THIRD ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VI. 331 



per pound. The churning and working of butter is another important fac- 

 tor which does not receive the attention it should from the creamerymeu 

 of the country. We have a law limiting the per cent of water in butter 

 to 16 per cent, yet we find the chemical analysis of butter in the six-month 

 contest is something less than 12 per cent. The maker who is able to 

 incorporate between 15 and 16 per cent of water in his butter will increase 

 his yield nearly four pounds to the hundred. Take an ordinary make of 

 500 pounds per day and we will have a difference of twenty pounds. 

 Twenty pounds at 20 cents per pound will give us $4.00, quite an item on 

 a man's wages. Here is where skill comes in. 



The dry butter or that containing a low per cent of water does not 

 sell any higher than the medium and in some cases not as high. I tested 

 butter in the London market and found the French rolls and Danish 

 selected which sold highest in the English market to contain about 5 per 

 cent more water than the New Zealand butter, which brought 3 or 4 

 cents per pound less. In this case the New Zealander was losing four or 

 five pounds of butter per hundred and also losing in price. I asked Pro- 

 fessor Siegleke why the Danes incorporated so much water in their butter 

 and he answered that butter was supposed to be plastic and intended to 

 be spread on bread. While I do not like to see slushy butter, I think that 

 from 14 to 15 per cent of water can be incorporated with good results. 

 It is almost impossible to form any conclusion of the amount of water 

 butter contains by the looks of it. Frequently butter than seems slushy 

 will contain very little water under chemical analysis. Professor Stork 

 has been working on this subject for a number of years and he has been 

 unable to fully explain why some samples of butter have a very dry 

 appearance and at the same time contain a very high per cent of water, 

 some samples testing as high as 18 or 19 per cent. We do not know when 

 a lot of cream is churned at a time that the overrun will be much greater 

 than when a small quantity is churned. This is possibly due to the fact 

 that when a small quantity of cream is used the fat globules are thrown 

 together more compactly and do not hold the same amount of water, as 

 when a large amount is churned. There are several other conditions that 

 influence the yield, which the skilled maker understands. A large cream- 

 ery cannot place an accurate estimate on a good, intelligent maker. We 

 have one large creamery in Iowa that is getting as much as one and three- 

 quarter cents per pound above western extras for their butter. They 

 could pay $3,000 per year and still have a big profit left. 



Employers frequently do not realize the value of a good buttermaker. 

 In any ordinary large creamery a maker could lose as much as $100 per 

 month without the employer knowing it, and in some cases the maker 

 being able to detect the cause. A few years ago while traveling on the 

 train I got interested in a gentleman's tale of woe about the trouble they 

 had in their community in closing up their creamery. I got so interested 

 that I finally purchased this old plant and I will say right here it would 

 take a very strong tale of woe to make me purchase another one. How- 

 ever, I fitted up this old plant with modern machinery and placed a young 

 man from the college in charge. I had implicit faith in his ability. It 



