The Chanute times., 1898-01-14
supply of Dairy Products.

N. Eldred of Iowa In an address t
Illinois farmers, once said: "Can sum
mer butter be SO handled and packed
that it will retain its freshness ant
sweetness for winter use?" This ques
tion has been under practical discus
sion for the past century, and all these
years have not been able to show us
that 1t may easily and cheaply be done
1t is this difficulty of the doing 1t thai
makes the end desirable Of attainment
For, were 1t readily and easily done
the supply of choice table butter would
be nearly uniform through the year
and winter prices would not greatly
exceed summer prices. Yet conceive
its attainment to be very desirable, as
portion of the summer make would
then be carried over to winter, and
that portion marketed in summer
would bring better prices. How to do
1t Is the question of the hour. In order
to the attainment of this desirable end
deem four things absolutely essential.
First, the butter must be well made. |
shall not stop to define this term well
made;" every dairyman understands it,
and dairywomen, too. Having made the
butter well, and salted with pure salt,
the third essential is to so pack it as to
entirely exclude the air. Chemists tell
us that fermentation can not go on
without air, hence the Importance of so
packing as to entirely exclude it. Our
hut t,,h fhiCs
worm-eaten f1rkins will not do 1t; even
the best firkins made will not do 1t,
perfectly. Ferments go on more or less
rapidly according to the temperature.
The higher the temperature (up to a
certain point the more rapid the fer
ment, and the lower the more ferment
is retarded, down to near 80 Degrees
when 1t ceases entirely. l consider,
therefore, the fourth essential point in
preserving summer butter for winter
use to be, it must be kept at low tenn;
perature. / had a theory that II but
ter was put up in packages perfectly
air tight, it would keep, regardless of
temperature, and tried little expert
ment the past summer to test this the
ory. l had two small tin cans made
The first week in July filled them and
sealed them with wax, think air-tight.
I purpose kept them through the
summer at temperature of 70 degreesl
and over. I opened them two weeks
ago and found them utterly spoiled for
table butter and might almost say for
any culinary use whatever Now one
of two things is true-my theory was
fallacious or the cans were not air..
tight, and I am now satisfied that the
theory was not correct. In preserving
fruits, meats, vegetables, etc., by the
canning process, we destroy all the
spores Ghe active principle in fermen-
tation) by heat. Not so in packing butt
ter; they remain in the butter, and
there is also air enough in the butter'
to carry on fermentation if the tenn
perature be high. During our nine
years residence in Iowa, it was our
practice to buy (about the first week
of June) butter sufficient to last us a
year. My wife would pack it in stone
Jars with little brine on top of the
butter. The bottom of our cellar was
gravel and used to set them down in
the gravel, so that the top of the jars
was but little above the cellar bottom,
and we never had a jar of poor butter.
One spring we had jar left over, and l
sold it to the same merchant bought
1t of-buying at fifteen and selling at
thirty cents. And one season we sum-
mered over a surplus jar and used it
the second winter in February and
and it was good. To recapitu-
ate: The four essentials for preserving
summer butter for winter use or mar
1ets, are: 1t must be well made. It.
must be salted with pure salt. 1t must
be SO packed as to exclude the air. 1t |
must be kept at low temperature. If
any one of these four conditions are
wanting your butter will not keep. Yet
after all believe the best way to keep |
summer butter for winter use is to keep:
It in the grasses and the grains you
provide for your dairy stock until near
he time you wish to market It, Kept
n this way it will never become strong.