BACTERIA IN THE DAIRY. 49 
addition of salt, although, in many experiments the flavor was so 
marked that the addition of salt gave no particular trouble. 
Salting disguises many a bad-flavored specimen of butter so as to 
make it passable. 
After the butter was thus worked, it was submitted to a number 
of persons for judgment. In no case did the persons tasting the 
butter in this way have any knowledge of the particular condition 
under which the experiments had been made, and did not know, 
therefore, whether to expect pleasantly or unpleasantly flavored 
butter. In the verdict given in regard to the butter in the differ- 
ent experiments, there was considerable variation, on the part 
of different persons, as was to be expected. A butter which one 
individual would declare excellent, another would regard as only 
passable, and some persons preferred butter which other persons 
called strong and rank-flavored. This was anticipated before 
the experiments began, because, as is well known, the public 
taste for butter is avery variable one, and it was not to be 
expected that the delicate shades of difference between differently 
flavored butters would affect all persons in the same way. 
_ Nevertheless, in spite of these differences, there was quite a gen- 
eral consensus of opinion, and all of the marked variations were 
noticed by all of the persons to whom the specimens were sub- 
mitted. 
These experiments were nearly always carried on in pairs. 
Sometimes the same species would be used for ripening in each 
of the pair, but at different temperatures. At other times.the 
same species would be used at the same temperature, but for 
different periods of ripening. At other times the same species 
was used at the same temperature, with different periods of 
ripening, but with a longer period of preliminary growth of the 
culture in sterilized milk. Sometimes different species were 
used under identical conditions. Sometimes acan of sterilized 
cream, uninoculated, would be carried through the ripening pro- 
cess side by side with one inoculated, to compare the ordinary 
experiments with the effect of no addition of bacteria. In gen- 
eral, the attempt was made, as far as possible, to determine the 
effect of the different species upon the ripening at different 
conditions, and to make the experiments as strictly comparable 
with each other as possible. 
The following is the description of the specific characters of 
the organisms used in the experiments: 
