In winter, when the cows are in the barn, they are likewise milked twice a day, and the milk is at once strained through the hair strainer into casks made for the purpose. These implements differ according to the object pursued in the dairy; yet pans and pots are mostly used for raising the cream to be made into butter, since but few dairymen make cheese in winter.
All utensils necessary for milking, the preservation of milk, and the making of butter and cheese, are kept with the utmost neatness. Where a stream of running water flows through the yard, the implements are generally washed in that, and flowing water is preferred for the purpose. But where the farm or dairy-house stands at a distance from a stream, a shallow fountain, or basin, is dug out in the earth, walled up, and so arranged that the water can be taken from it and fresh water substituted when it gets impure. In such a basin, or in flowing water, all new wooden dairy utensils are soaked for a long time before being used; but those in daily use are washed, rinsed, and scoured out with ashes, with the greatest care. None but cold, clear, fresh fountain or flowing water is taken for cleansing dairy implements. It is to be observed that, in large dairies, the use of water which is covered with newly-fallen honey-dew, for washing the dairy utensils, is carefully avoided. When the milk-vessels have been perfectly rinsed out in fresh water, they are, in many dairies, put into a large kettle of water over the fire, and properly scalded; after which they are again cleanly washed with cold water, so that not the least particle of milk or impurity is to be seen, nor the least smell of it to be observed. The metallic milk-vessels and the metal parts of the wooden ones are cleansed with equal care and exactness, and kept polished. Dairymaids feel a pride in always having the brightest, most polished, and cleanest utensils, and each strives earnestly to excel the others in this respect.
When the milk-vessels are scoured, scalded, and rinsed perfectly clean, they are hung on a stand of laths and poles, made for the purpose, to be properly dried. The round wooden milk-bowls, being made of one piece, are very easily broken or split, and must be handled with very great care in cleaning. To avoid breaking, a peculiar table is used for scouring them.
The Dutch dairyman knows perfectly well that his dairy can secure him the highest profit only when the utmost cleanliness is the basis and groundwork of his whole business; and so he keeps, with the most extraordinary carefulness, and even with anxiety, the greatest possible neatness in all parts of the dairy establishment.
Determination of the Milking Qualities of the Cows.
—The Dutch cattle are, in general, renowned for their dairy qualities; but especially so are the cows of North Holland, which not only give a large quantity, but also a very good quality, so that a yield of sixteen to twenty-five cans[2] at every milking is not rare. Next to these come the West Friesland and South Dutch cows, from which from twenty to twenty-four cans of milk may be calculated on. Though one could not take a certain number and calculate surely what the yield of each cow would be, yet he could come very near the truth if he reckoned that a cow, in three hundred days, or as long as she is milked, gives, on an average, daily, from six to eight cans of milk, from which the whole annual yield would be from one thousand eight hundred to two thousand four hundred cans. Of this the cow gives one half in the first four months, one third in the next three, and in the remainder one sixth. These superficial results cannot be taken, however, as the fixed rule.
[2] A Dutch can is a little less than our wine quart
Professor Wilkins, in his Handbook of Agriculture, gives the following estimates of the yield of milk: A good West Friesland or Gröningen cow will, after calving, give daily fourteen quarts of milk. This will, after a while, be reduced to eight quarts. She may be milked three hundred and twenty-three days in the year, and her product in butter and cheese will amount to one hundred güldens.
In Prof. Kop’s Magazine it is stated that a medium-sized Friesland cow, which had had several calves, was giving daily, on good feed, five and a half to six buckets, or from twenty to twenty-two cans, and over. In South Holland, also, this quantity is considered a good yield of a cow. Of the cows of Gelderland, Overyssel, and Utrecht, the yield cannot be reckoned higher than sixteen cans daily, and that only during the first half of their milking season.