365] THE BUTTER MARKET I4 j 



portation facilities. From about 1850 to well into the 70's 

 there prevailed through the northern part of Vermont the 

 peculiar custom of dealers meeting the farmers at the sta- 

 tions along the railroad on the day the butter car passed 

 through these points. At St. Albans this happened to be 

 Tuesday. An amusing account of the market day in this 

 town runs as follows : 



St. Albans presents a lively appearance on Tuesday during 

 the spring, summer and fall. From early morn till near noon 

 teams laden with butter and cheese are coming in from all 

 directions and as they file in down Lake street toward the depot, 

 that street becomes packed with one dense mass of horses and 

 wagons. Teams are hitched at every post on Alain Street; 

 the hotel barns and yards are full ; the hotels are full, and the 

 farmers — I mean their pockets — are full. Butter is king. 



The scene when the buyers, crowding in among the teams in 

 the streets, are engaged in buying the butter and cheese of the 

 farmers, is a very exciting one. 



The method of marketing butter that prevailed in the 

 regions supplying New York City was different. Before 

 the days of railroads it was customary for the farmers 

 along the Hudson river to entrust captains of river barges 

 with the transportation of their butter and with making 

 favorable sales. 1 The practice that prevailed on these river 

 barges was later followed on the railroads running through 

 the Orange County district, from which butter was shipped 

 twice a week, and on the New York, New Haven and Hart- 

 ford Railroad between Bridgeport, Conn., and New York 

 City, over which a market car was run once every week. 2 

 The captain, whether of a barge or freight car, attracted 



1 X. A. Willard, Practical Dairy Husbandry, p. 246; essay by O. S. 

 Bliss in the Report of the Vermont Dairy Association for 1872. 



* Idem, p. 52. 



