=Influence of Food upon Butter.=--The character of butter is very easily affected by the nature of the food consumed by the cow. Butter has the faculty of absorbing very readily odors of all kinds. Foods, therefore, which have characteristic odors impart them to the butter. A most striking instance of this is in the eating of wild garlic. In this case both the milk and the butter are affected to such a degree as to be in many cases unpalatable. Hence foods or substances in foods which are aromatic or odoriferous are likely to impart their peculiar odor to the milk, cream, and butter. Of all the constituents of milk the fat appears to have the highest faculty of absorbing these objectionable odors. Therefore, the feeding of distillery slops is also apt to impart an unpleasant odor to milk and butter, whereas if these slops be dried and their volatile aromatic principle expelled little discomfort is experienced in their use. The physical characteristics of butter are also changed in a marked degree by the character of the food. Butter fat, as has already been indicated, is distinguished from other animal fats by its content of soluble and volatile acids of which butyric is the chief. There are certain kinds of foods which decrease or tend to decrease the content of butyric acid in butter. =Influence on Melting Point.=--The character of the food also has a marked influence upon the melting point of butter. The author showed many years ago that the use of cottonseed meal as food for cows tends to raise the melting point of butter. This was regarded as an index of some value for the southern portion of the country, where a high temperature obtains over a period of six or seven months of the year. If the melting point of butter, which when normal is about 33 degrees C. (91° F.), could be increased to 35 or 36 degrees C. (95° F.), it would be of immense advantage in these warm climates and, in fact, in all parts of the country during the months of July, August, and September. There is no apparent tendency to increase the melting point of butter by feeding other oil cakes. =Transmission of Other Principles in the Food to the Butter.=--Experience has shown that when cows are fed cottonseed meal or its products the quality of cottonseed oil which responds to the color test known as the Halphen test, namely, the production of a red color with carbon disulfid and amyl alcohol, is transmitted also to the butter. In some cases this reaction is extremely faint while in others it is displayed with an intensity which is claimed by some to be equal to that of the admixture of 5 percent of cottonseed oil with the butter. The use of cottonseed meal, on the contrary, does not seem to notably affect either the content of volatile acid in the butter nor its refractometer reading. (Experimental Station Record, Volume 25, Page 716.) OLEOMARGARINE.