The Portland daily press., 1895-09-18
THE BRAVE BUTTER BACILLUS.
What Mai. Henry Il. Alvord Says about
Making Bad Butter Good by Bacteria
Culture.

Culture.
Mai. Henry E. Alyord, we'll known
through his service at Willis
ton seminary and the Amherst agricul-
tural college, has lately been placed in
charge of the new dairy division of the
department of agriculture, and according
to Rene Bache, a special Washington COR
respondent OF the Philadelphia Public
Ledger, talks as follows about an ..inter-
esting subject:
used in creameries in many parts of the
country. The most popular of these is
bacillus Al, discovered by Prof. Conn,
biologist of Wesleyan university at Mid
dletoWn. Only the other day 1 met an
agent in Iowa who was selling it. and
out there it is being widely employed.
Cultures of it are manufactured i'll lalge
quantities and put up for sale.
Bacillus Al Is from South America. At
the worlds fair in Chicago Prof. Conn
came racross a sealed ssjar q of so-called
preserved .milk'' from Uruguay. OF
course all milk that is not perfectly
sterilized is full of bacteria. and Prof.
Conn thought that some of the South
American species in were linesof researches
which he was making. This was happy
idea, for from the jar of milk he obtained
a bacterium which ripened cream to an
exquisite flavor. In fact, it solved the
problem of making june butter In De-
cember 1t CHANGED to be No Al in the
list of a number of similar germs expert
mented with by the professor.
Such cultures of bacteria are extensively
utilized abroad, especially in Denmark
and Germany A Danish ferment of this
kind has been used in the United States
for the last two years, being turned out
at q laboratory in Little Falls, N. Y.
The purpose Of them, as you are aware
is to give definite and superior flavor
to butter. The ripening of cream is
brought about by the multiplication in
it of myriads of microscopic vegetable or
ganisms Eaoh species of these organisms
gives to the butter its own particular
taste and aroIua-some of them bad and
others good. The problem is to inoculate
the cram with desirable variety of bac-
terra, andkthis is easily accomplished by
means of such ferments.
A new use has been found for bacillus
Al and similar cultures in the manufac-
ture of what I might term secondhand
butter By that l mean butter that is
gathered in small lots from all over the
country and shipped to convenient cen.
tiers for remaking by special processes.
You know how farmers fetch their butter
to the village store, few pounds in a
batch, and turn it over to the storekeeper
in trade 1t is carelessly handled, and
most of it is very bad. This stuff Is col
lected by jobbers and subsequently, melt
ed and clarified.
The factory I speak of collects this low
grade of butter in wooden casks, which
are shipped empty to the rural districts
returning full The stuff arrives in the
worst condition imaginable, smelling
fearfully, and containing quite percent
age of dirt and flies 1t is clarified by
boiling, Swimming and settling. By this
means the material is robbed OF every at
tribute of butter, one might say, exc pit
the oil. Next it is treated with bac-
terial ferment to give it the desired flavor
Finally it is subjected anew to churning,
appearing eventually on the market as
stpure creamery To the trade it is
known as "ladled BUTTER or imitation
creamery. . 1t is formidable rival of
the second grade of real creamery butter,
more formidable in fact, than is butter
inc.
The m? rfacture of this second hand
butter is col Quoted on a large scale in
many other cities besides Chicago. OF
course, the stuff is as much of fraud rs
oleomargarine when sold as butter. In
this country we consume more butter
than do any other people on the face OF
the earth, per capita, but nobody produces
worse butter than we do. On the other
hand, we eat remarkably little cheese,
and one reason for that is that American
cheeses are so poor. 1t is almost impossi.
BILE to find good Amer lean cheese in the
market. We used to make a very fan
standard cheese which was sold largely
abroad. but the foreign demand for il
has been destroyed by the folly of producers
who lowered the quality of the article fol
the purpose of increasing the profit.
For years past American cheeses have
got poorer and poorer, the manufacturers
EMPLOYING SKINNED milk and even sub
shutting other fats for butter fat. Tt
make cheese in this way, you first roll
the milk of its cream and turn the latter
into butter. Then, to replace the butter
fat, you add to the milk sufficient
! quantity of oleo oil. I tell you that yor
will find dozens Of families of. your owr
acquaintance that used to eat cheese, but
do SO no longer The housewives say
eve cannot get good cheese any more. .
The question of style in dairy products
is of Importance. This business of going
to grocery andssbuying wedge ofcheese
is primitive exceedingly. Cheese fought
to be made in small sizes, SO that per
son going to market may pure base
whole one, like ''pat" sof butter. Al
for milk, the consumption of it in this
country is not what it ought to be, either
in the natural state or in cooking We
propose to try to teach housewives how
to select milk ana now TO detecG auulGeri'
tions of both milk and butter To most
women quart of milk is always quart
OF milk, and that is all there is to it
while they do not realize that In saving
1 two or three cents on a pound of butter
they often lose SO per cent in quality.
The fact that it is worth while to han
die milk properly. is only gradually
dawning on the people. The
delivery of the product in
glass bottles in cities is popular, but
TIE dealers openly fill the BOTTLES from
their cans at the back gate. The house
holder of the future will demand that his
milk shall appear on the table in sealed
bottle, with the seal undisturbed, to show
that it has not been tempered with in the
kitchen The guarantee of the seal will
be worth having in proportion to the
reputation'of the producer. Philadelphia
already has made a long stride in this
direction. In that city the best cream
cries are inspected at regular intervals
by persons whose favorable certification
is acceptable to the citizens generally.
II Pai