ILLINOIS DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 205 



The culture was introduced about twelve years ago and was 

 somewhat pushed by Orin Douglass, of Boston. A large cream- 

 ery company in Iowa at that time adopted the use of the starter, 

 and reported good results, so much so that it created quite an 

 interest. At that time I was located in Minnesota, and person- 

 ally visited the creamery company, at Decorah, Iowa, where the 

 butter was being made and cream ripened by the use of the cul- 

 ture. I took some culture home with me to experiment with. 

 It, at that time, was in a jelly form. I used the culture more or 

 less a little over a year, at times I thought I could see a great 

 improvement in the flavor of the butter, then again I would 

 think there was nothing in it and that it only happened that the 

 butter was good at times and that the culture had no effect. I 

 discontinued its use for about a year, but was not satisfied 

 because I was not making a high uniform grade of butter every 

 day. I again turned to the culture and the more that I studied 

 the question and the more I read about the experiments con- 

 ducted in the dairy schools and also the experiments of butter- 

 makers that were using the culture, I came to the conclusion that 

 if good results could be had with the use of culture at times it 

 was possible to have good results all the time. Along about 

 that time, the acid test came out, by which one could determine 

 the acidity of starter and cream, and then it became generally 

 known that the butter fat was to be deducted from the cream 

 as that did not indicate any acidity, and that the cream was to 

 be ripened according to the per cent of milk serum in the cream. 

 After these facts became generally known it was a very easy 

 matter for one to ripen his starter until it becam-j thick or con- 

 tained about 40 per cent acidity, Mann's acid test, and also 

 ripen the cream to the degree of acidity that would produce a 

 mild acid flavor. The degree of acidity depending upon the 

 amount of milk serum there was in the cream. 



In looking back I can now very easily see where my mistake 

 was made in handling the culture. I expected :oo much from 

 the culture, and this is the greatest trouble of a great many of 

 the buttermakers of todav. The commercial culture which we 



