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BUTTER DAIRYING.

BY MRS. E. P. F. BRADNER.

(Read at the Plymouth Institute, January 1, 85.)

GOLDEN BUTTER.

Dainty butter, rich and golden!
This to-day shall be my theme.
Not the nectar or ambrosia

Of the gods can equal cream,
Melting, luscious, wholesome cream,
That is changed to butter golden,
Fit to set before a queen.

Queens we have, in every household
They should reign with tender hand,
Pure and true and loving sovereigns,
Through this broad and happy land,—
Teeming, prosperous, happy land,—
Whether in the homes of cities,

Or regnant in the dairy stand.

Golden butter from the pastures,
Flecked with dandelion bloom,
Glittering with sheen of dewdrops
Fragrant with a sweet perfume
Cows knee deep 'mid sweet perfume,
Are cropping grass for golden butter
In the flowery month of June.

Dairy maids, while deftly handling
Milk and cream in luscious store,
Often sing in broken snatches
Songs, repeating o'er and o'er
Tender snatches sung before,

While the yellow butter gathers,
Fine and sweet a golden store.

An experience of forty years, begun under the instructions of a mother whose butter equaled the best product of to-day, is my qualification to speak on this subject. In this age of adulterated foods, butter substitutes have become a fixed fact, being preferred by many to low grades of butter, which they are likely to wholly drive out of the market by their cheapness. At the same time fine butter will become the luxury of the few and will advance in price, for I assert that first-class butter cannot be profitably made at a less average price than 25 cents per pound. Here are some of the essentials for making fine butter: Good cows, good and abundant feed, pure water, perfect cleanliness, the right temperature, and the constant care and patient labor that ensures having all the operations of milking, skimming, churning, and so forth done at the proper time and in the proper manner.

As to needing good cows and good feed: Reflect that the production of a pound of butter is a drain upon the cow's system equal to three pounds of dressed beef. Hence the cow that gives 200 pounds of butter in the season needs food that would produce 600 pounds of dressed beef. Do farmers expect to feed their milch cows as heavily as their fattening steers? Does ordinary farm stock produce such an amount of dressed beef in a season?

and yet we have the test record of Eurotas, who produced, with a calf, 778 pounds of butter in less than a year.

New, rank growing, weedy pastures cannot compete in the quality of their butter product with the old pastures of the east which have lain in sod an hundred years or more, nor yet with the buffalo pastures of the west, which have been fed for ages and produce the most luscious butter I ever ate. Pure water, so necessary both for cows and the handling of butter is often lacking in many parts of our State.

Cleanliness in milking is most essential and often difficult. Everything connected with milk and butter must be sweet, for both are absorbents, or take on impurities from air or contact. The milk should be strained through wire first, to keep all hairs from the cloth strainer. With plenty of ice, and a good combined cooler and refrigerator there is no need of milk or butter rooms. Milk and butter must not be kept in the same atmosphere or closet. The cooler should be provided with deep, narrow cans for rapid cooling, the milk and cream to be drawn from the bottom to save lifting, the milk taking with it all sediment, leaving the cream absolutely free. In this way buttermaking is made comparatively easy, especially if combined with the revolving churn for granulating, washing, salting, and draining before lifting to the butter bowl.

With ice water in a good cooler the milk will be ready to draw off in twelve hours, and as sweet as when first milked.

When ready for a churning, place the cream in a temperature of from 58° to 62° to "ripen," churning as soon as "changed." Do not let any of it thicken nor rise above 62° and you will never find cheese curds, that bane of all butter makers and veto to good butter. Keep all cream cool until sufficient has accumulated for a churning. If the churning is to be done in a temperature above 64° the cream should be as low as 58° to 60° when placed in the churn (winter cream should be about 4° higher when churned). If the cream rises above 60° or 62° in summer, as soon as the "cream breaks" add cold water to keep it in granules and revolve slowly till the grains are from size of mustard seeds to wheat kernels, draw off buttermilk, and if butter comes with it skim back into the churn, add as much water, revolve a few times, draw off and again add water, the third time agitate the mass, sprinkle in salt, and continue the water till it runs clear, drain off and salt, stirring carefully so as to evenly salt the mass without packing the grains, leave to drain, taking it from the churn before too warm to handle, pressing lightly with the ladle and place in refrigerator till next morning. Then drain off the brine, press it with the ladle and pack with a wooden pestle into a crock or butter pail as hard as you can press it and return to refrigerator for 24 hours more or longer, repack and it is ready for use.

I use Acme churn. Any of the revolving churns without paddles will do the same and are very easy to clean. After washing the butter, return the last water to rinse the salt from the churn, then with a tea-kettle of hot water in three parts, a few revolutions, a little wiping, and it is done. But butter making is not easy, and it cannot be made easy. With this method there is little worry for fear the butter will not be good; no fear the milk or cream will spoil; no endless task of lifting, setting, skimming, and washing of pans; no shelves of sour milk, for all milk is handled when sweet, and even the buttermilk is scarcely sour. But there is dread least the ice give out, and there is need that the well be cold and deep, and there must be a man to handle the ice, for the

labor is scarce begun when the ice-house is filled, and there is water to be provided; though if it is kept ice cold and no drops of milk allowed to fall into it the water in the vat seldom needs changing.

If ice cannot be had, it is doubtful policy to dry deep setting of milk unless water could be raised otherwise than by hand, and the supply were to be unfailing.

I cannot tell at what temperature deep setting will fail, but to be a success the water needs to be much colder than ordinary well water.

Without ice, I find shallow setting yields most cream.

In answer to inquiries, Mrs. Bradner added the following explanations: An ounce and a half of Ashton salt should be used for each pound of butter. American salt is not strong enough. Water is much better than sweet milk to wash butter with.

A woman should never turn a revolving churn.

The number of cows makes no difference in the quality of butter, but cream of a similar quality should be churned together.

BUTTER SUBSTITUTES.

BY F. S. KEDZIE.

(Read at the Institutes held at Plymouth and Manchester.)

As the value of farm land increases from year to year in Michigan, and the agriculture on such land necessarily assumes more of a tendency towards stock raising and dairy products, the price of butter and the causes which control the butter market is one of paramount interest.

Even in this time of low prices the price of butter is far below what it should be. What is the cause of this low price and dull market? It is the presence on the market, in most of the towns and cities of this State, of fraudulent butter substitutes.

Let us consider the general subject of these substitutes, their manufacture and characteristics.

First, oleomargarine. This material is the fat rendered from beef suet. The suit is cut up, washed, then melted at a temperature of 124° F. The clear fat is drawn off from the pieces of tissue and other substances which settle to the bottom or gather at the surface, the liquid fat is then kept at a temperature of 80° to 90° until the more solid portions of the fat cool down to the crystallizing point and are removed. The remaining portion is separated as oleomargarine. When churned with milk in the proportions of 80 pounds of milk to 500 pounds of oleomargarine, colored with annotto, run from the churn into a cooling tank surrounded with ice and salt to prevent the material crystallizing, worked and salted, it is ready for the market as oleomargarine butter. Sometimes the oleomargarine is forgotten, and the genial grocer says butter, simply. This material is also made under the name suine, but it tastes the same, and being made of the same materials, is not entitled to greater respect than oleomargarine.

During the last two years a new substitute has come forward in the market, and from the present outlook it bids fair to entirely replace oleomargarine, or

even pure butter. This material is known generally as butterine, although it was first called lardine when introduced.

The manufacture of butterine is much more simple than that of oleomargarine. As carried on at the works in Lansing, the process is about as follows: First quality leaf lard is heated to a temperature just sufficient to free the lard from the membraneous tissue and substances not fat. The cleared fat is then run into tall vessels and stirred occasionally while cooling. It is allowed to stand in these vessels from three to four days, being stirred to bring it into contact with the air and thus destroy the lardy odor as much as possible and to neutralize it, as the manufacturer terms it. It is then taken out and mixed with a certain proportion of second quality butter and melted, the melted mass cooled and then churned thoroughly with fresh milk. The mixture is then removed from the churn, worked and salted in the usual manner, and finally made into rolls or packed in tubs according as desired. It is usually made into rolls and attractively stamped with a representation of some rural scene not directly suggested by the pig sty.

Butterine is a dangerous fraud and is the worst enemy with which the dairyman of to-day has to combat. Unlike oleomargarine, it is easily made, it is not hard or tallow-like in appearance and texture, and by the mixture of butter with it the product is of such a nature that it takes almost an expert to detect it in most cases.

Going on to the market as good, nice butter and selling at that price, it pays a great profit to the maker. Two years ago the Lansing company ran a creamery and sent men along milk routes for 15 miles around to buy cream of the farmers and make creamery butter. This did not pay. They lost money. So disposing of their creamery wagons to the general peddlers around town, they have engaged in butterine manufacture, to their greater satisfaction and the augmentation of their bank account. Creamery butter didn't pay, creamery butterine does. This company was making 1,500 pounds per day during the month of December. Could dispose of all they could make at a profit, while butter was dull and nothing doing, 14 to 15 cents so the local dealers said to the farmer who brought in his butter to get money enough to pay taxes. The amount of butterine made in this state alone must be enormous. Besides the manufactory already mentioned, there are three in Detroit, known to the city authorities (there may be more not known), and others scattered around through the northern and western portions of this peninsula. Where does the butterine go? Everywhere. In one form or another, rolls, or boxes, or tubs, it may be found in every good sized town or city in Michigan. Besides that produced in the State there is plenty shipped in from Chicago. To satisfy myself, aside from my own observations in Detroit, I wrote to Mr. A. S. Lane, meat inspector, regarding the sale of butter substitutes in the city. Let me present his reply here:

METROPOLITAN

DIVISION,

Detroit, Michigan, December 10, 1884.

F. S. Kedzie, Esq., Lansing, Mich. DEAR SIR-Yours of December 3d duly received. I have delayed answering in order to get more information on the subject. In answering will say that oleomargarine is sold here in large quantities by a large majority of our grocerymen without being labeled, and is sold for butter unless the question is asked what it is. Butterine is sold in the same way. I know of no other butter substitutes sold here.

The manufacturers sell it in packages without being labeled, as the law directs. I have known oleomargarine branded or marked on the tubs, creamery butter.

Respectfully,

A. S. LANE, Meat Inspector.

Observe, please, that these substitutes are sold in large quantities as butter, and Mr. Lane has seen oleomargarine offered for sale as creamery butter.

The question naturally arises why these substitutes find such a ready market, both with wholesalers and retailers. First of all there is money in it. The butterine or oleomargarine manufacturer, in order to sell his goods, and continue his prosperous warfare against butter, must keep the grade of his product to such a level that the wholesale dealer knows just what he is getting, whether he orders fifty pounds or a ton. This the butterine maker can and does do; his product is generally uniform. All his cows are grass fed. Besides this uniformity, butterine and the substitutes generally have the valuable feature of not being easily melted by heat, nor will they spoil by being kept as easily as ordinary butter. These facts make it apparent why butterine is readily disposed of on the market, and why butter goes begging for a customer.

What are the objections, then, to the use of these substitutes instead of butter? Haven't we arrived at the period wherein our modern civilization demands freedom from the cow monopoly?

To this I answer emphatically no. Good dairy butter has everything to recommend it. Throughout all the range of substances which man has accepted as being food, no single substance has yet been found that could compare with milk.

For ease of digestion, perfect assimilation, milk stands unrivaled. And so with butter derived from this milk. No fatty substance derived from either a vegetable or animal source can compare with butter for ease of digestion and assimilation. Common sense teaches this and experiment verifies the result. On the other hand, these substitutes are made from fatty substances that, although of a similar chemical composition, do not possess the valuable features which mark butter as an agreeable and essential article of food. These fats are not easily digested. Let the dyspeptic have suggested to him that he can have some fried fresh pork and doughnuts for supper and he is liable to protest as being both against his stomach and conscience. Hot buttered toast is liable to be more in accord with his experience if he must have grease of any.

kind.

Oleomargarine and butterine too have been made from the fat of diseased animals, and a microscopic examination has shown the presence of small organisms whose introduction as food into the human system could have nothing but a deleterious effect. But, as a general thing, the manufacture is carried on in such a way that the health authorities do not regard it as dangerous for food. So at least Mr. Wight, health officer of Detroit, informed me, as far as he knew, its sale was a fraud on the people but not necessarily a source of danger to life and health. As a fraud he could not prosecute persons for its manufacture or sale. Nor was the manufacture carried on in such a manner-using refuse and fat from diseased animals-as to necessitate any inspection of the establishments in Detroit.

Butterine must, therefore, be condemned, and its sale as butter prohibited on the ground of fraud-fraud on the consumer and a fraud and wrong on the dairy interest of this State. This is the view taken by the laws already passed,

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