BUTTER, 



BUTTER. 



prevents a streak which would otherwise ap- 

 pear at the place where the two portions joined. 

 When the cask is full, some salt is put over it, 

 and the head is put on. It' the butter is well 

 freed from all the buttermilk, and the salt 

 mi^ed with it quite dry, it will not shrink in 

 the cask, and it will keep its flavour for a long 

 time." Dr. Anderson recommended for pre- 

 serving butter a composition of salt 2 parts, 

 saltpetre 1 part, sugar 1 part; 1 oz. of this 

 mixture to 16 oz. of butter. It seems that 

 butter thus treated will keep sweet for a 

 lengthened period; but that for the first fort- 

 night it does not taste well. 



In Devonshire the method of making butter 

 is peculiar to the county. The milk is placed 

 in tin or earthen pans, and twelve hours after 

 milking, these pans (each holding about eleven 

 or twelve quarts) are placed on an iron plate, 

 over a small furnace. The milk is not boiled, 

 but heated until a thick scum arises to the sur- 

 face ; if when a small portion of this is re- 

 moved bubbles appear, the milk is removed, 

 and suffered to cool. The thick part is then 

 taken off the surface, and this is the clouted 

 cream of Devonshire, which is known all over 

 England. By a gentle agitation this clouted 

 cream is speedily converted into butter. 



In Holland they churn the cream and milk 

 together, after it has been kept sufficiently long 

 for a slight acidity to appear. They churn, it 

 seems, sometimes with a horse, sometimes by 

 a dog, or turnspit, working on a wheel ; a plan 

 which I think might be well adopted, in many 

 cases, in England, to the saving of the labour 

 of many a poor dairy-maid. In the large 

 dairies, however, about Dixmunde andFurnes, 

 the cream only is churned three times a week. 

 (Flemish Husb. p. 61.) 



On an average, four gallons of milk pro- 

 duces a pound of butter, and a good cow 

 should produce six pounds of butter per week 

 in summer, and three pounds in winter. Of 

 English butter, that of Cambridge and Epping 

 is the most celebrated. But the consumption 

 in England is much greater than the farmers 

 can supply : very large quantities are in con- 

 sequence annually imported into England; 

 thus, in 1825, the import from Ireland amount- 

 ed to 422,883 cwts., and from foreign countries 

 159,332 cwts.; this last in 1835 was 134,346 

 cwts., of which 106,776 cwfs. came from Hol- 

 land. (M'Culloch's Com. Did.; Trans. High. 

 Soc. ; Quart. Journ. -figr.} 



To prepare Butter for a warm climate. When 

 butter is to be exposed to the heat of a warm 

 climate, it should be purified by melting before 

 it is salted and packed up. For this purpose 

 let it be put into a proper vessel, and this im- 

 mersed into another vessel containing water. 

 Let the water be heated until the butter is tho- 

 roughly melted. Let it continue in this state 

 for some time, when the impure parts will sub- 

 Fide, leaving at the top a perfectly pure trans- 

 parent oil. This, when it cools, will become 

 opaque, and assume colour nearly resembling 

 Jfiat of the original butter, being only some- 

 what paler, and of a firmer consistence. When 

 this refined butter is become a little stiff, but 

 while it is still somewhat soft, the pure part 

 must be separated from the dregs, and be salted 

 242 



and packed up in the same manner as other 

 butter ; it will continue sweet much longer in 

 hot climates, as it retains the salt better than 

 in its original state. It may also be preserved 

 sweet, without salt, by adding to it a certain 

 portion of fine honey, perhaps one ounce to a 

 pound of butter, and mixing them together 

 thoroughly, so that they may be perfectly in- 

 corporated. A mixture of this sort has a sweet 

 pleasant taste, and will keep for years without 

 becoming rancid: there is no doubt, therefore, 

 but that butter might thus be preserved in long 

 voyages without spoiling. 



As butter made in winter and even at other 

 times is mostly pale or white, and at the same 

 time of a poorer quality than that made during 

 the summer months under the most favourable 

 circumstances, various articles have been 

 mixed with it in order to produce the rich yel- 

 low colour associated with excellence. Those 

 most commonly used are the juice of the car- 

 rot, or flowers of the marygold, carefully ex- 

 pressed and strained through a linen cloth, or a 

 small portion of arnotta. When the juices of 

 the carrot and marygold are used, a small 

 quantity (to be determined by experience) is to 

 be diluted with a little cream, and this mixture 

 is added to the rest of the cream when put into 

 the churn. The quantity of colouring matter 

 required is so small as not to impart any par- 

 ticular taste to the butter. When arnotta is 

 used instead of these vegetable juices a por- 

 tion about the size of a pea is sufficient to co- 

 lour sufficiently 25 Ibs. of butter. It must be 

 first mixed with a little water and put into the 

 cream at the commencement of churning. 

 The best Spanish arnotta should be used. 



The butter most esteemed in London is that 

 of Epping and Cambridge ; the cows which 

 produce the former feed during summer in the 

 shrubby pastures of Epping forest, and the 

 leaves of the trees and numerous wild plants 

 which there abound are supposed to improve 

 the flavour of the butter. It is brought to mar- 

 ket in rolls from one to two feet long, weighing 

 a pound each. The Cambridgeshire butter is 

 produced from the milk of cows that feed one 

 part of the year on chalky uplands, and the 

 other in rich meadows or fens ; it is made up 

 into long rolls like the Epping butter, and 

 generally salted, not cured, before brought to 

 market. By washing it, and working the salt 

 out of it, the London cheesemongers often sell 

 it at a high price for fresh Epping butter. 



The butter of the mountains of Wales ana 

 Scotland, and the moors, commons, and heaths 

 of England, is of excellent quality, when it is 

 properly managed ; and though not equal in 

 quantity, it often is confessedly superior to that 

 produced from the richest meadows. Bad but- 

 ter is more frequently the result of mismanage- 

 ment, want of cleanliness, and inattention, than 

 of any other cause. Ireland would produce 

 the finest butter in the empire, were it not for 

 the intolerably filthy state of their cows, and 

 the want of cleanliness in their dairies. 



In packing fresh butter, prepared for imme- 

 diate use or sale, the leaves of cabbage, white 

 beet, or of the garden orache, are preferred in 

 England. The bottom of the basket should be 

 bedded with a thick cloth, folded two or three 



