630 Tr Ais'^s ACTIONS OF THE A3IERTC AN Institute. 



March 23, 1869. 



Mr. Nathan C. Ely in the cbair; Mr. John W. Chambeks, Secretary. 



Geain m Butter. 



Mr. Ilomdr Hickok, Watertown, K. Y., asked if butter is better 

 having a grain than without. " What causes this gi'ain, and of what 

 is it composed ? Is it really composed of anything, or is it merely an 

 ajjpearance ; then how do you produce the grain ? " 



Mr. J. B. Lyman. — When the butter cuts like good green cheese, , 

 and does not stick to the knife in warm weather, we call it of good 

 grain. When it cuts like lard, the grain is bad. ISTo high-priced 

 butter has bad grain. Many circumstances must be just right in 

 order to secure high quality in butter, but three precautions cannot 

 be dispensed with, if Mr. Hickok would get the highest prices : 1. 

 The cows must eat sweet upland grasses, or fine early cut hay ; 2. 

 ^Neither milk, cream nor butter must be, for any considerable time, 

 warmer than from sixty degrees to sixty-live degrees ; 3. The butter 

 must be worked right, and not too much. 



Mr. S. Edwards Todd. — The grain of butter is the name given to 

 a certain appearance of prime butter, which can be perceived only 

 by the experienced eye. In reality, there is no such thing as the 

 grain of butter. But, for want of a word which will express that 

 appearance, dairymen have called it grain. It is that peculiar 

 appearance of good butter which assures the experienced eye, at first 

 sight, that every operation connected with the manufacture of that 

 butter was performed just as it should be. That which we denominate 

 the grain cannot readily be described on paper. Perhaps in two- 

 thirds of the butter that is received at the New York markets no 

 more grain can be perceived than in a cask of tallow or a pot of lard. 

 Let the grain of butter be pointed out to a person who has not had 

 long experience in selecting and tasting butter of a prime quality, 

 and he will be puzzled when he attempts to designate the grain to a 

 beginner. When butter has been made of poor milk, which was 

 kept, while the cream was rising, in a close and poorly ventilated 

 apartment ; when the churning was done when it seemed to be most 

 convenient, and the butter worked when the dairyman or maid had 

 no other employment, and has been worked too much, or not enough, 

 we may look in vain for the grain of butter. When butter is worked 

 by means of a roller, by squeezing or kneading it with the bare hands, 



