Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 January 1891 — THE DAIRY. [ARTICLE]

THE DAIRY.

A Home Creamery. An exchange says, on the subject of having good creamery butter at home: “Persons who have but a few cows and are not on a cream route of some creamery, or the milk route of some cheese factory, may make good creamery butter at home with little expense for utensils. “If dairy supplies are sold near you, get a few ‘setters’ —tall pails, or have any tinner make you some. They hold about four gallons each. Have a box or tank that will hold water, in which to set the pails when filled with milk. Fill the tank with cold water and -cool the milk thoroughly; draw off the water and refill; if the tank is in the shade, this will keep the milk, in ordinary weather, in good condition for twenty-four hours. It should then be skimmed. The cream should be thoroughly stirred whenever additions are made to churning, and the whole kept in a cool place till ready to churn, which can be done as you are accustomed to do. You will be surprised at the improved quality of your butter over the old method of settling in shallow pans, uncovered and in the open air. It will save a vast amount of dish-washing, too. If the milk, when skimmed be too cold for young calves, it can be warmed by placing the tin pail in a kettle of hot water, or if not wanted for immediate use, will become warm enough if left a short time in the sun, though we do not think it is relished as well by young calves when warmed in thd sun. Dairy Mote*. For cracked teats use old boiled linseed oil. Jx selecting dairy cows, beware of small eaters, weakly built frames and fleshy animals. An even milking habit for 300 days will prove a cow to be more profitable Than a big record for a few days. In a state of nature cows give milk but a limited time; this time has been extended by man’s art. But by forcing nature we have produced an animal which is more liable to disease and accident. Prof. W. A. Henry recently made an experiment with three cows fed on a ration costing seventeen cents per day which resulted as follows: A grade Short-horn made thirty-four cents worth of butter per day; a half-blood Jersey,

forty-five cents, and a Jersey of pure blood fifty-six cents. They were all in about the same stage of milking. Dairy farming, like every other branch of agriculture, has advantages peculiar to itself, which makes it in many places and under many circumstances, the most desirable and remunerative employment for the farmer. , A city young man, who, while summering a week in the country, fell in love with a pretty dairymaid, proposed and was rejected, told his friends when he returned home that ho got only ono “milk shake’’ while he was away. Thk live weight of a cow decides her ration of support. It should bo equal to two and one-half per cent, in dry food matter, or not lees than thirty pounds per day of good hay or its equivalent in grain, straw, ensilage or roots for a 1,000 pound cow. > » It is claimed now by good authority that the age of cream has much to do with the time needed in churning, so that if cream that has just been taken of! is put in the churn with a lot which has set a few days to ripen, the new cream will remain in the buttermilk after the old cream is sufficiently churned. This has been shown by churning the buttermilk from mixed cream. A writer in the Dairy World says that mice know butter from oleomargarine. Dishes soiled with pure butter and oleomargarine were left during a night where they were inspected by mice. They “licked tho platter clean” where pure butter had been, but the plates greased with oleomargarine were untouched. Further experiments were made, and in every case the mice feasted on butter but left the oleo for rats and men.