BUTTER, a fatty substance obtained from milk. Although occasionally made from the milk of goats, buffaloes, etc., it is commonly made from cow's milk. It was used by the ancients as a fuel or as an ointment, or hair dressing, but is now used almost wholly as a food. The composition of cow's milk shows wide variations, but an average analysis is as follows: Fat, 3.65 per cent.; casein, 2.88 per cent.; albumen, .53 per cent.; sugar, 4.81 per cent.; salt, .71 per cent.; water, 87.42 per cent.
As here seen, the amount of fat is be tween 3 per cent. and 4 per cent., and this fat, when separated from most of the other ingredients, forms butter. When of good quality, butter has a pecu liar but delicate odor (aroma) and a pleasant flavor. The characters of aroma and flavor differ, however, very much, according to the conditions and methods of manufacture, and they also differ widely with the locality where the butter is made, depending largely upon the taste of the consumer. For example, the people of European countries, in general, are fond of a very mildly fla vored butter, and such is found in their markets. In the United States there is a demand for a stronger flavor, and this is produced; while in certain tropical countries a very strong flavor—amount ing to a rancid taste—is desired, and hence this is characteristic of much of the butter used in the tropics.
In former years all butter was made in small quantities, upon individual farms; but the tendency to concentration has affected this as well as other indus tries. To-day a larger and larger pro portion of it is being made in butter fac tories, or creameries, as they are called in the United States. These factories receive the milk and cream from many neighboring farms, and make the butter in very large quantities, one factory in Vermont reaching 20,000 pounds per day. In such large institutions the whole
process can, of course, be more carefully controlled than on individual farms, and the butter is generally better and more uniform in character. The temperature of the cream can be regulated by means of steam and ice, and the mixture of large amounts of cream from various sources tends to produce more uniform ity in the butter than when it is made from the cream of a single farm. The creameries are increasing in number every year and they seem destined to absorb into themselves all the butter industry.
The great butter-making countries of the world are the United States, Den mark, Sweden, England, Ireland, and Australia. England imports large quan tities from Canada, the United States, and Denmark, as well as from Australia. The United States is an exporting coun try. The southern countries make much less butter and consume less than the northern countries. In the south, oils, such as olive oil, take, to a considerable extent, the place of butter, and, among the poorer classes, butter is an almost unknown article of diet. During the World War butter was one of the com podities which rose greatly in price, and its use was to a large extent superseded by substitutes. In England butter was rationed long after the conclusion of peace.
Certain vegetable oils which are solid at ordinary temperatures, such as palm oil, cocoanut oil, nutmeg oil, etc., are fre quently called vegetable butter, and the name mineral butter has sometimes been applied to substances which are wholly different in nature. The word butter has also been used in the names which have been given to various brands of oleomargarine products, e. g., butter ine, etc.