MILK AND CREAM.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5185, 3 November 1877, Page 2 (Supplement)

MILK AND CREAM.

Do the readers of your columns who are interested practically in dairy matters (writes a contributor to Land and Water) take the cream from the milk or the milk from the cream ? It seems at first sight that it would come much to the same thing in the end, whichever method was adopted ; but I can assure your readers that the latter process is very much the most advantageous plan, both in respect to quickness in the operation, and also in the greater quantity of cream obtained from the milk. I was visiting a large dairy in Yorkshire, and for the first time saw the system in operation of taking the milk from the cream, and I believe that that system is very little known out of that county. To take the milk from the cream requires the dairy utensils to be specially prepared for that purpose as follows :—ln the dairy I refer to the milk pans were oblong in shape, made of zinc, I think, 3ft. long by 2Jft. broad, and about 8 inces deep (I did not measure them at the time), and the bottom of the milkholder was about one inch smaller all round than the top, and each zinc basin was fitted into a wooden frame on four legs, which carried it about 2Jft. from the floor of thedairy. In the bottom of each zinc basin, near one corner, there was a hole made, and in that hole was soldered a piece of zinc pipe about two inches long, projecting under the basin, ana of such a diameter that a common bottle cork would fit into it. The method of tising the above apparatus was as follows :—When wishing to get the cream, the dairymaid placed a jug under the pipe, and withdrawing the cork allowed the milk to flow in a rapid stream, and just before the last of the milk was ready to escape, she replaced the cork, aud the result was that, in about one minute or less, an unbroken mass of cream was left in the basin—at least it was only broken round the edge. I think the above process well worthy of being adopted in all large dairies, as it seems to me to be a very great saving of time, aud it produces more cream.