Both salt and saltpeter are employed as preservatives for butter; a large quantity of the former is often used to increase the weight of the butter.

ARTIFICIAL BUTTER.—­Various fraudulent preparations are sold as butter.  Oleomargarine, one of the commonest, is made from tallow or beef-fat, cleaned and ground like sausage, and heated, to separate the oil from the membranes.  It is then known as “butter-oil,” is salted, cooled, pressed, and churned in milk, colored with annatto, and treated the same as butter.  Butterine, another artificial product, is prepared by mixing butter-oil and a similar oil obtained from lard, then churning them with milk.

An eminent analyst gives the following excellent way of distinguishing genuine butter from oleomargarine:—­“When true butter is heated over a clear flame, it ‘browns’ and gives out a pleasant odor,—­that of browned butter.  In heating there is more or less sputtering, caused by minute particles of water retained in washing the butter.  On the bottom of the pan or vessel in which true butter is heated, a yellowish-brown crust is formed, consisting of roasted or toasted casein.  When oleomargarine is heated under similar circumstances, it does not ‘brown,’ but becomes darker by overheating, and when heated to dryness, gives off a grayish steam, smelling of tallow.  There is no ‘sputtering’ when it is being heated, but it boils easily.  If a pledget of cotton or a wick saturated with oleomargarine be set on fire and allowed to burn a few moments before being extinguished, it will give out fumes which are very characteristic, smelling strongly of tallow, while true butter behaves very differently.”

BUTTER IN ANCIENT TIMES.—­Two kinds of butter seem to have been known to the ancient Jews, one quite like that of the present day, except that it was boiled after churning, so that it became in that warm climate practically an oil; the other, a sort of curdled milk.  The juice of the Jerusalem artichoke was mixed with the milk, when it was churned until a sort of curd was separated.  The Oriental method of churning was by putting the milk into a goat-skin and swinging and shaking the bag until the butter came, as illustrated in the accompanying cut.

[Illustration:  Oriental Butter-Making.]

An article still sold as butter in Athens is made by boiling the milk of goats, allowing it to sour, and then churning in a goat-skin.  The result is a thick, white, foamy substance appearing more like cream than butter.

BUTTER-MAKING.—­The manufacture of good butter is dependent upon good cows and the care given them, as well as most careful treatment of the milk and cream.  The milk to be used for butter making, as indeed for all purposes, should be most carefully strained through a wire strainer covered with three or four thicknesses of perfectly clean cheese cloth.

The following points given by an experienced dairyman will be found worthy of consideration by all who have to do with the manufacture of this article:—­