Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/794

772 milking, the manner of setting the cream, the temperature, etc, will all be important factors favoring one form of bacteria and hindering others. If the battle results in favor of the beneficial species, a good-flavored butter will result, while, if the injurious species should get the upper hand, the butter will be bad. The results are at present beyond the control, of the butter-maker. By practice he has found the methods which will commonly result in a good product; but even with his greatest precautions he is occasionally unable to obtain the best butter. At certain seasons of the year failure to obtain good butter is about as common as success even in our best creameries.

Now, bacteriologists would not pretend that the bacteria content of the ripening cream is the sole reason of the variations in the quality of the butter product. Different conditions of the cattle, different food, etc., will all affect the butter, but beyond doubt bacteria have an important part to play. Now, uniformity in the product of the dairy is the great desideratum of the butter-maker. Usually he can make good butter, but sometimes he fails from unexplained causes. The complexity of the ripening process makes it impossible for him to be sure of uniformity in this respect, even though other conditions are constant. But what is to prevent the bacteriologist finding the right bacteria to produce a proper aroma to the butter and furnishing them in quantity to the butter-maker to use in time of trouble? They may then be planted in the cream, and thus a ripening always assured which shall be of the best character. It seems to be entirely possible thus to produce uniformity in this direction. Already in Germany and Denmark and in this country experiments have been started looking in this direction with much promise of success. It is not unlikely, therefore, that before long the butter-maker will have at his command a method of assuring success in the aroma of his butter if he only exercises ordinary skill in the process of its manufacture. If such an artificial ferment may be obtained, uniformity in the ripening of cream will be easy. Perhaps the result will be to bring the different creameries into greater likeness to each other, enabling those which now are unable to obtain a first-class product to improve its flavor by using the right species of bacteria for ripening in the place of the inferior species which are afforded by some localities. This would perhaps not improve the best qualities of butter, but would bring the inferior qualities to a higher standard.

—If bacteria are an aid to the butter-maker, they are absolutely indispensable to the cheese manufacturer. Some people do enjoy the taste of sweet-cream butter, and there has been for some time an evident tendency toward a desire for less strongly tasting butter. But no one desires to eat fresh cheese. When