Agriculture is the most healthful , the most useful , and the most noble employment of man .— Washington. 
VOL. IV. NEW YORK, AUGUST, 1845. NO. VIII. 
A. B Allen, Editor. 
~ ~~ BUTTER. 
We have no sympathy with those farmers who 
complain of hard times, and yet make no personal 
effort to remove them from their own shoulders. 
Numberless instances of neglect and bad management 
occur in their operations, which, if guarded against, 
would afford a ready and profitable sale to their pro¬ 
ducts ; but now, will either not sell at all, or at a 
price which does not at all compensate for the labor 
and money expended on them. Probably in no article 
of farm production is this more clearly manifest than 
in the greater proportion of butter which is made in 
the interior of this country, and especially at the West. 
The soil yields good grass, unexceptionable grass; 
and the cows yield good milk, unexceptionable milk ; 
which, in its turn, yields good cream, and the begin¬ 
ning of unexceptionable butter. But the moment 
art steps into the completion of what nature has so 
happily begun, there is an end to perfection, unless it 
be to the perfection of blundering and mismanage¬ 
ment; and the whole operations of master and dairy 
maid, are, in the quaint phraseology of good old 
Tusser, “ so slabbered and sost,” that what might, 
with care and good management, have been in the 
highest degree palatable, is made absolutely execra¬ 
ble. We have repeatedly been forced to notice the 
wretched stuff’which passes under the name of butter, 
found in many of our farm houses and on most of 
the tables in public houses in the interior,—and 
which. has compelled us to limit our choice of eat¬ 
ables to dry bread and tea or coffee, rather than poison 
ourselves with the addition of that miserable stuff, 
which is equally offensive to nostril and palate, and 
which plentifully besmears every dish that can be 
spoiled by its presence. 
With those who are content to use it at home, or 
can sell it to such of their neighbors for consumption, 
as can tolerate it on their premises, the loss is no 
Saxton & Miles, Publishers, 205 Broadway. 
greater than that of one of the good things of this 
life which might have been enjoyed by the same ex¬ 
penditure of labor, that an intolerable article is 
provided. 
But in sending the article to market, another result 
follows, which touches the miserly producer in a far 
more tender point, than in his taste. Choice butter 
sent to any of the large eastern markets, will com¬ 
mand from 15 to20 cents per lb. at wholesale; while 
the wretched stuff usually sent there, is worth only 
the price of grease, for which purpose, it is bought up 
in large quantities at from 5 to 7 cents per lb., and sent 
to England for various uses. Now let us look at the 
statistics of this matter. The product of the dairy for 
Ohio and Indiana, were estimated, in the Report of 
the Commissioner of Patents for 1842, to be, in round 
numbers, $2,600,000. If we take one and a half mil¬ 
lions of this for butter, and allow one-third of the whole 
quantity to be sent to market in bad condition, (and we 
think we are entirely within bounds, for though 
no states can make be'tter butter, none certainly make 
worse than much of it which they export,) we have 
a difference of about 6 cents per lb., amounting in this 
case to three hundred thousand dollars, which 
is annually lost to these two states, from the neglect 
of ordinary care and attention to this one article 
alone. 
For the proper mode of making and packing butter 
for a near or distant market, we refer to numerous 
articles on this subject, in the former volumes of the 
Agriculturist; and we do not hesitate to say, that 
they are as complete and concise as anything evei 
written on this interesting subject. We will now 
merely state here, that the firsf requisite is, to have all 
the articles in use perfectly sweet, and in the utmost 
state of cleanliness. Milk pails, milk pans, churns, 
and butter bowls, should be scalded thoroughly, and 
scoured before using. The second is, to work out 
