When the cream is ripe it is taken off by the dairymaid with a shallow wooden skimmer, Fig. 99, in the form of a deep plate, and carefully placed in a particular vessel--a bucket or cream-pot. The cream-pot is generally washed very clean, the staves very finely polished, striped with blue or white outside, and held together by broad brass or copper hoops, kept very bright. For closing the jar they use an ashen cover, which is either simply laid on by a common handle, or sometimes held on by brass or copper hinges. Both cream-pot and cover are always scoured quite white and clean. The cream remains there till enough is got for churning, or till it becomes of itself thick enough for butter. It is known to be of the proper consistence for butter when a long, slender, wooden spoon, thrust down into it, will stand erect. When in summer the cream does not get thick enough in season, they seek to hasten it by putting in a little butter-milk; but in winter the ripening of the cream is hastened by warming, either by holding the cream-pot over a coal-pan, or on a hearth-plate. The remainder, the skim-milk from the milk bowls or pans, sour milk, or butter-milk, is poured into a particular vessel, and made into spice-cheese. Besides the methods here described for keeping milk for butter, milk is used for other purposes. Sweet milk cheese is made of the unskimmed milk; cream is used in the house for coffee. Rennet is also added to fresh milk, and the product is immediately sold, being greatly relished by many. From skim-milk and butter-milk put together is made an article called kramery by cooking the mixture, putting it into a linen bag, and hanging it in a cool part of the milk-cellar, or elsewhere, when the liquid drops out and leaves a mass of considerable consistence, called Hangebast. As soon as the milk is taken from the vessels, they are taken out of the cellar and carefully cleansed and dried before being used again. METHODS OF CHURNING.--Churning is the principal operation in the manufacture of butter, for by it the fatty particles are separated from the other constituents. There are several methods in Holland of effecting this separation of the butter globules. The oldest and simplest is that of putting the cream into an upright churn, in which the cream is agitated by moving a long dasher, pierced with holes, up and down, till the object is accomplished. [Illustration: Fig. 100.] There are, strictly speaking, only two forms of the churn which are used in all parts of the country. One is broad at the bottom and narrow at the top. This has been known from the earliest times, and is called the old churn, Fig. 100. This old churn is still used in many dairies, and it has the preference over the other form, because it is thought to bring the butter quicker and more completely.