THE DAIRY MAID
Manages the dairy, milks the cows, makes the butter, cheese, wheys, syllabubs, &c. attends the poultry, picks and prepares them for trussing, makes bread and fresh butter for the parlour every morning, and bakes all the bread of the family.
The greatest possible attention must be paid to the Dairy. Cleanliness being the primary object, all the utensils, shelves, and the floor, should be kept perfectly neat, and cold water should be frequently thrown over it.—There should be shutters to the Dairy to keep out the sun and hot air.
The cows should be milked at a regular and early hour, and their udders should be perfectly emptied, else the quantity given will be diminished. When you go to the cow, take with you, cold water and a sponge, and wash each cow’s udder; bathe it well with cold water, both in winter and summer, as that braces them and repels heat. But, if any cow has sore teats, let them be soaked in warm water twice a day, and either dressed with soft ointment, or bathed with spirits and water. In either case, the milk should be given to the pigs.
When the milk is brought into the Dairy, it should be strained and emptied into clean pans, immediately, in winter, but not till cool, in summer. Suffer no one to milk the cows but yourself, as much depends on their being dripped quite clean, particularly after a calf is taken away.
The quantity of milk given by cows, will be different according to their breed, health, pasturage, the length of time from calving, and other circumstances. Change of pasturage will tend to increase the quantity.
In good pastures, the average of each cow will be about three gallons a day from Lady-day to Michaelmas; and thence to Christmas, one gallon a day.
Cows will be profitable yielders of milk, to fourteen or fifteen years of age, if of a good breed. They should be fed well two or three weeks before calving, which will increase the quantity of milk. In gentlemen’s Dairies, more attention is paid to the beauty and size of cows, than to their produce.
It is absolutely necessary that the cows should be kept feeding whilst you are milking them.
It should be contrived that cows kept for a gentleman’s family, should calve at different seasons, and, particularly, that one or two should calve in August or September, to insure a supply of milk in winter.
When there is not a great demand for cream in the family, the Dairy-maid will take that opportunity to provide for the winter store. She should keep a regular weekly account of the quantity of milk given by each cow, and the quantity of butter she pots. The average of a good fair Dairy cow, during several months after calving, will be seven pounds of butter a week, and from three to five gallons of milk per day; afterwards, a weekly average of three or four pounds of butter, from barely half that quantity of milk. On an average, three gallons of good milk, will yield one pound of butter. The annual consumption of a good cow, turned to grass, is from an acre to an acre and a half in the summer, and from a ton to a ton and a half of hay, in the winter. Each cow should be allowed two pecks of carrots per day. The grass, if cut and carried to the cows green, will economize full one-third.
Alderney cows yield rich milk, upon less food, than larger cows, but are seldom large milkers, and are particularly scanty of produce in the winter.
Wages from 8l. to 12l. a year.—Perquisites, 1d. per pound for butter; 1½d. for each chicken, or fowl killed; 2d. each, for ducks, geese, and turkeys; and 3d. a score for eggs.
TO PRESERVE MILK.
Provide bottles which must be perfectly clean, sweet, and dry; draw the milk from the cow into the bottles, and as they are filled, immediately cork them well up, and fasten the corks with pack-thread or wire. Then spread a little straw on the bottom of a boiler, on which place the bottles with straw between them, until the boiler contains a sufficient quantity. Fill it up with cold water; heat the water, and as soon as it begins to boil, draw the fire, and let the whole gradually cool. When quite cold take out the bottles, and pack them with straw or saw-dust in hampers, and stow them in the coolest part of the house. Milk preserved in this manner, although eighteen months in the bottles, will be as sweet as when first milked from the cow.
TO MANAGE YOUNG CHICKENS.
The chickens first hatched, are to be taken from the hen, lest she be tempted to leave her task unfinished. They may be secured in a basket of wool or soft hay, and kept in a moderate heat, if the weather be cold, near the fire. They will require no food for 24 hours, should it be necessary to keep them so long from the hen. The whole brood being hatched, place the hen under a coop abroad, upon a dry spot, and, if possible, not within reach of another hen, since the chickens will mix, and the hens are apt to destroy those which do not belong to them. Nor should they be placed near young fowls, which are likely to crush them, being always eager for their small meat.
The first food should be split grits, afterwards tail wheat, all watery food, soaked bread, or potatoes, being improper. Eggs boiled hard, or curd chopped small, is very suitable as first food. Their water should be pure and often renewed, and there are pans made in such forms, that the chickens may drink without getting into the water, which, by wetting their feet and feathers, numbs and injures them; a bason in the middle of a pan of water, will answer the end; the water running round it. There is no necessity for cooping the brood beyond two or three days, but they may be confined as occasion requires, or suffered to range, as they are much benefited by the foraging of the hen. They should not be let out too early in the morning, whilst the dew lies upon the ground, nor be suffered to range over wet grass, which is a common and fatal cause of disease in fowls. Another caution requisite is to guard them against unfavourable changes of the weather, particularly if rainy. Nearly all the diseases of fowls arise from cold moisture.
For the period of the chickens quitting the hen, there is no general rule; when she begins to roost, if sufficiently forward, they will follow her; if otherwise, they should be secured in a proper place, till the time arrives when they are to associate with the other young poultry, since the larger are sure to overrun and drive from their food the younger broods.
TO FATTEN POULTRY.
An experiment has lately been tried of feeding geese with turnips, cut in small pieces like dice, but less in size, and put into a trough of water; with this food alone, the effect was, that six geese, each when lean weighed only 9 lbs., actually gained 20 lbs. each in about three weeks fattening.
Malt is excellent food for geese and turkeys; grains are preferred for the sake of economy, unless for immediate and rapid fattening; the grains should be boiled afresh.
Other cheap articles for fattening, are oatmeal and treacle; barley-meal and milk; boiled oats, and ground malt.
Corn before being given to fowls should always be crushed and soaked in water. The food will thus go further, and it will help digestion. Hens fed thus have been known to lay during the whole of the winter months.
TO DETERMINE THE ECONOMY OF A COW.
The annual product of a good fair dairy cow, during several months after calving, either in summer or winter, if duly fed and kept in the latter season, will be an average of seven pounds of butter per week, and from five to three gallons of milk per day. Afterwards, a weekly average of three or four pounds of butter from barely half the quantity of milk. It depends on the constitution of the cow, how nearly she may be milked to the time of her calving, some giving good milk until within a week or two of that period, others requiring to be dried 8 or 9 weeks previously. I have heard (says Mr. Lawrence) of 20 lbs. of butter, and even 22 lbs. made from the milk of one long-horned cow in seven days; but I have never been fortunate enough to obtain one that would produce more than 12 lbs. per week, although I have had a Yorkshire cow which milked 7 gallons per day, yet never made 5 lbs. of butter in one week. On the average 3 gallons of good milk will make 1 lb. of butter.
TO MAKE SALT BUTTER FRESH.
To every pound of salt butter put a quart of new milk, and a little arnotto. Churn it an hour, then take it out and treat it as fresh butter, by washing it with water, and add the usual quantity of salt. The butter gains about three ounces in the pound.
SUBSTITUTE FOR MILK AND CREAM.
Beat up the whole of a fresh egg, in a basin, then pour boiling tea over it gradually, to prevent its curdling. It is difficult, from the taste, to distinguish the composition from rich cream.
TO PRESERVE EGGS.
Apply with a brush a solution of gum-arabic to the shells, or immerse the eggs therein; let them dry, and afterwards pack them in dry charcoal dust. This prevents their being affected by any alterations of temperature.
Another Way.
Immerse them for a short time in strong lime-water, and they may be kept two years, if required.
TO TEST THE PURITY OF FLOUR.
Grasp a handful briskly, and squeeze it half a minute: if genuine, it will preserve the form of the cavity of the hand, even though rudely placed on a table; if adulterated, it will almost immediately fall down.
TO PRODUCE ONE-THIRD MORE BREAD FROM A GIVEN QUANTITY OF CORN.
Boil 5 lbs. of the coarsest bran in four gallons and half of water, keep stirring it, that it may not stick to the bottom, till reduced to four gallons, then pour it off into a trough, or tub full of holes, over which lay a coarse cloth or sieve. On the top of the whole put a wooden cover, with a weight sufficiently heavy to press out the liquor from the bran, which will sink to the bottom of the tub in a thick pulp. This liquor will contain the essential oil of the corn, and when kneaded in with half a hundred weight of flour, and the usual quantity of salt and yeast, it will yield one-third more bread than the same quantity of flour would, made with water in the usual way. Divide into middle sized loaves and bake two hours and a half.
When ten days old put it into the oven for twenty minutes and it will appear quite new.
TO MAKE FLOUR PASTE.
Paste is made principally of wheaten flour boiled in water till it be of a glutinous or viscid consistence. It may be thus prepared simply for common purposes; but when it is required for paper hangings to rooms, it is usual to mix a fourth, fifth, or sixth of the weight of the flour of powdered resin; and where it is wanted still more tenacious, gum arabic, or any kind of size may be added.