Iron County register., 1880-01-08

SOME NOTEs ON BUTTER.AB Butter is
notsl manufactured article in the sense
that cheese may be so considered. The
former is, strictly speaking, sproduct
Of the dairy; the latter is that and more
too. The one is practically unchanged
in the manipulations through which it
passes; the other, by the introduction of
q foreign substances and by the changes
wrought by. heat, is more completely a
manufactured article than butter. Yet,
Notwithstanding this, butter Is less uni
form in quality than cheese, although
one would think, considering the differ
ences in the methods of making, that
the reverse would be the case. Between
"gilt-edged -" and "grease" butter there
is a wide gulf into which is plunged all
those grades of good, common, poor,
imperfect and bad articles of conglOm-
Grafton called butter, and which make
up the ninety-five per cent. of the but
ters which find their way to the mar
kcts for, strange as it may appear, only
/ five per cent, of all the butter received
at our great markets throughout the
country is of such character as to pass
for first-class or the real sgilt-edged - ar
ticle. This last, the perfect butter, is that
which always commands the highest
price, takes the strongest hold on the
appetites of men, and is never found in
market in too large quantities. Poor,
imperfect butter is always despised. 1t
is an outcast. The poorest laborer, who
earns enough to pay for a good living
every week will not eat it. 1t is ysjected of
men, and it would have been better had
it never been made. The system of
creameries and the improved methods
practiced in our best private dairies
have led, in recent years, to the prOduc-
ton of butter of greater uniformity, and
of generally higher grade than was COM
monty put upon the markets a dozen
years ago; yet to-day the criticism upon
the butter in our market is that it lacks
uniformity, it is deficient in high quali-'
ty, and not enough of it comes up to the
high-water mark of GA No. l." Some
of it, much of it, does, of course; but
there is too much poor butter handled
in all the markets. Among private
dairies there are the most widely differ
ing practices and customs employed in
all the details of butter-making, from
setting and skimming the milk to the
marketing of the product. In so simple
an operation as butter-making one
would hardly think it possible for so
many variations and modes ofprocedure
to be employed as are found among pri-
vate dairymen. There is the setting of
the milk in deep and shallow cans or
pans, the skimming of the milk, the
churning of whole milk, the scalding or
heating of the cream, the different
modes of churnipg, the working and
not working, washing and not washing,
sailing and not sailing of the product,
and a score or so of other differences and
contradictory practices. Some dairymen
practice one of the above modes, others
the reverse. And this rule may be safe
to follow: Whatever leads to the max
ing of choice article, for which q pay
ing price is obtained, that do. One may
reach this through one particular meth
od, as washing the butter or not, setting
in pan or can of a particular shape or
size; and another may reach it through
directly opposite methods. 1t is enough
if by either of these the dairyman pro-
duces good butter for which he obtains
a good price. But these elements must
certainly be present: Good cows of a
good breed; good feed in sufficient
quantity; the utmost care and neatness
in every manipulation, from the making
to the marketing; skill in putting up the
product in an attractive manner, and
putting it upon the market so as to
command the best price. These are cer-'
tainly essentials about which there can be
no question; as to the minor details, one
mode of procedure is as likely to yield
good profits as another. There is at
present no over-supply of choice butter
in our market. The demand for it runs
very close upon the receipts, and from
week to week the best butter received is
about all eaten up or disposed off by
night. t.-Amertcan CuttiUator. |