OLEOMARGARINE. 535 



temperature of about 102 aiid 108 for two or three days, and then 

 whatever residue would not precipitate was drawn from the top 

 instead of the bottom to get the fat from the top. They have various 

 methods now for precipitating the casein, but those are business secrets. 

 They are mechanical, not involving the use of acids at all. It is those 

 matters that the manufacturers of process butter keep secret the 

 methods of finally precipitating what remains of the casein in the 

 body of the oil. I have been through a great many factories in the 

 United States, and seen their methods, one after the other, and was 

 offered $5,000 for a description of the method of clarifying the oil 

 finally. Of course, it was given to me in confidence, and I would as 

 soon steal $5,000 from a man as I would give away his secret. But I 

 give you my word of honor that there is no acid used in that clarifica- 

 tion. It is simply a mechanical method which has been discovered, 

 the construction of which probably cost $5,000 to $6,000. It is merely 

 a centrifugal arrangement, but that centrifugal arraugment has been 

 studied for years on the part of these people. But no acid is used for 

 that purpose, so far as I know. It was always left for gravity to per- 

 form that function. 



After that oil is clarified it is taken out and put into what is called 

 an air-blast churn. I have forgotten what they call those things. But 

 it is a conical- shaped arrangement, holding probably 200 or 300 gallons 

 of that oil, and with an air blast or an air pipe coming from the bottom. 

 They take, say, 100 gallons of milk which has been ripened, and then 

 they put in an emulsion of 500 gallons of butter oil. Then the air is 

 turned on at a pressure of 108 to 110 degrees, so as not to cool the 

 liquid oil. That makes the most nearly perfect emulsion. They have 

 never been able to find so perfect an emulsion as the air blast. That 

 mixes the butter oil and emulsion together and puts back into the but- 

 ter the casein and moisture taken out by the precipitation as it was 

 before* melting. 



After it is blown five or ten minutes with that air, so that the milk 

 and oil are thoroughly mixed, it is dropped suddenly into ice water in 

 tanks. The object of that ice is to bring back the grain into the but- 

 ter, because the minute it was melted it lost its grain and looked like 

 lard. In that condition it could never go on the market at all, any 

 more than oleomargarine would. So the grain is put back. When it 

 is dropped into the water it congeals so quickly that the particles of 

 milk and oil practically stick together. If any of you have been in a 

 shot tower and seen how they drop lead from the top of the tower into 

 the bottom of the tank, that is the same process that is used here. The 

 globules of milk congeal. Then they skim it off, take out, salt, and 

 work it. It does not need to be churned. It has been churned in that 

 conical-shaped concern. 



After that it is salted and worked, and put up just as ordinary but- 

 ter is. 



I would say, in this connection, that the butter that is used in mak- 

 ing that process butter is of various grades. They have inspectors, 

 who take out the different grades of butter and classify it, and they 

 make different grades of process butter from the different grades of 

 dairy butter. With the finest grades of process butter they take the 

 finest country butter, and they classify it into grades first, second, 

 and third grades. These butters that come in are of all shapes and 

 colors. But they are all butters that are largely made in the summer 

 time, so that they are largely of a natural color, and very little color is 

 required to bring them up to the natural color, because the butter from 



