Butter is made either from cream--sour and sweet--or from whole milk which has stood sufficiently long to become distinctly sour. It is asserted by some makers that butter prepared from whole milk, or from scalded cream, contains a large proportion of curd. If this be true--which I greatly doubt--it is a serious matter, for such butter would speedily become rancid in consequence of the casein acting as a ferment. I believe that experience points to an exactly opposite conclusion. From the results of careful inquiries I feel no hesitation in asserting that the butter should not be made from the cream, but from the _whole milk_. When made from the cream alone it is much more likely to acquire a bad taste, and is generally wanting in keeping qualities. I have no doubt but that in the process of churning the whole milk there is a large amount of lactic acid formed, and a much higher temperature attained, than in the churning of cream; consequently, the separation of caseous matter must be more perfectly effected in the former than in the latter case. It is a mistake to think that there is very little casein in cream: out of 7 or 8 lbs. of thick cream only a couple of pounds of butter are obtainable; the rest is made up of water, casein, and sugar of milk. The yield of butter is greater when the whole milk is churned than when the cream alone is operated upon, and, what is of great importance, the quality of the butter is uniform during the whole year. The labor of churning whole milk is, of course, much greater than if the cream alone were employed, but the increased yield and unvarying quality of the butter more than compensate for the extra expenditure of labor.