138 
caustic potash, to which was added acetic acid until the precipitate 
ceased to form; a portion of it will ultimately float on the top; remove a 
portion of it by means of a clean glass rod, and place it on a microscopic 
slide; add to it one drop of transparent solution of tincture of iodine, 
followed immediately by one drop of concentrated muriatic acid; then 
examine it carefully under a power of about 150 diameters, for starch, 
if it is present, will appear in granules of a blue or purple color. At 
this stage of the process these chemicals will not convert amylaceous 
cellulose into starch, even if present. To this same mixture add one 
drop of concentrated sulphuric acid; place a glass disk over the contents, 
and blue amylaceous matters in various forms will probably be found ; 
but should there be an entire absence of blue color, and opaque brown 
particles appear, remove the disk and apply the chemicals again as be- 
fore. Should too much sulphuric acid be employed the whole coloring 
mass will be dissolved. The amylaceous matter present at the same time 
appears, when superfluous sulphuric acid is used, in white translucent 
bodies, dissolving in streaks ; but the proper admixture of iodine solu- 
tion with muriatic and sulphuric acid will give the desired results. 
Many experiments will need to be made by microscopists before suffi- 
cient expertness and satisfactory results can be obtained. That portion 
of the blood which remains after the fibrine has been removed from it 
has been examined for starch granules, but none were found ; when | 
tested for amylaceous cellulose a trace of it appeared. I conclude, as 
aresult of hundreds of experiments, that amylaceous cellulose is com- 
bined with the fibrine of the blood, arterial and veinous, and may be 
detected in even a minute portion of it, in the manner described. 
FACTS FROM VARIOUS SOURCES. 
The Swartz system of butter-making—The Department of Agriculture 
is indebted to the Secretary of State for a copy of a recent dispatch from 
the minister of the United States at Stockholm, Hon. C. C. Andrews, con- 
taining an interesting description of the process known as the Swartz 
system of butter-making in Sweden. This system has given to Swedish 
butter a high reputation in European markets, but is little understood, 
probably, in the United States. The dispatch, which contains also some 
additional facts concerning Swedish butter-making, is here given in full, 
as furnishing statements and hints which will be of interest and value 
to the dairy industry of this country: 
Smr: The Swedish ice-water system of setting milk, now in general nse in this 
country in butter-making, and known from the name of its inventor as the Swartz 
system, was described in 1872 in an article by Mr. C. Juhlin Dannfelt (now Swedish com- 
niissioner at the Centennial Exhibition) in the journal of the Royal Agricultural So- 
ciety of England, which article was also published and circulated in pamphlet form. 
The system has been described more recently by Mr. H. M. Jenkins, Secretary of 
the Royal Agricultural Society of England, in his very full report on the agriculture 
of Sweden and Norway, which was published last year. From inquiries, however, 
which have lately come to me from the dairy region of the State of New York, it would 
seem that this system is not popularly understood in the United States, wherefore I 
beg in-this dispatch to note its principal features. 
The milk is placed, as soon as practicable, in iron or steel pail-shaped cans, which 
have been thoroughly tinned, inside and outside, and which have a diameter of eight 
or nine inches and a depth of twenty inches. These, having each a close-fitting cover 
of gauze, are set about a quarter of a foot apart, in ice-water of a temperature of 35° 
Fahrenheit. To obtain and preserve this low temperature the ice needs to be cut into 
pieces only two or three inches thick. The surface of the water is abant ona level 
