239] THE MANUFACTURE OF BUTTER I5 



families had no butter in the winter. Much of the butter 

 consumed during the winter was made in the summer and 

 preserved with brine or salt. The butter was packed in 

 firkins or tubs, and in regions remote from towns was 

 taken to market only once or twice each year. 1 



Up to 1850 there was no science in dairying. 2 " Every- 

 thing was done by guess; there was no order, no system, 

 no science in dairy operations." 3 This indictment against 

 the farmer still holds in a great many cases. The unsani- 

 tary conditions under which the greater portion of the 

 supply of milk is produced and marketed is a rebuke to 

 society, and demands the earnest and unceasing attention 

 of the scientist, the advocate, the legislator, and the ad- 

 ministrator. Marvelous progress has of course been made 

 in science, and dairy products are frequently produced and 

 marketed under almost perfect sanitary conditions and 

 according to rules definitely known to bring certain results. 

 This is usually the case where medical milk commissions 

 diligently perform their duties and also in the making of 

 creamery butter; but on a great many farms, where dairy- 

 ing is not specialized, sanitation is very sadly neglected. 

 Unless one experiments in the chemical laboratory or 

 studies reports dealing with effects of bacteria upon human 

 life, it is somewhat difficult to appreciate the importance 

 of producing and marketing milk in such a way as to ex- 

 clude putrefactive bacteria and disease germs. The fact 

 that the domestic system of manufacture is decentralized 

 causes dairy butter on the whole as compared with cream- 

 ery butter to be much poorer in quality. Before the edu- 



1 H. E. Alvord, Agricultural Yearbook for 1899, p. 383. 



3 Ibid. 



3 For a treatment of the principles of dairying, see H. E. Van Nor- 

 man, First Lessons in Dairying; Grotenfelt and Woll, The Principles 

 of Modern Dairy Practice; H. H. Wing, Milk and its Products. 



