The milk-can should, by all means, be kept out of the sun's rays, and in a clean airy place. As to the importance of airing milk, there is a difference of opinion. Some assert that the airing is beneficial only so far as it assists in cooling, and that if we can succeed in cooling the milk down to 60°, or thereabouts, immediately after milking, we shall attain all the good results apparent from exposure to the air. All the "animal odors," they say, disappear. Be that as it may, it is scarcely possible to cool milk without more or less exposure to the atmosphere, and we have never heard it claimed that any bad consequences follow this exposure. It is possible, however, that it may more rapidly absorb oxygen, and thus sooner sour. The probability is, that any process which will secure the proper cooling will also afford the necessary exposure for the escape of all animal or other odors likely to pass off in the form of gas. Therefore, practically, it is of very little importance whether we consider the question of airing milk, in any of the stages of its management. So we will first look after the processes which secure known advantages.
Several inventions for the purpose of cooling milk have made their appearance within the past year or two. Some for the use of factories, which seem to work quite satisfactorily, and others for the use of farmers, none of which, we believe, have yet been received with much favor. They are mostly too complicated, if not too expensive, and too difficult to keep clean, to ever become generally adopted. Yet, enough has already been developed to convince us that the desideratum, of a satisfactory apparatus for cooling milk as fast as, or soon after, it is taken from the cow, can be realized. The great trouble is, to make farmers use it faithfully, if at all.
The cooling of milk as fast as milked, or very soon afterward, is the great question now presented to farmers and cheese-makers. It is of quite as much and more consequence, than keeping it cool at the factory--for milk is often so far advanced in decomposition, if not actually sour or tainted, when received, that it is impossible to work it up satisfactorily. Some Yankee must give us a simple and cheap apparatus that will effect the desired result. Such an invention will greatly improve the quality and increase the consumption and price of American cheese. But, in the absence of anything better, the can set in a tub of water and the milk frequently stirred, would be a great improvement on starting for the factory with hot milk. If the water can be made to constantly run into the tub, fresh and cool, as the warm water runs out, so much the better. Another improvement would be some kind of wagon-cover, permitting the air to pass under it, to keep off the sun in clear weather and keep out the rain in wet weather. The hot rays of the sun, pouring on a can of milk for the distance of two or three miles, perhaps--especially if the milk is not cooled before starting--cannot fail to do it serious injury. Milk thus exposed often has a very offensive smell when it reaches the factory-door. This shows that it is already tainted and in a condition to injure the good milk in the vat into which it is run, and cause a porous or "huffy" curd.