2l8 BACTERIA IN BUTTER. 



facturers have even equipped bacteriological laboratories and 

 employed bacteriologists to keep a careful watch of the phe- 

 nomena of the ripening process in their milk and cream and 

 to prepare the proper bacteria cultures for the manufacture 

 of the desired product. The use of pure cultures by oleo 

 factories has increased somewhat rapidly. The oleo manu- 

 facturers have recognized more fully than the butter- 

 makers that the product .which they obtain will have a 

 character largely dependent upon whether the proper species 

 of bacteria are at hand. In the last few years manufacturers 

 of oleomargarin have been employing quite extensively pure 

 cultures of bacteria, and bacteriological methods. 



It is a suggestive fact that oleo-makers have more fully 

 appreciated the significance of bacteria in their ripening milk 

 than the butter-makers have in the ripening of cream. 

 The reason for this, however, is not difficult to under- 

 stand. Oleo products made without the addition of proper 

 flavors have been hardly marketable, because their own 

 flavor is so unlike that of butter. The possibility of obtain- 

 ing a market has, therefore, depended upon the possi- 

 bility of imparting to their product a butter flavor. To do 

 this they have been ready to expend almost any amount of 

 money, and have learned that one of the factors concerned in 

 producing such a desirable flavor is the action of the proper 

 species of bacteria. Butter-makers, on the other hand, have 

 manufactured butter in very much smaller quantities than 

 any oleo factory, and, moreover, they have been able, as a 

 rule, to obtain a butter flavor without the recourse to artificial 

 bacteriological cultures. The butter-makers have, therefore, 

 generally neglected the phenomena of bacteria in connection 

 with butter-making, whereas the oleo manufacturers have 

 been forced to consider them. If the butter-maker would 

 be as careful in the manipulation of his cream ripening as the 

 oleo manufacturer has found it necessary to be in order to 

 produce flavors in his oleomargarin, it is quite certain that 



