CHEAP BUTTER.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXV, Issue LXV, 19 December 1913, Page 2

CHEAP BUTTER.

HOME ADULTERATION

An advertisement in an English, magazine which has a wide circulation in Australia had an interesting announcement in a recent number. It was headed "Butter at .Twopence a: j Pound." It then proceeded to describe [how to get cheap butter. A person first bought a- machine from the adverI tiser. This machine, from the illustration;, looks like a mixture of a butterchurn and. an ice-cream-maker. The user takes a pound of butter and three-quarters of a pint of new milk. He then mixes the butter and the milk together in the churn, and, says the I advertisement, "you can, within two minutes, produce about two pounds of delicious creamery butter. A pure food product. Recommended by doctors. , A child can work it." A Visitor who returned not long ago from England said that he used to wonder why the butter in the board-ing-houses where he stayed was always so thin. It used to spread on his bread almost in the same way as cream. It was also very white and without any salt flavoring. One day he caught the servant working at the churn, and she told him how the butter came to be so tasteless, thin, and white. The keeper of the boardinghouse would buy one pound of butter, two of margarine, and mix them all together with about three pints of milk.'and then give the result to the boarders. •It would be a nice point to decide if a person should be liable for the adulteration of goods which he is not going to sell. For instance, there are persons who put far more chicory in their coffee than the State law allows a' grocer to use, but they do so from . a matter of choice, and it would be folly to prosecute them. Similarly ii. is not clear what would be the* position of the law if instruments were imported into Australia for the purpose.of the private adulteration of butter. The incident shows, however, that there is an abnormal demand for cheap butter in London and that second-grade Australian butters have rivals to fight both inside as well as outside the homes. The obvious thing for Australian producers to do is to make only top-grade butter, which will' always command a good price (says the Sydney Sun).