The Evolution of Dairying. 441 



ally conducted represents the lowest development of dairying. 

 Somehow, there seems to be something demoralizing about the 

 forty-quart milkcan. And the reason is not far to seek. As a 

 rule the men who are buying milk in the country have insisted 

 on the only thing — that it should come up to the State standard 

 for fat, together with reasonable cleanliness and sweetness, when 

 delivered. They have demanded only that which any man who 

 could milk cows at all could produce. They have, on the whole, 

 offered a low-grade price and they have been content to receive 

 a low-grade product. There is another trouble at the bottom of 

 the milk-shipping industry, and it is this: The fact that the milk 

 is sold from the farm makes it a farm without calves or pigs, so 

 that the skill and intelligence of the breeder is not needed. What 

 is true of milk-shipping is true of cheese making as well, although 

 just as soon as the system of paying for cheese, as measured by 

 the amount of fat, is introduced, just so soon a new and educative 

 factor comes into the problem. 



But butter-making represents a still higher evolution of dairy- 

 ing, because it not only means producing milk but it means pro- 

 ducing milk, with constant attention to the per cent, of butter fat 

 it contains, and beyond that the young live-stock which come up 

 about every butter-producing farm are a constant incentive to study 

 and enthusiasm. And if vou should ask me what is the high- 

 est evolution, the perfect flower of dairying, I should tell you 

 that it is the making of butter upon the farm. The man who 

 does this must march in the very front rank of the dairy pro- 

 cession. Not only must he make milk like the shipper: no not 

 only must he make milk and raise young live-stock like the man 

 who patronizes the creamery, but in addition he must have the 

 skill to manufacture, and the business ability and training to 

 find a market for his product. I believe in the public creamery. 

 I believe it has been of inestimable benefit in taking from the 

 already overworked farmer's wife a tedious drudgery. T be- 

 lieve that to patronize one may be the wisest thing for ninety- 

 nine men, and I believe that to make the butter on the farm 

 at home may be the wisest thing for the hundredth man. It 

 is said that many years ago all over eastern Massachusetts, the 

 boots and shoes were pegged in the little shoe shops located on 

 almost every farm, being sent out from the factories, and re- 

 turned when done. But one day a man perfected a wonderful 

 machine, which would peg more shoes than a score of cobblers, 



