394 MODERN FARRIER. 



according to the pleasure of the operator. The 

 management in other respects is the same as for 

 common cheese. These are mostly made in Wilt- 

 shire. 



63. Making Butter. 



Another important branch of the dairy system is 

 the making of butter ; an art which appears to have 

 been the invention, not of the Greeks or Komans, 

 but of the ancient Germans and Britons. 



With regard to the good or bad qualities of but- 

 ter, a great deal has been always ascribed to the 

 pasturage of different farms or districts. Recent 

 observations and experiments, however, shew that 

 much less depends upon this than has been com- 

 monly imagined. Still, however, we are disposed 

 to believe that certain pastures are more favourable 

 to the production of good butter than others. Cer- 

 tain plants, such as turnip, wild garlic, hemlock, 

 rough-leaved dandelion, charlock, and may-weed, 

 are known to affect milk with a disagreeable flavour, 

 and there may be many others which, to a certain 

 degree, impair its goodness, though their effects are 

 by no means so evident. Far more, however, de- 

 pends on good managements than on this circum- 

 stance, or even on the species of cow we feed : for 

 that something, likewise, is owing to this, is equally 

 well ascertained. Cows have been found whose 

 milk could not be brought to yield any butter at all. 



It has been long remarked, that the butter in the 

 Highlands of Scotland, when properly made, pos- 

 sesses a peculiarly rich and delicate flavour ; and 

 this has been almost universally attributed to the 

 old grass on which the cows feed in these remote 

 glens. But what more common error than to mis- 

 take a concomitant circumstance for a cause ? Dr. 

 Anderson, by his experiments on milk, has shewn 

 that the excellence of the Highland butter may be 



