CHAPTER VIII. 



BUTTER AND THE BUTTER-DAIRY 



At once foregoes its quality and name. 

 From knotty particles first floating wide, 

 Congealing butter 's dashed from side to side." 



Butter, as we have seen, is the oily or fatty con- 

 stituent of all good milk, mechanically united or held in 

 suspension by the solution of caseine or cheesy matter 

 in water. It is already formed in the udder of the cow, 

 and the operations required after it leaves the udder, to 

 produce it, effect merely the separation, more or less 

 complete, of the butter from the cheese and the whey. 



This being the case, it is natural to suppose that 

 butter was known at an early date. The wandering 

 tribes, accustomed to take on their journeys a supply 

 of milk in skins, would find it formed by the agitation 

 of travelling, and thus would be suggested the first 

 rude and simple process of churning. 



But it is not probable that the Jews possessed a 

 knowledge of it ; and it is pretty well settled, at the 

 present time, that the passages in our English version 

 of the Old Testament in which it is used are errone- 

 ously translated, and that wherever the word butter 

 occurs the word milk, or sour, thick milk, or cream, 

 should be substituted. And so in Isaiah, " Milk and 

 honey shall he eat," instead of " butter ; " and in Job 

 (29: 6), r When I washed my feet in milk," instead of 

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