I4 THE BUTTER INDUSTRY IN UNITED STATES [364 



This story is interesting because it shows the absence of 

 an efficient market organization. At that time transporta- 

 tion and refrigeration facilities had been only crudely de- 

 veloped. There were then no organized butter markets, 

 such as boards of trade or exchanges where receipts and 

 prices of butter at other markets could be tabulated, and 

 where the buying and selling would result in a market price 

 that was based on the conditions of supply and demand of 

 the entire country. In consequence of this situation there 

 was nothing like the sensitive fluidity that exists to-day in 

 the movement of butter to points of high prices. 



Historic references to methods of marketing butter that 

 are scattered through agricultural and dairy reports show 

 that during the 50's, 6o's and 70's some interesting prac- 

 tices prevailed in different sections of the country. 



Before 1840 very little butter found its way to distant 

 markets during the summer from Franklin County, the his- 

 torically famous butter-producing region of northern Ver- 

 mont. 1 The butter made during the summer was packed 

 in tubs, preserved with salt or brine, and stored in cellars. 

 When winter came the butter with other produce was loaded 

 on sleighs and taken across the frozen St. Lawrence to 

 Montreal. About a week was consumed to make this trip 

 and sell produce valued at about one hundred dollars. 

 With the extension of the railroad through this county and 

 the running of butter cars supplied with ice in 1854, there 

 came to Franklin County that revolutionary change in the 

 methods of marketing its produce that comes to every rural 

 community when it is reached by a railroad. Butter could 

 now be sent to Boston and other markets during the sum- 

 mer. It was no longer stored because of the lack of trans- 



1 A full account of the methods of marketing butter that prevailed in 

 Franklin County at that time may be found in the Vermont Agricul- 

 tural Report for 1872, pp. 158-160. 



