256 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



one of the producers of the earth. She is indeed a help-meet 

 for man. " She looketh well to the ways of her howsehold, and 

 eateth not the bread of idleness." "Give her of the fruit of 

 her hands, and let her own works praise her in the gates." 



It has been well said that our New England farms are not so 

 profitable in the crops they produce as in the boys which they 

 raise. Who can tell how much of the patient industry and the 

 ultimate triumphs of so many of our New England men has to 

 do with the discipline and the moral of churning ? Who does 

 not regret the degeneracy of the age, which would allow a son 

 to go into a shop or store, before he has learned to work upon 

 the materials which God has furnished ready to his hands ; be- 

 fore he has learned that Nature is the one great storehouse, that 

 the farm feeds mankind, and the earth is the kind mother of us 

 all ? Who does not regret the mistaken kindness of many a 

 mother, whose domestic virtues and accomplishments are her 

 crowning glory, who is so tender of her fair-haired daughters, 

 that, while she consecrates herself to the dairy and its concomi- 

 tants, she consecrates them to the parlor with its music, its 

 literature, its manners and its uselessness — with a gain indeed 

 of what some call delicacy and refinement, but at a sacrifice of 

 that health of body, peace of mind, and that true dignity of 

 womanhood which always results from the performance of life's 

 practical duties. The best thing a mother can do is to have her 

 daughters do the next churning. If she has pursued such a 

 system of gree^-house training that they are unfit for this, let 

 her teach them to skim the milk and to do the needful for the 

 butter after it has been churned. Let her teach them that the 

 cream should be well taken care of — that the buttermilk should 

 be thoroughly worked out of the butter, that in the absence of 

 the " cylindrical," or lever butter makers," their delicate palms 

 and fairy fingers are admirably calculated for this purpose, and 

 may add sweetness to the article, — that the salt should be 

 * properly selected and thoroughly dissolved, — that the butter 

 itself should then be moulded into tempting shape, fit for a re- 

 publican ; and if they are sensible girls, they will rejoice to 

 follow their mother's advice, and will have the consolation to 

 feel that they have done something useful and honorable. What 

 though some shallow, graceless fop should be shocked at the 

 washtub or the churn ? Such fellows cannot be shocked too 



