BUTTER. It is calculated that in England and Wales about of all the milk produced is made into butter on farms. About 27 lb. of milk are required to make one pound of butter, and on this basis the production of butter is 28,45o tons of which 5,75o tons are consumed in farm households. A certain propor tion of milk is sold by farmers to factories and creameries and there made into butter.
Although butter has been made on English farms from the earliest days of farming, it now takes a comparatively low place in the list of farm products. Reckoning by value it represents less than three % of the total farm output. The sale of liquid milk is generally more profitable than butter-making, while the absence of competition in the one case and its steady increase in the other makes milk-selling "the line of least resistance." The imports of butter into Great Britain are large. In 1927 they were 5,827,00ocwts. To this large quantity the chief con tributors were as follows:— As margarine competes with, and is a substitute for butter, it should be added, in this connection, that the imports into Great Britain of that commodity amounted to 1,185,000cwt., nearly all of which came from Holland.
The international trade in butter is extensive. Great Britain is much the largest buyer, taking about six times as much as all other importing countries and thus dominating the trade. But in the aggregate the exports to other countries are considerable. In Europe, Belgium, Switzerland, Norway, Czechoslovakia, France, Austria and Germany are importing countries, while outside Eu rope the United States, Central America, Egypt, Algiers and South Africa also take greater or less quantities. Some of these coun tries, such as France, export as well as import butter, but they rank as importing countries if their imports normally exceed their exports. Even Great Britain, although typically an importing country, exports annually a small quantity of native and a con siderable quantity of imported butter. Butter is transshipped to the Irish Free State, Germany, Holland, Belgium, the United States and France.
One explanation of this apparent anomaly is that there are various kinds and qualities of butter on the wholesale markets with different levels of price. A country may export one quality and import another. On the English markets, home produce is seldom or never quoted in bulk, but if of first quality it usually sells at a higher price per lb. than imported butters. Among these, Danish and Irish creamery butter rank highest in price, Dutch, New Zealand, Australian and Argentina coming next, and Siberian last.
Changes in the taste of the public affect the demand for par ticular kinds of butter. At one time, not so long ago, a rather heavily salted, highly coloured butter was generally favoured, but the main bulk of the supplies now are very lightly salted and un coloured. This change in taste is attributable largely to the in fluence of Danish butter which has set a standard to which the mass of the people have become accustomed. The natural colour of butter is a pale yellow unless it is made from the milk of cows such as Jerseys, which give exceptionally rich milk. The artificial colouring of butter is now very little practised. Another influ ence in the same direction has been the institution of instruction in, and demonstration of, butter-making. The "working dairy" was in innovation 4o years ago, but at every important agricul tural show it is now one of the regular attractions. Butter-making competitions at the Royal Agricultural Show and the Dairy Show, attract competitors from all parts of Great Britain and the art of butter making by the most modern methods and with the latest appliances is there demonstrated. (See DAIRY FARMING.) (R. H. R.) United States.—Butter was first made in the United States on the farms. With the coming of the industrial age, and with it the larger units of manufac ture, the handicraft method of making butter gradually gave way to the factory. The first creamery in the United States was built in Campbell hall, Orange county, N.Y., in 1856.
The size of the creamery has grown from the little neighbour hood factory to the large central ized creamery which receives cream from a radius of several hundred miles. The first cream eries had a daily capacity of only a few hundred pounds of butter.
The milk was delivered by the farmers at the plant, where it was skimmed from cans and vats after it had stood one or two days. Now the warm milk is separated by the farmer im mediately after it is milked and the cooled cream is delivered to the creamery. The neighbourhood creamery has an average annual output of about 2 5o,000lb. of butter, which is marketed through the city butter-dealer. In a few cases a number of small cream eries have organized a co-opera tive marketing agency. The most outstanding association of the sort is the Land 0' Lakes cream eries, which distributes the butter for 420 creameries of Minnesota and Wisconsin. The largest butter factories are found in large cities, where the finished product is marketed soon after it is made. A few single factories have an annual capacity of approxi mately 15,O00,000lb. and one or two companies with a series of 15 or 20 creameries are manufacturing over 6o,000,000lb. of butter in a year.
The per capita consumption of butter in the United States is pounds. This is about the same as that of the United King dom but 1 olb. less than the Canadian citizen eats. The total amount of butter produced in the United States is around 1,600,000,000lb. annually, which is about twice that of any other nation. Approximately 35% of the milk produced in the United States is manufactured into butter. The United States imports a little more butter than it exports.
Butter is made as follows: as quickly as the milk is separated the cream is cooled. The cream is delivered to the creamery once every two or three days, where it is graded in at least two classes, sweet and sour. If sour, the acidity is standardized to about .25% lactic acid by the use of a carbonate or a lime. Then it is pasteurized, and if ripened cream butter is to be made a pure culture of streptococcus lactis is introduced to start the de sirable souring process. If sweet cream butter is to be made no starter is added. The best storage butter is made from unripened or sweet cream. After pasteurization and ripening the cream is held over night, when it is churned, washed, salted and worked in the combined churn and worker. The market requirements determine the amount of colour and salt that should be used. Good creamery butter has a composition of about 81% fat, 15.5% water, 2.7% salt and o.8% casein and ash. Butter, which is a valuable food and an effective appetizer, should have a firm, waxy body, a pleasant, creamy flavour and should be delivered to the consumer in a pleasing package. (E. S. G.)