370 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



I have been very careful in this scoring to place the scores as nearly- 

 right as it was possible to do, and have not padded them. The quality- 

 was there, and all it was necessary to do was to recognize it. I will 

 speak of the bad points first, leaving the good for the last. 



In the first place, I will speak of the appearance of the packages 

 and tops as the butter is opened up for inspection. This is a very 

 important matter, and you should make a special effort to have this 

 perfect, so that the judge will approach the butter with a feeling that, 

 judging from outward appearances, this butter should be fine. Now, 

 how can one so prepare his tub? I would advise all to use ash tubs 

 if possible to get them, for two reasons. First, the spruce tubs soil 

 much more easily than the ash, and, second, there is much more dan- 

 ger of woody flavor in the butter. You should spend about five 

 minutes with a piece of coarse sand paper in smoothing off the rough- 

 ness from hoops, sides and cover. This is so easily done and adds 

 much to the attractiveness of the exhibit. The tub should be thor- 

 oughly steamed and then carefully paraffined, having the tub hot, 

 and parraffine about 200 degrees F. Apply the parraffine with a 

 brush. If it is done in this manner there will be a very thin coating 

 on the inside of the tub, and not thick scales, as was found on some 

 of the tubs in this exhibit. Line the tub carefully, allowing the liner 

 to lap over on top of the butter i of an inch. After the butter is 

 packed, cut the top off smoothly with a string, lap liner over on to the 

 butter, add a cloth circle of correct size, dampen it and sprinkle a 

 thin layer of salt over the surface; add a parchment circle, then the 

 cover, using two or three tins to fasten, and the deed is done. The 

 20-pound tub should be packed inside a 60-pound tub, filling in be- 

 tween with papers, so that it may come through in the same condition 

 as shipped. Some at this contest did not do this, and the tubs were 

 poorly handled and presented a poor appearance. If the tubs and 

 papers are thoroughly cooled before shipping, the butter is very apt 

 to come through without heating. Some of the buttermakers failed 

 to lap the liner over the top of the butter, and all the variations be- 

 tween.. It would be much better if this could all be uniform. 



Now the workmanship. One would expect this to be near perfec- 

 tion in an exhibit like this, but although rather lenient on this pont. 

 and passing those I thought would pass on the market without criticism 

 still there were 20 marked defective in body, 30 off in color and two 

 in salt. There were 44 exhibits scored off, therefore some of them 

 were defective in both body and color. I have no doubt that some of 

 these defects were due to your having a smaller churning than usual, 

 and in the fear of overdoing it, have failed to work the butter enough 

 to give it a firm waxy body and straight color. This is very impor- 

 tant, and in this contest several of the high flavored tubs were kept 

 out of the "shake down" and chance of winning just on ai-count of 

 waxy or mottled color. There seems to be a tendency to salt butter 

 very high, no doubt with the idea of increasing the overrun, and in 

 many cases to cover up something in the flavor. I hate to see this, 

 and believe it will be a good thing for the industry, from the stand- 



