Milk is sophisticated by robbing it of its cream, or by adding to it “The milk of the cow with the iron tail,” and by coloring it. CREAM contains about 40 per cent. of fat and 55 per cent. of water; SKIMMED MILK is water, with sugar and caseine. WHEY is merely a solution of milk sugar with a little albumen. Milk is best and most plentiful in spring, and richer but less abundant in dry seasons. The last milk drawn from the cow contains most cream. KOUMISS, the use of which is rapidly increasing, is well skimmed milk, treated with a lactic ferment for 30 or 40 hours. It is very easy of digestion. CONDENSED MILK is ordinary milk evaporated so that three pints are reduced to one. It soon spoils unless the air is excluded. PRESERVED MILK in cans contains about one-third its weight of sugar. Butter. Good, fresh butter, contains 84 to 88 parts of milk fat, 10 or 12 parts of moisture, and a little milk sugar, caseine and salt. inferior butter may contain as much as 33 per cent. of water, or buttermilk, and salt. The more buttermilk left in, the sooner the butter grows rancid, while over-working tends to make it soft and oily. The melting of butter changes its physical properties, and long exposure to the air injures the best butter. Good butter is solid and of a grained texture, has a fine orange yellow color and a pleasant aroma. It may comfort the curious to know that its odor is due to a very little butyric acid, combined with oxide of lipyle. To test the quantity of moisture, put a little of the butter in a bottle, heat gently, and leave near the fire for half an hour, when the butter will rise, leaving the water and salt at the bottom. Two-thirds of all the butter made is colored. Classification of Butter. The New York Mercantile Exchange classification, which is standard, is as follows: EASTERN CREAMERY, SWEET CREAM CREAMERY, DAIRY BUTTER, WESTERN CREAMERY, IMITATION CREAMERY, and DAIRY, also “LADLE” and “GREASE BUTTER.” CREAMERY BUTTER is the best. It is such as is made from the cream obtained by setting the milk at the creamery, or by the system known as “Cream gathering,” by which the farmer delivers his cream to the creamery to be churned or made into butter. Butter made under the former system, or from the milk, is better than that made from the gathered cream. SWEET CREAM CREAMERY is made from unfermented cream. DAIRY BUTTER is that which is made, salted, and packed by the dairyman or farmer. Though often really excellent, it is less uniform in quality, and therefore less reliable. LADLE BUTTER.—This is butter of all seasons, ages, and qualities, collected by the dealer, in rolls, lumps, or packages, from the farm houses, salted, or unsalted, as the case may be, and by him reworked, resalted, colored, and packed.