SALT FOR BUTTER. 29 



mately save an otherwise carelessly made butter. There re- 

 mains but little doubt in my mind, taking the peculiar nature 

 of our dairy products into consideration, and that of the butter 

 in particular, but that in many instances, where the salt has been 

 blamed for a prematurely rancid butter, or a badly flavored 

 cheese, it would have been sometimes, at least, a safer presump- 

 tion to suspect some other oversight in their manufacture. 

 Aside from the well recognized good influence of a good pasture, 

 a good water, and a proper temperature whilst manufacturing 

 on the general character of our dairy produce, here under dis- 

 cussion, it is manifest, tliat the sweetness of odor or taste, of a 

 good butter for instance, does depend to a large extent, on an 

 unimpaired neutral state of the various fatty compounds, of 

 which the butter consists. Whatever inaugurates changes in 

 that direction ought to be carefully excluded ; an inferior salt, 

 as previously described, is one of the causes, which hastens a 

 change for the worse ; an insufRcient amount of a good salt an- 

 other ; a lengthy exposure to the atmospheric air before remov- 

 ing effectually most of the caseine (cheese-stuff), and of the 

 milk-sugar, another ; and too high temperature whilst manufac- 

 turing, (best 52° to 54° P.) and too much stirring and thus spongy 

 state of the new made butter are other causes. An unneces- 

 sary exposure even to the air, after a careful management of the 

 entire operation, must be counted among the various principal 

 causes, which practice and science have thus far recognized as 

 affecting most decidedly the preservation of the butter. We re- 

 sort to a salting of our butter, to aid in the free discharge of 

 the buttermilk, and to contract it ; to shorten thus the process 

 of washing, and to saturate the entire fat mass with a saturated 

 solution of a good salt, which shall exclude the air, and at the 

 same time act as an antiseptic towards the small quantities of 

 caseine (or cheese-stuff), and of milk-sugar, which a desirable 

 limited washing of the butter after its separation from the butter- 

 milk will leave behind. Pure butter is the most complicated 

 natural fat mass on record : it consists of not less than eight 

 fatty acids in combination with a substance known in its iso- 

 lated state by the name of oil-sweet or glycerine. Four of these 

 acids in their isolated state are solids ; four of them are liquids ; 

 these latter acids are remarkable for their unpleasant odor and 

 taste ; whilst in combination with that peculiar compound, the 



