YALE AGRICULTURAL LECTURES. 149 



bntter may be made by burying the cream in a cloth a foot 

 deep in the ground, and leaving it for twelve hours or more. 



Cheese has been used from a remote antiquity. Its varieties 

 are almost infinite. This most important branch of American 

 industry, the management of the dairy, involves the investment 

 of a vast amount of capital, the aggregate profits of which de 

 pend largely upon individual judgment and skill ; and any addi 

 tion, however small, to the value per pound of the butter and 

 cheese, would add vastly to the material wealth of the dairy 

 man, and of the country at large. These articles are generally 

 the last of either the luxuries or the necessaries of life, in which 

 city customers are disposed to economize. They must and will 

 have a good article, and are ready to pay for it in proportion 

 to its goodness. 



The great nicety and patience required to produce a first- 

 rate quality of butter and cheese, and the gradually-increasing 

 aversion of our farmers' wives and daughters to manual labor, 

 have caused, in some districts, the butter and cheese dairies to 

 give place to mere milk production ; and sometimes low prices 

 and cost of transportation to market have prevented the farmer 

 from realizing a profit. Poor butter is at all times a drug in 

 the market, and as the best can only be got by the most care 

 ful painstaking, Mr. Flint suggested that by imitating the 

 "Dairy Associations," or "fruitieres" of the Swiss Cantons, 

 New England farmers might largely increase their profits at 

 small risk. In the Western Reserve, there already exist cheese 

 manufactories, or establishments, conducted by private indi 

 viduals, for which all the milk of a large district is curdled and 

 supplied at a stipulated price. The plan is said to have proved 

 successful, and is found to be a public convenience. That part 

 of the Swiss plan which Mr. Flint thinks best worthy of adop 

 tion in New England, is, to establish at a central point, in a vil 

 lage or neighborhood, a dairy establishment, under the charge 

 of a thoroughly skilful overseer and trained assistants, supplied 

 with all manner of improved presses, vats, churns, and other 



