Page:Willich, A. F. M. - The Domestic Encyclopædia (Vol. 1, 1802).djvu/439

BUT posed in pans for skimming off the cream, produced 30 lb. of butter, and 60lb. of skimmed cheese. From a like quantity of milk were made lOGlb. of raw-milk cheese, and 61b. of whey-butter. After selling the cream-butter at 8|d. and the skimmed cheese at 2d. the pound, when the raw-milk cheese, two months old, was worth 3*d. the pound, and the whey-butter yd., it appears that a small ad- vantage of about three per cent. lies on the side of butter and skim- med cheese. Many abuses are practised in 4he packing and salting of butter, to increase its bulk and weight, against which we have an express statute. Lumps of good butter are frequently laid, for a little depth, at the top, and with an inferior quality under it ; some- times the butter is set in rolls, touching only at top, and standing hollow at bottom. To prevent such deceptions, the factors at Uttoxeter, in Staffordshire, a market famous for good butter, employ a surveyor, who, in case of suspicion, tries die cask, or jar, with an iron instrument, made not unlike a cheese-taster, and which he thrusts in obliquely to the bottom. — But we understand, that the greatest frauds are com- mitted with the Irish butter, im- ported in firkins. One of our sagacious correspondents has sug- ge*ted to us the propriety of com- municating the marks, which the butter-casks ought to have on them, to distinguish their real goodness, before they are exported from Ireland : such information might be a guide to private fami- lies, who purchase a whole, or half .a firkin at a time. On partici inquiry, we could only learn from BUT [407 several eminent butter-men, that the name of Beliast, or some other town in die north of Ireland, is usually marked on the cask, with an additional cross, and either one or more incisions under it, accord- ing to the superior quality of the butter. We trust, however, that no person will be disposed to pur- chase so precarious an article, with- out previously examining the con- tents of the vessel. Lasly, we cannot omit to ani- madvert upon the pernicious prac- tice of keeping milk in leaden i'es* sels, and salting butter in stone jars, which begins to prevail, from a mistaken idea of cleanliness. But, in the hands of a cleanly per- son, there surely can be nothing more wholesome than wooden dishes. We fully agree with Dr. Anderson, that vessels made ei- ther of solid lead, or badly glazed, are alike destructive to the human constitution ; that we may doubt- less attribute to this cause the fre- quency of paralytic complaints, which occur in all ranks of society ; and that die well known effects of the poison of lead, are, bodily debi- lity, palsy-^death ! Milk.- Butter is principally made in Cheshire : where, con- trary to the usual practice in other parts of the kingdom, the whole of the milk is churned, without being skimmed ; preparatory to which operation, in summer, immediat ch- atter milking, the meal is put to cool in eardien jars, till it becomes sufficiently coagulated, and has ac- quired a slight degree of acidity, sufficient to undergo the operation of churning. This is usually per- formed, during the summer, in the course of one or two days. In winter, in order to forward coagu- lation, the milk is placed near 3 D d 4 lire j