180 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTUEE. 



pounds of pure oil of milk (butyric acid) , put it in a vessel, a 

 common cheese-tub (the oil taken from milk in June when 

 the milk is rich in oil) , and stir it well some fifteen or twenty 

 minutes, then weigh it; you will have one hundred pounds 

 of the best butter you ever saw. "But," says one, "where 

 does the other twenty-two pounds come from ? " It is oxy- 

 gen (the oil of milk has a great affinity for oxygen) taken 

 from the atmosphere ; and here let us note an important fact 

 in order to have good butter. The oil of milk, or cream, and 

 milk itself, not only absorb oxygen, but several other gases 

 which are more or less noxious ; therefore we can see the 

 necessity of having our milk-rooms as free as possible from 

 all noxious gases. 



Therefore, about seventy-eight pounds of oil of milk and 

 twenty-two of oxygen will make one hundred pounds of the 

 best butter that has yet been made. What is the difference 

 between June and winter butter? It is this, viz. : TMiile our 

 June butter has from fifteen to nineteen per cent, of oxygen 

 in it, winter has only from five to twelve per cent, of oxygen, 

 the oil from winter milk being so poor it will not take in 

 more, not much better than lard. 



How can we always have good butter? First, healthy 

 cows, cream taken from the milk within twenty-four hours 

 after milking, churned while sweet, butter washed in cold 

 water (with paddles, not with hands) until the buttermilk is 

 out, which will be when it does not color the water, not before ; 

 salt to -suit, put into air-tight tubs or cans, and your butter 

 will be as sweet and as good in one, two or three years as 

 when first made. 



• Or a better way is to churn the milk as soon as it is cold 

 enough, say sixty to sixty-five degrees. Try it, one and all, 

 and you will always have good butter. 



In making butter and cheese we use but two properties 

 that are in milk, viz. : Butyric acid or oil of milk, that 

 property in milk which we use in making butter, and case- 

 ine or curd, that part of milk which coagulates when ren- 

 net is put into it. 



Now I think, yea, am well satisfied, that I have made a 

 very important discovery in relation to milk, viz. : That the 

 butyric acid or oil of milk, from which all of our butter is 



