ANIMALS AND THEIR PRODUCTS. 133 



communicates putrefaction to whatever it touches. 

 These facts will appear important when we come to 

 the subject of the next section. 



BUTTER. 



239. I do not propose to go into all the mysteries of 

 making and preserving butter, but to give some gen- 

 eral facts which those who are desirous of learning 

 may turn to account. It has already, been stated that 

 cream is a mixture of oil, or butter (for, with the ex- 

 ception of a little salt, it is the same thing) and curd. 

 The butter, in small globules, is wrapped up in little 

 sacks, or bags, of curd. 



240. Now the thing to be done, in order to make 

 butter, is, to break open these sacks, and let the but- 

 ter out. When this i^ done, we say, *'The butter 

 comes ;" and sure enough it does come — comes out 

 of the sacks. Those globules which were before kept 

 apart by the sacks, come together, thousands of them, 

 to form a particle large enough to be seen by the un- 

 aided eye. And now does the reader say, the more 

 violently the churning is done, the sooner will the 

 sacks be broken? Not so. You cannot break them 

 by mechanical force : it is a chemical process. Put 

 them in the right circumstances, and they will break 

 open of themselves. Pounding will not break them. 

 They will slip away from under the blows unbroken, 

 just as a foot-ball will leave your foot when you give 

 it a hard kick, but will leave it whole. Pressure will 

 not break them. Nothing will break them till you 



