ON DAIRY FARMING.

BY W. K. HULKE, ESQ.

NO. 4.— THE SHALLOW AND DEEP CAN SYSTEM.

As the shallow-pan system of setting milk to cream is th;it in general use throughout New Zo.-ikud at the present, and will probably be so for years to come, except in isolated cases, I shall remark on it before noticing that known as the Schwartz or the Cooly decppany system. The shallow-pan .systjm then consists of setting milk, "1 to i inches deep, to cream in vussuls of various sizes, the object being to cool the milk quickly from 00 ° Fahrenheit as it comes from the cow t<> 00 ° Fahrenheit. Wooden milk vessels are most objectionable, and ought never to be used to cream milk, as wood is an absorbent, and is, on that account, difficult to keep sweet. Glazed earthen pans answer well if glazed even and made of good clay, but are heavy .and liable to be broken ; as is also glass,

Tinned iron pans, and imns stamped from block tin, have the run of the market ; and if made of good metal are to be preferred to the common enamelled iron pans, which are liable to have the enamel crack and peal off. The pans mentioned above are mostly all circular, but of various sizes — but one and all are open to the same objections, being difficult to handle when full of milk, and inconvenient to ernpty — large pans especially so — and often causing a slop even with a careful hand on lifting from the shelf or floor. They require much room, necessitate a good sized building, and occupy considerable time in cleaning ; although circular pans are mostly used in both large and small dairies, cisterns made out of slate, lead, zinc, and glazed tiles are considered by many dairymen preferable. The slate and lead cisterns should be made out of the solid, special care being required in the making of both the zinc and glazed tile cisterns, which, of whatever material they may be made from, require to be fixed in a frame resembling a table without its top. The cistern may be of any length and width on top, the bottom having a considerably smaller surface, the depth of the cistern not exceeding three inches. In the middle of the bottom there should be a circular opening fitted with a plug, and over the opening a tube, provided with narrow slits, is soldered. This prevents the cream escaping, and on the plug being drawn to let the milk run off (which falls into a bucket placed under the plug, on a shelf, between the table legs), slopping is prevented. The writer some years since had a dairy for forty cows, fitted with a zinc table as here described, and found it all that could be desired, as it economised space, prevented slops (greatly to bo dreaded in all dairies having wooden floors), and looked cool and neat. With these advantages cisterns are not free from the same serious objections that all milk vessels used under the shallow pan system possess, and this, from a medical point of view, is the most objectionable feature of the system — viz., the exposure of so large a surface of milk which is liable to absorb the noxious gases arising from the impure air from sour milk, or from that arising from outside influence — such as the proximity of a pig- stye, cow-yard, cesspool, or stagnant water, all of which are liable to turn milk — and in some cases render it unfit for food. To lessen the influence of such gases, and to cool the milk, a modification of the shallow pan system has been proposed, and has been carried out in some dairies, notably in that of Mr. Horsfall, a description of whose dairy is published in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society. In this dairy the j>ans are placed on shelves, having rims of about three inches high, lined with thin lead, thus forming a broad gutter, or shallow tank. This is kept supplied with cold water drawn from a well. The shelves are slightly inclined, so as to allow the water to trickle slowly over them ; the waste water being taken away at the lower end of the shelf by a perforated pipe, about fifteen inches above the shelf or shelves on which the milk is j>laced. The shelf is covered with charcoal— as a deodoriser — and in order to ensure firm butter, the cream is lowered about 28 feet down the well the night before churning. Had either the Schwartz or cooling system then been known, the writer doubts if Mr. Horsfall would have gone to the trouble he has evidently taken, the gain being so inadequate to that obtained from the deep can system. Having now fully exhausted the shallow pan system, we will take a look at the deep can system known as the Schwartz, and after that at its rival — the Cooly creamer. The originator of the deep can system was Mr. Schwartz, of Hopgarten, on Lake Wetter — farming about 1300 acres, and milking 170 cows. The milk on being taken from the cow is at once emptied into a large copper vessel, immersed in water, and afterwards removed to the milk-room. It is then accurately measured or weighed, and poured into tinned iron cans, twenty inches high and about ten inches in diameter. Each can has a glass scale inserted in its side, to indicate the quantity ; and these, with their perforated lids on, are then suspended in a tank in the milk-room. The tanks are filled with ice, carefully broken \\]>, so as to pack closely round each can ; and in all localities where ice is procurable, this deep setting of milk is fast superseding all others, as it enables the dairyman to control the action of his milk, compelling it to give up the cream in the most perfect and rapid manner, as the following carefully recorded experiments show :—: — 14-i lbs. new milk was set at a temperature of 50° Fahrenheit. During the first twelve hours it threw up 5*30 lbs. of cream ; the second twelve hours

o*l7 lbs. ; and during the third twelve hours it threw up o*o6 lbs. As nearly all the cream rose during the first twelve hours, it is not considered worth while prolonging the process, as whatever has not then risen serves to enrich the skim milk for calf rearing, or the making of skim milk cheese. This is not au isolated case, as I have now on the table before me authentic rocords of the success of the system from Denmark, Sweden, and America. Mr. Valentinir, farming 800 acres at Goeddedsdol, Denmark, milks 140 cows, and sets all his milk in deep cans and in wooden cisterns filled with ice. The morning's milk at 6 a.m. is skimmed at 4 p.m., and the skim milk is used for cheese making, and at the time of skimming the milk stands at 33° Fahrenheit in the pans. In fact, so great is the success of quickly creaming milk under this system that many thousand dairies are at this moment working under either the Schwartz or Cooly system. I must defer further remarks on this important subject, as well as De Lavels' cream separation, until another week, or I shall tire your readers.

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