But, if you are differently situated, and it becomes necessary to pack and sell as firkin-butter, let me suggest the necessity of an equal degree of nicety and care in preparation, and that you insist, as one of your rights, that the article be packed in the best of oak-wood firkins, thoroughly prepared after the manner of the Dutch, as stated on page 325. A greater attention to these points would make the butter thus packed worth several cents a pound more when it arrives in the market than it ordinarily is. Indeed, the manner in which it not infrequently comes to market is a disgrace to those who packed it; and it cannot be that such specimens were ever put up by the hands of a dairy-woman. I have often seen what was bought for butter open so marbled, streaked, and rancid, that it was scarcely fit to use on the wheels of a carriage. If you adopt the course which I have recommended in regard to skimming, you will have a large quantity of sweet skimmed milk, far better than it would be if allowed to stand thirty-six or forty-eight hours, as is the custom with many. This is too valuable to waste, and it is my opinion that you can use it to far greater profit than to allow it to be fed to swine. There can be no question, I think, that cheese-making should be carried on at the same time with the making of butter, in small and medium-sized dairies. You have seen, in Chapter XI., that some of the best cheese of Holland is made of sweet skim-milk. The reputation of Parmesan--a skim-milk cheese of Italy, page 266--is world-wide, and it commands a high price and ready sale. The mode of making these varieties has been described in detail in the ninth and eleventh chapters; and you can imitate them, or, perhaps, improve upon them, and thus turn the skim-milk to a very profitable account, if it is sweet and good. You will find, if you adopt this system, that your butter will be improved, and that, without any great amount of extra labor, you will make a large quantity of very good cheese, and thus add largely to the profit of your establishment, and to the comfort and prosperity of your family. But, if you devote all your attention to the making of cheese, whether it is to be sold green, or as soon as ripe, or packed for exportation, I need not say that the same neatness is required as in the making of butter. You will find many suggestions in the preceding pages on the mode of preparation and packing, which I trust will prove to be valuable and applicable to your circumstances. There is a general complaint among the dealers in cheese that it is difficult to get a superior article. This state of things ought not to exist. I hope the time is not far distant when a more general attention will be paid to the details of manufacture, and let me remind you that those who take the first steps in improvement will reap the greatest advantages. CHAPTER XIII. THE PIGGERY AS A PART OF THE DAIRY ESTABLISHMENT.