e of a preparation of annatto.

Both salt and saltpeter are employed as preservatives for butter; a
large quantity of the former is often used to increase the weight of the
butter.

ARTIFICIAL BUTTER.--Various fraudulent preparations are sold as
butter. Oleomargarine, one of the commonest, is made from tallow or
beef-fat, cleaned and ground like sausage, and heated, to separate the
oil from the membranes. It is then known as "butter-oil," is salted,
cooled, pressed, and churned in milk, colored with annatto, and treated
the same as butter. Butterine, another artificial product, is prepared
by mixing butter-oil and a similar oil obtained from lard, then churning
them with milk.

An eminent analyst gives the following excellent way of distinguishing
genuine butter from oleomargarine:--"When true butter is heated over a
clear flame, it 'browns' and gives out a pleasant odor,--that of browned
butter. In heating there is more or less sputtering, caused by minute
particles of water retained in washing the butter. On the bottom of the
pan or vessel in which true butter is heated, a yellowish-brown crust is
formed, consisting of roasted or toasted casein. When oleomargarine is
heated under similar circumstances, it does not 'brown,' but becomes
darker by overheating, and when heated to dryness, gives off a grayish
steam, smelling of tallow. There is no 'sputtering' when it is being
heated, but it boils easily. If a pledget of cotton or a wick saturated
with oleomargarine be set on fire and allowed to burn a few moments
before being extinguished, it will give out fumes which are very
characteristic, smelling strongly of tallow, while true butter behaves
very differently."

BUTTER IN ANCIENT TIMES.--Two kinds of butter seem to have been
known to the ancient Jews, one quite like that of the present day,
except that it was boiled after churning, so that it became in that warm
climate practically an oil; the other, a sort of curdled milk. The juice
of the Jerusalem artichoke was mixed with the milk, when it was churned
until a sort of curd was separated. The Oriental method of churning was
by putting the milk into a goat-skin and swinging and shaking the bag
until the butter came, as illustrated in the accompanying cut.

[Illustration: Oriental Butter-Making.]

An article still sold as butter in Athens is made by boiling the milk of
goats, allowing it to sour, and then churning in a goat-skin. The result
is a thick, white, fo