"The process of washing butter is usually nothing more than throwing it into an earthen vessel of clear cool water, working it to and fro with the hands, and changing the water until it comes off clear. A much preferable method, however, and that which we believe is now always practised by those who best understand the business, is to use two broad pieces of wood, instead of the hands. This is to be preferred, not only on account of its apparently greater cleanliness, but also because it is of decided advantage to the quality of the butter. To this the warmth of the hand gives always, more or less, a greasy appearance. The influence of the heat of the hand is greater than might at first have been suspected. It has always been remarked, that a person who has naturally a warm hand never makes good butter."
COLORING BUTTER.
As butter made in winter is generally pale or white, and its richness, at the same time, inferior to that which is made during the summer months, the idea of excellence has been associated with the yellow color. Means are therefore employed, by those who prepare and sell butter, to impart to it the yellow color where that is naturally wanting. The substances mostly employed in England and Scotland are the root of the carrot and the flowers of the marigold. The juice of either of these is expressed and passed through a linen cloth. A small quantity of it (and the proportion of it necessary is soon learned by experience) is diluted with a little cream, and this mixture is added to the rest of the cream when it enters the churn. So little of this coloring matter unites with the butter, that it never communicates to it any peculiar taste.
DESCRIPTION OF THE ORGANS OF DIGESTION IN CATTLE.
Œsophagus, or Gullet.—This tube extends from the mouth to the stomach, and is the medium through which the food is conveyed to the latter organ. This tube is furnished with spiral muscles, which run in different directions. By this arrangement, the food ascends or descends at the will of the animal. The inner coat of the gullet is a continuation of the same membrane that lines the mouth, nostrils, &c. The gullet passes down the neck, inclining to the left side of the windpipe, until it reaches the diaphragm, through a perforation of which it passes, and finally terminates in the stomach. The food, having undergone a slight mastication by the action of the teeth, is formed into a pellet, and, being both moistened and lubricated with saliva, passes down the gullet, by the action of the muscles, and falls immediately into the paunch, or rumen; here the food undergoes a process of maceration, or trituration. The food, after remaining in this portion of the stomach a short time, and being submitted to the united action of heat and moisture, passes into another division of the stomach, called reticulum, the inner surface of which abounds in cells: at the bottom, and indeed in all parts of them there are glands, which secrete from the blood the gastric fluids. This stomach possesses a property similar to that of the bladder, viz., that of contracting upon its contents. In the act of contracting, it squeezes out a portion of the partly masticated food and fluids; the former comes within the spiral muscles, is embraced by them, and thus ascends the gullet, and passes into the mouth for remastication. The soft and fluid parts continue on to the many plus and true digestive stomach. The second stomach again receives a portion from the paunch, and the process is continued.
Rumination and digestion, however, are mechanico-vital actions, and can only be properly performed when the animal is in a healthy state.
Now, a portion of the food, we just observed, had ascended the gullet by the aid of spiral muscles, and entered the mouth; it is again submitted to the action of the grinders, and a fresh supply of saliva; it is at length swallowed a second time, and goes through the same routine as that just described, passing into the manyplus or manifolds, as it is termed.
The manyplus abounds internally in a number of leaves, called laminæ. Some of these are attached to the upper and lower portion of the division, and also float loose, and penetrate into the œsophagian canal. The laminæ have numerous projections on their surface, resembling the papillæ to be found on the tongue. The action of this stomach is one of alternate contraction and expansion: it secretes, however, like the other compartments of the stomach, its due share of gastric fluids, with a view not only of softening its contents, but for the purpose of defending its own surface against friction. The mechanical action of the stomach is communicated to it partly by the motion of the diaphragm, and its own muscular arrangement. It will readily be perceived, that by this joint action the food is submitted to a sort of grinding process. Hence any over-distention of the viscera, from either food or gas, will embarrass and prevent the free and full play of this organ. The papillæ, or prominences, present a rough and sufficiently hard exterior to grind down the food, unless it shall have escaped the reticulum in too fibrous a form: foxgrass, cornstalks, and frosted turnips are very apt to make sad havoc in this and other parts of the stomach, owing to their unyielding nature; for the stomach, like other parts of the organization, suffers from over-exertion, and a corresponding debility ensues.