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

by Charles Louis Flint

Both kinds are of different sizes, according as the quantity of cream is greater or less, or as they are to be worked by hand or animal power simply, or by machinery. In South Holland, where unquestionably the most butter is made, the barrel-churn is at each end about two feet and two inches in diameter, and in the centre is seven inches broader, with two-inch staves. The old churn, on the other hand, is usually fourteen inches at the top and twenty-five at the bottom.

In North Holland and West Friesland, also, sizes are found in which one hundred and fifty to two hundred quarts of cream can be churned. The churns have each a strong cover at the top, which fits into their rim about the thickness of the hand, with a hole in the middle for the dasher.

The churning is performed either by the hand motion of the dasher, as in all small dairies, and in the smallest churns, or by man-power with the help of certain mechanical contrivances. The means for effecting this are different, and so the churns have different names. In many dairies, for instance, they have a lever connected with the dasher; in other places they use a flexible pole, fixed into the ceiling above, for facilitating the motion of the dasher, or put a lever in motion with the feet, which raises and sinks the dasher. There are also complicated artificial butter-machines and butter-mills, which are named after the inventor, the manufacturer, or the motive power. The most known and widely used are the turning-mills, the wheel-mills, and the clock-work mills; as the Hand Butter-Mill of Valk, Fürst’s churn, etc.

There are also still more elaborate machine-works for moving the dasher, which are used in the larger dairies on account of their convenience and economy. Dog-power and horse-power churns are frequently met with.

Churning in the Common Churn.

—The use of this is well known. The dasher is moved up and down by hand, with the churn full of cream, till the butter particles are separated and collected together. The operator keeps his body in equilibrium, to exercise the power of moving the dasher regularly for agitating the cream.

The Lever Churn

is very commonly used in South Holland, [Fig. 101]. The churn itself is barrel-form, as already described, and the dasher is put in motion by a lever. The upper end is pierced with holes, through which runs an iron pin. In a beam of the ceiling two joists are firmly fixed, about a foot and five inches long and four inches square, and several inches apart. The longer arm of the lever is four feet and seven inches; the shorter, three feet and six inches. The churn stands under the short arm of the lever, where the dasher is fixed. By drawing the longer arm of the lever towards him, the operator presses the dasher down through the cream. This mode is far less wearisome than the hand-churn, because by the lever, with less expense of power, a far greater agitation is produced. A weight is sometimes attached to the longer arm, by which the power required is still further reduced.

Fig. 101.