BACTERIA IN BOTTER-MAKING. 239 



is usually so much smaller than that of oleomargarine manu- 

 facturers, that the necessity of the new process has not been 

 so generally felt, and certainly has not been so widely adopted. 

 It has been questioned whether butter made in this way has as 

 good keeping qualities as that of ordinary butter. This matter 

 is not as yet settled, since some experiments seem to indicate 

 that culture butter does not keep well, while others reach the 

 conclusion that the butter keeps perfectly well. Certainly the 

 difference in the keeping quality is not great. But the butter - 

 makers say it makes little difference, since their product is con- 

 sumed almost immediately. 



2. THE USE OF STARTERS WITHOUT PASTEURIZATION. 



Pasteurization of cream involves a great deal of trouble and 

 expense, and American butter-makers have, as a rule, been 

 unwilling to adopt it. They have, however, felt the necessity 

 of some means of controlling the ripening, and have, there- 

 fore, worked quite widely upon the plan of using special 

 starters, but without pasteurization of the cream. This is un- 

 doubtedly a makeshift and is, logically, an incorrect process. 

 The cream which they obtain is already well inoculated with 

 bacteria, and it is clear enough that to obtain the proper re- 

 sults from the inoculated culture, the bacteria already present 

 should be destroyed. "But we have already seen that the 

 bacteria present at the end of the ripening are widely different 

 from those present at the outset. Some species are much 

 more vigorous than others, and if present, even in small quan- 

 tities, will increase so rapidly as very soon to surpass all 

 others, in numbers. It is, therefore, theoretically possible 

 that a pure culture of vigorous bacteria added to unpasteurized 

 cream would hold its own and soon outnumber the other bac- 

 teria present. At all events, butter-makers in the United 

 States have to a considerable extent adopted this method, with 

 what seems to be at least a partial success. It must be re- 



