How To Make Good Butter

Supervisor Munn of Salem, has managed to acquire quite a reputation as maker of good butter, and that this reputation is a deserved one will be testlfled to by his many customers in this city. He recently read a paper before the Salem Farmers Club on the Making of Butter and Feeding the Dairy Cow, in which he tells something of how he succeeds in making good butter. His paper was as follows:

The making of good butter begins with the feed which the cow receives. The feed of the dairy cow should be clean and wholesome. Musty foods of all kinds should never be fed. Roots are a good feed to be fed in the winter time by those who are not so favored to have a silo, as they help to furnish the necessary succulence to make the cow do her best. A few ears of sweet corn to feed when there is a dry spell and pastures are getting cropped close, will be a help in keeping up the flow of milk. I am feeding one feed of sweet corn a day to my cows at the present time which they seem to relish very much. I feed my milch cows grain the year around if they are giving milk, but when they begin to dry off feed less grain. I think that cows that have had a grain feed through the summer will withstand adverse conditions better, such as flies and dry pastures without so great a loss in the flow of milk, as cows which have not had any grain. It is not the feed the cow gets today that keeps up her milk flow. But it is the feed and care she has received the previous months. Cotton seed meal is a good feed to feed in the summer months as it helps to make the butter firm and better. The grain ration should be fed before milking is commenced as the cows will respond better at the pail by being so fed. Every precaution should be used at milking time to keep the milk clean, for once it is contaminated with dirt and foul odors, it will not make good butter. Great care should be taken in ripening the cream as the flavor of the butter is largely determined by this.

Cream should be slightly thick and of a pleasant sour taste. Experience will soon teach one when it is ready to churn. When once it is in the right condition it should be churned at once. A starter is helpful in ripening the cream. Care should be taken not to let the cream develop to great a degree of acidity, or such cream when churned will have neither the best flavor nor will the amount of butter be as large as from cream less sour. On the other hand cream lacking acidity will not produce butter of as high a flavor. It will be flat and tasteless.

At what temperature shall we churn? No hard and fast rule can be laid down concerning this. Take the thermometer and work out that problem for yourself. Milk from different herds varíes greatly, and what is a correct temperature for one does not answer for another. I churn as low a 54 degrees in summer, and as high as 62 degrees in winter. In making granular butter trouble is often heard in drawing off the butter milk. A handful or two of salt will bring the butter granules to the surface. The amount of salt to be used depends on the size of the churning. To have butter in the right condition for the worker the rinsing water should be as cold as is possible to get in summer but in winter better results will be had by having the rinsing water warmed up to 62 or 64 degrees. All the working necessary should be done at the time the butter is taken from the churn. After butter has once become hard it should not be disturbed. Care should be taken int to overwork the butter as that injures the grain. In summing up the looking after the small details in the making of butter is a main factor in making it a success.