128 
VriSGONSIJS' STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
“ The effect of washing upon the keeping quality of butter de¬ 
pends upon the purity of the water witli which the washing is 
done. If the water contains no foreign matter that will affect the 
butter, it will keep better for washing the buttermilk out than by 
working it out. But if the water is hard from the presence of 
lime, or contains anything that could injure the butter by contact 
with it, washing becomes an injury instead of a benefit to its keep¬ 
ing. Nothing but the best and purest water should be used about 
butter. Very hard water is always objectionable. It is not, how¬ 
ever, so objectionable as the 'vyater from w^ells which contain 
muddy sediment so full of organic matter as to become tainted. 
Water standing over such mud takes in the taint, and if used for 
washing butter, is sure to injure it for long keeping. There is a 
good deal of well water, otherwise good, which is rendered entirely 
unfit for using about butter by reason of sediment at the bottom of 
the well. 
“ This is frequently the case in dry times when wells get low 
and the influx small, and the water in them is too slowly changed. 
I once saw a lot of nice butter spoiled entirefy for table use, in 
twenty-four hours, by being washed with water from a well which 
was loAV, and the sediment in its bottom had become affected. It 
is not a ver}" uncommon occurrence to find water in wells which 
people do not object to using for culinary purposes, so much af¬ 
fected by sediment as to be detrimental when applied to butter.” 
Relative to Prof. Arnold’s objection to hard water, I would say 
that we always used, what we call hard water, for washing our but¬ 
ter, and are not aware of any bad effects resulting therefrom. 
At the suggestion of Mr. Willis, a dealer in butter at Portage, 
we made a tub of butter containing some forty pounds by washing 
quite freely until all traces of milk were imperceptible; salting 
with one ounce of Ashton salt to the pound; working the salt 
evenly through it at one working, and packing it at once. The 
top was covered with a cloth and about one inch of salt placed 
thereon, and a well fitting cover put over the whole tub. The but¬ 
ter was made and placed in the commodious store of Mr. Willis, 
about the middle of last June, where it has remained until the 28th 
of September. The season has be3n an uncommon bad one for 
keeping butter, tending to mold and rancidity. The room of Mr. 
Willis is a basement nine feet in height or depth, below the gen- 
