CREAM AKD ITS PECULIARITIES. 259 



the meetings of it, he will have ample facilities for ac- 

 quiring valuable information in regard to these systems 

 of setting milk referred to. And understanding the 

 principles involved in the successful pursuit of his 

 business, which are explained in tliis work, he will be 

 vrell able to exercise his judgment in regard to a choice 

 of what apparatus he may desire to use. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



CREAM AND ITS PECULIARITIES. 



We have seen that cream consists of the fatty globules 

 mixed with certain proportions of other parts of the milk. 

 These proportions vary from about seventy-five to fifty 

 per cent of the whole quantity of cream. But there is 

 another constituent of cream which is most important to 

 talve cognizance of. It is a most serious disturbing ele- 

 ment, producing changes in cream which interfere very 

 much with the process of churning and affecting consid- 

 erably the quality of the butter. This is an albuminous 

 viscid matter, which appears on examination under the 

 microscope to contain a considerable quantity of mem- 

 branous or cellular animal tissue, very well described by 

 one observer as a ^'smeary mass " which is thrown out of 

 the milk, and adheres to the sides of the centrifugal 

 creamer. This viscous matter appears to have the same 

 chemical effect upon milk, and cream more especially, as 

 animal membrane has ; viz., to change the milk sugar to 

 lactic acid, and even to produce a certain chemical de- 

 composition in the butter made from the cream. The 

 fact that the use of the centrifugal separator effects the 

 removal of this disturbing element and yields the cream 



