BACTERIA IN BUTTER-MAKING 205 
smaller number of bacteria originally in the cream. In practice it 
is found that the use of starters does have this latter effect, and in 
most cases, there is a noticeable improvement in butter made from 
cream thus ripened. The results, however, are not absolutely 
uniform, and even with the use of a large amount of starter it will 
sometimes happen that the bacteria present in the cream will have 
more influence than those of the starter, and the butter will suffer. 
The use of cultures in unpasteurized cream was first begun in 
the United States and has been more widely adopted here than 
anywhere else. Butter made from unpasteurized cream is not so 
uniform as that made from pasteurized cream, but the butter made 
in this way has a more pronounced flavor than butter made with 
pasteurization, due probably to the fact that pasteurization pre- 
vents the growth of miscellaneous bacteria that ordinarily occurs 
before the lactic bacteria develop. Pasteurized cream butter 
is somewhat milder in flavor than that made from unpasteurized 
cream, and the American market has demanded a flavor somewhat 
stronger than that which is popular in Europe. Recently, how- 
ever, there seems to have been a change in the American taste and 
in many sections of the country the milder-flavored butter is 
preferred. 
THE GENERAL VALUE OF STARTERS 
The fact that starters, with or without pasteurization, have 
become almost universally used among the better class of cream- 
erties is in itself sufficient proof that they are of practical value. 
Their advantage lies in four directions: (1) They enable the butter- 
maker to handle his cream more easily and uniformly. He can 
regulate the ripening in such a way that his cream will always be of 
a certain grade of ripeness at a certain time of day; for a little 
experience tells him how much of his culture, under proper condi- 
tions, should be added to the cream to produce the proper grade of 
ripening at the particular time when he desires to churn. (2) The 
use of starters has produced a greater uniformity in the grade of 
