Dairying in the Olden Bays 89 



the early settler got him a cow. And after he 

 built his cabin and a shelter for his oxen and cow, 

 his next thought, in the architectural line, was a 

 milkhouse. If there was a knoll near his home in 

 the woods, he'd make a '* dug-out " milkhouse, with 

 a superstructure of logs. In these milkhouses our 

 first dairying was done and an industry begun 

 which has made the name of Canada famous wher- 

 ever the flag flies and wherever they spread butter 

 on the staff of life. The milkhouse would have 

 crude shelves about its wooden waUs, a gravel 

 floor and, sometimes, a spring of water in it. Mil- 

 lions of pounds of hand-made *' condensed sun- 

 shine" were produced from these rude dairies of 

 the pioneers, and most of it was prime stuff, too. 

 Cake and pie and bread and coffee, like mother 

 used to make, are appealing, of course, but every 

 man or woman raised on an old-time farm, is ready 

 to vote that his or her mother made the best but- 

 ter to be had on earth. The first milkpans of the 

 pioneer were wooden — I am informed — something 

 like the modern wooden butter-bowl, and were 

 made by the Indian or squaw, in fact, they were 

 termed squaw dishes. Then came the Delft or 

 earthenware dishes which, later, gave place to the 

 tin-pan of modern commerce. 



THE FIRST CHURNS 



The first chums were wooden, surely, with the 

 up and down dasher, and the manipulation of a 



