2i6 THE BUTTER INDUSTRY IN UNITED STATES [440 



made for the use of the navy and the poor people. The 

 requisites of the product were that it must be cheaper and 

 must keep from getting rancid longer than real butter. 

 Both of these conditions were met by M. Mege in his pro- 

 duct to the satisfaction of the French authorities. The 

 hypothesis that led to the discovery of this process for mak- 

 ing oleomargarine postulated that the butter fat in milk is 

 secreted by the fatty tissue of the cow, and that if this fat 

 could be properly separated from the tissue of a slaugh- 

 tered animal the same product could be obtained as is pro- 

 duced in churning the butter fat in milk. M. Mege per- 

 formed his experiments on the Imperial farm at Vincennes. 1 

 The process 2 he ultimately adopted consisted of heating 

 finely-minced beef with water, carbonate of potash, and 

 fresh sheep's stomachs. The mixture was raised to a tem- 

 perature of 113 degrees F. The pepsin contained in the 

 sheep's stomach and the heat separated the fat from the 

 cellular tissue. By subjecting the fatty matter to hydraulic 

 pressure the softer oils were separated from the stearin. 

 This oil, now generally called oleo oil, was mixed in the 

 proportion of 10 lbs. of the oil with 4 pints of milk, 3 pints 

 of water, and a small quantity of annotto to color it. The 

 whole was then churned and produced a product very much 

 like butter. Since then many modifications of this process 

 have been made. In 1870, a factory for the production of 

 " margarine " was in operation at Poissy, near Paris. Dur- 

 ing the time of the Franco-Prussian war the factory sus- 

 pended operations, but at the cessation of hostilities they 

 were resumed. 3 



" In April, 1872, the Council of Health of the Depart- 



1 Report of U. S. Internal Revenue Commissioner for 1887, p. cli. 

 * Encyclopedia Britannica. 

 8 Report, op. cit., p. cli. 



