240 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



published statements of previous successful competitors, of a 

 difference of nearly one hundred per cent, in the time allowed 

 for cream to rise, in the time occupied in churning, in the labor 

 expended in working over, and in the quantity of salt used, 

 will have little faith in the application of mathematics to butter 

 making. 



The first desideratum, in any attempt to systematize the 

 operations of the dairy room, is absolute control of its tempera- 

 ture. While wanting this, as most dairy women do, and must, 

 butter making, at least, will remain a matter of judgment and 

 skill, rather than of rules and recipes. Besides, there is, and 

 can be, no acknowledged standard of quality in butter, and of 

 course there can be no absolute rules for its production. This 

 is particularly true of the operation of salting. Salt, although 

 a very desirable condiment, is not butter ; nor can the quality 

 of butter be determined by the proportion of salt which it 

 contains. Yet this is, oftener than otherwise, made the criterion 

 by which it is judged, and this fact has furnished the occasion 

 for much and deserved complaint from competitors. 



We recollect that, in a previous and very able report on this 

 subject, a written statement, containing the expression " salted 

 to suit the taste," was objected to as not being sufficiently 

 minute. Your present committee consider that statement the 

 essence of wisdom on this point. But whose taste is to be 

 suited ? Not that of your committees, certainly, for their 

 peculiarities of taste cannot be known in advance. Most of our 

 dairy women have regular customers, and theirs are the tastes 

 to be suited or the custom fails. It is not an imaginary case 

 that, in two parcels of butter, from the same churning, the 

 quantity of salt is varied nearly one-half, to suit the preferences 

 of different customers. Is one parcel better than the other ; 

 and if so, which ? Both customers think the butter from their 

 favorite dairy the best that can be bought ; while, should the 

 parcels by any accident be exchanged, both would pronounce it 

 execrable. 



It may be said, butter should be salt enough to keep. Then 

 w^hy not beef? Is beef, salted to the regulation standard, 

 necessarily better than corned beef? Does he, who packs away 

 in salt a year's supply of butter, necessarily have a better 

 article than he who prefers to receive it fresh from the dairy 



