In the earlier chapters of this work I have spoken to farmers and dairymen of the selection, care, and management, of dairy stock. The seventh, eighth, and ninth chapters relate more especially to your department, and on your application and skill will depend chiefly the successful result of the dairy establishment. Of what avail are costly barns, well-selected cows, and judicious feeding, in the butter and cheese dairy, if the products are to be depreciated in value by the imperfect modes of preparing them for the market, where the final judgment is passed upon them, and where it is expected the price will be according to their value? You have, doubtless, had a much greater practical knowledge and experience of the details of dairy management than I have. For this practice and experience I have the utmost respect; but I have not spoken without a knowledge of the subject. I have made many a cheese, and many a pound of butter, while my observations have extended over all the most important dairy districts of the country, and have not been limited to the practices of any one section, which, however good in themselves, may not be the best. I trust, therefore, you will excuse me for calling your attention to the more important points to which I have alluded; and, if my conclusions happen to differ from your own, in any respect, that you will not discard them as worthless, without first bringing them to the test of careful experiment, when I trust they will be found correct. I have not written to establish any favorite theory, but simply to inculcate truth, and to aid in developing a most important branch of American industry, which, either directly or indirectly, involves the investment of a vast amount of capital, the aggregate profits of which depend so largely on your judgment and skill. I need not remind you that any addition, however small, to the market value of each pound of butter or cheese, will largely increase the annual income of your establishment. Nor need I remind you that these articles are generally the last of either the luxuries or the necessaries of life in which city customers are willing to economize. They must and will have a good article, and are ready to pay for it in proportion to its goodness; or, if they desire to economize in butter, it will be in the quantity rather than the quality. Poor butter is a drug in the market. Nobody wants it, and the dealer often finds it difficult to get it off his hands, when a delicate and finely-flavored article attracts attention and secures a ready sale. Some say that poor butter will do for cooking. But a good steak or mutton-chop is too expensive to allow any one to spoil it by the use of a poor quality of butter; and good pastry-cooks will tell you that cakes and pies cannot be made without good sweet butter, and plenty of it. These dishes relish too well, when properly cooked with nice butter, for any one to tolerate the use of poor butter in them.