150 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



them, and they would say to their neighbors, " I have my 

 butter of Mr. Everett : I think you had better get some of 

 him." So I got into the habit of purchasing butter from 

 Vermont from that fact, and got to handling a considerable 

 quantity. We in Massachusetts do not pack our butter to 

 keep it through the fall so much as they do in New Hamp- 

 shire, Vermont, and Canada. But I want to say a word 

 in relation to the wood in which it is packed. Of all our 

 woods, according to my experience, the heart of spruce is 

 the best wood to pack butter in. I have found much less 

 butter that has been kept through the season, mouldy, oily, 

 or with other deleterious things connected with it, when 

 packed in the heart of spruce, than when it was packed in 

 ash or oak. Both of those woods have an acid in them 

 which tends to sour the butter, and makes it taste of the wood. 

 Secure, if you can, tubs made of heart of spruce. There is 

 nothing in the smell or taste of that wood that will com- 

 municate to the butter any thing deleterious. That has been 

 my experience. I have found four or five tubs of butter 

 packed in ash or oak that were injured by the acid in the 

 wood to one that was injured when packed in heart of spruce. 

 A word or two in relation to the coloring of butter. We 

 have two or three articles before the public, some of which 

 have been commended by butter-makers and agricultural pa- 

 pers, that I consider far inferior to that which every farmer 

 has or may have in his own garden, or in his own cellar in 

 the winter season. I have tried various things, and I have 

 found nothing equal to the orange carrot for coloring butter. 

 As I came from my home in Princeton, I took to the market 

 in Fitchburg a parcel of butter that was churned day before 

 yesterday, the first day of December. I would ask any man 

 here (I would ask Austin Belknap, Nos. 1 and 2 Blackstone 

 Street, Boston, one of the best judges of butter I know) to 

 taste that butter or smell of it. His olfactories or yours 

 would be full of the aroma of the butter ; and it would please 

 your taste, I am sure, just about as well as butter made in 

 June. It can be done easily. I am surprised at the large 

 amount of butter that is manufactured in the winter, espe- 

 cially in Vermont and New Hampshire, that comes to market 

 white and insipid. Why, sir, the carrot not only does not 

 injure the butter, but it imparts a richer flavor to it. I think 



