Agriculture for Beginners by Daniel Harvey Hill (top ten ebook reader TXT) 📖
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Fig. 270. Airing the Cans
Along with its dry matter, its protein, its carbohydrates, and its fats, milk and its products possess another most important property. This property is hard to describe, for its elements and its powers are not yet fully understood. We do, however, know certainly this much: milk and the foods made from it have power to promote health and favor growth in a more marked degree than any other foods. It is generally agreed that this is due to the health-promoting and health-preserving substances which are called vitamines. Men of science are working with much care to try to add to our knowledge of these vitamines, which have so marvelous an influence on the health of all animals. Unless food, no matter how good otherwise, contains these vitamines, it does not nourish the body nor preserve bodily health as it should. A complete lack of vitamines in our food would cause death. Since, then, milk and its products—butter, cheese, curds—are rich in vitamines, these health-giving and health-preserving foods should form a regular part of each person's diet.
Fig. 271. A Hand Separator
Cream. Cream is simply a mixture of butter-fat and milk. The butter-fat floats in the milk in little globe-shaped bodies, or globules. Since these globules are lighter than milk, they rise to the surface. Skimming the milk is a mere gathering together of these butter-fat globules. As most of the butter-fat is contained in the cream, pains should be taken to get all the cream from the milk at skimming time.
After the cream has been collected, it must be allowed to "ripen" or to "sour" in order that it may be more easily churned. Churning is only a second step to collect in a compact shape the fat globules. It often happens that at churning-time the cream is too warm for successful separation of the globules. Whenever this is the case the cream must be cooled.
The Churn. Revolving churns without inside fixtures are best. Hence, in buying, select a barrel or a square box churn. This kind of churn "brings the butter" by the falling of the cream from side to side as the churn is revolved. Never fill the churn more than one-third or one-half full of cream. A small churn is always to be avoided.
Fig. 272. A Power Churn
Churning. The proper temperature for churning ranges from 58° to 62° Fahrenheit. Test the cream when it is put into the churn. If it be too cold, add warm water until the proper temperature is reached; if too warm, add cold water or ice until the temperature is brought down to 62°. Do not churn too long, for this spoils butter. As soon as the granules of butter are somewhat smaller than grains of wheat, stop the churn. Then draw off the buttermilk and at a temperature as low as 50° wash the butter in the churn. This washing with cold water so hardens the granules that they do not mass too solidly and thus destroy the grain.
Butter. The butter so churned is now ready to be salted. Use good fine dairy salt. Coarse barrel salt is not fit for butter. The salt can be added while the butter is still in the churn or after it is put upon the butter-worker. Never work by hand. The object of working is to get the salt evenly distributed and to drive out some of the brine. It is usually best to work butter twice. The two workings bring about a more even mixture of the salt with the butter and drive off more water. But one cannot be too particular not to overwork butter. Delicate coloring, attractive stamping with the dairy owner's special stamp, and proper covering with paper cost little and of course add to the ready and profitable sale of butter.
Dairy RulesStable and Cows
1. Whitewash the stable once or twice each year; use land plaster, muck, or loam daily in the manure-gutters.
2. On their way to pasture or milking-place, do not allow the cows to be driven at a faster gait than a comfortable walk.
3. Give abundance of pure water.
4. Do not change feed suddenly.
5. Keep salt always within reach of each cow.
Milking
1. Milk with dry hands.
2. Never allow the milk to touch the milker's hands.
3. Require the milker to be clean in person and dress.
4. Milk quietly, quickly, thoroughly. Never leave a drop of milk in the cow's udder.
5. Do not allow cats, dogs, or other animals around at milking-time.
Utensils
1. Use only tin or metal cans and pails.
2. See that all utensils are thoroughly clean and free from rust.
3. Require all cans and pails to be scalded immediately after they are used.
4. After milking, keep the utensils inverted in pure air, and sun them, if possible, until they are wanted for use.
5. Always sterilize the churn with steam or boiling water before and after churning. This prevents any odors or bad flavors from affecting the butter. All cans, pails, and bottles should also be sterilized daily.
SECTION LXII. HOW MILK SOURS
Fig. 273. Microscopic Appearance of Pure and Impure Milk
On another page you have been told how the yeast plant grows in cider and causes it to sour, and how bacteria sometimes cause disease in animals and plants. Now you must learn what these same living forms have to do with the souring of milk, and maybe you will not forget how you can prevent your milk from souring. In the first place, milk sours because bacteria from the air fall into the milk, begin to grow, and very shortly change the sugar of the milk to an acid. When this acid becomes abundant, the milk begins to curdle. As you know, the bacteria are in air, in water, and in barn dust; they stick on bits of hay and stick to the cow. They are most plentiful, however, in milk that has soured; hence, if we pour a little sour milk into a pail of fresh milk, the fresh milk will sour very quickly, because we have, so to speak, "seeded" or "planted" the fresh milk with the souring germs. No one, of course, ever does this purposely in the dairy, yet people sometimes do what amounts to the same thing—that is, put fresh milk into poorly cleaned pails or pans, the cracks and corners of which are cozy homes for millions of germs left from the last sour milk contained in the vessel. It follows, then, that all utensils used in the dairy should be thoroughly scalded so as to kill all germs present, and particular care should be taken to clean the cracks and crevices, for in them the germs lurk.
In addition to this thorough cleansing with hot water, we should be careful never to stir up the dust of the barn just before milking. Such dusty work as pitching hay or stover or arranging bedding should be done either after or long before milking-time, for more germs fall into the milk if the air be full of dust.
To further avoid germs the milker should wear clean overalls, should have clean hands, and, above all, should never wet his hands with milk. This last habit, in addition to being filthy, lessens the keeping power of the milk. The milker should also moisten the parts of the cow which are nearest him, so that dust from the cow's sides may not fall into the milker's pail. For greater cleanliness and safety many milkmen curry their cows.
The first few streams from each teat should be thrown away, because the teat at its mouth is filled with milk which, having been exposed to the air, is full of germs, and will do much toward souring the other milk in the pail. Barely a gill will be lost by throwing the first drawings away, and this of the poorest milk too. The increase in the keeping quality of the milk will much more than repay the small loss. If these precautions are taken, the milk will keep several hours or even several days longer than milk carelessly handled. By taking these steps to prevent germs from falling into the milk, a can of milk was once kept sweet for thirty-one days.
The work of the germ in the dairy is not, however, confined to souring the milk. Certain kinds of germs give to the different sorts of cheeses their marked flavors and to butter its flavor. If the right germ is present, cheese or butter gets a proper flavor. Sometimes undesirable germs gain entrance and give flavors that we do not like. Such germs produce cheese or butter diseases. "Bitter butter" is one of these diseases. To keep out all unpleasant meddlers, thoroughly cleanse and scald every utensil.
EXERCISE
What causes milk to sour? Why do unclean utensils affect the milk? How should milk be cared for to prevent its souring? Prepare two samples, one carefully, the other carelessly. Place them side by side. Which keeps longer? Why?
SECTION LXIII. THE BABCOCK MILK-TESTERIt is not sufficient for a farmer or a dairyman to know how much milk each of his cows yields. He should also know how rich the milk is in butter-fat. Wide-awake makers of butter and cheese now buy milk, not by the pound or by the gallon, but by the amount of butter-fat contained in each pound or gallon of milk. A gallon of milk containing four and a half per cent of fat will consequently be worth more than a gallon containing only three per cent of fat. So it may happen that a cow giving only two gallons of milk may pay a butter-maker more than a cow giving three gallons of milk. Of course it is easy to weigh or measure the quantity of milk given by a cow, and most milkers keep this record; but until recent years there was no way to find out the amount of fat in a cow's milk except by a slow and costly chemical test. Dairymen could only guess at the richness of milk.
In 1890 Dr. S. M. Babcock of the Wisconsin Experiment Station invented a wonderful little machine that quickly and cheaply measures the fat in milk. Few machines are more useful. So desirous was Dr. Babcock of helping the farmers that he would not add to the cost of his machine by taking out a patent on his invention. His only reward has been the fame won by the invention of the machine, which bears his name. This most useful tester is now made in various sizes so that every handler of milk may buy one suited to his needs and do his own testing at very little cost.
The operation of the machine is very simple. Suppose that the members of the class studying this book
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