62 



DAIRY BACTERIOLOGY. 



The subject of Dairy Bacteriology was so frequently brought 

 before my notice in Germany, especially in Saxony and in Den- 

 mark, that I regretted very much my. want of time to give it 

 sufficient attention to enable me to report on it. I have, there- 

 fore, been obliged to append the following extract from the re- 

 port of Prof. Georgeson already referred to, which I hope will serve 

 to create an interest in this subject which is one of the essentials 

 of successful dairying: 



" It is only between two and three years since the use of pure 

 cultures of bacteria were introduced into the creameries of Den- 

 mark, and as a means of improving the butter, but the results have 

 been so uniformly successful that they are now used in all dairies 

 whenever there is necessity for them. The honour of the intro- 

 duction of this improvement in creamery methods does not belong 

 to any one man, though, perhaps Prof. V. Storch, director of the 

 experimental laboratory at Copenhagen, deserves the ' lion's share ' 

 of the credit. He has been at work on the problem for some six 

 or eight years, and from time to time has published the results of 

 his researches. Other bacteriologists took up the same line of 

 work, and the result was that pure cultures of the beneficial bac- 

 teria were put upon the market by the three different laboratories 

 at about the same time. Prof. Storch had already then isolated 

 and cultivated several forms of these bacteria, but he has not put 

 any of them on the market. 



"As the several investigators worked independently of each 

 other, each can be credited with an original discovery, especially 

 since the bacteria employed are not the same in all cases. From 

 the investigations by Prof. Storch, Prof. Fjord, and others, it soon 

 became evident that the quality of butter depended, at least in a 

 large degree, on the presence or absence of certain minute organ- 

 isms. It was found that in faulty butter certain forms were pre- 

 sent which, when isolated and cultivated, produced the character- 

 istics which were objectionable. In like manner it was found that 

 in high-class butter certain other forms were present, which would 

 similarly produce the characteristic aroma and flavour when culti- 

 vated by themselves. This led to the natural recognition of two 

 genej'al classes of bacteria, one of which was injurious to the in- 

 terests of the dairy, and the other one beneficial. When this fact 



