Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume III.djvu/499

BUTTE BUTTER 493 Treatise on the New Law of Compensation to Tenants in Ireland." BUTTE, a N. county of California, bounded W. by the Sacramento river, 8. E. by the Feather river and its middle fork, and watered by Butte creek and the forks of the Feather river; area, 1,458 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 11,403, of whom 2,082 were Chinese. The highlands are generally covered with pine and cedar forests; the valleys are wooded and fertile. It is rich in gold, platinum, silver, quicksilver, iron, and lead. The Marysville branch of the California Pacific railroad crosses the W. por- tion. There are 13 quartz mills for the pro- duction of gold, 4 grist mills, and 18 saw mills. The chief productions in 1870 were 746,162 bushels of wheat, 16,490 of Indian corn, 339,- 698 of barley, 27,919 gallons of wine, 11,799 tons of hay, and 351,023 Ibs. of wool. There were 4,315 horses, 2,330 milch cows, 7,954 other cattle, 76,864 sheep, and 19,242 swine. Capital, Oroville. BUTTER (Gr. fioiiTvpov, from poiif, ox or cow, and 7fy>f, coagulum; Lat. butyrum), the fatty, non-azotized portion of milk. It exists in the form of microscopic globules, varying somewhat in size, and more in quantity, in different animals. The milk of the cow is regarded as the stan- dard. The globules are distributed almost uni- formly throughout the mass of fresh milk, and are the cause of its white opacity. They meas- ure from Tj.s-jns to j-oVir of an inch in diameter, the variation being greater in healthy than in diseased milk. They have a caseous covering, which while the milk is fresh prevents their ag- gregation during ordinary agitation. Being the lightest of the constituents, they slowly rise to the surface when the milk is allowed to stand, and this separation is retarded or accelerated by the temperature and other circumstances. The amount of butter in a given quantity of milk varies considerably, and depends much upon the season and the food of the cow. Volcker, from careful analyses of unadulterated milk ob- tained from cows at different seasons of the year, and grazing in different pastures, found it to vary from 1'79 to 7'62 per cent. Milk of fair quality averages about 4'5 per cent. Cream usually contains about 45 per cent, of butter, milk yielding about 10 per cent, of cream. According to Chevreul, cows' butter is composed of stearine, margarine, and oleine, with small quantities of butyrine, caproine, and caprine, to which its odor is due. According to Ileintz, it consists of oleine, a large quantity of palmitine and a small quantity of stearine, together with small quantities of glycerides, yielding by saponification myristic acid and butic acid, CJI^Oo. It dissolves in 28 parts of boiling alcohol of sp. gr. -82. It easily be- comes rancid from the separation of the fatty acids from the glycerine, which may be consid- erably prevented by salting, or by melting and separating foreign substances which induce de- composition. It is of a pale yellow color, so- lidifying at 79-7 F. When the temperature rises to 89'6 it may be completely saponified, yielding, according to Chevreul, glycerine, with stearic, margaric, oleic, and small quantities of butyric, caproic, and capric acids; or, accord- ing to Heintz, stearic, oleic, palmitic, and small quantities of myristic and butic acids. Manu- factured butter has the following average com- position : Pure fatty matter 88-00 Water 13-60 Common salt 8-50 Milk sugar -60 Caseine and albumen '40 100-00 To obtain the fatty contents of the milk cells as free as possible from all the other constitu- tents of the milk, is the first and most impor- tant step in butter making. This, after carefully collecting the cream, is accomplished by churn- ing, which process is performed in vessels of various forms, all having one object, viz., the agitation of the milk. (See CHURN.) The cream which rises during the first 12 hours is rather thinner than that which rises afterward, but is richer in butter. This is because the globules which have the thinnest cell walls are of less specific gravity than the others, and rise sooner. Moreover, during the process of milking, and in straining, many of the cells are broken, thus liberating the pure butter, which is still light- er. The best butter can therefore be made from cream obtained during the first 12 hours of the setting of the milk ; but as this involves more expense, and to a certain extent injures the subsequent product, the mode is rarely practised. Usually, the best market butter is made from all the cream obtained during one setting. Churning the whole milk is some- times practised, with the idea that a greater percentage of butter may be obtained. Butter makers, however, say that, although more ma- terial may be obtained in this way from the milk, the amount of pure butter is less, and consequently the product is inferior in quality, and much sooner becomes rancid. In butter making, particular care should be given to cleanliness and temperature ; the most scru- pulous attention to the former being necessary to prevent the butter, which possesses the greater sensitiveness to bad odors and impure matter, from becoming tainted. The 'cows' udders should be washed and wiped dry be- fore the milking begins, and the vessels into which the milk is drawn should have been care- fully scalded and cleaned. The pans or cans into which the milk is strained, and the strain- er itself, should be in the most thorough state of cleanliness, and the apartment in which the milk is placed for the rising of the cream should be perfectly free from dirt or impure odors. The quality of butter is also sensibly affected by the food. GoDd butter possesses differences of flavor according as the cows are fed on clover or blue grass, carrots or turnips. A small quantity of wild onion is readily detected in the butter as well as in the milk ; and the im-