78 PLAIN AND PLEASANT TALK 



Besides all these, whose history we have correctly traced ; 

 besides butter tasting of turpentine from being made in 

 pine churns ; butter bent on travelling, in hot weather ; 

 butter dotted, like cloves on a boiled ham, with flies, which 

 Solomon assures us causeth the ointment to stink ; besides 

 butter in rusty tin pans, and in dirty swaddling clothes ; 

 besides butter made of milk drawn from a dirty cow, by a 

 dirtier hand, into a yet dirtier pail, and churned in a churn 

 the dirtiest of all ; besides all these sub-varieties, there are 

 several others with which we have formed an acquaintance, 

 but found ourselves baffled at analysis. We could not even 

 guess the cause of their peculiarities. Oh Dr. Liebig ! how 

 we have longed for your skill in analytic chemistry! What 

 consternation would we speedily send among the slatternly 

 butter-makers, revealing the mysteries of their dirty doings 

 with more than mesmeric facility ! 



And now, what on earth is the reason that good butter is 

 so great a rarity? Is it a hereditary curse in some 

 families ? or is it a punishment sent upon us for our ill- 

 deserts? A few good butter-makers in every neighborhood 

 aie a standing proof that it is nothing but bad housewifery; 

 mere sheer carelessness which turns the luxury of the churn 

 into an utterly nauseating abomination. 



Select cows for quality and not for quantity of milk ; 

 give them sweet and sufficient pasturage ; keep clean your 

 self ; milk into a clean pail; strain into clean pans (pans 

 scalded, scoured, and sunned, and if tin, with every particle 

 of milk rubbed out of the seams.) &quot;While it is yet sweet, 

 churn it; if it delays to come, add a little saleratus ; work it 

 thoroughly, three times, salting it at the second working ; 

 put it into a cool place, and then, when, with a conscience 

 as clean and sweet as your butter, you have dispatched your 

 tempting rolls to market, you may sit down and thank Goi 

 that you are an honest woman ! 



