Our Farm of Four Acres and the Money We Made by It

by Miss Coulton

"The cream gone to sleep!" What in the world could that mean? Such a propensity we had never discovered in cream before; we could gain no solution of the mystery from Tom; all he said was, that we must go on churning till it "waked up."

H. and myself had been hard at work for two hours, so willingly yielded to his request that he might be allowed to rouse the cream from its slumber. He, the cook, and housemaid, churned away by turns till seven in the evening, but the sleep of the cream remained unbroken, and as it was then considered a hopeless affair, the slothful fluid was consigned to the pig-tub.

Now we have never felt quite sure of our butter since. Every time we churn there is a lurking fear that the cream may choose to take a nap; however, it is as yet the first and last time in our experience.

I can give no advice to my readers on the subject, because I am wholly ignorant on the subject, though I have consulted every farmer's wife in the neighborhood on the matter. They all say that cream will go to sleep sometimes, though it usually wakes up after a few hours.* [I have since been told by an old woman conversant with sleepy cream, that a quart of milk nearly boiling hot will wake it up.] Perhaps, after all, we were too impatient, and should not have given in after only nine hours' churning. With this solitary exception our butter-making progressed as favorably as we could desire.

I do not quite know how to believe the stories I am told of wonderful cows which my friends are fortunate enough to possess. One gentleman has informed me that he has one which gives fifteen pounds of butter weekly. Now we have had several, but never made more on the average than eight pounds per week. I believe that a great deal depends on the manner in which they are milked, and once in the hands of a beginner in that art the cows decreased in milk so rapidly, that we did not get more than a gallon daily from both animals; after they had been three weeks under his management we changed the milker, but did not get anything like the proper quantity again till after they had calved.

I believe the usual average is one pound of butter from every ten quarts of milk. Ours used to give us thirteen or fourteen quarts each daily, and yet we never made more than eight pounds. We used about two quarts of new milk, so that if ten quarts will give a pound of butter, we did not get so much as we ought. Still we were very well satisfied with the produce we received.

There requires management with two cows, in order that one may always be in full milk when the other calves. If you rear a calf for the butcher, it will require the whole of the milk for six or seven weeks, which is about the age they are killed for fine veal. We once—it was in the winter—received $26 for one. With two cows this may usually be done, and its is more profitable than making butter. Where only one is kept, it is better to part with the calf when a few days old, and then the price is $5.

If a lady wishes her dairy to be very nicely finished, she should have all the articles she requires of glass, instead of wood and earthenware. Everything for the diary of that material can be purchased in Leicester Square, and certainly, if expense had been no object to us, we should much have preferred a glass churn, pans, &c. They have the great advantage of being kept beautifully clean with very little labor; but they are so liable to be broken, that they should never be used unless servants are very careful. A marble table is, however, in every respect better than a board to make the butter upon. It is expensive at first, but will, with ordinary care, last several generations of butter-makers.

Whilst on the subject of the dairy, I must say a few words respecting the great care required in washing the articles used in it. As soon as the butter was taken from the churn I was in the habit of half filling it with boiling water, into which I had put some lumps of soda, and then turning the handle a few times, in order that it might be well washed round. It was then left till it was convenient for "cook" to cleanse all the utensils we had used.

From some cause or other I neglected for two or three weeks to do this, and one day, when the freshmade butter was brought to table, there were complaints that it was cheesy; it certainly had a peculiar and very unpleasant taste, for which we could not account.