The Dairy.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 996, 3 April 1891, Page 23

The Dairy.

TEMPERATURE IN BTJTTERMAKING. ( Agricultural Gazette.) One would, have thought that after all that has been said and written by butter-making experts, the fundamental principles of the art would have been settled long ago, and that there would be no need to re-open such a threadbare subject as the proper temperature at which to churn cream. The late Mr H. M. Jenkins made dairying a special subject of his own, long before the present rage for dairy schools and demonstrations was thought of, and in his lectures and articles he laid down as an average rule that the cream should be churned at 60deg Fahr, the churn driven at sixty strokes per minute, and the butter ought to come in thirty minutes, slight variations being made from these to suit particular conditions. The late secretary of the Royal A gri. cultui’al Society of England of course learnt his dairying on the Continent, travelling about among those people who have now got the control, more or less, of our butter supply, and later on all our dairy schools and teachers adopted and taught that from 58deg to 62deg was the proper range, the lower temperature in the warmer weather - , and vice versa, and now this is the almost universal rule with all our trained maids and men. But Mr Nuttall, the well-known authority, has quite recently affirmed that as low as 5 Meg, and not higher than 60deg, is the proper range for making produce of the finest quality. The various butter-making competitions aro to blame for the adoption of the higher figures. It is well known that at the higher temperature the butter will come more qrrickly, while at the lower degrees the churning may drag on for over an hour. Now, our smart and picturesque dairymaids at the various competitions do not relish the idea of a prolonged period of treadmill work with the handle of a churn in full view of a critical crowd, and in order to curtail this drudgei'y have used higher temperatures, and so at last these have come to be laid down as the rule to be adopted. If the quality of the produce were equally good, then, of course, the quicker the methods the better, but it is saidthat the lower temperature produces the best flavour, and this is, of course, a matter of great importance. If it were any ordinary person who was enunciating a new theory we could perhaps afford to ignore the matter, but when a veteran butter maker like Mr Nuttall is the author then there is bound to be a good deal in it. At the same time, the subject is not entirely new; and there is a great deal of corroborative evidence in favour of a low temperature. At one of the Wisconsins Fai - mers’ Institutes held last year, Mr D. W. Curtis, the secretary of Wisconsin Dairymen’s Association stated that the rules laid down in books that 58deg to 62deg is the right temperature to churn at will not hold good in all cases. The proper way was to test the buttermilk, and vary the temperature, until the particular point which gave the best yield was arrived at. It would be found that cream from different creameries would churn best at different temperatures. Sweet cream, he stated, should be churned at from 50deg to 55d eg, and the butter made in Virginia for the President of the United States was churned from sweet cream at 55deg on what we called the English system. Looking at the amount of contradictory evidence, it is difficult to see how any rules can be formulated on this point at all. There are so many factors which influence the results that it is impossible to know accurately what the effects will be, and so provide that we shall always modify our work to make the best produce. The breed of animals, the kind of food, the general management, the time of the year, the temperature of the air, the ripeness or sweetness of the cream, and a score of other things all have an influence which affects the'churning, so much so, indeed, that two samples of cream from different sources, but otherwise treated alike, would churn best at two different degrees of temperature. It would seem, therefore, that butter-makers must find out for themselves the range of temperature that best suits their individual circumstances, or adapt their circumstances to suit a given rule. But it would appear that we have hitherto churned at some 3deg or 4deg higher than was necessary and it would be a desirable thing for those with whom the finest quality is

the primary object to try results at this lower scale, and judge for themselves.

BUTTER AND BEEFProfessor J. W. Robertson, at a Dominion convention at Ottawa, said :— * One point which I wish to refer to in the management of cattle is this—lt will always help the daily farmer to increase his profits, if he will make his cows begin their earning habits when young. I would like the mto begin milking at two years old. I have an objection, in my views of animal life, to keep any creature too long doing nothing. It is certainly not best for those who have to keep the creature. In manufacturing products, I would like to say, I consider our climate has a superior adaptation for carrying on the line of work I have been outlining. There is no climate I know of on the globe that will keep animals in better health than that of our Dominion. We have less disease than almost any country where these animals are kept. The cold of winter gives them vigour of constitution, and thus more power for service. Winter dairying has been sometimes condemmned as being a practice unsuited to our cold climate. ‘ Now, winter weather sucli weather as we are having just now—is the best season for doing two things —for making fancy butter at the lowest cost of labour and money, and for raising calves, to have constitution and vigor thereafter for thrift, which is the kind of condition we require. So, winter dairying is not opposed to summer dairying, but complementary, by giving tho farmer a good start. Now, have we any reason to fear that these products will not be wanted, from the standpoint of consumption? I think not. Take butter-making. The best market in all the world for food products is to be found in the British Isles—they centre there from every part of the earth. Now, how far are we ofi from. England with our butter ? I will not trouble you by naming the number of miles; but we are distant, with fine butter, one cent a pound. That is our distance. You see it; is a question of profit. ‘ I would ship butter to the moon, if I could get a profit by selling it to the man there. It is not a matter of much difference how far a man is off, if I can reach him at a profit. One cent per pound is our distance from England. The winter time affords transportation facilities and conditions that enable us to send butter from here to England with no deterioration in quality. The English people import a great deal of butter. I won’t even give you statistics; but we send there just now an average of only two and one-eiglith per cent of all the butter they buy abroad. The other ninety-seven and seven-eighths per cent is open to us when we send suitable butter there. In carrying on this work we should continue to make butter in private dairies for a while, where there are not enough dairymen with milk through the winter to support a co-operative j creamery. But when the time arrives, I think we should adopt the latter method of butter-making. ‘ Our phenomenal success, in supplying England with cheese, is because we make ninety-ninety and three-fourth per cent of ail our cheese in factories by co-operative methods. We make less than 3 per cent of our butter in butter factories. When we co-operate we have uniformity, and uniformity with fine goods will compel the market to yield the best prices. Then in stock raising, which can be carried on admirably in conjunction with buttermaking through the winter, we have a great deal of promise in regard to the demand from England for our cattle. We send to England a great many cattle which meet with favour. But we send only 22 per cent of all the cattle England buys abroad. There is 78 per cent of the total importation of cattle that we might still supply. I would like to have the cattle trade of Canada developed, and developed until we can furnish to England nearly all the butter and beef that she wants to buy abroad. If we put these two things hand in hand, we will carry on beef-raising and butter-making at the some time.