Addkess, on Butti<:k-_Mak.lng. ujT 



cheese in these few words: Cleanliness and careful attention fro 

 the little details. If you will mind these things you will make 

 good butter; if you neglect any of them, you will have poor butter 

 as a result. 



Questions. 



By a Member. — What is the nature of a starter? 



Answer. — The nature of a starter is to get a clean culture of 

 lactic acid germs; it don't make so much difference how you do it, 

 if it is only a pure culture. Prof. Harding, the bacteriologist 

 at Geneva Station, secured a culture that would produce good 

 clean lactic acid and would not produce gas. You must get the 

 lactic acid germ that doesn't produce gas. He took some of these 

 germs that he had and put into a little sterilized skim-milk 

 which had been heated to 190 degrees Fahrenheit, with hot water 

 around it. He kept it in a closed can for an hour and a half 

 and then cooled it down to 70 degrees, added the germ, and let it 

 develop. The next day it was a nice clean sour — not hard; it 

 should not be hard and crumbly; it must be a soft — just nicely 

 thickened, and to the taste a nice clean sour. Of course, you 

 can get the same thing by using either one of the different com- 

 mercial powders and make a culture in the same way, putting 

 the powder into the sterilized skim-milk and allowing it to develop 

 and then taking a small quantity of that to put into your next 

 sterilized skim-milk and carrying it along that way. 



By a Member. — Do you recommend its use? 



Answer. — Of a starter? I do most emphatically. 



By a Member. — What is it for? 



Answer. — When your wife starts her sponge to make bread 

 she puts in yeast, doesn't she? It is on the same principle that 

 we use the starter in the cream. If she did not use the yeast she 

 would not have light, sweet bread; if she trusts to luck to raise 

 the sponge she would not have very good bread, would she? You 

 do the same thing when you set your cream — not quite as strong 

 as that, perhaps, but it is on the same principle. When you set 

 your cream with no starter you trust to luck to get what you 

 want; perhaps you will get it and perhaps you won't. One thing 

 you must remember: If you have 1,000 lactic acid plants and 

 1,200 gas-producing plants, the 1,200 plants are the ones that 

 are going to carry the day. If you have more lactic acid than 

 gas, then the lactic acid will carry the day; but, if you have more 

 gas, you will get the after-effect in that old greasy smell. I don't 

 think there is any one who is succeeding in making that high, fine 



