ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 27 
iy subject with which he is totally unacquainted, and deliver sage opinions upon 
pics of which lie is entirely ignorant, and still be suffered to run at large. 
For me to follow this dangerous precedent and tell what I know about the dairy 
isiness would be to leave unoccupied twenty-five of the thirty minutes offered me, 
nee I am quite sure that my actual, practical knowledge upon the subject could not 
h elaborated to take up more than five. While it would be a calamity to me to have 
y supply of butter and cheese cut off, I am forced to admit that my ideas as to the 
•ecise method of their manufacture are very few and vague. 
But while the practical side of the important matters which have called this Con¬ 
dition together must be left, by the greater part of the world, to those whose especial 
„re it is, the dairy has a history, ancient and modern, and, in English, a beautiful 
;erature as old as the language itself, which all may understand and enjoy. 
Butter has an ancient name and an honorable history centuries older than the 
nglish language; and though its modern uses are most prosaic and it is among .us as 
immon a substance as we could name, this was not always its case. It may be said 
have its noble ancestry; to have enjoyed its palmy days of aristocracy and in one 
nse to have descended rather than arisen to its present position in the world. 
Its earliest mention in history is by Herodotus, who speaks of its use in his ac- 
>unt of the Scythians. Plutarch also writes of it. So you see it has employed the 
ms of the greatest of ancient historians and biographers. 
There is no earlier mention of it than this, for the butter of Scripture was not 
mrned, but was merely cream which had never been agitated. 
These famous authors, Herodotus and Plutarch, wrote of it, not as an article of 
od, not as brought upon the table, in a dish however costly or elegant, a dish which 
light even have had to stand below the salt, a dish the contents of which would be 
',relessly devoured and at that only as an adjunct. They wrote of it as the extreme 
xury of a lady’s toilet, kept upon her dressing-table beside her benzoin and myrrh, 
hr carven box of artificial bloom and her casket of flashing gems. The Roman maids 
id matrons of fashion used it as a dressing for the hair. 
The physician and surgeon, too. In those old days a man mighty in the minds 
j the ignorant mass of the people, kept in a dark corner of his secret closet, among 
Is charms and philters, his potions and poisons, his plasters and ointments, a care- 
:lly covered receptacle containing his most soothing salve, his most healing and 
• mt'orting unguent, and this precious, mysterious substance, which he applied with 
ue professional wisdom to the wounded of the Roman legions returning from battle, 
ud the ghastly gashes of the gladiator dragged torn but breathing from his trial in 
e arena, was only unsalted butter. 
As you sit down at your breakfast table in the morning and your eyes fall upon 
e round dish next the castor, raise the cover of that dish by the cow poised upon 
h top in an attitude which no live cow ever did or could assume, and carefully scan 
I? contents, not with the cold eye of the critic who might search for its imperfections 
: the way of color, or odor, or possibly foreign particles admixed, nor with the dis- 
'rted vision of the world-wise cynic who might sniff it contemptuously and denounce 
:as oleomargarine, but as a person of education, of culture, of aesthetic taste should, 
pink not that it may be old, but remember that it is ancient. Let it bear to you 
e odor of elegance, the flavor of high art in personal adornment, the color which 
as so infinitely becoming to those Italian beauties who wore it so long ago. 
Fancy a teasing little Tullia beseeching her warlike pap to bring her home a jar 
■ butter from his next spoils. Imagine Amelia, insanely jealous of her bosom friend 
alia, who calls upon her just long enough to say, in the Latin of the best society, 
Isn’t it a charming day ? Did you see that lovely fight at the Coliseum last week ? 
e met one of those dear, sweet gladiators on the Appian way last evening, the one 
ho slew two lions and a bear. Smell my new butter? Bye-bye, darling.” And am- 
tious Miss Amelia, rushing immediately to the bazaar where the choicest accesso¬ 
rs of the toilet are for sale, and eagerly inquiring,Have you any perfectly gorgeous 
itter ? ” Consider the terrible situation when not even Amelia’s* offer of this tempt- 
:g gift to her daugliter-in-law, Prupeda, would induce that willful matron to forego 
A Platonic friendship with that Clodius whose presence at her house caused her 
worce from her illustrious lord, since Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion. 
Remember that a disagreement between two noble ladies as to the relative merits 
i butter and oil as a more elegant dressing, extended to their powerful husbands, 
ought about political discussion in the Senate. And indeed less important topics 
an those of taste frequently caused the sparks to fly in that most inflammable legis- 
bive body. 
How these fashionable dames -would have stared had any one suggested eating 
Itter. It would have been an extravagance second only to Cleopatra’s famous one 
i drinking costly pearls dissolved in her wine. 
If the ancients had been thoroughly up in the art of advertising, their daily papers 
ight have contained a column which, translated, -would read thus : 
