Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1868-10-30

/ growing scarcity OF butter In the markets
of the world, and especially in the United
States, which unquestionably contributes
more largely than any nation, both to its
production and its consumption. The
steady enhancement in price of the article
is shown in the following scale of average
wholesale quotations in this market for the
past eight years..
/ 1851. .121l 1865. .S6M
1869 1871 1866, .2eh
1863. lSSa. s go
| 1854 .35 1858 (abouD ..-.-....S
/ The present price of good butter at re-
tail ranging from fifty to sixty cents per
pound in Cincinnati, operates as serious
curtailment of its use in multitudes OF
! families in moderate circumstances Are
we to have butter famine? The New
York reports indicate similar advance
in price. and q decrease in the exports to
foreign countries of some millions OF
pounds per annum. From the Western
i Reserve we learn that the milk which
used to 20 to make butter for export is OF
late years turned almost wholly to the
manufacture of cheese, and that in pro-
digious quantities Huge cheese factories,
operated by companies, engage all the
milk from whole townships, and turn out
millions of pounds of cheese by ma
chinery, whichis mostly exported abroad.
This is said to be more profitable to the
farmers than butter-making, and it is GER
tainly far less troublesome To this source
must be traced one leading reason for the
growing scarcity of good butter in our
market. e.tf.se
According to McCulloch, the butter of
England and Holland is reckoned the best
in Europe, as in our country that pro-
duced in northern ATTITUDES is superior
In the Eastern States, Orange county,
New York, and St. Adams, in Vermont,
have long been the headquarters of prime
butter for expectation. Indeed, much but
ter is sold throughout the country under
the name of "Orange county butter !"
which has no other similarity than its
rich, yellow color, to the delicious articles
turned out by the famous dairies of Middle
town and Goshen. In London the butter
of Epping and Cambridge is in the highest
repute. The COWS which produce the
former, feed in the rich shubbery pastures
of Epping forest. 1t is brought to market
in queer-shaped long rolls of from one to
two feet each, weighing about pound.
Yorkshire butter, which is produced in
great quantities, is often sold for Epplng
or Cambridge, though it is inferior to it.
The origin of butter is lost in antiquity,
SO remote the world will never know who
first invented it. Some people, indeed,
ready to settle all questions on the simplest
available principles, will have it that but
ter must have made its appearance in the
world nearly as soon as milk Nothing
more than good shaking, they reason, is
necessary to convert the one into the
other, and the good shaking might, in the
first instance, have been brought about as
, well by accident as by design. This is the
priori method of accounting for things,
!, and certainly proves that butter might
, have been early and easily discovered.
, Nevertheless, those who demand his
torical proofs as the essential basis of
, their opinions, will find it difficult to
believe that our first parents ever
. tasted butter in Paradise, however much
they may have reveled in milk and honey.
The learned Beckmann, in his History of
, Inventions" tells us that butter, though
now commonly used in the greater part OF
Europe, was unknown, or known very
imperfectly, to the ancients. He has taken
the pains to collate all the passages in
, Scripture where it is spoken of, and shows
, that the word translated "butter" signifies
cream, or some thick milk, and could not
have been solid substance at all. This is
proven by be texts themselves where it is
used: "When washed my steps with but
ter, and the rock poured me out rivers OF
oil !" "He shall not see the rivers, the
floods, the brooks of honey and butter"
etc. The word plainly alludes to some
thing liquid, as it appears that it was used
for washing the feet, that it was drank
like milk, and that it ran in streams when
poured out.
The oldest mention of butter (and even
that is an obscure one) is found in Hero
dotus who says the Scythians "stir the
milk of their mares, and seperate that which
rises to the surface, as they consider 1t more
delicious than that which remains below
it." This perhaps goes no farther than
cream, but Hippocrates, who wrote 400
years before Christ, and was almost CO.
temporary with Herodotns, writes of
cream, that when it is violently agitated,
"the fat part, which is light, rises to the
surface and becomes what is called butter.
The heavy and thick part, which remains
below, is kneaded and dried and is known
by the name of hippGce. The whey or
serum remains in the middle" Here we
have butter and cheese satisfactorily pro-
duced at least two thousand years ago.
But it does not appear from Hippocrates,
nor, indeed, from any Of the ancient writ
ers who mention it, that butter was ever
used as an article Of ordinary food. That
learned Greek physician speaks of its emol-
lient qualities, and prescribes it externally
as medicine. Strabo says that the Lusi-
tanians used butter instead OF oil; and
Elian mentions that the East Indians
anointed the wounds of their elephants
with butter. Galen writes that in cold
countries, which do not produce oil, butter
is used in the baths" Pliny recommends
it to be rubbed over children's gums in
teething, and also for ulcers in the mouth.
Plutarch tells of Spartan lady who
smelled strongly of butter, by which it
seems to have been used as perfume, or
ointment. It is never mentioned by any
Greek or Roman writer as used in cookery
or at the table.
The people of Germany appear to have
| known the use of butter at very early
period, though how early is not known.
In that colder climate both butter and
cheese could readily be made and pre-
served, while in Italy, Spain, and the other
portions ofSouthern Europe, they are not
even now largely produced AS a substi-
tute, the people of those countries have
always been accustomed to the liberal use
of good oil, both for cooking purposes and
for the table. In the South of France
butter is sold in the apothecaries' shops
for medicinal purposes, and one of the
grievances recounted by travellers in Spain
| is that they can seldom meet with butter
| In warm countries it is difficult to preserve |
| it for any length of time, and it appears
certain that the only butter the ancient |
| coJ inc oil tofo or,d