PEICE OF BUTTER. 121 



any other product that the farmer raises. It is just so with 

 butter. Butter factories have increased all over the United 

 States about as rapidly as cheese factories, and still there is 

 an outlet for butter, and it brings a very fair price. We do 

 not all get the highest price. A few get an extra price, but 

 they do not get more than they ought to have. It is claimed 

 by many that we ought not to get seventy-five or eighty cents 

 a pound for butter; that it is not worth it. Well, whether it 

 is worth it or not, we all know that a piece of butter as big 

 as a walnut, just right to come on our table, is worth more 

 than a piece as big as a hen's egg that is not just right ; and 

 if it is as big as your fist, if it is off flavor, I do not want it. 

 So, when a dairyman makes a nice article of butter, and 

 delivers it fresh from the churn, twice a week, or once a 

 week, as may be, — perfectly sound, sweet, fresh butter, — he 

 will get his price for that butter, always. That will not drop 

 off. We would all like to have that, but as we cannot, we 

 will take the firkin butter. We cannot all get that kind of 

 butter, even at sixty cents a pound ; so that I think there is 

 no danger of overstocking the market if we continue, as 

 many of us as can, making cheese and butter. 



Whole-milk cheese, that is made with all the fat in it, does 

 not keep as well as cheese made of milk from which a small 

 amount of fat has been taken. I have been told by chemists 

 that an excess of fat will throw it off flavor unless it is per- 

 fectly made. There is but a small amount of cheese in the 

 United States at the present time that is perfectly made, that 

 will stand six or nine months' keeping. Most of the cheese 

 that now goes to Liverpool as American fine cheese comes to 

 maturity in ten days ; is fit to ship and be called nice cheese 

 in ten days from the press. That cheese would not be fit to 

 be called a fair quality of cheese in three or six weeks, so 

 that there are a great many ways to handle cheese and get it 

 on the market as quick as possible. 



Dr. Loring. I have listened with the greatest pleasure to 

 the paper which has been read here this afternoon by Mr. 

 Cheever, upon the question, as I understand, now under dis- 

 cussion, — milk, cheese, butter, and the dairy generally. There 

 were a great many good suggestions in his paper; there 

 were some intimations which I should hardly agree with, and 



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