Page:The story of milk.djvu/95

 BUTTER

As everybody knows, butter is one of the oldest and most important products of the dairy industry and since the middle of the nineteenth century, when science was first applied to it, the art of buttermaking has gradually been developed to a high degree of perfection, while the taste for fine butter has grown apace with its manufacture.

Between 1840 and 1850 the large estates in Holstein, then connected with Denmark, were known for their fine dairies and excellent butter, made in a practical way without much attention to the reason for the rules that were gradually worked out.

A class of superior dairymaids was educated on these large farms, many of whom were hired by progressive farmers on the Danish islands where an effort was made at that time to introduce better methods of dairying.

The practical handicraft of these imported expert dairymaids was supplemented and regulated by the scientific work of Professor Segelcke and his pupils and from the Sixties buttermaking became an art in Denmark which was subjected to the most searching study and improvements. Danish butter soon captured the English market where previously Isigny (from Northern France) and Dutch butter had commanded the highest prices, and Danish sweet butter put up in sealed tin cans also became known all over the world as the only butter that would stand export to the Tropics.

In this country Orange County, N. Y., first produced a high-class article and, later, Elgin, Ill., became the center that stood for the top of perfection. Thence the industry soon spread over the middle western states,