The Weekly Register

For the Farmer.

Hints on the Art of Making Butter.

In order to make pure butter, something is required besides the good breed of cows—the sweet grasses—the soft springs—the rolling lands—and the rich milk, and the most experienced churners—the most improved machinery—the purest atmosphere. The best material may be manufactured into yellow grease instead of butter, unless the process be properly performed. It is a fact well known to scientific dairymen, that the pure butter is not made by agitating the milk—not made by the process of churning. Butter already exists in the milk and the art of separating it from the milk, is that on which the success of the dairy depends.

Butter exists in globules so small as to defy the detection of the eye unaided by a microscope, and the removal of these globules without crushing them, is the delicate and difficult task the dairyman has to do. There is no luxury that comes to the table which is so exquisitely sensitive as butter. If the cow feeds on white clover, the butter has a white clover flavor; if she feeds on cabbages, the butter has the flavor of cabbage; if the butter is kept in the vicinity of the stable, it forthwith becomes tainted with the smell of the stable; if packed away in pine tubs, it catches the odor of the pine.

It requires skillful handling or it will certainly be spoiled. If there is too much rubbing in the churn, these fine globules smashed and crushed against the sides of the churn, will give greasy butter; and if the air is excluded the gasses will injure it. What can be done, you inquire, to cause the adhesion of the globules without grinding or breaking them.

Experienced churners answer the question, when they caution beginners not to churn too fast, not to heat the milk too much, not to overdo, etc. They may not in every instance understand the philosophy of the fact, but they do know the fact, that overdoing makes grease and not butter. The seasoning of butter is a matter of taste, and there are a great many persons who imagine the more salt they put in the butter the better it keeps. That is a great mistake.—Just enough and none too much is what is required. Few indeed, even among butter makers in this country, know the luxury of fresh butter without salt. Too much will spoil the taste and not save the butter. Without penetrating any deeper at present into the philosophy of butter making. I will simply add that, a gentle and uniform agitation of the milk will best reward the butter maker for his pains. [The cream should have a temperature of about 65° F. when churning begins.--Ed.] The butter should be kept away from all unpleasant odors, and when put down should be packed in white oak tubs.

Clean cows, clean stables, sweet churns and pans, neat and tidy operators, are among the things desired by those who would send pure butter to market.