brine of well powdered salt that has been first sifted thoroughly, cork up the hole and pour in your brine, and let it stand on the butter for fifteen or twenty minutes, after which draw off as you did the water. You now have your butter in the best possible condition for working. When you purchase your churn be sure and get one large enough; it is much better to have it too large than not large enough. If you think you have not sufficient cream for a churning and the cream is ripe, do not wait for another skimming, but add sufficient milk to have the churn filled to about one-fourth its capacity. Do not use milk that is very sour, as it is likely to contain so much casein that your butter will not be of good flavor. Many dairymen churn all the milk with the cream, but as it only adds more work to the churning, I do not recommend it except in cases where there is not cream enough to properly fill the churn. Illustrations are given of the best churns for the dairy, viz., the Barrel Churn, the Rectangular Churn, and the Pendulum Churn.

BOWL OF GRANULAR BUTTER.

BARREL CHURN.

WORKING THE BUTTER.

HOME-MADE DANISH BUTTER WORKER.

Never work the butter when it is too warm. I find that 56 degrees is about right. The main point in working butter is to get the buttermilk all out, and also to get it in good solid compact form. More depends upon proper working than one would naturally suppose. You often see butter with great drops of buttermilk standing all over it; such butter was only half worked, and will generally contain thirty to forty per cent. of water, and will keep sweet but a very short time. The other extreme is overworking, and this produces a dry crumbly mass, with no flavor. If the churning is done as described in the foregoing chapter very little working is necessary, as the buttermilk is very nearly all out of the butter before it leaves the churn. Take the butter out of the churn with your butter spade, and heap it up on the worker. If too warm for working at once, throw a cloth wet in cold water over it, and leave to drain and cool for thirty minutes. Before using the lever of your worker always dip it in cold water. Now take the lever and gently press the butter out over the full surface of the worker, and sprinkle on some salt; begin at the sides, and roll the butter back into the centre, being careful not to do any rubbing or you will have greasy butter. Now press out the whole mass again, and give it another salting, and repeat the working two or three times until you have incorporated the salt throughout the whole mass evenly. The general rule for salting is to use one ounce of salt to a pound of butter, but as some people like "salty" butter and some "fresh" butter, you must salt according to the wants of your patrons. I always use a fine sieve, and sift the salt over the butter on the worker, just as the baker sifts his flour over the dough when making it. Much depends upon the quality of the salt used in butter-making, and if you desire to make good butter use only good salt, which is put up in sacks, and branded "Dairy Salt," by nearly all the large salt makers in the country. If you have a large dairy do not trust to guesswork, but buy a scale and use it. An illustration of a scale which is made especially for salting butter is given above. These scales weigh from one-half ounce up to 250 pounds, and as they can be used for ordinary weighing without regard to the butter-salting attachment, every dairyman should have one. They cost about six dollars.

EUREKA BUTTER WORKER.

 

WATERS' PATENT BUTTER WORKER.

 

CURTIS FAVORITE BUTTER WORKER, FOR ONE OR TWO COWS.

 

BUTTER-SALTING SCALE.

An illustration of a home-made butter worker, which is used largely by the Danes, is herewith given. Any man that is handy with tools, can make one. Cuts of three other good workers are shown; they are well made, and cost but a small amount.

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