In very warm weather, with no more protection than is generally found in small dairies, it is not often possible to keep milk over twenty-four hours before skimming. Every minute the cream remains on the milk, after it changes, is an injury to the butter. Thirty-six hours is the proper time for milk to stand, when the weather is cool enough to keep it sweet. Some keep it forty-eight hours, on the plea that more butter is secured. We doubt if it is so; but whatever is gained in quantity, by keeping milk so long unskimmed, is certainly lost in quality. Many think it important to keep the cream till _ripe_, or sour, before churning. We think it a mistake, if good, sweet butter is the thing sought. In cool weather we churn when the cream is as sweet as that which is used for coffee. In July and August the cream _will_ sour, and the flavor of the butter shows the difference. As soon as the butter “comes,” it must be well washed down from the sides of the churn, and gathered into a mass. If very warm, wash a piece of ice and put it into the churn, leaving the butter five or ten minutes to harden before putting it into the “butter-bowl,” which, with the butter-ladle and churn, should have been kept full of cold water all night. When the butter is firm enough to work over, take it into the bowl and throw in a handful of salt; we fancy it causes the buttermilk to run off more easily; work out all the buttermilk as gently as possible; too much working or rough handling injures the grain of the butter. This done, pour in ice-water; wash the butter through that; pour off, and add more, till the water runs clear. Twice washing, in a generous quantity, should be sufficient. Then taste, and see how much more salt is needed. After the washing, press the butter with the ladle till no water runs; toss it into a compact roll, cover with a clean linen cloth, and put into the ice-chest till next morning, when it must be again broken up, worked over, and packed into a butter-pail or jar, pounded down compactly, and covered with strong brine, in which pulverized saltpetre--a great spoonful to four quarts of brine--has been dissolved. Cover the jar or pail closely, and set in the ice-chest or a cool place. This method will insure good butter the year round. It is the buttermilk left in most of our market butter that gives us so much poor butter. If that remains, no brine or care can make it sweet. The Blanchard Churn is, we think, one of the safest and most convenient, as the washing, salting, and working can be almost entirely done in the churn, by turning the wings, or dasher, back and forth half-way,--pressing out the buttermilk and salting it more evenly and with far less fatigue. XV. MAKING CHEESE.