A. B. C. in butter making

Front matter

SF 263 .M75 Copy 1

JOPIES RECE1

NOV 6

Chapter I. The Milk Production

WHICH COW DO YOU MILK?

"First, catch your hare v is the instruction given by a certain authority in cooking, and the buttermaker, to make a success of his profession, must first of all see to it

DIDO.

that his raw material - milk — is produced as cheaply as possible. This is the duty not only of the home buttermaker, but of the creamery buttermaker as well. No creamery can succeed in the long run where the patrons produce milk at a loss.

The question then is Which cow do you in ill-'!

Do you milk the blocky, plump Dido, who, though she gave 5,562 lbs. of milk, or 216 lbs. of butter, produced the latter at a food cost of 18.2 cents per pound, or do you milk the "spare, angular cow with a deep body," like "Houston," who. produced the butter at a food cost of 10.8 cents per pound?

In this question of Daiiy Form (compare illustration), first raised by W. D. Hoard, lies the main secret of profitable or unprofitable milk production — buttermaking. There is no room in this little treatise to go further into details of the interesting experiments reported by Prof. T. L. Haecker, in Minnesota Experiment Station Bulletin 35. If this bulletin cannot be secured, a condensed report will be found in the "Patron's Bulletin.'' (See list of books advertised.)

Some tests have also been made in Denmark, in which the cost of production from 200 cows varied from 15.1 cents to 78.5 cents per pound of butter.

These experiments show that the profitable dairy cow is found not only by selecting a particular breed, but also by paying strict attention to each individual cow. The "averft ISMEU

HOUSTON.

age" cow is the curse of dairying. It requires no great intelligence to see that it is better to milk six cows giving a good profit than to milk ten, four of which reduce if they do not annihilate the profit of the other six. But this is what is being done on seven or eight farms out of ten.

If it is important to test the individual cows of the dairy breeds, how much more with the so-called general purpose or dual purpose cows. In my opinion it is possible for a breeder of beef cattle to produce a fair lot of milk "on the side" at a profit, but it is folly to attempt producing steers from dairy cows. Yet some splendid milkers may be found among dual purpose cows and if they stand the test, why not use them?

TEST ASSOCIATIONS.

If the individual milk producers do not like to take the trouble to test their cows and keep an account with them, ten or twelve may co-operate and hire a young man to do it. Such a Test Association was started in 1895 in Denmark, and in 1898 that country boasted of forty such. If desired, the selection and buying of pure-bred bulls may also be made the object of such an Association.

Co-operation is the only way in which the farmers can hold up their end of the line.

It is, however, very little work to weigh the milk from each cow once a week and test it with a Babcock Tester. If there is no creamery nearby willing to do it cheaply, a good four or eight-bottle tester of the Roe pattern can be bought for |6.50 to $8.00. (Figure 1, shows one made by the A. H. Barber Mfg. Co., and the advertisement of the Creamery Package Mfg. Co., shows a similar one, closed).

The spindle-legged cheap tester should be avoided. But testing will not be treated here in detail, as Professors Far-

rington and Woll, in their book on Milk Testing, (see list of books) treat the subject in an exhaustive and practical manner, and every dairyman should buy this book as well as a tester.

As to keeping track of the cost of food, there [Fig. l.] is no need of weighing it

out to each cow; but it is enough to make a memorandum now and then and note the dates when changes are made, so as to give a fair idea of what has been consumed during the year.

As a beginning let creamery men and patrons co-operate and keep track of the number of cows fed (not milked) by each patron, so as to know the average milk yield on each farm at the end of the year. The difference revealed will be an eye-opener and prove the necessity of testing each individual cow.

WHAT FEED TO USE.

It would be absurd to attempt to reply to this question, which Prof. W. A. Henry, of Madison, Wis., has treated in his 600-page book "Feeds and Feeding" but it cannot be dodged altogether in discussing the economical production of milk.

All food consists of various elements that are grouped mainly as protein, a muscle producing element, and carbohydrates (including fat) — heat producing elements. Various experiments have shown that the best result is obtained when these are present in the food in a certain proportion and that it is simply waste (or nearly so), when either is given in great excess, just as it would be waste to use lime as manure on a soil already rich in lime. What this proportion should be is a mooted question, and the Germans propose to vary it according to the quantity of milk given ; suffice it here to mention that Prof. Woll suggests 24.5 lbs. (dry matter) with a proportion of 1 lb. protein to 6.9 lbs. of carbohydrates. This ratio is based on the actual ration given by 128 successful American dairymen, — but it seems to me that the economical ratio (proportion) will depend somewhat on circumstances, that is, on the local price of the various feeds. Judgment must be used to decide whether, for instance, to sell oats and corn and buy bran and oil meal or not, and cost of freight and hauling must be considered.

In our western states the carbohydrates are produced in excess and consequently the mistake of feeding too much of them is often made, as when corn is given in excess. T^ie rations should be balanced up by adding bran, peas, linseed or cotton seed meal, the latter containing over three times as much protein as corn and only half the amount of carbohydrates.

Prof. T. L. Haecker has made up the following table of values, based on the percentage of digestible protein:

Comparative Value per Ton or Bushel, Feed Stuffs. when Bran is Worth

$4.50 $6 $8 $10 $12 $14

Comparative Value per Ton or Bushel when Timothy is Worth

$4.50 $6 $8 $10 $12 $14

If 1 lb. of bran is worth 1 cent, then 1 lb. of barley i» worth 0.73, corn 0.74, corn and cob meal 0.52, millet seed 0.72, oats 0.74, peas 1.55, rye 0.84, shorts 0.8, wheat 0.88, cotton seed meal 2.5, and linseed meal 2.21 cents.

He maintains that, in the west at least, the carbohydrates can be obtained at a nominal cost in straw, cornstalks, etc.

Until the younger generation of farmers is educated up to these calculations, it is a simple matter to write to your Experiment Station and state what feed stuffs you have and their selling value as well as local prices of bran, oilmeal, etc., and ask for suggestions as to proper rations. Or, if you are — as you ought to be — a subscriber to Hoard's Dairyman — you simply write to that paper.

But, and a very large BUT, we must always bear in mind that these chemical analyses of feeds are averages and may not fit your case exactly, and that the practical farmer, while taking hints from the chemist, will feed his cows with one eye on the milk pail and the other on the excrements. Give your cows a variety of sound feed, and if stabled, provide a succulent food, either roots or silage, and remember that where corn will grow no cheaper food basis exists than well-preserved silage.

In summer the most common mistake, which increases the cost of production, is to allow the cows to shrink in yield when pastures are getting poor, instead of supplementing them at once with some sort of a soiling crop. Any dairy farmer deserving the name should have a few acres planted for this purpose. If not needed it is not lost. Silage is also used for helping out pastures by such men as H. B. Gurler. Finally let me put in a word for cutting hay early and curing it as hay and not as straw, and for the making of oat-hay.

These general outlines being observed and the feeding and watering being done at regular hours, we have done what is possible to produce cheap milk as far as feeding is concerned.

I mention six daily rations which Prof. Woll recommends as good examples.

1. Corn silage 40 lbs., clover hay 8 lbs., wheat bran 6 lbs. and corn-meal 3 lbs.

2. Corn fodder 20 lbs., hay 6 lbs., oats 4 lbs., shorts 4 lbs., oil meal 2 lbs.

3. Corn silage 50 lbs., corn stover 6 lbs., oats 6 lbs., malt sprouts 4 lbs., corn-meal 2 lbs.

4. Corn silage 30 lbs., hay 15 lbs., wheat bran 3 lbs., corn-meal 3 lbs., cotton seed meal 2 lbs.

5. Timothy hay 10 lbs., clover hay 8 lbs., wheat bran 6 lbs., oats 6 lbs.

6. Corn fodder 20 lbs., clover hay 8 lbs., oats 6 lbs., oil meal 3 lbs.

INFLUENCE OF FEED ON THE RICHNESS OF MILK.

Most farmers as well as scientists labored for years under the delusion that an increase in the feed, and especially in that rich in fat, would increase the percentage of fat in the milk. Later experiments have proven that this is not true to any extent worth mentioning. Feeding to excess or feeding very rich food may for a short time increase the richness, but it soon drops into the percentage normal for each cow and the ambitious breeder who "tests'' his cows that way has a fair chance of ruining them for life.

Why! starving a cow will make her give abnormally rich milk, though less of it.

Increasing the feed of a cow, not fed up to her full capacity, will increase the milk yield — the total amount of butterfat produced — but not the percentage of fat in the milk. If this old belief were correct, we should be able to make "Holsteins" give "Jersey" milk!

We want to feed all a cow will pay for — no more, no less.

WHAT CARE DO YOU GIVE YOUR COWS?

The right cows being secured and the right feed given at regular hours, we may yet lose the advantages gained if the cows are kept shivering in the lea of a strawstack or suffocating in a dark, close stable.

If she is left to shiver in fall rains and snow, the cow will not only utilize a large amount of her feed as a fuel to keep warm, (an expensive firewood, indeed), but, as experiments in Denmark have shown, she will change the composition of the butterfat in her milk so much that the butter is liable to be mistaken for oleomargarine! I have no doubt this is the r£al cause of that lack of flavor every fall, for which our butter merchants blame the "frozen grass."

There is no need of providing fancy stables. We may even make fairly good ones with a clay floor and the walls and roof of straw, if we only provide ventilation and light. The latter calls for the heaviest cash outlay, but sashes are now so cheap and the value of light of so great importance to the health of the cows that there is no excuse for not having plent}' of it.

As to ventilation, I give a cross section of a stable 14 feet by 36 and 8 feet high. A wooden flue or two A A is

placed along one

wall and made high

enough to give

some draft at least

four feet above the

ridge of the roof.

On the opposite

. wall are inserted

* two or three flues

like B B, or, if the

wall is a double

boarded one, the air

may be taken in by leaving a board out between two studs on

the outside at K (on the piece of wall shown) and another

one on the inside at N, but in that case a board M should be

*** nailed in a slanting position with end pieces on either side so as to give the air a slant in direction of the ceiling.

As to the size of the flues, Prof. King, of Madison, Wis., considers that for 20 cows, they should have a cross-section 2 feet by 2 feet. The intake of fresh air need not be nearly so large, as there are always leaks at windows and doors and it is better to have several small intakes to prevent draught. This principle — air circulation without draught on the cows — can be applied to a straw stable as well as to the most expensive one.

Comfort is an important element in cheap milk production, and while fixed stanchion may make it easier to keep the cows clean, we need only observe them when lying in the pasture to know how cruel and unnatural their position must be in those "animal stocks."

Tying them, or — if it can be afforded — one of the modern stalls like the "Bidwell" or the "Drown" are the only right systems and a liberal supply of bedding will not only help to keep them clean and make them comfortable, but increase the manure heap, which the Danish farmers call their "gold mine."

To keep a cow tied up all winter is in no way a natural treatment, and though it is done by many gOod dairymen (thus universally in Holland and Denmark), the trend is now to do as Mr. H. B. Gurler recommends in his "American Dairying," give them lukewarm water outside, and if the weather is fairly mild let them remain there an hour or two at their option. This advice should not be misunderstood as a defense for those farmers who turn their cows out to drink through a hole in the ice on the watering trough.

The more the cow is deprived of exercise, the greater the need of keeping the pores of the skin open by daily carding and brushing. Indeed, this is not only a question of health (cheap milk production), but also of cleanliness (pure milk). It is a wonder to me that the farmer who will give his time willingly to keep his horse clean, begrudges it to his cows. It is a question of health in both cases, but in the latter it is also a question of health to his own family and those who may drink the milk, not to speak of the quality of the butter. Either on the farm or in the creamery, quality means dollars and cents.

MILKING.

The manner in which the milking is done has also an influence on the cost of production. Regular hours are all-important and so is kindness. Indeed, I do not believe any one quite a success as a milker unless he (or she) can make the cow look upon him (or her) as an adopted child.

The importance of milking the very last drop is due not only to the fact that the last pint is many times more valuable (richer in butterfat) than the first, but also to the fact that it helps to keep up the flow of milk and extend the milking period. This is especially important in developing heifers.

Cleanliness in milking means quality in the butter. If the cows are cleaned and brushed an hour or so before milking, so as to let the dust settle, the only precaution needed is dampening the udder with a wet cloth so as to prevent scales and dust from falling into the pail. Many milkers have the bad habit to let their fingers get wet, sometimes deliberately dipping them into the milk, so as to make them slide down the teats. The proper way is to milk with perfectly dry hands, by squeezing, not by sliding. Only in "stripping" to start the flow and to get the last drops of milk, it may be preferable to slide the fingers down the teats.

It is hardly necessary to say that hands and fingernails must be clean and that all utensils must first be rinsed with cold water and then carefully washed and scrubbed — using soda, the excellent "Savograni" or ""Gold Dust" (never common soap) when needed — and finally rinsed with boiling (not 190 or 200, but 212 deg. Fah.) water. The pails and cans should be easy to clean and the seams soldered perfectly smooth as any little unevenness in the surface makes them more difficult to clean.

These rules for producing clean milk are not new; over a hundred years ago they were observed by the good buttermakers, but it remained for the last decade of this century to explain the reason "why," and thus make the tedious work easy.

Souring of milk, and indeed most of the taints from which milk may suffer, have been shown by our scientists to be due to various bacteria. These bacteria thrive in the excrements and dirt, and they float on the dust and drop into the pail while milking; they abound in the little specks of dried milk left in the crevices in badly soldered cans in poorly cleaned strainers, in rags used, or rather misused, for wiping the cans after washing (which should never be done) in dust gathered on the cow's hide, under the fingernails of the. man who milks, in fact everywhere.

When we know this, we understand the necessity of the precautions hinted at, and when we know that these bacteria will multiply in the warm milk much more rapidly than in cold, we understand the value of cooling the milk as much as possible at once in order to deliver the milk in the best condition to the creamery.

Every bacterium which is in the milk as it leaves the stables will multiply 23 times in two hours at 95 deg., 215 times in four hours and 3,800 times in six hours. But if the milk is cooled to 55 deg. they will multiply only 4 times in two hours, 8 times in four hours and 435 times in six hours, while if chilled in ice they will hardly increase at all.

BETTER CARE NEEDED FOR MILK SENT TO THE CREAMERY.

It is not so hard to convince the private dairyman of the need of all these precautions, he will at once see their value in a better product — better price. But he should also be willing to acknowledge their need when sending the milk to be made into butter at the creamery. He is just as much interested in the final result whether the creamery be run on a strictly co-operative basis or by an individual. Indeed, as the milk has to be transported before being separated and the bacteria get a better chance to develop than if the butter is made on the farm, handling the milk for the creamery requires more care. If patrons understand this and act accordingly, it will be easy to increase the value of our creamery butter from 1 to 2 cents a jslound, or, for the United States, say from three to six million dollars.

COOLING AND AERATING.

Experience has shown that the very best way of preparing milk for hauling is to run it over one of the combined aerators and coolers. The two best styles are represented by Fig. 2, the "Star Cooler," and by Fig. 3, the "Champion Cooler." The first is arranged so as to have water, or better still, iced water, flowing in the opposite direction from the milk and will cool the milk in the most economical manner. Other manufactures, such as A. H. Keid Yt. Farm Machine

Co., etc., make similar coolers. The second is preferable where water is scarce.

The compromise of aeration without cooling more than the temperature of the air will allow, will be far better than straining directly into the shipping can, and for this purpose the simple apparatus shown in Fig. 4 is satisfactory. It consists simply of a pail with perforated bottom into which the milk is strained and from there drops into the receiving funnel. It is made by D. H. Burrell & Co., Little Falls, N. Y.

Setting the can in cold water and aeratiug by dipping is, if conscientiously done a great help, but the way it is usually done it is a delusion and a snare.

A NEW MILK CAN.

Attention has been drawn to the importance, in buying cans and pails, of seeing that the soldering is smooth and even, but even if it is, the seams remain I the danger point. In Fig. 4J, I illustrate | the very latest Danish improvement. The cans are made of two pieces, pressed out of the very best English steel plate, joined in the middle of the side and heavily tink ned. The cover is of one piece and the handles only are riveted. Dairy Councillor Boeggild strongly recommends this can in "Maelkeritidende" though time has not allowed its durability to be tested. The price for the 8-gallon size is f 3.00 in Denmark, but if it is durable it would be cheap at $5.00.

STRAINING.

The strainers on the market are innumerable, but most of them are delusions and snares. "Prevention is far better than cure." In the first place all the fine metal strainers only keep the coarse dirt and chaff out, moreover nearly all of them allow the milk to rinse the spores and bacteria off the dirt as it lies caught in the meshes. Fine muslin is better, and light flannel is the best, as long as it is kept clean, and renewed when felted, so as to delay the work too much. I am not in favor of the so-called sanitary milk pail, with a small opening in the top to admit a strainer, in which the milking is done, the difficulty in keeping it clean counterbalances, in my opinion, the advantage.

Far better will it be to cover the pail with a piece of light flannel or double muslin, allowing it to sag in the middle; four cloth pins will keep it in place. For straining into the shipping can or separator tank, I also prefer these strainers that are easy to clean, having no nooks and corners. The only strainer, it seems to me, on the right principle, is that made by John Boyd, where the milk is poured through a funnel and is forced up through the cloth into the strainer can, but even this has the drawback of being difficult to clean.

KEEPING ACCOUNT.

I simply suggest the following ruling for {he record of the individual cows. It requires two pages with 26 lines for each cow. In the column "For Week" you insert the "Total" milk yield multiplied by seven, and in that of "Pounds Butter Fat" the result multiplied by the percentage of fat and divided by 100. To calculate butter yield add one-sixth to the butter fat.

Weekly Record of Cow No Born

, .... Served Due

The calf dropped

Date of Test.

MILK IN POUNDS.

Babcock Test.

Pound s

Butter

Fat.

Morning.

Evening.

Total.

For

week.

Remarks.

In testing cows they should be milked at exactly the same hour in the evening on the test day as on the day before. The total milk should be weighed or measured daily in order to control the production, and so should that used in the house or for the calves. The last pointer I desire to give in this chapter is to suggest either the offering of premiums, as Mr. Gurler does, to those milkers (be they hired men or your own boys and girls) whose cows keep up the milk flow best, or making them co-partners by giving them a certain share in whatever the cows yield during the year over a certain amount. If you do this and let the milking be counted as ■work and not as a little extra "cJiore" to be done after dark (sooner or later, as the field work may allow), you will find the cows will respond and the cost of production will be reduced.

Prof. Haecker's Ideal Calf, "Young Houston."

CHAPTEE II.

RECEIVING MILK AT THE CREAMERY.

THE GREATEST TRIAL.

The greatest trials of a creamery buttermaker are at the weighcan. It is there he must show his experience of human nature, his diplomacy and his sense of justice. We will presume that the proprietors (individual or co-operative) have given him the strong moral backing of a well-built, neatly painted creamery with neat surroundings, as well as full authority to reject poor milk. We will also presume that he has recognized the same principle by keeping the platform, the scales, the wall and his person perfectly neat and clean. (This presupposes also that he is not expected to be on a jump between the boiler and the receiving can).

All this given, he has yet to show his diplomacy by treating the various patrons in a way to suit their individual idiocracies, so as to obtain the desired result — pure, clean milk. He has yet to show his backbone and sense of justice by refusing to accept tainted milk, which he knows will deteriorate the quality of butter, even if it belongs to the owner or one of the directors. He has yet to learn that the patron's interests are identical with his own. Every patron delivering milk should back up such a milk receiver, he is fighting in their interest, as they would lose by the acceptance of the tainted milk.

TESTING MILK.

To run a creamery on the pooling system is so absurd

that it requires no mention. I am in reality in favor of

having an outsider — best, a woman, receive, and take the

samples and test the milk, but in any case the testing should

be done openly and fairly to all and no one should do this

work who has not carefully studied Professors Farrington

and Woll's book on "Milk Testing." Suffice it here to say —2 that the better the milk has been cared for, the easier it is to secure a uniform fair sample. No maker can afford to juggle with the test or the scale either to favor certain patrons or to make a showing of paying more for butterfat than does a neighboring creamery by reading the test low or giving short weight. In the first case he steals from some patrons in favor of others, in the second case, he is simply helping his employe or his patrons to fool themselves and others.

GETTING A FAIR SAMPLE.

In testing it must be remembered that the taking of a correct sample is the most important part of the work and that when milk is left at rest only for a few minutes, the cream will commence to rise and it will make a difference whether the sample is taken from the top, the bottom or the center.

With small lots, as for instance when sampling single cow's milk, it is easy enough to get a fair sample by pouring the milk from one bucket to another a few times, but this must not be done so violently as to make it foam too much. If close work is desired for composite samples (the collecting of two or more samples for testing at once) the "Scovell" tube is safest to use. By this, if the sample is taken from a cylindrical vessel, a proportionate amount is secured each time. Thus, if a cow should give 30 lbs. of 3 per cent milk in one milking and 15 lbs. of 5 per cent milk in the next (to quote an exaggerated example) the result would be exactly correct; whereas, if we took equal samples, the result would be too high.

But the difficulty in getting a good sample is greatly increased when we come to large quantities of milk as delivered at the creameries. It is true that, if the milk is delivered every day, and has been stirred while cooling, the pouring into the weigh can and a few vigorous strokes with a longhandled dipper will enable us to get a fair sample. Yet patrons don't seem to realize the advantage of taking good care of the milk and the result is that cream clots will float on top. In taking the sample these must be avoided, the result is a lower test.

The Scovell tube is \ to 1 inch in diameter, with three openings and has a cap at the bottom. The tube is pushed gently to the bottom of the can and pressed so as to push the cap above the openings and thus a column of milk exactly like that in the can is secured.

For creamery work the objection is that too large a sample is secured and also that in doing the work — as must be — in a hurry, milk is apt to adhere to the outside and if there is any cream on top this will naturally hang on and part of it get mixed with the sample. Of course this can be avoided by holding a cloth round the tube in one hand while pulling it out with the other.