The Pound-Marked Butter Mould: Weight by Volume

"Having had occasion as a farmer to send butter to market constantly, I have found much difficulty and loss of time in weighing and forming the butter of the desired form and of positive weight in small quantities to suit customers". When the butter was "put in a mold to give form to the quantity required it usually stuck to the sides of the mold, making it difficult to remove, and deranging the form and weight of the butter." In use "a thin cloth, L, for holding the butter intact after removal, placed in the bottom and against the sides of the box" goes in first. The butter is then "packed in the box with the presser H, the pound-marks impressing the sides of the butter". "This mold is made to contain two pounds' weight of butter, the side marks dividing the roll into one pound each, but may be enlarged so as to contain several pounds."

Weigh a level measuring jug of firmly packed butter to find your own density. Use the notebook to size a mould for one pound, with a half-pound mark. Cut a hardwood base and two fixed walls. Hang the two movable walls on hinges and close them with a hook and eye. Cut a shallow groove across the inside of the walls at the half-pound mark. Line the closed mould with damp muslin. Pack the butter in with the spoon, pressing out the air, then scrape the top level with the bench scraper. Open the walls, lift the roll out in its cloth and weigh it. Cut at the mark and weigh each half.

**Anthony J. Derrick** of Sheridan, Douglas County, Nevada, signed his specification on 4 April 1871. US 121,496 is dated 5 December 1871 and antedated 18 November 1871. He shows a hand-press for packing and a scraper for the top. **Honest limits.** Butter's density changes with temperature, water content and how it is packed. The densities in the notebook are examples, and the stick figure is a sales convention, not a measurement. Your own packed-jug weighing is the measurement.