120 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



rich colored, delicate]}' flavored kind, known as " gilt edge," has 

 been produced. The cit}' market of Philadelphia was first furnished 

 with it, from makers in that vicinit}', and it is but just to admit that 

 the wonderful improvement in its manufacture is largel}' due to that 

 section. But there it was not long confined. Some of the most 

 progressive butter makers of New England, influenced by the desire 

 to excel, availed themselves of the necessary knowledge, and put 

 upon the market a perfect article ; and we have within our own 

 State as notable examples of success as are furnished by any other 

 part of the country, and our best butter, when examined by critics, 

 is pronounced ptrfect, and is selling to retailers and private con- 

 sumers in the towns and cities of Maine and Massachusetts, at 

 prices which, although not fanc}-, are above the general market. 

 Do not understand me as advocating the attempt to obtain "fancy 

 prices." Reasonable return for investment and labor, is what should 

 first be sought for. Fanc}* prices, although the}- may be obtained 

 ill a few instances, are no guides, but apt to mislead and disappoint 

 the enthusiastic novice. Perhaps it is well for us to consider what 

 the prices are that we can actually obtain for all the perfect butter 

 we can produce. The answer is obvious ; our surplus will seek the 

 wholesale market of Boston, and we must only be satisfied when its 

 quality is such as to secure for it the highest quotations in that 

 market. 



So much has been said in regard to cleanliness in milking, that it 

 hardly seems necessary to refer to it ; but, reminded as we so fre- 

 quently are by observation of the impurities of freshly drawn milk, 

 it becomes a most important point, upon which too much is not 

 likely to be said. To mention in detail all the points that olfend 

 against cleanliness would be tedious. They must for the most part 

 be left to the milker's sense of neatness, which certainly ought to 

 be of an appreciative character. If all the milk of which butter is 

 made could be taken to the dairy-room as pure as it exists in the 

 udder, the quality of that luxury would be at once materially im- 

 proved. 



There is at the present time much diversity of opinion and prac- 

 tice in relation to the setting of milk to secure the cream. The 

 controversy upon deep and shallow setting, which for several years 

 was carried on through some of our leading agricultural journals, 

 by the ablest supporters of both theories, resulted, not in the defeat 

 of either, but rather in establishing the fact that the quantity and 



