220 MODERN DAIRY PRACTICE. 



plying buttermilk from previous churnings; but there are 

 plenty of examples that the difficulty is not always as 

 easily adjusted, the ripened cream after some days again 

 being of the same undesirable quality as before. To coun- 

 teract this it has long in all such cases been a universal 

 remedy to make a general housecleaning. The ripening- 

 vat, churn, and other wooden utensils are carried out in 

 the open air for some days; the creamery-rooms are white- 

 washed, etc. This method of procedure is doubtless both 

 practical, correct, and necessary; but when it proves in- 

 sufficient the attention must also be directed toward the 

 other side of the subject, and an especially good starter 

 must be provided for several days ahead. This may be 

 secured by obtaining good buttermilk daily from another 

 creamery, but if the distance is too great, a culture of the 

 bacteria of the buttermilk obtained may be carefully kept 

 and a portion of the same used daily as a starter." 



Pure-culture Acid Starters. By the preceding meth- 

 ods of securing a good acid starter much is, however, left 

 at a venture. We do not know to which lactic-acid bac- 

 teria the successful outcome is due; and neither are we 

 certain if the cream is not infected by injurious bacteria 

 from the starter. To avoid this a new method of prepar- 

 ing the starter has been introduced in some foreign cream- 

 eries during the last couple of years, according to the 

 principle which has proved of such great benefit to the 

 fermentation industries, notably the brewing industry. 

 As long as yeast containing fungi and bacteria of all 

 kinds was used in the manufacture of beer there was no 

 certainty of a successful fermentation. A yeast fungus 

 sometimes obtained the superiority, a bacterium another 

 time, and the result was therefore often different from 



