BUTTER. 305 



remaining butterrailk in it, this full allowance of salt 

 will be required for its preservation from early rancidity. 

 In short, the salting of butter must be done judiciously, 

 and with a knowledge and consideration of the principles 

 involved in it, as heretofore explained in the full and 

 careful statement made of the character and behavior of 

 the milk and the cream, and the action of the chemical 

 agents to which they are exposed upon them. 



Saltpeter, sugar, borax, and some preparations of borax 

 have been and are used in packing butter. Saltpeter and 

 sugar are both antiseptics and add an agreeable flavor to 

 butter. On this account they are used with salt to re- 

 pack butter that has been badly packed at first, or to mix 

 with inferior and poorly made butter as a means of dis- 

 guising its bad qualities. They are really for the use of 

 the incompetent dairyman or for the professional packer 

 of " store butter," who gathers from all sources butter 

 of all qualities of badness and repacks it for sale. For 

 this purpose, one part of saltpeter and one part of 

 white sugar finely powdered are added to four parts 

 of salt, and an ounce and a quarter of the mixture 

 is used with each pound of butter previously well 

 washed with pure water. 



The use of borax in dairying is somewhat new. There 

 is no doubt that this salt — borate of soda, which is a 

 combination of 36.58 percent of boracic acid, with 16.25 

 per cent of soda, and 47.17 per cent of water — is an ex- 

 cellent antiseptic ; but its effect upon the human system 

 is said to be injurious. Some experiments have been 

 made in Europe with borax as a butter preservative witb 

 no positive ill results ; and it seems that its suspected 

 disadvantages may, after all, be more fancied than real. 

 It has been used as a substitute for salt in the usual 

 quantity, viz., about six per cent, having first been freed 

 from the water of crystallization by heating it on an iron 

 plate and then reducing it to a fine powder. 



