Dairying runs back to a period in the development of the human race of
which we have no record. Man early learned to not only slay animals and
eat their flesh, but to appropriate to himself the food belonging to
their young--a trait of selfishness which he has not yet overcome, and
even manifests by preying in various ways upon his fellows. We have in
the world large classes who add nothing to its real wealth, but live
and luxuriate on the fat of the earth by drawing the results of labor
from the toilers through cunningly devised schemes of finance, business
and government.
IN ASIA.
Away back in the dimness of antiquity, of which even tradition gives no
hint, comparative philology shows us that a civilized race, now known
as the Aryan race, dwelt on the steppes of Central Asia, and that the
ox and the cow constituted their chief means of subsistence. They lived
in simple peace and innocence, their language having no terms of war
and strife. But there came a time when separation began and migration
followed. They were scattered to the four corners of the Eastern
Continent, and their descendants now constitute the progressive nations
of the earth. The parent nation appears to have utterly perished in
giving birth to the nations of the future. No trace of it is left,
save the remnants of its language inherited by its children; but they
furnish indisputable evidence of a common parentage.
AMONG THE JEWS.
Our earliest authentic records about the dairy are of the use of milk
and its products among the Jews. We are told, in the 8th verse of
the 18th chapter of Genesis, that when Abraham entertained the three
strangers, "he took butter and milk, and the calf which he had dressed,
and set it before them." Moses, in his song, as recorded in the 23d
chapter of Deuteronomy, 14th verse, says of Jacob that the Lord, among
other things, gave him to eat "butter of kine and milk of sheep."
Deborah, who declares in her song that "the stars in their courses did
fight against Sisera," who was entertained and slain by Jael, says of
the murderess (Judges, 25th verse and 8th chapter) "he asked water
and she gave him milk, she brought forth butter in a lordly dish."
In the 17th chapter and 5th verse of 2d Samuel, the writer tells us
that David and his people, after the battle in the wood of Ephraim,
were given "honey and butter, and sheep and cheese of kine," to eat.
Zophar, in the 20th chapter of Job, 17th verse, declares of the wicked
hypocrite, who "hath swallowed down riches," that his triumph is short,
and "he shall not see the rivers, the floods, the brooks of honey and
butter"--which, we infer, are designed for the righteous; and Job (29th
chapter and 6th verse) bemoans the loss of his former prosperity,
"when I washed my steps with butter." In the 55th Psalm, 24th verse,
David says of his enemy that "the words of his mouth were smoother
than butter." Solomon appears to have understood the whole business.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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