Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 July 1876 — Keeping Milk and Batter in Cellars. [ARTICLE]

Keeping Milk and Batter in Cellars.

Milk or butter may be kept in a cellar the bottom of which has been grouted, and with good .respite, if proper attention be given to ventilation, drainage and temperature. When the ground is not of a character to afford natural drainage, drains should be laid so as to carry off all accumulations of water liable to occur at any time at the bottom of the cellar, and this should be done before grouting. By so dampness from the floor is avoided, as well as impurities from stagnant water under the grout. If milk is to be kept in the cellar for the purpose of getting the cream and for butter-making, means must be taken to have the temperature of the" room as low as sixty degrees Fahrenheit. Unless some one of tlie devices now' in use for reducing the milk to a low temperature be employed, such as - the large pan system, where flowing'water is carried under the milk, or where tlie ice system and its modifications are adopted, there should be good ventilation to carry off stale air or noxious gases, as milk absorbs taints that will prove injurious to the butter. We have seen excellent results from milk cellars having grouted floors, tlie walls being nicely plastered with waterlime cement and the floors made smooth and level with the same, and presenting the appearance of an immense block of stone. We should not advise butter and milk to be kept in the same apartment. A butter cellar should always be kept by itself. It should-be properly ventilated and used for no other purpose than for keeping butter. And so with the milk cellar; it cannot be used for storing vegetables, or for the meat and, soap barrels, or for fish and other family provisions. Milk and butter are dainty aristocrats in their nature. They are extremely fastidious about codling in contact with filth and anything having an unsavory odor, as such contact speedily demoralizes them; and when they once become tainted, they go on from bad to worse, apparently having no disposition or power for reformation. So the dairyman should be careful and not introduce them to bad company. — Rural New Yorker.