ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 219 



cream ripening, obtains a good flavored product, and consequently a 

 price for its butter which makes the business a financial success. This 

 matter is one of more significance today than in earlier years, because 

 our buttermaking is coming to be concentrated in large creameries. 

 When the butter was made on the individual farm a difference of a cent 

 ^r two per pound in the small product was of comparatively little im- 

 /)ortance; but now when it is made by the thousands of pounds per day 

 a difference of even a fraction of a cent per pound may mean a difference 

 between financial success and failure. For all these reasons it is very 

 iclear that it will be a decided boon to the dairying industry if it is 

 possible to devise a method of handling the cream ripening that shall 

 produce uniform results'. 



THE CAUSE OF CREAM RIPENING. 



The investigations and experiments of the last ten years or more 

 have shown beyond question that the chief agency in ripening processes 

 is the growth of bacteria. Bacteria find entrance into the cream from a 

 variety of sources, and, during the period in which the cream is ripening,, 

 get opportunity to multiply rapidly. The cream is kept at a tempera- 

 ture that favors their growth, and at the end of the ripening process 

 they are present in surprising numbers. Fifteen hundred millions per 

 cubic inch may be commonly found in well ripened cream. The growth 

 of the bacteria during this period produces a number of changes in the 

 chemical nature of the cream, and it is these changes, at least in large 

 measure, which constitute the process of ripening. Whether this process 

 is wholly one of bacferial growth is not certain. Babcock and Russell 

 have shown that certain unorganized ferments, known as enzymes, are 

 present in milk, and that these take an important part in the ripening 

 of cheese. If such enzymes are present in the cream they may have a 

 share also in cream ripening. At present, however, we have no evidence 

 of this, while the evidence of the agency of bacteria in the process is 

 abundant and conclusive. At all events, there is no one who questions 

 that the fiavor which is produced in the ripening of cream comes from the 



