CHAPTER XX 



THE COMPOSITION OF BUTTER AND FACTORS THAT 

 INFLUENCE ITS CONTROL 



Acts and Rulings as to Composition of Butter. — We have 

 only one Federal statute that deals specifieally with the com- 

 position of butter, and this applies only to the District of 

 Columbia. This Act was approved March 2, 1895, and requires 

 that butter must cjntain 83 per cent of milk-fat, not more than 

 12 per cent of water and not more than 5 per cent of salt. 



No attempt has been made to enforce the above statute, no 

 doubt due to the fact that creameries could not comply with the 

 same under the ordinary methods of butter-making. 



Act of August 2, 1886, defines butter as follows: 



" That for the purpose of this Act the word ' butter ' shall 

 be understood to mean the food product usually known as butter, 

 and which is made exclusively from milk or cream, or both, 

 with or without common salt, and with or without additional 

 coloring matter." 



Act of May 9, 1902, known as the "adulterated" law, reads 

 as foUows: "Adulterated butter" is hereby defined to mean a 

 grade of butter produced by mixing, reworking, rechurning in 

 milk or cream, refining, or in any way producing a uniform, 

 purified, or improved product from different lots or parcels of 

 melted or unmelted butter or butter-fat, in which any acid, 

 alkali, chemical, or any substance whatever is introduced or 

 used for the purpose or with the eft'ect of deodorizing or remov- 

 ing therefrom rancidity, or any butter-fat with which there is 

 mixed any substance foreign to butter as herein defined, with 

 intent or effect of cheapening in cost the product or any butter 

 in the manufacture or manipulation of which any process or 



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