Milch Cows and Dairy Farming: Comprising the Breeds, Breeding, and Management, in Health and Disease, of Dairy and Other Stock, the Selection of Milch Cows, with a Full Explanation of Guenon's Method; The Culture of Forage Plants, and the Production of Milk, Butter, and Cheese: Embodying the Most Recent Improvements, and Adapted to Farming in the United States and British Provinces. With a Treatise upon the Dairy Husbandry of Holland; To Which Is Added Horsfall's System of Dairy ManagementFlint, Charles Louis
Science
Milch Cows and Dairy Farming: Comprising the Breeds, Breeding, and Management, in Health and Disease, of Dairy and Other Stock, the Selection of Milch Cows, with a Full Explanation of Guenon's Method; The Culture of Forage Plants, and the Production of Milk, Butter, and Cheese: Embodying the Most Recent Improvements, and Adapted to Farming in the United States and British Provinces. With a Treatise upon the Dairy Husbandry of Holland; To Which Is Added Horsfall's System of Dairy Management
Flint, Charles Louis
Cows; Dairying
On page 220 and elsewhere, I have dwelt on the necessity of extreme
cleanliness in all the operations of the dairy; and this is the basis
and fundamental principle of your business. I would not suppose, for a
moment, that you are lacking in this respect. The enormous quantities
of disgusting, streaky, and tallow-like butter that are daily thrust
upon the seaboard markets must be due to the carelessness and negligence
of heedless men, to exposure to sun and rain, to bad packing, and to
delays in transportation. Many of these evils you may not be able to
remove, since you cannot follow the article to the market, and see that
it arrives safely and untainted. But you can take greater pains,
perhaps, in some of the preliminary processes of making, and produce an
article that will not be so liable to injure from keeping and
transportation; and then, if fault is to be found, it does not rest with
you.
I will not suggest the possibility that your ideas of cleanliness and
neatness may be at fault; and that what may seem an excess of nicety and
scrubbing to you may appear to be almost slovenliness to some others,
whose butter receives the highest price in the market, and always finds
the readiest sale. Permit me, however, to refer you to pages 300, 324,
and 325, where a detailed account is given of the washings in water and
washings in alkali; of the scrubbings, and the scourings, and the
scaldings, and the rinsings, which the neat and tidy Dutch dairy-women
give all the utensils of the dairy, from the pails to the firkins and
the casks, and also to their extreme carefulness that no infectious odor
rises from the surroundings. I think you will see that it is a physical
impossibility that any taint can affect the atmosphere or the utensils
of such a dairy, and that many of the details of their practice may be
worthy of imitation in our American dairies.
And here allow me to suggest that, though we may not approve of the
general management in any particular section, or any particular dairy,
it is rare that there is not something in the practice of that section
that is really valuable and worthy of imitation.
On pages 231 and 234 I have called your attention to the use of the
sponge and clean cloth for absorbing and removing the butter-milk in the
most thorough manner; this I regard as of great importance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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