494 Agncultural Gazette of N.S.W. [Jidy 2, 1920. 



" Rancid." 



The terra " rancid " is one which it is not very often found necessary to 

 use, except in connection with some low second or third grade butters or 

 witli vor}' stale old butter, although it is sometimes noticed in a mild form in 

 fresh butter. It produces a very strong and unpleasant aroma by which the 

 trouble can be at oijce identified. 



Strange to say, I have come across this fault on a few occasions in a 

 number of fresh butters, the brands concerned being rather well-known ones. 

 In one instance which I have in mind, the centre of a box of butter tasted 

 very cooked, the flavour being very similar to tliat of condensed milk, but the 

 extreme outside surface smelt and tasted extremelv rancid. Whether or not 

 the over-heating of the fat in the process of pasteurisation had rendered it 

 more susceptible to the "access of air, warmth, and the presence of various 

 micro-organisms," which Pcrcival, the English bacteriologist, quotes as three 

 of the seven " conditions which govern and accelerate rancidity," cannot be 

 determined with certainty, but the distinct rancid flavour only being apparent 

 on the extreme outside surface, and not in tlie interior of the box of butter, 

 leads one to believe that such was the case in this instance. It certainly 

 helps to prove that rancidity, when developed after the butter is made, works 

 from the outside sui-face inwards. 



As I have also come across cream which I have known to be fresh and 

 appai'ontly containing very little acid and yet tasting distinctly rancid, and 

 have traced the cause without a shadow of a doubt to a deep-seated, filthy 

 contamination, I am convinced that bacterial contamination through filth is 

 one of the main causes of this fault, for cream such as this would certainly 

 make rancid butter. 



Both Percival and Conn agree that Fluorescens liquefaciens and certain 

 species of bacteria which cause liutyric acid fermentation play a part in the 

 production of this flavour in butter. The former organism being associated 

 with bad water, and having a putrefactive action on certain constituents of 

 butter and cream, it behoves both the farmer and the factor'y manage)' to see 

 that the water supply at the farm and the factory is an unpolluted one, 

 especially as this germ is often found to be present in other inferior butter 

 beside the one mentioned. 



(Ih be continued.) 



Colouring in Black Orpingtons. 



Answering recent inquiries with regard to colour faults in Black Orpingtons, 

 the Poultry Expert stated that it is a feature of almost all strains to show 

 some purple colour. This does not mean impurity, but is a fault from a 

 standard point of view ; beetle green is the right colour. Red in the hackle 

 is so serious a fault as to cause a bird to be rejected as a breeder, while pink 

 legs and feet, instead of Ijlack ones with white toe-nails, is also serious, being 

 [)0ssibly due to foreign blood. The standard requirement for eye colour is 

 'lark brown iris. 



