The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-06-14

have acquired its taste for bread and butter or its fondness for cheese sand wiches
 The relation, therefore, between the meteorological laboratory an dthe modern dairyman has been of increasing import ance ever since science discovered these wonderful little organisms and began to devise means of separating one kind from another and so studying their individual operations. And in no other industry has this partnership of scientific study and practical experience been of more import ance than in the big modern dairies. Souring of milk. which had been long considered normal property of the milk itself. has been proved to result from the action of many different kinds of bacteria, all of which convert the milk sugar in pan of milk into tactic acid. which in turn imparts a sour taste to the milk and eventually makes 1t curdle. It was found that the more bacteria removed from milk by the careful processes of iabora- tory experiment the less likely was the milk to curdle. Other bacteria have been discovered that spoil the milk in vari- ous ways. which had always been attrib- uted by the dafrynlan to circumstances beyond their personal control. And the net result of the discoveries so far made have been practically to eliminate many of these bacteria by greater carefulness AAi thC SoiiuAtlOLS unuGT Wnlcn the mix is produced.
 It Is a curious fact that whereas mod ern bacteriology is constantly busied with the problem of keeping the bad" bac- teria out of the milk that is intended to fill the worlds milk pitchers, 1t is equally busy in studying and supplying the good bacteria that are absolutely nec- essary to perfect our butter and produce our after-dinner cheeses. Although but ter can be made from cream without bac- ter1al assistance, cheese would be an impossibility; and the butter that Is not partly made by their action is very much nke cream in taste and not at all like butter to the average palate
 Anybody who has had any acduaintance with butter churn knows that cream, in order to produce the best tasting butter must be "rpened"-in other words. long before bacteria had been discovered, the butter maker used to set his cream aside and allow his unsuspected helpers to pro- duce certain chemical changes in the cream before 1t was churned. These changes if carried too far spoil the cream but of stopped at the right hour vastly improve 1t for butter making.
 Scientific examination of this phenome- non discovered that 1t was bacterial ac- tion that produced these changes and discovered also a reason for the perplex- ing fact that the changes were not uni form. There are bacteria and bacteria and by further examination of them the bacteriologists have found the best bacteria for the butter maker. have found means to cultivate these particular dairyman's assistants in what are called pure cultures" and these pure cult ures" are now used in butter making in much the same fashion as prepared yeast, which is another result of bacterial as- sistance. Is used In the bakery. Their use has developed during the last six years to such an extent that June butter, formerly obtained only in spring and early summer, is now produced by many dairy men straight through the season. The June butter of decade ago, that is. was due to the presence of particular bac- teria. not present earlier in the year, which have been captured and are now widely cultivated by expert bacteriolo- gists.
 What has been accomplished in way of furnishing the proper bacteria for but ter making points naturally to the hope that the same thing may be accomplish ed in the processes of cheese mdnufactu- ure. So far however. although some ad- vance has been made in the right direc- ton this ideal condition has not been established although the fact has been proven that the cheese makers bacterial allies are of even greater importance than those that assist the butter makers. Just as different kinds of bacteria are the inn portant factors in producing butter Of va rious degrees of excellence, so are dif- ferent bacteria undoubtedly responsible for the wide variety of cheeses. If 1t were possible to select and cultivate these different bacteria. 1t would follow that the production of each kind of cheese could he reduced to an almost mathemati- icaI