THIRTY-FIFTH ANNUAL CONVENTION. 79 



The next will be the acidity of the cream. This must, of 

 course, be determined by some reliable test, and not be trusted to 

 the buttermaker's taste. The foregoing is true in regard to hand 

 separator cream, as it is of the cream from the milk brought to 

 the factory and the churning of it must be done as carefully as 

 the other work has been done. The churn must be stopped at 

 the point where the fine granules show, the buttermilk drazvn off, 

 and the washwater of such a temperature as will incorporate with 

 the proper amount of sale for the desired amount of moisture. 



This point is a very important one to the buttermaker of to- 

 day. There was a time when some creameries taught their but- 

 termakers to incorporate all the moisture they could, but they got 

 into trouble with the authorities of the old country, whose stand- 

 ard was 16 per cent, and some of this butter had to be returned 

 to America, which was not a very good advertisement for this 

 country. The lawmakers finally made a law covering this, which 

 now stands at 16 per cent moisture as the standard of this coun- 

 try, and all butter found containing more than this amount is 

 held under the pure food law to be adulterated butter. All but- 

 ter so found is seized by the government and the $600 tax is 

 placed against the factory in which it was made, and 10 cents a 

 pound further tax added for every pound of the butter so found 

 containing over the 16 per cent moisture. As butter is shipped 

 once a week from creameries, a factory making 1,000 pounds a 

 day, when caught, Would have to pay the government $1,300 

 and probably lose the butter also, which at present price would 

 be another $2,100, or a total of $3,400. This amount should be 

 large enough to warrant every buttermaker in educating himself 

 to control the moisture below 16 per cent limit. The test should 

 be done while butter is still in the churn. The "Irish" test is the 

 one generally used, and must be done accurately of course to be 

 of any use. I advise but termakers to make their standard 15 

 per cent, then if their scales are out a fraction, they will still 

 be well within the 16 per cent limit. 



