The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1886-02-10
agricultural.
r. H. HoSKlNS, M. D., Editor,
Newport, Vermont.
BY No Means Fools.

ricultural papers make in saying things
they do not believe themselves because
they think it will please the farmers.
This practice crops out frequently, and
we will say that it always provokes dis
gust among that intelligent class of
reading farmers upon which the agri-
cultural press must chiefly rely for its
support. The worst recent instance is
the way in which that class of papers
is dealing with the imitation butter
business.
There are good and ample grounds
to demand that the manufacture of any
food product offered in the public
markets for sale should be placed under
strict police supervision, because the
public health demands it. The imitation
butter Gas well as the genuine article)
comes under this head, and all citizens
(not the farmers only, or chiefly are vi
tally interested in the enactment of
proper legislation, and inits effective en-
forcement, in order that nothing of an in
furious nature should be sold for food.
And it also goes without saying that our
government owes to the dairy interest,
in which so much capital is invested,
that no imitation of dairy products shall
be anywhere sold, or offered for sale,
as a genuine article. This, and this
only, is what the intelligent dairymen
of the country demand, and it is what
they could easily get if their would-be
advocates, who claim to represent them
before the public and the law-making
power, would limit their efforts to that
single end. Neither at wholesale nor
at retail should anything other than
pure butter be sold as such. We have
a right to demand that the penalties for
the violation of such statutes shall be
heavy enough, and the officials active
enough, to thoroughly accomplish the
work, which is not one-quarter so diff
cult as the suppression of illicit dis
tillation.
How, exactly, these necessary statutes
NC lldIlCl VIC NO uOl uutlcIIdhC
to say, but we do not regard this as
question of very great difficulty. Those
who are set to enforce the law will soon
discern its defects, and few amend
ments will stop the gaps in the first
enactments. But no law enforces it.
self, and the greatest difficulty in this
IN he 81 ,to,,
liquor laws, will be that the public will
not tax itself to pay for the necessary
cost of its full and vigorous enforcement.
1t has been suggested that the United
States government take the matter up,
lay special tax upon artificial butter,
as upon tobacco and spirits, and also
provide that the article be colored so
differently from genuine butter that it
would be impossible to sell it for any
thing but an artificial substitute. 1t is
certain that United States laws are
usually far better enforced than state
laws, but yet there is danger in over
doing thing.
1t must not be forgotten-and we
wish our readers would particularly
consider this part Of the queston-that
artificial buffers are as strictly farm
product as the best creamery butter,
and that they in fact make good
market not only for tallow, lard (and
perhaps some wholesome vegetable oil,
such as that of cotton-seed), but also
for our first-class and highest-priced
butter. The immense sale that these
imitation buffers have attained seems to
show that something is demanded by
the public to replace the lower grades
of Understanding that will taste
better and keep better. The public
certainly is entitled to what it wants,
and it is pretty sure to get it, any way.
1t is so well satisfied with oleomargarine
and butterine substitutes that a great
many now purchase them regularly
with full knowledge of what they are.
This they have right to do, and no
farmer is ignorant of the fact that pure
animal fats, like suet and lard, are
wholesome articles of food. American
farmers produce more of these than
they do of butter, and the artificial
butter-makers not only purchase them,
but also furnish market, as stated
above, for very large quantity Of the
best genuine butter.
TO recur to our text. The journalists
and others who are striving so hard to
recommend themselves to the dairymen
of the country by vehement denuncia-
tions of artificial butter as an unwhole-
some and poisonous compound (are not
perhaps in all, but in many cases) con-
sciously classifying the facts. There
ought certainly to be strict police SUI
pervision of this, as of all other food
manufactures, but nearly all authentic
accounts reveal (what might well be
presupposed by any who have knowl-
edge of the Importance and difficulty
of preserving genuine butter from
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