470 



KEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Oct. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 FANCY BUTT£K. 



Editors N. E. Farmer: — Mr. Henderson 

 of Ryegate, Vt., asks for a chapter on '■'Fan- 

 cy Bufkr.'''' Your "remarks" are pertinent, 

 but you propose to serve as a medium for 

 somebody el^e to make farther reply, and we 

 take occasion to do so, believing that the 

 public interest may be somewhat advanced 

 thereby. 



The term '■"■famcy''' as applied in this and 

 many other cases is generally opprobrious, and 

 indicative of the disgust of those who, prefer- 

 ing to educate the public taste rather than to 

 cater to it, are too wise to learn, and too stub- 

 born to conform to the public demand, and 

 who as a consequence, do not receive the high- 

 est prices for their products. 



It is moreover a relative term, and does not 

 in any two cases indicate the same thing. In 

 our school days we resided a year in Western 

 Pennsylvania, where the "fancy butter" of the 

 village was made by a Connecticut woman 

 yclept "old mother Smith," who was disgust- 

 ingly filthy, but her butter, the product of a 

 large dairy, was really much superior to the 

 other soap grease sold in the village, and was 

 always in demand at prices considerably in ad- 

 vance of any other. 



We happen to know of several dairies in 

 Vermont where the butter is made and packed 

 in conformity to the taste of a purchaser, and 

 consequently brings ten or fifteen per cent ad- 

 vance upon the very best goods sold in the 

 open market, and of course it receives the 

 sobriquet '■'■fancy butter.'''' 



J. B. Lyman, Esq., of the New York Tri- 

 bune, read a paper before the American Dairy- 

 men's Association at Utica last winter on 

 "Marketing Butter," and enforced his remarks 

 by passing around among the audience a sam- 

 ple of "Philadelphia prints," a very famous 

 "fancy butter;" but understanding full well 

 the advantage to be derived from comparing 

 the goods with some acknowledged standard, 

 he first exhibited a sample of "good butter" 

 which he bad bought at 50 cents a pound, and 

 then the dollar article, and there is not a man- 

 ufacturer, dealer, or consumer of butter in 

 the land, whose senses are so obtuse that he 

 could not readily comprehend the reason why 

 one should bring twice the price of the other. 



That class of people, in one sense happily 

 large, whose senses of taste and smell have 

 become so blunted that they may use anything 

 to lubricate their food, may content themselves 

 with a poor article of butter ; but by far the 

 greater part of mankind are always seeking 

 something better, and Mr. Lyman was proba- 

 bly correct when he said — "We have in New 

 York city at least a thousand families who 

 would consume five pounds each — five thou- 

 sand pounds a week — of just such butter as 

 this ; and a price above seventy-five cents 

 would not for a moment check their eagerness 



to buy." And such families are not confined 

 to New York city, but may be found in every 

 city and village in (he land. 



If we may judge by the spirit of exultation 

 manifested when a dairyman gets a cent or two 

 a pound more for his butter than his neighbor 

 does, it would be a very great satisfaction to 

 get five or ten cents more which is an entirely 

 practicable feat. 



We have not now the time to enter into 

 the details of "how to do it," nor is it neces- 

 sary, as they are elsewhere available to your 

 inquirer at an expense entirely within his reach. 



In general terms, however, the following 

 principles may be enunciated : 



1st. Absolute cleanliness must characterize 

 every feature of the business. Bad air, bad 

 water and poor feed, taint the milk before it 

 is drawn from the udder as well as after. 



2d. Uniform temperature must be secured 

 for the milk room by the use of water or other- 

 wise. This is a very important matter, sadly 

 neglected by most butter makers, and well 

 understood by but very few. 



8d. Care and sound judgment must be ex- 

 ercised, that everything be done at the proper 

 time, and in the best manner. One of the 

 greatest evils of the prevailing system of but- 

 ter making, is letting the milk stand too long 

 before the cream is taken oQ.. It should never 

 be permitted to become loppered. The ap- 

 pearance and quality of the butter should be 

 uniform throughout the year, and this, though 

 easily accomplished by care, can never be the 

 result of chance, so varying and changeable 

 are all the surroundings in the field and the 

 dairy house. 



4th. It is not enough to have made a good 

 article, it must be put up for market in a neat, 

 attractive style, and when a style has been 

 adopted it should never be changed except for 

 the most weighty reasons. 



When the producer has satisfied himself 

 that he is prepared to put an article on the 

 market that is creditable to himself, and of 

 such uniform quality as to be alwaj s and in- 

 variably up to the standard adopted, then, and 

 not till then, should he seek a regular cus- 

 tomer who will take all his product at ' 'fancy 

 prices." 



We have known persons who lacked the 

 facilities or skill to make a uniformly good 

 article succeed in establishing a good reputa- 

 tion, by judiciously putting only their best 

 goods before their regular customers, and the 

 poorer upon the general market. 



We lately overheard an old dairyman re- 

 proving a member of his family for waiting 

 time in washing off the outside of a butter tub, 

 saying that it did not make any difference how 



mu«.h mud and was on the outside, it did 



not affect the price. It will not always be so, 

 and it is weM to begin to reform in that re- 

 spect. 



This is a progressive age, and in every de- 

 partment of human industry radical advances 



