IULINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 
65 
ie wishes to make a deal when he will be the loser; there is more difficulty in the 
ay in dealing in futures in butter than in grain. No dealer would want to buy June 
itter for December delivery, nor would a factory man want to sell December butter 
r June delivery, so it seemed there was little chance for dealing in futures in butter. 
The programme was then resumed in regular order. 
THE PROCESS OF BUTTER-MAKING—WHAT, IF ANYTHING, IS 
NECESSARY TO IMPROVE ITS QUALITY? 
. BY J. H. BROOMELL, OF AURORA. 
When we consider the ample attention this subject has received in dairy conven- 
ons during the last fifteen years; the number of papers read, the talks had and the 
seeches made elaborating the entire system of good butter-making, it would seem 
lat nothing new could be said and that there should not be a single pound ot poor 
Utter produced in the entire butter belt of this country. . 
It is true that reasonable progress has been made, but it has been achieved through 
practical dose of the old maxim, “ Line upon line, and precept upon precept, and 1 
now of no way to improve the quality of our butter product as a whole with our pres- 
tit knowledge and appliances, except through the reiteration of the methods and 
rocesses now used by our most successful butter-makers. . 
The progress made in all departments of human activity is mainly due to the 111 - 
estigating turn of mind of a few men. They are not satisfied with what has been 
ttained. They thirst for new pastures. They look for easier ways of reaching de- 
ired ends, and the result is the invention of labor-saving machines. On account ot 
lose competition, they invoke the aid of science to work out better results, and we 
ave new theories, often in direct contradiction to the long-established notions. I 
carcely need call the attention of this convention to the fact that the same tendencies 
hat have been at work overturning things in the great world about us, have been 
qually busy at work in the department now under discussion. . , 
During the last fifteen years we have seen wonderful things done m the line of 
nplied science. No period of the world s history has seen anything to compare with 
t. Edison and Grd '* put their fertile minds to work, and the results are the electric 
ight,—devoted to the lighting of buildings, streets and cities—and the telephone, 
low indispensible to the business activity of our country. Considering the fertility 
n invention of the period of which I speak, it is not strange that the machinery toi- 
nerlv used in butter-making has been supplanted by something much improved, 
chile new labor-saving inventions have been added that were not thought of nor 
Ireamed of by our pains-taking, slow plodding ancestors. The gratifying result ot all 
his overturning is a finer article and a better yield of butter per cow , a laigei piofit 
o the farmer, which has resulted in his keeping more cows to the square mile, and 
inallv, a steady advance m the price of the manufactured product to the point where 
he poor, as well as “well-to-do people ” are compelled to call it a luxury. I he rich 
qace it in the same catalogue with canvass-back duck, frogs legs, and quail on toast. 
Jur relations to butter are like those of people who lived two thousand years ago. 
Chamber’s encyclopedia says : “ In ancient times the Hebrews seem to have made 
ionious use of butter as food \ but the Greeks and Romans used it only as an ointment 
n their baths and it is probable that the Greeks obtained their knowledge of the sub¬ 
stance from the Scythians, Thracians and Phrygians, while the Romans obtained it 
from Germany. In Southern Europe, at the present time, buttei is veiy sparingly 
lsed and in Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Southern France, it is sold by apothecaries 
is a ’medical agent for external applications.” Let us take courage, those of us who 
have been compelled to pay dearly for our home supply of butter, i rom the tacts of 
history it must be applied hereafter as an ointment, not as a condiment , as pi ice and 
precedent indicate. . _ , , . T , . ., 
Let us note some of the steps taken m the progress of butter-making : It is said 
to be the practice in Arabia and other Asiatic countries to this day to conveit uidk 
into butter by putting the lacteal fluid of the camel and mare into leather sacks and 
to produce the necessary agitation by tying these sacks behind fleet horses, who gal¬ 
lop with them at full speed over the plains. No attempt is made at cream-raising. 
The whole milk is put into the sacks and churned by this rude process. Ot course the 
product is crude, and,is eaten mostly without salt, but I dare say it will compaie well 
with butter which all of you have seen made by the old dash churn in the hands of an 
untidv housewife, on the sunny side of her humble shanty on a hot July morning. 
Such product has been well named "butter. Under ciicumstances scaicely less 
favorable, was made a goodly share of the bin ter of commerce a few yeais ago. It 
was the bane of grocerymen and a curse to all dealers who touched it. It w r as ot all 
shades of color and of all degrees of uncleanness. Some of it over salted, some under 
salted. Most of it would not stand heat, and a large part of it was absolutely rancid. 
