The cream separator represents another step of the milking
process. Early ones, like Dennis Nickerson’s early Montgomery Ward
& Co. settling separator, were static machines. Milk was poured
in and allowed to settle. After the cream rose to the top, a bottom
spigot was opened and the milk drained off. Mostly cream was left.
“A separator like this probably wasted some of the cream,” Dennis
it with the milk again.” The resulting skim milk was dross, fed to
calves, pigs, cats, anything that would eat it, including chickens,
and on at least one farm, Dennis says, a pony.
Later cream separators were hand-cranked. One type contained a
centrifugal force bell that rang until the hand crank was turned
fast enough to get the separator up to a speed adequate to separate
the cream and milk. Only then would the noise cease. This one was
probably unpopular with children, as it was immediately obvious
when they weren’t doing their jobs. Dennis recalls another model
that used the second hand on a big wall clock. When the separator
reached 23 revolutions per half-minute, milk was poured in, making
the handle turn harder. Later, of course, electric cream separators
were offered.
Cream separators came in different sizes. Many, like the
collectibles most commonly seen today, were large. Tabletop models
were offered as well. The Nickersons have a tabletop De Laval in
their collection. This type was used when a family had just one or
two cows, with very little milk to separate.
Home cream and milk pasteurizers became popular during the
1950s. Prior to that, Dennis says, milk and cream were never
pasteurized. “People drank the milk straight from the cow, but
after people started getting sick from the milk,” Dennis says, “a
lot of people wanted to pasteurize their own milk.”
The problem, it was eventually discovered, was the joints on the
milk buckets. Bacteria invaded the joints and could not be washed
out, so jointed buckets were outlawed. “I know there was a time
when they were thinking dairy farmers weren’t going to be able to
milk with milking machines,” he says, “until they came up with a
process where they could form stainless steel into buckets.” The
Nickerson collection includes a Montgomery Ward & Co.
pasteurizer.
Another required item for milking was the Babcock Milk Tester, a
small centrifuge used to determine butterfat content of the cream
at creameries. “Creamery managers would pour cream into a little
glass vial and put it in the centrifuge with sulfuric acid, spin
it, and the butterfat would jump into the neck of the measuring
bottle,” Dennis explains. The creamery worker then measured the
amount of butterfat with a caliper. The higher the butter-fat
content, the bigger the dairy farmer’s check. The Babcock Milk
Tester was also used to test the home separator’s efficiency.
