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0 ELzvzn ANNUAL REPOr up OF 
or dispel the fine aroma, by chemical action? Is the use of 
brine advisable in washing butter? Does covering butter 
with brine help preserve it? If brine is used, what is the 
best temperature for washing butter? What is the best 
temperature of brine for keeping butter. 
Shall we color butter? If so, why? Does coloring im- 
prove the flavor? Does it injure the flavor? Does it injure 
the keeping qualities of butter? Why did the Boston buy- 
ers, at the late National Butter, Cheese and Egg Convention, 
caution against high coloring? 
How can we keep butter? Shall it be kept without salt or 
with salt? What is the best temperature for keeping? Does 
a low temperature hasten decay when butter is again raised 
to a higher temperature? Is there a temperature at which 
butter will keep and not thereby have its keeping qualities 
at a higher temperature injured? 
These are a few of the questions that naturally suggest 
themselves to one who is trying to get at facts and princi- 
ples. Very few, if any of them, have received final and 
satisfactory answers. Who, then, can say that he knows 
all about butter making? Who can conscientiously and un- 
derstandingly say that he knows much, if anything, about 
it? Yet, we all make butter, and those who do not make 
money by it, lose money. Would it not be a better and 
surer business if it were plat on a scientific basis? So it 
seems to me; and for the purpose of specifically directing 
thought to the several points indicated, I have raised these 
queries. I hope they may stimulate butter makers to care- 
ful and scientific experiments, in which all the varying con- 
ditions shall be noted and taken into the account. Science 
and practice must unite to solve these questions. 
I might go on and give specific answers to most or all 
of my questions. My answers would be based on facts, ob- 
servations and testimony. But of what value are my 
opinions, or those of any one else, in the absence of well set- 
tled principles having a scientific application? We never 
can call butter making a science, nor even one of the arts, 
until we are able to fix upon some -sort of a basis on which 
we can all agree. Until then, if 'I am permitted to live, I 
shall remain simply an inquirer. But what marvel is it that 
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