COIVDUCTED BY ISAAC HILL. 



' Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, whose breasts he has made his peculiar dcpositcfor substantial and genuine Di/iMB. "-Jefferson. 



VOLUME 2. 



CONCORD, N. H., FEB, 28, 1840. 



NU?vIBER 2. 



THE ViSITOH. 



THE DAIRY. 



Batter an article of necessity. 



No unimportant item in the consumption of ev- 

 ery family is the article of Butter. The good liver 

 could not supply the tabic tor a single day without 

 the use of butter in some process of cookery, if not 

 in direct application upon the table. Good yellow- 

 sweet butter upon the table wdl atnne for almost 

 any other deficiency except it be bread alone; and 

 without butter an abundance of every thing else 

 will not suttee to supply its place. We eat butter 

 with every thin^r that is dry — we melt and mix it 

 with the most of edibles tliat are moist. Without 

 it, our toast is insipid, our gravies are unsavory ; 

 the calce, whose dougli ia unmixed with butter, is 

 not welcome to the palate — the meat, whose cookery 

 is unbasted with butter, is rejected bythosc of healthy 

 appetite and hearty digestion. In fact, without this 

 article in daily use as well in the family of the day- 

 hiborcr as of the man of wealth, the business of 

 eating, the great business that sustains our physic- 

 al nature and constitution, would be considered an 

 intolerable and unpleasant, instead of a desirable 

 and gratifying part of our lives. 



What would the provider for a Now Kn|pjand fam- 

 ily do without butter.^ His wife or his housekeep- 

 er might be, and she ought to be, of tiie most pleas- 

 ant temper. She should be of that patient disposi- 

 tion which makes the l>est of every thing — whicli 

 supplies every temporary privation and disappoint- 

 ment by substituting from her own invention and 

 ingenuity whatever deficiency it is impossible to 

 supply. She should be rich in that experience 

 which has tauijht all tlie variety of household ex- 

 pedients for making a good and savory dish from 

 t!ic materials that may be within reach. But what 

 shall be done in a common famdy, even with such 

 a female at its head, wlio for days and weeks sliall 

 be deprived of butter, or of the more important ar- 

 tiple from whicli batter is made ^ 



Necessity mny force mankind to habitual priva- 

 tion. If thrown upon the shores of some inhospi- 

 table island, men and women may subsist wiiere, in 

 a land like this "overflowing with milk and lion- 

 ey," it m'-glit be supposed they would starve. But 

 deprive one of our cities, or even one of our con- 

 siderable villages for the space of any three months 

 in a j-ear of the article of butter ; and what would 

 be the consequence .'' The condition of those daugh- 

 ters who liad left tlic dairies and farms of their fa- 

 thers to reside with husbands in a society more 

 compact if not more pi-lished, would l)e considered 

 as intolerable from tliis single privation alone: they 

 would long to be restored to the fire sides they had 

 left, again to participate in that daily repast which 

 was made most palateable by the butter which they 

 had churned, the cream wliich they had skimmed, 

 the milk v/hich their hands had drawn from tiie 

 looing herds of their own paternal flock. 



If under a false construction of that article of 

 the Consitution of the United States which allows 

 Congress to rejulate commercial intercourse, the 

 national legislature were to i)rohibit the importa- 

 tion of butter into the port of Boston, what priva- 

 tion, what embargo short of the inhibition of bread 

 and luea would so soon call out a general re- 

 tiistancc of its inhnbitants ? 



C<ood liutter sure oi profit- 

 When every thing else is plentiful, butter is fre- 

 quently scarce. The drought of a few weeks in 

 the summer months will raise its price from one 

 fourth to one half, and even double. There has not 

 of late years been madt* a sufficient quantity with- 

 in the immediate reach of our larger villages and 

 towns for their supply. The great city of New 

 York, supplied to the distance of a hundred miles 

 in mid summer by the ready access of rail roads 

 and steamboats, often falls short, so that tliosc who 

 obtain it are oblifjed to ])ay sometimes us high as 

 fifty and even seventy-five cents the pound. This 

 too when the ricliest dairy counties of the United 

 States, as Orange, Dutchess, Ulster and Columbia, 

 may reach her market between sunset and sunrise 

 in the morning at the distance of between 9ixt\ 



and a hundred and fifty miles ;and when, from the 

 more distant rich dairy county of Berkshire in 

 Massachusetts, the butter taken from the churn of 

 a morning, fresh and hard as from the dairy cellars, 

 is exposed in the stalls of the Fulton market for the 

 next early breakfast. 



Butter formerly made to little profiit. 



Since tlie rapid buildlnjf up of the manufactur- 

 ing city of Lowell, the price of good butter in all 

 the adjacent towns to the distance of thirty and 

 forty miles has been advanced at least twenty-five 

 per cent. Formerly it was taken at the coun'ry 

 stores, and disposed of in a mass. A large dealer 

 would take in sometimes a thousand pounds of a 

 day of all the varieties, at a uniform price for good 

 and bad, mixing all together; and that price run- 

 ning from six to twelve cents the pound to be paid 

 in goods from the store. As a receiver of the arti- 

 cle, a spacious tunnel was made from the stor« a- 

 bove to a cellar beneath, through which the boxes 

 of butter were poured as they were received. The 

 appearance of the mass thus poured through was 

 such as might nauseate the appetite of the bestbnt- 

 ter-eaters. In due time the butter was taken up 

 and worked over — the bad into the good — the green 

 and white into the yellow — the over-salted into the 

 fresh ; and packed into kegs and firkins. Tons of 

 this butter were sometimes in that state before 

 packing, that it would never be eaten, and went to 

 the soap-boilers ; other tons were carried to the 

 city to be exchanged for goods, and were ehr^jped, 

 as are salted alewives and other inferior fish, to bo 

 consumed in foreign countries where laborers could 

 not be afforded a palatable ibod for sustenan''.e; arid 

 a portion of the best was kept to be used at home 

 as a matter of necessity when fresh and better but- 

 ter could not be procured. 



Within a few years, the dairy farmers have found 

 a nmcli better encouragement. The article of but- 

 ter, instead of being a drug in the market lorccd 

 oil' in excliange tor the inferior goods, has been 

 sought for at the doors of the farmer. Regular cus- 

 tomers from the large towns have been ready to 

 wait upon the dairy-woman, to take herbutter from 

 the churn and pay for it the highest price in mon- 

 ey. Good butter is now always saleable, and at 

 high prices when compared with every thing else. 



Good and indifferent Rutter not accurate- 

 ly valued. 



As in old times, when the recently cleared pas- 

 tures gave abundance of feed, tlie price of butter 

 disposed of at the country store was indiscrimin- 

 ate — as the good and the bad, thrown into the same 

 pile, were esteemed and purchased at the same 

 price; so the practice has continued of a lamenta- 

 ble want of discrimination in the price and quality 

 of butter. Kspecially is tiiis the case in most of 

 the country villages, where there is rarely an op- 

 portunity for choice, and where from nee ess it;' bad 

 and indiflentnt butter is bought and sold. Such 

 has been the demand that good butter is never suf- 

 fered to continue in quantities at the village stores 

 and groceries: more than is wanted for the imme- 

 diate supply is at once carried off to the cities, 

 where if tiie consumers have not a better and a 

 more discriminating taste, they always have a bet- 

 ter opportunity for gratifying it. 



Inferior and indifferent butter in the country 

 bears a higher price in proportion to that of tiie su- 

 perior and better quality. T'kc d'ijfcrcnce in price is 

 not €iiov_rh for encouraging the ilairy-maii to ■pro- 

 vide tiie best place and tfie most convenient lyieans^ 

 nnd the dairij-xcoman to make licr best efforts to fur- 

 nish tiif. snpcrior article for tlic marhct. Tliere are 

 some wives of farmers — aiid we are free to declare 

 that in many dairy towns there is a majority of this 

 description — who know not how to manufacture in- 

 ferior butter, and at whose board an unpalatea- 

 ble article was never found. Such ladles need not 

 our advice. For their encouragement every pound 

 of butter the}"^ make deserves a premium. And the 

 careless makers of tlie inferior article would only 

 meet the award of justice if they had as mucli de- 

 ducted from the price of their butter as should pay 

 the premium for the better butter. 



Pennsylvania Butter. 



The city of Philadelpliia has long been known 



as the best summer butter market in the Unit- 

 ed States. The principal market is situated 

 where it was originally laid by the founder of 

 that beautiful city, which was laid out more than 

 a hundred and fifty years ago, ;n a style adapted to 

 all fashions and all times — unlike every other con- 

 siderable ancient town that has grown up since the 

 first settlement of the Western world. It is on a 

 wider street nearly central m the city up and down 

 the west bank of the Delaware, and running from 

 the water nearly a mile tow?.rds the heart of tiie 

 population : other streets run parallel, and others 

 numbered as they recede from the water run at 

 right anirles each way from Market street, so that 

 the latter is readied in all directions from the near- 

 est possible distance. The market is a series of 

 stalls covered with extended roofs, which are brok- 

 en only where the the streets crosu at right angles. 

 In this market, attended by mnny of the German 

 women who make the butter witli tlieir own hands, 

 is the beautiful butter exposed which we have men- 

 tioned. It is sometimes in plain and sometimes in 

 printed lumps measuring each a certain quantity : 

 it is yellow as gold, without any artificial coloring: 

 there is no sweat of butter milk upon its surface — 

 nothing adhering to mar its clearness and distinct- 

 ness; it is in fact so perfect that the purchaser 

 needs only to look at it, without eitiier smelling or 

 tasting, to ascertain Its excellent quality. 



The Pennsylvania farmers have a method of mak- 

 ing their butter, which it might be well for farm- 

 ers in all direction^ who keep dairies to imitate. — 

 The dairy cellar Is made over a spring of running 

 water, intn which the pans are sot, the cream ris- 

 ing from the milk at the temperature of the water, 

 which is probably a much better regulator than any 

 other that could be employed. 



Churned from, cream g.jthered and kept at this 

 exact temperature, the cows from which the milk is 

 extracted living on the feed of sweet pastures, it is 

 hardly possible there be other than perfect quality 

 or taste communicated to the butter when it comes 

 fresii from the churn. Where the preparation is so 

 perfect as that of the Pennsylvania dairy establish- 

 mcnls, it will be difficult to make bad butter. 



A great point in making ^ood Butter, 



But tlie very prominent omission in the common 

 dairies of New England is the failure to work out 

 the butter-milk after the churning. If any quan- 

 tity of this is suffered to remain, this will be fatal 

 to its perfect preservation. WjUi the butter-mills 

 adhering no quality of salt will prevent that be- 

 coming sour and the butter from becoming rancid. 

 Butter-milk can all be separated irom the butter ; 

 and before iJ, is put down, I he business of every dai- 

 ry-woman should be to see that every particle is 

 extracted. Tlie thing wanted is to force out the 

 milk entirely; and this too must he done with the 

 precaution of not working too much, as that may 

 make the butter gluey and tough. 

 Not too much, bnt the best kind of salt. 



Another defect discovered in much of the butter 

 purchased in kegs or firkins arises from an excess- 

 ive use of salt. Not only should the salt used be 

 clean and pure, but no more should be used than a 

 sufiiciency to make it palateable. The common 

 fine white table salt is not generally used to cure 

 meat, but the strong rock salt imported from tho 

 islands. The salt made at the extensive works 

 owned by the State of New York at Salina in tho 

 interior of that State is the kind generally used in 

 the western country. Most of the pork of Ohio is 

 put down with this salt, which is fine, clear and 

 v.hite, and of a beautiful appearance: but it has 

 not the strength of the coarser Imported salt ; and 

 much of the Ohio pork is tainted as a consequence 

 of its want of savour. The fine blown salt is prob- 

 ably not as good as tiie rock salt for the perfect 

 preservation of butter. Careful dairy-women will 

 not use the fine salt. They take the coarse rock 

 salt, which seems in Its crude state to be covered 

 with mancrc — wash and dry it in the sun, and af- 

 terwards pound it fine in a mortar. This simple 

 material, without the use of cither sugar or salt-pe- 

 tre, which is sanctioned by some writers, it is be- 

 lieved, will most elfectually preserve butter, which 

 duly prepared, will be as sweet and as palateable- 

 when it is one year as when it is one day old. 



