DAIRYING 39 



generally noticed by the consumer and in fact appearance may 

 be deceitful in regard to this point. 



In so far as the water is concerned, the consumer is equally 

 well pleased with any good butter that contains from 10 to 15 

 per cent of water, but to manufacturers this difference of 5 per 

 cent between extremes given is a very important matter. He 

 would naturally prefer 15 to 10 per cent of water in his product 

 if one sells as well as the other. 



603. Butter makers and consumers generally form their 

 opinions regarding the amount of water that any given lot of 

 butter contains by the brine that leaks from the package, or by 

 the amount of moisture on the butter surface. 



It is perfectly natural to conclude that butter which shows 

 drops of brine on its freshly cut surface contains more water 

 than that on which no drops are visible, and this difference in 

 the appearance of butter has been frequently noticed and com- 

 mented upon. It was plainly shown by the American and for- 

 eign butter exhibited at one of the conventions of the "National 

 Creamery Buttermakers' Association." 



604. American butter was represented in that exhibit by 

 entries of 600 30-pound tubs of butter from 600 different cream- 

 eries and foreign butter by about 30 packages of butter purchased 

 in London by the U. S. Department of Agriculture. Among 

 these foreign butters were packages from Denmark, Sweden, 

 France, England, -Ireland, Australia and several other countries. 

 Some of the foreign butter showed as much moisture on its sur- 

 face as was noticed on American butter, but one package of but- 

 ter appeared so dry and mealy as immediately to attract atten- 

 tion to this particular point. One-pound samples from each of 

 the foreign butters and also from the three prize-winning 

 packages of American butter were obtained at that time for 

 analyses. These analyses later showed that the particularly dry 

 appearing sample of foreign butter contained 15.10 per cent 

 water, which is 3.66 per cent higher than the average analysis 

 of American creamery butter, which was 11.44 per cent of water 

 in the average of 473 samples of butter, as reported in Bulletin 

 No. 74, Wisconsin Experiment Station. 



