DAIRY PRODUCTS. 275 



seems in general practice, to be entirely unsettled. Yet it 

 cannot be denied that it is an important element in making 

 good butter. It varies from five minutes to three hours. It 

 is desirable to have some accurate experiments to determine 

 this point. 



Various Circumstances which affect the Quality of 

 Butter. — Butter produced in one district differs often in quality 

 from that produced in another, even though the same method 

 of manufacture be adopted. In different seasons, also, the same 

 farm will produce different qualities of butter. When cows 

 are pastured the most delicious butter is obtained in May and 

 June. It is the hardest when the animal lives on dry food. 

 Autumn butter is best for long keeping. The constitution of 

 the animal also is known to affect the quality of the butter, for 

 there are some cows which, with the best food, never yield 

 first rate butter. But from the same milk, and even from 

 the same cream, very different qualities of butter may be 

 obtained. If the milk be divided into two portions, that which 

 is last drawn from the cow is the richer. The first cream that 

 rises on any milk is always the richest, and makes the finest 

 flavored butter. It is quite important to determine by experi- 

 ment, whether it would pay to separate the milk into various 

 portions, for the purpose of making a superior and an inferior 

 quality of butter. 



Preservation of Butter. — The rancidity of butter is caused 

 by the action of the cheesy matter on the milk sugar and the 

 fat. This is further increased by the influence of the oxygen 

 of the atmosphere. In the manufacture of butter, therefore, 

 it is important to free it as completely as possible from the 

 curd and sugar of milk. This is effected in two ways, by 

 kneading and pressing, and by washing the butter in cold 

 water, until the milky substance disappears. "When butter 

 is to be kept a long time, it may not be well to adopt the 

 method of washing which is expressly stated, as the custom 

 of all the competitors but one. The water may contain impu- 

 rities of various kinds, which the butter is sure to extract, 

 and thereby become rancid. The washing process, also, 

 exposes the particles of the butter too much to the atmos- 

 phere. It is indispensably necessary to the preservation 

 of butter for any length of time, to exclude the air from 



