82 ILLINOIS dairymen's association. 



fore, who seeks to add to the weight of his butter by using hard, coarse-grained 

 salt — for he depreciates its value ten times as much as he adds to its weight. 

 In saying this, I ought to consider the question of honesty or dishonesty which 

 is involved. But the loss is so much greater than the gain that it does not favor 

 the practice of dishonesty. 



Naturally, the best salt is the high-priced, each manufacturer knowing the 

 value of his own product — the labor and care bestowed in its manufacture— and 

 putting a market price on it accordingly. There are notable exceptions to this, 

 however. The manufacturer who understands his business has an advantage 

 over the one who lacks understanding. For illustration*, Mr. Thomas Higgin, 

 of Liverpool, England, by his inventive genius and superior skill, not only 

 improved the quality of English dairy salt, but materially reduced the price of 

 it to the American dairymen, who find the best foreign salt indispensable. But 

 the. cost of even the highest-priced salt is but a trifle — less than a mill a pound 

 to salt butter with it, and a correspondingly small cost per pound for cheese. 

 Three to five cents cover the entire cost of salting a 50-pound package of butter 

 with the best salt in the market. Hence, it will poorly pay the dairyman to 

 save on salt by using a cheap article which must sooner or later depreciate the 

 value of his butter, when by taking the higher-priced he is sure of getting the 

 best and of getting the best price for his goods when put upon the market. 

 "Penny wise and pound foolish" never made any man rich or happy. I have 

 no doubt that millions of dollars are lost to the dairymen of the country every 

 year by the use of poor salt. 



Question. Is it possible to salt butter in brine? 



Answer. Yes ; but there is this trouble, as a rule you will not get it salty 

 enough with brine, and that is because there is a certain amount of water already 

 in the butter, and that water freshens the brine, and my experience is that it 

 makes the butter a little fresher than the popular taste desires. 



Question. How does washing in brine affect the weight of the butter? 



Answer. The effect of the brine is upon the caseous and albuminous matter, 

 to take them out of your butter. The more you do that the more you reduce 

 its weight, but at the same time you reduce its quality, perhaps. 



Question. It is my experience that washing in brine adds to the weight of 

 the butter? 



Answer. I have made no practical tests, but theoretically I would say that 

 the more you get the caseous matter out of it, the lighter it would be. You 

 could get at it by taking two parts of cream and treating them differently, and 

 see how you would come out. 



Question. Probably the butter will absorb more brine? 



Answer. I hardly think so, because in the way they wash their butter it is 

 perfectly fresh. Washing will take all the brine out so that you cannot per- 

 ceive any taste of brine. You can take butter that has been kept a year in 

 granulated form and wash out every bit of the salt, because the salt simply ad- 

 heres to the fat, and all the salt there is in the butter is what adheres around 

 these particles. 



Mr. Hostetter : Have you had any experience in working granulated on 

 a table? It seems to me that the lever, or rake, whatever you use, will injure 

 the granules more or less ; it will put it together in chunks more or less, which 

 will not take the salt. 



