104 SKETCHES OF RURAL AFFAIRS. 



most healthy-looking persons you meet ; and in country 

 places the dairy-man's wife and daughters are generally 

 blooming as the rose, and gay as the lark. Early rising, 

 constant employment, and great cleanliness, naturally 

 produce a sound body and a cheerful mind ; hence the 

 milkmaid has become the emblem of health and good 

 temper. " It was not without cause," says honest Izaak 

 Walton, " that our good Queen Elizabeth did so often 

 wish herself a milk-maid all the month of May, because 

 they are not troubled with fears and cares, but sing 

 sweetly all the day, and sleep securely all the night." 



There is, indeed, much to make dairy people happy 

 and contented. Their labour is sure to bring a good 

 return ; and if they have not the opportunity of growing 

 rich, they are yet able to earn a comfortable mainte- 

 nance, without being liable to the heavy losses which 

 large farmers sometimes meet with. Good management 

 and good principles are, of course, necessary to insure 

 success. A family expecting to gain their livelihood 

 from a dairy must all be prepared to lend a helping 

 hand, and must never think of leaving the work to ser- 

 vants. No one can be expected to take the same care, 

 and feel the same interest in the task as they do ; and 

 therefore the business of the dairy should be managed, 

 as far as possible, by themselves. 



This we find to have been done by good managers, 

 from very early times. Nor do the wives and daughters 

 of respectable farmers, even now, feel it to be any dis- 

 grace to work in their dairies, and to superintend every- 

 thing that goes on there. And if the times are so far 

 changed that we do not see them carrying their butter 

 and eggs to market, as in former days, yet they are as 

 profitably employed at home, and often become cele- 

 brated for their skill in butter and cheese making. 



English women have understood the method of mak- 

 ing butter from very early times. When the Romans 

 first set foot on this island they found that the inha- 

 bitants had abundance of milk, from which they made 



