| paper, and made it into baskets. 
= 
D992 
municates to it no salt or disagreeable taste. 
Some use a mixture of half-an-ounce of dry salt 
finely pounded, 2 drams of sugar, and 2 drams 
of saltpetre, for every pound of butter. 
Almost every kind of wood hitherto used for 
making butter-casks communicates a woody fla- 
vour to butter, and, conjointly with the salt, 
even exerts so great a chemical power upon it 
as to occasion some of it to melt and drain off in 
the form of brine. The best oak and ash have 
been much recommended, but they too have bad 
properties. But, says Mr. George Moir, in a pub- 
lished communication to the Highland Society, 
“The lime is pre-eminently suited for the manu- 
facture of butter-casks. It is the only wood free 
| of acid,—a point which I have ascertained by 
innumerable experiments. In the manufac- 
| ture of basket-salt, the splits for the baskets 
were at first made of ash, from the circum- 
stance of that species of wood being particu- 
larly straight in the grain. I found, however, 
that the acid in the ash decomposed the salt. 
I then made trial of every kind of wood I could 
come at, and found none but the lime to be 
free of acid. Next in order was the fir. The 
acid acts most powerfully on salt, decomposes it, 
and makes it run into a liquid, which I have 
proved by a hundred experiments. In one in- 
stance I got a tree of poplar, white as writing- 
I filled fifty 
dozen of them with salt ; when they were in the 
| stove I anticipated, perfection itself, but to my 
| great surprise and disappointment, on being ex- 
_ posed to the air for half an hour, they became all 
covered with spots red as blood. When again 
put into the stove for some time, the spots disap- 
peared, but when exposed to the air for two or 
three days, the wood became as dark as mahog- 
any, and retained that colour. Nor was this all ; 
every one of the fifty dozen of baskets became 
quite empty by decomposition, and many of them 
after having been twelve months in the stove. 
This induced me to endeavour if possible to ex- 
tract the acid from all kinds of wood before using 
it. The following is the plan which I have 
adopted. Cut the wood into deals of the lengths 
required ; have a boiler of a square form, the 
length of the wood, full of water: put in the 
wood with a weight or pressure, to keep it im- 
mersed in the water, and have a wooden cover on 
the boiler, as it must be done by close evapora- 
tion. When thus boiled for four hours, the whole 
of the pyrolignous acid will be extracted. The 
wood is then dried for use. It becomes closer 
and more condensed, from the fibres being con- 
tracted. By this method, while the wood con- 
tinues hot, it can easily be brought to any shape, 
and used for various purposes, and this is the 
only mode by which barrels for salted butter 
| should be made.” 
When butter is to be exposed to the heat of a 
warm climate, it should be purified by melting, 
before it is salted and packed up. Let it be put 
BUTTER. 
into a proper vessel, and this into another con- 
taining water ; let the water be gradually heat- 
ed till the butter be thoroughly melted; let it 
continue in this state for some time, and the im- 
pure parts will subside, leaving at the top a per- 
fectly pure transparent oil. This, when it cools, 
will become opaque, and assume a colour nearly 
resembling the original butter; being only a 
little paler, and of a firmer consistence. This 
refined butter must be separated from the dregs, 
salted, and put up in the same way with other 
butter; and it will keep much longer sweet in 
hot climates, as it retains the salt better. It may 
also be preserved sweet, without salt, by adding 
to it a certain proportion of fine honey, and mix- 
ing them thoroughly, so that they may be per- 
fectly incorporated. A mixture of this sort has 
a sweet pleasant taste, and will keep for years 
without becoming rancid. It might of course 
be very useful in long voyages. Dr. Anderson 
thinks an ounce of honey sufficient to preserve a 
pound of butter. 
To preserve butter for a long time fresh with- 
out any foreign mixture, the best method per- 
haps is, first of all to wash the buttermilk com- 
pletely out, and then to keep the butter under 
pure cool water, frequently renewed. Some 
wrap it up in a wet linen cloth, to defend it from 
the influence of the air. But though fresh but- 
ter be kept cool and from the air, it will in no 
very long time become rancid. We cannot by | 
any means keep it fresh from one year to ano- 
ther, or transport it to a distance in good condi- 
tion. Rancid butter, to most people, is extremely 
disagreeable. A very small quantity of it will 
be observed by many in a large mass of meat, 
that it may be employed to season. Few stom- 
achs can digest rancid butter. Some are so deli- 
cate, that the use even of fresh butter, of milk, 
of cream, and in general of all oleaginous sub- 
stance, affect them with difficult and painful di- 
gestion. 
Butter, to be a wholesome aliment, must be 
free from rancidity, and not fried or burned. 
But even in its purest state, there are few who 
can indulge very freely in the use of this article 
with impunity ; and health, perhaps, would not 
suffer, though its employment as food were alto- 
gether laid aside. Like the other bland oils, it 
is gently laxative. Most housewives know sev- 
eral receipts for restoring rancid butter to fresh- 
ness, But of these the greater number are of lit- 
tle use. Washing it well with pure water, or 
with ardent spirit, still better perhaps with sweet 
milk, will deprive it in some measure of its dis- 
agreeable smell and taste. It is of much more 
consequence to preserve butter from becoming 
rancid, by salting, and the other means already 
explained. 
As turnip is now become so common a food 
for cows, and often imparts to their milk, and 
the butter thence made, a very disagreeable fla- 
vour, it is of some consequence to know how this 
