may be best obviated. A small quantity of salt- 
_petre has been recommended; and in the ‘ Geor- 
gical Essays,’ vol. v. we have the following me- 
thod: “Let the bowls or pans be kept constantly 
clean, and well scalded with boiling water before 
using.* When the milk is brought into the 
dairy, to every eight quarts mix one quart of 
boiling water; then put up the milk into the 
bowls to stand for cream.” Dr. Anderson says, 
“that if the milk is to be used sweet, its taste 
may be considerably diminished by boiling; and 
| that other means of sweetening milk have been 
| attempted, more troublesome and expensive, and 
| not more efficacious.” A disagreeable taste in 
| either milk or butter may not unfrequently be 
removed by. giving the cow in which it is ob- 
served a dose of half-an-ounce of nitre, which is 
| always a safe and cooling medicine. 
As butter made in winter is generally pale or 
| white, and its richness at the same time inferior 
to that which is made during the summer- 
' months, the idea of excellence has been asso- 
ciated with the yellow colour. Means are there- 
fore employed by those who prepare and sell 
| butter, to impart to it the yellow colour where 
that is naturally wanting. Various substances 
| have been used for this purpose, but they must 
all be of the resinous class, or such as are soluble 
in oils. Extractive matters, and such as are 
soluble only in water, alcohol, &c., as beet-root 
and cochineal, give no tinge to butter. The sub- 
stances most commonly employed are the root 
of the carrot, and the flowers of the marigold. 
The juice of either of these is expressed and 
| passed through a linen cloth. A small quantity 
of it, (and the proportion necessary is soon learned 
from experience,) is diluted with a little cream, 
and this mixture is added to the rest of the 
cream when it enters the churn. So little of 
this colouring matter unites with the butter, 
that it never communicates to it any peculiar 
taste. Many other colouring matters have been 
employed, as saffron, the seed of the asparagus ; 
|| but the marigold and carrot are certainly the 
'| best, and it is the latter that is chiefly used by 
the best farmers. Alkanet root will give every 
shade of colour to butter, from the lightest rose 
to the deepest red, by augmenting or diminishing 
the proportions of it. 
Though the milk of the cow, when fed on rich 
pasture during the summer months, is almost 
always found to produce butter of a rich yellow 
| colour, this is by no means the case with every 
animal. The goat, the sheep, the mare, and the 
ass, fed on the same pasture in the same season, 
* It can hardly be necessary to observe, that the 
utmost attention to cleanliness, with respect to every 
vessel and instrument used, and every operation per- 
formed in the making of butter, is indispensably 
requisite. Any neglect of this kind is fatal to its 
goodness. It is quite necessary that the bowls or 
pans, after scalding, be allowed to cool before the 
milk is put into them. 
I 
| BUTTER. 
593 
produce milk which yields butter always more 
or less white. When a cow has recently calved, 
her milk is much yellower than usual, but this 
soon goes off. 
Some counties or districts are particularly 
famous for the excellency of their butter. That 
which is made in Hssex, and well known under 
the name of Hpping buiter, is the most highly 
esteemed of any in London and its vicinity. In 
the more restricted use of this appellation, it is 
applied only to the butter made from the milk 
of cows which are fed in Epping forest during 
the summer months, where the leaves and some 
particular plants are thought to contribute to its 
superior flavour. In Somerset butter of nearly 
the same excellency is made; but brought to 
market in half pounds instead of pounds. The 
Cambridgeshire salt-butter is held in the high- 
est esteem; and the London cheesemongers, by 
washing and detaching the salt from it, often 
sell it at a high price for fresh butter. It is 
made nearly in the same way as the Epping but- 
ter, and when salted, put up in firkins of 56 
pounds. Yorkshire and Suffolk butter is very 
little inferior to that of Cambridgeshire, and is 
often sold in London for such. Utoxeter, in 
Staffordshire, has long been famous for good 
butter. The London cheesemongers have a sort 
of factory there for this article. It is bought 
by the pot, of a cylindrical form, weighing 14 
pounds. The superior excellence of the butter 
produced in the Highland districts of Scotland, 
has been already remarked, and we hope ac- 
counted for. The same delicately flavoured spe- 
cies 1s said to be made on the mountains of | 
Wales, and the heaths and commons of England. 
Some of the best Irish butter brought to Lon- 
don, after being washed and repacked, is sold as 
Dorsetshire and Cambridgeshire butter. The 
salt butter of Holland is superior to that of any 
other country ; and forms about three-fourths of 
all the foreign butter imported into Britain. 
Frauds and abuses of various kinds are prac- 
tised in the salting and packing of butter, to 
increase its bulk and weight. Pots are fre- 
quently laid with good butter for a little way at 
the top, and with bad at the bottom. Some- 
times the butter is placed in upright rolls, 
touching one another above, so as to form a 
uniform surface, but receding so as to leave 
empty spaces below. Sometimes tallow or hogs- 
lard is found to constitute no small proportion 
of what the purchaser had deemed good butter. 
An act of parliament (86th Geo. III. c. 86.) 
particularly regulates the packing, salting, and 
selling of butter. By that statute it is enacted, 
that every vessel made for the packing of butter, 
shall be of good well-seasoned wood, marked with 
the maker’s name, and, by a subsequent act, his 
place of abode ; that it shall be a tub containing 
84 pounds, a firkin containing 56, or a half-firkin 
containing 28 pounds avoirdupois, and no other; 
that it shall be of a particular weight, and neither 
2. P. 
I es 
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