HISTORICAL 27 



should be filled with hot water, and after standing from ten to 

 twelve hours, treated as after churning sweet cream. 



15. For preserving butter conical vessels are best suited, be- 

 cause they prevent holes from forming when the butter settles. 



16. Explicit directions are given for salting and treating butter. 



17. Directions are set down for building a suitable dairy house 

 with an ice-chest. 



These directions show a profound knowledge of dairying, 

 although some of the directions are based on faulty assumptions 

 and do not hold in the hght of modern knowledge. 



This brief outline of the history of dairying shows that butter 

 has assumed its present popularity as an article of food in rela- 

 tively recent times. As a matter of fact, it is even now not as es- 

 sential among inhabitants of tropical countries as among those in 

 cooles latitudes. No doubt its instability in a warm climate is a 

 discouraging factor, detracting from its general usefulness. More- 

 over, in southern climates cow's milk is, usually, not as rich in 

 butter-fat as in northern localities. In Cuba, for example, butter 

 is served chiefly in the best hotels, especially in those that cater to 

 American travelers, and the quality is not of the highest grade. 

 This butter is imported, since the milk of native cows is not rich 

 enough for butter making. 



It has been proved that butter, whatever its quality and com- 

 position, was included in the diet of man in remote periods, and 

 this fact is a safe indication that milk — other than human milk — 

 has served as food for a long time. Dairy products — butter, 

 cheese, buttermilk, fermented milks — probably were the result of 

 accidental fermentations of left-over milks. A study of the kinds 

 of cheese and the kinds of fermented milks most popular among 

 different peoples shows that there is enough variety to lead to the 

 assumption that they were developed independently. This fact 

 confirms the hypothesis, previously advanced, that the dairy in- 

 dustry was initiated simultaneously in different parts of the 

 world, or at least at the periods corresponding to definite stages of 

 civilization. Perhaps the period when man changed from roaming 

 habits to agricultural pursuits can be taken as the starting-point 

 of dairying. 



However this, may be, progress was necessarily slow. Rapid 

 development of efficient methods in the dairy industry is of rela- 

 tively recent origin. Even .today dairy methods in general are 

 not as highly developed as methods in other industries; and this 

 in spite of the fact that the dairy furnishes the most valuable food 

 known to mankind. Furthermore, the quantity of food derived 

 from dairy products far outstrips that of any other food. 



Sanitary precautions in milk production are of still more recent 



