Peculiar Preservation of Butter.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 7013, 27 June 1894, Page 4

Peculiar Preservation of Butter.

When one considers how many hints have been given during the many centuries past for the preservation of fruits, it is remarkable that the present enormous industry in that line had not been invented earlier. It shows the advantages of what are called abstract studies. When by the invention of the microscope it was found that rot and decay were the result or the action of small organisms, and that not even these fungi could develop without atmospheric air, it was the most natural thing in the world that successful canning of fruits should follow ; yet the hint has long ago been given in connection with many things, and especially in the preservation of butter. The old * Gardeners Monthly ' recorded a number of cases where butter had been fished out of wells, where it had dropped from vessels suspended over the water for the sake of the cold temperature. These lumps of butter, in many cases a century old, were found just as fresh and good as the day they were churned. Kept from the atmosphere no parasitic fungus could attack it. Recently, goed butter has been found in the bottom of bogs in the old world. It is believed in some cases to be nearly a thousand years old, and yet entirely fresh and good. These hints certainly are of great value to the practical person who desires to see a money value in every scientific idea.