AMERICAN DAIRYING. 



By X. A. WILLARD. A. M. 



[An address before the National Agricultural 

 Congress at Philadelphia, Sept. 13, 1876.] 



Gentlemen : Dairying is of very ancient 

 origin. The manufacture of cheese and butter 

 was known and practiced more than three 

 thousand years ago. In the earliest history of 

 the human race mention is made of cheese and 

 butter, and there is reason to believe that these 

 products were known and used as food many 

 ages before the earliest record of them by the 

 writers of antiquity. 



The earliest notice of the manufacture of 

 cheese in the Bible is where Job, complaining 

 of life, says : " Hast Thou not poured me out 

 as milk, and curdled me as cheese V" David was 

 sent to his brethern in the Valley of Elah with 

 this injunction : " Carry these ten cheeses to the 

 Captain of their thousands and look how thy 

 brethern fare." 



Homer, the grand old poet of the Greeks, 

 makes record of the dairy in the following lines, 

 written nearly a thousand years before the 

 Christain era : 



" Around the grot we gaze, and all in view 

 In order ranged, our admiration drew, 

 The bending shelves with loaves of cheeses 



pressed, 

 The folded flocks, each seperate from the rest." 



Julius Caesar says the principal food of the 

 Germans in his day consisted of milk, cheese 

 and flesh, and he gives a similar account of the 

 Gauls or ancient inhabitants of France. 



Allusion to butter is several times made in 

 the Old Testament, but the earliest is in Gene- 

 sis, in Abraham's time. When he had washed 

 the feet of the angel visitors, and given them a 

 little cold water, it is recorded : " He took but- 

 ter and milk and the calf which he had dressed, 

 and set it before them, and he stood by them 

 under the tree and they did eat." 



Thus it will be seen that the products of the 

 dairy milk, butter and cheese have a geneol- 

 ogy that goes far back of the " Doomsday Book." 

 They have a history forty centuries old, and 

 this it would seem must be old enough for the 

 most fastidious lover of " old cheese." 



But what must be considered remarkable in 

 this connection is that these products have been 

 regarded in all ages of the world as luxuries, or 

 among the highest types of human food. Abra- 

 ham set before his angel visitors " milk and but. 

 ter, and they did eat." Now with all due re- 

 spect for the wonderful progress of this cen- 

 tury, and the skill of our "gilt-edged butter 

 makers," can we not reasonably infer that the 

 butter of Abraham's time, fit to be set before the 

 angels, could have been anything less than ex- 

 cellent, and doubtless it was far superior to 

 much of the butter made at this day, which I 

 am sorry to say is hardly fit to set before even 

 the wicked. 



But I have proposed to speak to you upon 

 "American Dairying," which at best as a spe- 

 cialty can hardly be considered a century old. 

 Dairying as a specialty was practiced in Eng- 

 land and Holland, and in other parts of Europe 

 previous to the 16th century, and the early 

 emigrants to this country must have brought 

 with them the art of butter and cheese making. 

 But previous to the year 1800 there seems to 

 have been no considerable number of diaries 

 grouped together and prosecuting the business 

 as a specialty in any part of America. Most 

 farmers in those days kept a stock of horned 

 cattle animals raised for beef, for working 

 oxen, with cows for breeding and for producing 

 milk, butter and cheese to supply home wants. 



The farming of those days was of a mixed 

 character, nearly every want of the family be- 

 ing supplied from the farm. 



In the fall of 1800 a very exciting election was 

 had for President of the United States, the can- 

 didates being Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson, and 

 to this circumstance are we indebted to a bit of 

 Dairy history. The first really notable affair 

 concerning the dairy that had as yet occurred in 

 the New World. In those days one of the great 

 pulpit politicians of New England was Elder 

 John Lei and. 



Politics ran high, and the contest between Fed- 

 eralists and Democrats was almost as bitter as 

 that between Republicans and Democrats to-day. 

 Puritan pulpits launched their thunderbolts 

 against Jefferson, the great Democratic leader, 

 charging him with being an infidel of the French 

 revolutionary school. In the little town of 

 Cheshire, nestling among the middle hills of 

 Massachusetts, says Mr. Burrett (to whose his- 

 tory of the affair I am indebted), "a counter 

 voice of great power was lifted up from its pul- 

 pit against the flood of obloquy and denunciation 

 that rolled and roared against Jefferson and 

 Democracy. This was Elder John Leland, one 

 of the most extraordinary preachers produced 

 by those stirring times, and he preached such 

 stirring Jeffersonian Democracy to the people of 

 Cheshire, that for generations they never voted 

 anything but a "straight Democratic ticket." 



Democracy prevailed and Jefferson was elected 

 President, and no man had done more to bring 

 about this result than Elder John Leland of the 

 little hill town of Cheshire, Massachusetts. Be- 

 sides influencing thousands ot outsiders in the 

 same direction, he had brought up his whole 

 congregation and parish to vote for the father of 

 American Democracy. Democracy in those days 

 I fancy, was different from the Reform Democ- 

 racy of to-day, but be it as it may. 



He now resolved to set the seal of Cheshire to 

 the election in a way to make the nation know 

 there was such a town in the republic of Israel. 



He had only to propose the method to com- 

 mand the unanimous approbation and indorse- 

 ment of his people, and he did propose it to a 

 full congregation on the Sabbath. With a few 

 earnest words he invited every man and woman 

 who owned a cow to bring every quart of milk 

 given on a certain day, or all the curd it would 

 make, to a great cider mill belonging to their 

 townsman, Capt. John Brown, who was the first 

 man to detect and denounce the treachery of 

 Benedict Arnold in the Revolution. No Federal 

 cow was allowed to contribute a drop of milk to 

 the offering lest it should leaven the whole lump 

 with a distasteful savor. It was the most glo- 

 rious day the sun ever shone upon before or 

 since in Cheshire. Its brightest beams seemed 

 to bless the day's work. With their best Sunday 

 clothes under their white tow frocks came the 

 men and boys of the town, down from the hills, 

 up from the valleys, with their contributions to 

 the great offering, in pails and tuba. Mothers, 

 wives and all the rosy maidens of these rural 

 homes came in their white aprons and best cai- 



