Here is an example of this radical change in the system of making butter: Northern Vermont has always been a region of large butter production. St. Albans, in Franklin County, is the natural business centre. During the middle of the century the country-made butter came to this town to market every Tuesday from miles around. The average weekly supply was 30 to 40 tons. This was very varied in quality, was sampled and classified with much labor and expense, placed in three grades—prime, fair, and poor—and forwarded to the Boston market, two hundred miles distant. During twenty-five years ending in 1875, 65,000,000 lbs., valued at $20,000,000, passed through this little town. All of this was dairy butter made upon a thousand or two different farms, in as many churns. In 1881, the first creamery was built in this county. Now, the Franklin County Creamery Company, located at St. Albans, has fifty-odd skimming stations distributed through this and adjoining counties. To them is carried the milk from 30,000 cows or more, and the separated cream is sent by rail to the central factory, where from ten to twelve tons of butter are made every day. A single churning room for the whole county! All of this butter is of standard quality, and sold on its reputation upon orders from distant points received in advance of its manufacture. The price is relatively higher than the average for the product of the same farms fifty years ago. [Illustration: BUTTER-MAKING ON THE FARM—THE OLD WAY.] In one respect dairy labor is the same as a hundred years ago. Cows still have to be milked by hand. Although numerous attempts have been made, and patent after patent issued, no mechanical contrivance has yet been a practical success as a substitute for the human hand in milking. Therefore, twice a day, every day in the year, the dairy cows must be milked. This is one of the main items of labor in the dairy, as well as a most delicate and important duty. Allowing ten cows per hour to a milker,—which is pretty lively work,—it requires the continuous labor of an army of 300,000 men, working ten or twelve hours a day throughout the year, to milk the cows of the United States.