190 AUSTRALIAN AGRICULTURE . 



whole day, and often the night, had to be occupied in 

 milking, creaming, churning, &c., by the dairyman and his 

 family. The process allows us to see that the fatty matter 

 in milk is not uniform. A part of the milk from cows on 

 good grass consists of the essential oils of the grasses, 

 and which give the nutty flavor to butter and cheese. 

 But the milk of poorly fed cows is deficient in both the 

 butter fat, and the flavoring oils of grasses. Thus, cows 

 fed on artificial feed may be oily and rich enough in 

 butter fat, but poor in the true butter flavor. Hence 

 when butter is gathered from a number of dairies, it is 

 liable to be defective in that uniformity of quality and 

 appearance which have such marked effect upon this 

 product when offered for sale. 



The Creamery System. It is to overcome the 

 defects of butter making in small lots that the creamery 

 system has found favor. With that end in view, the 

 cream is cooled as much as possible, and sent off to the 

 creamery or central factory for butter making. It is there 

 cooled down still lower and made into butter in a tempera- 

 ture of from 55 to 60 degrees, and water as low as 40 

 degrees is used for washing and the other operations of 

 first-class butter making. Butter made at this colder 

 temperature can be separated more effectually from the 

 water and casein of milk, which forms from 24 to 40 per 

 cent, of the cream, than is possible in a higher tempera- 

 ture, a most important feature in butter for keeping or 

 export. 



The Water of Butter. There must be some water in 

 it, or the composition would not be butter. The healthy 

 proportion is about 12 per cent., or 121bs. of water in 

 lOOlbs. of butter. The test for the quantity of water is 

 simple enough, and it is seldom we find less than 11 per 

 cent. There is very often much more, over 22 per cent, 

 sometimes, and then the water is an active agent of 

 destruction. Possibly more butter, put up to keep, is lost 

 from excess of water and bad salt than all other causes 

 combined. It is the water which carries the salt, which 

 averages between 1'20 and 2'50 per cent. No amount 

 of working can take out all the water gathered in with 



