MILK SUPPLY AND CREAMERY PRODUCTS 69 



BUTTER 



As everybody knows, butter is one of the oldest and 

 most important products of the dairy industry and 

 since the middle of the nineteenth century, when science 

 was first applied to it, the art of buttermaking has 

 gradually been developed to a high degree of perfection, 

 while the taste for fine butter has grown apace with its 

 manufacture. 



Between 1840 and 1850 the large estates in Holstein, 

 then connected with Denmark, were known for their 

 fine dairies and excellent butter, made in a practical 

 way without much attention to the reason for the 

 rules that were gradually worked out. 



A class of superior dairymaids was educated on these 

 large farms, many of whom were hired by progressive 

 farmers on the Danish islands where an effort was made 

 at that time to introduce better methods of dairying. 



The practical handicraft of these imported expert 

 dairymaids was supplemented and regulated by the 

 scientific work of Professor Segelcke and his pupils and 

 from the Sixties buttermaking became an art in Den- 

 mark which was subjected to the most searching study 

 and improvements. Danish butter soon captured the 

 English market where previously Isigny (from Northern 

 France) and Dutch butter had commanded the highest 

 prices, and Danish sweet butter put up in sealed tin 

 cans also became known all over the world as the only 

 butter that would stand export to the Tropics. 



In this country Orange County, N. Y., first produced 

 a high-class article and, later, Elgin, 111., became the 

 center that stood for the top of perfection. Thence 

 the industry soon spread over the middle western states, 



