When the old or new barrels have been cleansed and prepared, in either of the ways indicated, suitably for packing the butter, the bottom of the barrel is evenly covered with salt. Then a layer of butter which has been thoroughly washed and salted is made, and another layer of salt, and so alternate layers of salt and butter till the barrel is full, when a little brine of salt and water is poured on top. The butter is now ready to be laid in the cellar, and thence to be sold and exported. When the dairy is not sufficiently large to fill a barrel each day, the butter of several churnings must be used, and the barrel filled from time to time as it stands in the cellar. In that case the upper layer of butter is left covered with salt, and the cover of the barrel is closed down tight. In most large dairies a barrel is generally filled at one churning, which is considered better for the quality of the butter. The butter is always packed in so firmly that no space is left unfilled. In doing up butter for sale at home, or at a neighboring market, the lumps are worked into the form of half a sphere, and put into little bright-hooped boxes, made to fit into larger casks, which can be nicely covered and closed up, as seen in Fig. 119, where the dairy-woman holds a box in her hand. The covered casks are also seen carefully nailed up. [Illustration: Fig. 119.] The buyer who wishes to try the butter uses a long iron or steel borer, hollow inside, and furnished with a handle, as also seen in the cut. This not only enables him to test the quality but the uniformity of the butter in the cask. COLORING OF BUTTER.--The practice of coloring butter is founded on the fact that we are accustomed to form our judgment at once of the qualities of the article from the whiteness or the yellowness of its color. Whiter butter is less attractive generally than yellow summer or grass-made butter. The color has come to be important to the seller, and artificial means are found to regulate it. The coloring is made as follows: About a pound of butter is melted, so that the heavier parts sink to the bottom, when the light, clear fat on the top is poured into another dish. In this fat thus poured off is put a piece of annatto about the size of a walnut, wrapped up in a linen cloth, and it is then again put over the fire. The coloring matter of the annatto strains through the linen cloth, and turns the butter brown red, when it is allowed to cool off. When the butter is to be colored, some of this brown red is melted, salted, and mixed very carefully into the butter after washing. The quantity of coloring matter used depends on the color which the maker wants to impart to his butter, and a little practice soon enables him to take the right quantity. Others pour the coloring matter directly upon the butter to attain the same end.