THE DAIRY. 113 



worth, this year, at the farmer's door, more than $3,000,000, or 

 an average of about 8100 to eaeli and every farm in the State. 

 It is evident, then, that anything which tends to improve the 

 quality or increase the ease and certainty of its production is of 

 vital importance to our farmers. Our system of agricultural 

 premiums ought to do more than reward personal skill. It 

 ought to acquaint us with the principles and method which are 

 back of that skill ; and certainly it should be possible to deduce 

 from the experience and practice of some dozen of the best 

 dairywomen in the county definite ideas and rules about butter- 

 making. Well, we have before us the statements and the 

 methods of more than a dozen of such, and after a repeated and 

 sedulous perusal of them, we are unable to say whether the 

 beautiful specimens before us came from " a pure knack " in the 

 individuals of doing about right, or are the results of wise 

 methods faithfully followed. The difficulty is, the requirement 

 of the society, as interpreted by contributors, does not bring us 

 full and precise statements of the hows and whats and whens of 

 butter-making from the beginning to the end of the process. 

 And they, above all things, are what we need to know. Would 

 it not be wiser to give fewer and larger premiums, and demand, 

 in return, more minute accounts ? Or else to give an additional 

 premium to whoever should furnish at the same time excellent 

 butter, and as excellent a story of how it came to be so good ? 

 The character of the dairy-room and the temperature main- 

 tained in it ; the number and kind of utensils used ; the time 

 which the milk is allowed to stand before skimming ; how often 

 the churning takes place ; whether the cream and the churn are 

 raised to any special and mutually equal temperature ; whether 

 cold water is used at any stage of the work, and if so, when ; 

 how much salt is put in, and how and when ; whether the butter 

 is worked with the hands, or with a wooden spoon, or with both ; 

 the manner in which the stock is kept and fed. These and 

 many other things exercise, no doubt, an important influence 

 upon the result. And it would seem as though the statements 

 of the contributors ought to shed a great deal more light on 

 these points than they do ; and that good butter-making ought 

 to be less an accidental personal peculiarity, and more a trade, 

 w T ith definite rules and habits, which can be learned and prac- 

 tised by anybody. It would seem as though every good dairy- 

 lot 



