16 THE 



carding and brushing them, the washing of the udder 

 when necessary, but always the wiping of it with a wet 

 sponge or towel, the cleansing of the utensils, the careful 

 protection of the milk from everything which would 

 make it impure or offensive, the situation and care of the 

 milk-house, the manner of milking, churning and pre-, 

 paring the butter, with every other of the various de- 

 tails of the work. In every way the most constant and 

 perfect cleanliness being necessary, this habit must be so 

 thorough and strong that no effort will be needed to ac- 

 commodate one's self to it, and therefore it must be made 

 a part of himself by every thorough and successful 

 dairyman. 



In the following chapters it will be made apparent 

 how very great and important results hang upon the 

 merest trifles, as one might suppose, in dairy work. 

 But it is in regard to these trifles that most of fhe great 

 affairs of nature and industry depend for their results. 

 A spark of the smallest size dropped into a powder maga- 

 zine may lay a town in ruins or destroy a great ship and 

 a thousand lives. One single»grain of sand will destroy 

 the balance of a great mass of matter ; a single degree of 

 temperature is sufficient to turn water into ice, or solid 

 ice into liquid ; and is^it strange, therefore, that little 

 things should have an important effect upon the quality 

 and the value of tbe butter, and so affect seriously the 

 question, of a man's success in business, or of profit or 

 loss in it ? For this reason my readers will be asked 

 to consider every supposed trifle mentioned in these 

 pages to be of importance to them, because good reasons 

 can be given for it, and my own experience has shown in 

 every case that the little things which may be referred 

 to are really not small by any means, but of serious im- 

 portance in their result. 



