the air. A 
 tight box into which water is pumped from a well, and con- 
 tinually renewed, answers as well as the spring ; when there is 
 a wind-pump and a cover on the box or trough for the water, 
 this is an excellent plan, but in many localities there are neither 
 
OUR DAIRY HOUSES. 6^ 
 
 springs nor wind-pumps, and to pump the water from wells 
 by hand is a serious job, and a good cellar or vault is relied 
 on. One well adapted to butter making all the year round 
 can be made by having the main cellar of the ordinary depth 
 of seven or eight feet, and then at one end excavate the 
 ground a few feet deeper, run up a partition or hollow wall 
 between this and the other part, arch over the top, run a flue 
 up. from the bottom for ventilation, and it is complete, for 
 maintaining an equable temperature of fifty-five or sixty de- 
 giees. If, as in the case of one we know, an opening can be 
 made from the arched portion where the milk is to be kept 
 into a well, high enough above the water to prevent flooding 
 in case the water rises, the moist air which some deem essen- 
 tial, and which they get in their spring houses, can be had 
 here as well. 
 
 When there is a spring, the best dairy houses have thick 
 stone walls, at least below, cemented or boarded floors, and 
 excavations or tanks to hold the water at the required height. 
 At present ice is so much used that it has come to be consid- 
 ered almost indispensable for tempering either the air or the 
 water to suit the requirements of the dairy. 
 
 The way in which ice can be economized to the greatest ex- 
 tent, and used with the least outlay of labor, is to have the 
 milk-room adjoining the ice-house, with their floors on the 
 same level, and to have a tight compartment made into which 
 to set the milk, lower than the ice, and to keep the air in this 
 cold by the ice above. The air should not be allowed to cir- 
 culate except from the floor of the ice-house to the space 
 where the milk is set, otherwise there will be a waste of ice. 
 
 The ice-house is often so placed that this is not practicable, 
 and here, when the setting of the milk is done in air alone, 
 Hardin's method can be used to advantage. 
 
68 ASSOCIATED DAIRYING. 
 
 Wilkinson's sub-earth ventilation affords a means of keep- 
 ing the air in a dairy-house or cellar at the same temperature 
 all the year round, and also of perfectly ventilating the same. 
 This is attained by constructing an underground duct con- 
 nected at one end with the dairy and at the other with a well 
 sunk in the ground, to the depth at which the duct is placed. 
 This may be ten or twelve feet below the surface of the ground. 
 The length should not be less than two hundred feet, and the 
 size from one to six superficial feet in cross section. It has 
 an earth bottom, the sides and top may be of brick, or stone 
 flags may be set up in the shape of an inverted V. The house 
 can be so constructed that no air can get in except that which 
 comes through the duct ; this will be at all seasons of the year 
 about 50 degrees F., if the proper flow is maintained. It is 
 claimed that the air as it traverses the duct becomes cleared 
 of all noxious gases and odors, and is so dry that matches 
 kept in a cellar supplied with it, light and burn readily. To 
 secure a flow of air through the duct towards the house there 
 is an exhaust shaft which, in the case of cellar or dairy-house 
 attached to the dwelling, may be the chimney of the kitchen. 
 A small stove placed inside of it will furnish the heat to give 
 the upward draft when there is no fire in the kitchen stove. 
 The system is patented, and a number of dairies in various 
 parts of the country are now furnished with it. 
 
 The room for churning and working butter should not be too 
 warm nor too cold for the comfort of those who attend to it. 
 Whether the cream had better be churned sweet or allowed to 
 sour, has by the practice of the majority been decided in favor 
 of slight souring; but the present advocates of churning it 
 sweet have a ready demand for all the fresh butter they offer. 
 When it is soured, it must not stand too long, and the tem- 
 perature for churning should be from 58° in summer, to 63° 
 
THE BEST BUTTER. 69 
 
 in winter; for whatever may be said in regard to cream raising, 
 it is as yet not disputed that about 60° is the right tempera- 
 ture for churning. Everybody now knows that the grain of 
 the butter should not be injured by improper churning or 
 working. The hands are not to be used for working ; for 
 small quantities the ladle will do ; when there is more, a 
 smooth table of plank or a marble slab, and a paddle, about 
 ten inches long, and five wide, and a handle at each end, is a 
 very effective means of working in skillful hands. In many 
 places the Orange county worker or something similar is used. 
 This is simply a triangular table, with sides a few inches high, 
 and a round or square lever fastened at one end and held at 
 the other. Then there are various kinds, with round or 
 grooved rollers and circular or oblong tables. The latest idea 
 is to apply simple pressure to force out the buttermilk, without 
 any working at all. 
 
 Salting goes with the working, except by the French 
 method; none but the best quality of salt should be used, and it 
 must be well incorporated with the butter; the quantity varying 
 from one-half ounce to an ounce per pound, to suit the market 
 or the particular customer it is intended for. In France much 
 butter is marketed in excellent condition, and even sent to 
 England, without any salt at all. 
 
 THE BEST BUTTER. 
 
 The standard which has been set up requires an agreeable 
 flavor, sweet, pure, nutty, aromatic and clean ; a firmness 
 of body that will not easily become soft; a close and compact 
 texture, with the globules unbroken and the grain distinct. 
 It must not be inclined to change rapidly, nor be strong, 
 tallowy, cheesy, bitter or stale, nor have that pasty, open- 
 grained condition which makes it give under the knife and 
 stick like salve or grease. If it has all the good qualities and 
 
70 ASSOCIATED DAIRYING. 
 
 none of the bad, it comes under the class ^' best, " whether 
 made in an eastern dairy or a western creamery. 
 
 It has been estimated that in the eastern cities about two 
 pounds in a hundred are sold as ''gilt-edged" or ''fancy." 
 Some of this goes to hotels, but the most to private families, 
 in the name of the butter-maker, either furnished by himself 
 or through a dealer. It was this mode of marketing that has 
 had much to do with the high prices that have been obtained, 
 and there was a reason for it. Butter as it was found in the 
 ordinary markets varied more than anything else that was 
 bought for the table ; and when those who wanted the best 
 that could be had, once found that which was uniformly good 
 and would stay good until it was used, they took it, and 
 rather than be at the risk of changing and at the trouble of 
 searching for it, took one man's make, who by making a study 
 of their tastes, as far as he could discover them from their 
 commendations or complaints, was able to retain their patron- 
 age and in a manner cut off competition, and to a great extent 
 fix his own price. Sometimes this price, high as it seemed to 
 others less fortunate, did not more than pay for the extra 
 trouble and cost ; often it did, and in many cases the merits 
 of the butter bore no comparison to the extra charge. 
 
 The ways of the merchant are not always plain, but it may 
 safely be said that in the open market, butter will bring what 
 it is worth ; and the more the average quality of the butter is 
 improved, the less demand will there be for these exclusive 
 makes, which have already most severely felt the effects of the 
 hard times. The demand for good butter will increase, but 
 the supply is likely to increase much faster. The leveling 
 tendency that has been going on since the creamery system 
 began will not stop ; and as the leveling is up and not down, 
 there will in time be enough for everybody at prices within 
 the reach of all. 
 
THE BEST BUTTER. 7 1 
 
 It is believed by many butter makers in the soft water 
 districts that no limestone or hard water region can produce 
 a prime article. In regard to this we quote from Willard -."^ 
 "With due respect to the opinions of others, it is beleived 
 that as nice butter can be made in the hard water districts as 
 in the far-famed butter regions." "There are," he says, 
 "butter makers in the hard water districts of New York, whose 
 butter is pronounced, by competent judges, equal to the best 
 brought into the markets," and adds, "I have seen as good 
 butter made upon the black slate hills of Herkimer county, as 
 any in the soft vvater regions — butter that would keep at least 
 nine months as sweet as a nut, and as nice as could be 
 desired." 
 
 It is not the aim of this work to give the details of milk 
 production, but a few well known and settled points will be 
 referred to, which must be borne in mind if the best, or even 
 good butter is to be made. 
 
 The cow, her food and drink and treatment, are the 
 foundations on which the result depends. 
 
 The cow must be healthy and well fed. Some of the 
 highest priced butter ever sold in this country has been made 
 from the ordinary dairy cow, without reference to breed, fed 
 on good hay from mixed grasses, with bran and corn meal 
 through the winter; nothing else, except plenty of pure water 
 to drink. Through the summer, good pasture and a little 
 bran, and the same flowing spring water and plenty of shade 
 trees to shield them from the scorching sun, was the treatment. 
 
 A poor milker, or one that yields but little butter, should 
 not be kept, but fattened and turned into beef. One 
 that gives milk that is imperfect from any cause, should not be 
 retained in a butter or cheese dairy ; the milk from one such 
 
 * Dairy Husbandry, p. 236, 
 
72 ASSOCIATED DAIRYING. 
 
 will spoil the entire product ; and if there is any suspicion of 
 such an one, she should be traced and weeded out. 
 
 No matter what the food is, be it grass or hay, grain or 
 roots, there should be enough of it ; when ranging over 
 pastures, cows eat until they have enough and then stop; but 
 in the stables it is different — if they are half starved there, 
 and then have feed thrown before them in unlimited quantity, 
 they will eat too much — and regular feeding, enough but not 
 . too much, should be the rule all the time. 
 
 Stagnant water often contains the germs of minute organisms, 
 and, when the cow drinks it, they develop in the milk to such 
 an extent as to unfit it for use, unless heated at once when 
 drawn ; and the purer and cleaner and fresher the water, 
 the better will be the milk — of which over eighty per cent, is 
 water. 
 
 Kind treatment will be given by the humane man, and 
 dollars and cents ought to be a sufficient inducement to 
 others, for it would seem no cow would be habitually ill- 
 treated when once her owner thoroughly appreciated the fact 
 that he was being cheated out of part of his income by such 
 a course. Kicking and beating, and dogs that worry them, 
 had better be dispensed with ; and quarrelsome cows, old or 
 young, that never give the others a quiet moment when they 
 can get near them, ought to be restrained. 
 
 When the milk is good to begin with, the manufacturer can 
 make good butter, if he takes the means to preserve it in good 
 condition until he has the cream out of it. But when the 
 milk from any cause has once begun to show taint, the 
 greatest skill is required to check this and prevent his mate- 
 rials from being spoiled ; it can often be done, to some ex- 
 tent, but the product will not belong to the kind we have 
 just been considering ; it will find its place lower down in 
 rhe scale of merit. 
 
CONCLUSION. 73 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 To change suddenly from old and tried ways so long as 
 they are reasonably satisfactory, is, in what pertains to dairy- 
 ing, as well as in any other business, not to be advised unless 
 the alternative which presents itself will after investigation 
 promise better results. There are centres in various parts of 
 the country within the limits named in one of our first pages, 
 where the system, which has mainly occupied our attention, 
 has reached its fullest development, and where it will show for 
 itself what are its possibilities. 
 
 In New York these will be found from Franklin county in 
 the extreme north, diagonally across the State to the shores 
 of Lake Erie. While it is more general here than elsewhere, 
 the counties of Orange and Delaware in the eastern part 
 of the State have some good creameries. Little Falls and 
 Herkimer, Utica and Rome are surrounded by cheese fac- 
 tories, and farther south, and west, about Sherburne, in 
 Chenango county, and Morrisville, in Madison county, and 
 on to Lake Chatauqua, are creameries where butter is more 
 largely produced. In Pennsylvania cheese factories will 
 be found within easy reach of Meadville, in Crawford county; 
 and at Marshallton, in Chester county, butter has been suc- 
 cessfully made from the milk of some two hundred cows kept 
 on four or five adjoining farms. 
 
 Wellington, Chagrin Falls, and Hudson, in northern Ohio, 
 are the points in that State around which they cluster. Elgin 
 and Marengo, in Illinois, have become well known all over 
 the country by the excellence of their creamery products, 
 and the enterprise shown in pushing them into the leading 
 markets. Wisconsin has Fort Atkinson as one centre of its 
 dairy interests and at Mazomanie is located the " Badger 
 State Creamery," where, as the reader of previous pages will 
 
74 ASSOCIATED DAIRYING. 
 
 recollect, the cream alone and not the milk is collected for 
 butter-making. The creameries at Manchester, Monticello 
 and Anamosa, in north-eastern Iowa, will show what has been 
 done here. There are of course many other points that 
 could be named ; these referred to are among the most 
 prominent, and will show what has been and can be accom- 
 plished. 
 
 The dairy productions of the country are now simply enor- 
 mous, and statistics go to show that they rank ahead of 
 either of the other three great agricultural products, corn, 
 wheat and cotton, and as far as regards quantity are probably 
 equal to the present wants of the civilized world, though as 
 the needs increase, a corresponding increase in production 
 will naturally follow. The great room for advancement now 
 is in the improvement of the average quality, and those 
 localities that can carry this farthest by the method that is 
 most economical are the ones to which the future of the 
 business promises the best returns.