FANCY BUTTER.

Clutha Leader, Volume I, Issue 24, 24 December 1874, Page 6

FANCY BUTTER.

(To the Editor of the Clutha Leader.")

Sir, — I should like to preface a few remarks, which you will perhaps allow me to make, regarding the fancy prize butter at the last agricultural show at Balclutha, by stating that I was not an exhibitor, successful or unsuccessful, of dairy produce. My experience ' in the 'art of manufacturing butter is very limited. I will admit that I have gone through.the initiatory process of milking a cow, and I have once or twice in a moment of amiable weakness volunteered to relieve a woman, twice as strong as myself, in grinding at the handle of a Yankee or rotatory barrel churn. On such occasions I have thought what a pity it was that some clever mechanist had not long before that effected a combination of the hurdy-gurdy and the churn, so that the monotony of the work might have been lessened by the dulcet air of "I dreamt that I dwelt in Marble Halls." An instrument to produce butter and music simultaneously, would, I am sure, meet with a ready sale, especially among itinerant musicians.^ Though I cannot make butter I can eat it, and I have a right therefore as a consumer to protest against the form which it took under the denomination of " fancy butter" at your late show, and was deemed worthy of a prize. The incongruous elements of the model architectural structure, must have struck the most imaginative person. One does not shrink altogether from the notion of a castle or house made of sugar. For a dry country it might last*'a long time, and give scope for the play of many a sweet fancy to the inhabitants. ' But a castle made of butter. Ydu cannot possibly imagine any human being living in that. Unless the thermometer were continually about 40° below zero (Fahrenheit), and the sky as a rule cloudy, the noble arched gateway and fluted columns would be rapidly transformed into a large grease spot oh the fair face of nature. Moreover, was the prize to be given for the ability to dress butter in tasteful inviting shapes or pats, offering no difficulty by size, for their transference from the crystal dish of water in which they maybe supposed floating to your own plate and hot morning roll ?or 'was 'it to be given for a display of architectural talent in butter ? Is it^ not possible by the help of some simple little wooden 'dairy instrument, to" rhake butter into forms, bearing not "an exact, but a pleasingly remote resemblance"* to thihgs which might bring to mind the charming accessaries of rural toil — as, for instance, buttercups, daisies, and grao choppers; or into the infinite variety "of shapes of which clubs, spades, hearts, and diamonds are the type, as represented in playing cards ? Surely the meekest of men would be justified in protesting against having a piece of Butter representing the highest architecture of the present day; and about the size of a small dog-kennel,* placed "upon his' breakf&st- : table. He would be obliged to scrape 'the ; walls, or cvt 1 awa£ at tbe foundations, running the risk id his arixiety'to get a convenient piece on the end of his knife of : bringing the whole affair tumbling down, and spreading ruin" and disaster amongst : the crockery. Besides, one cannot "avoid ! the feeling of its having beeu necessary to ! put the 'butter through repeated'and varied i manipulations before the greasy edifice was ' properly' completed; and Ihave a strong j, opinion that the less butter is handled and i plastered about after it is "made up," the ! pieasanter it is as an article of diet. I hope that when the next show of this Society takes place, there may . be evinced a '<

stronger inclination to bestow a prize for butter in shapes, combining convenience with beauty, instead of for large fancy forms for which, hog's lard or any other plastic substance would serve equally as well. My love .of butter must be an excuse for the length of my letter ; and as a.lineal descendant of that man of whom it was said in his youth that he reseuibled a certain small erective because he made the butter fly, J beg to subscribe myself,; jSir, obedient, hpnable servant,' CaT-SKEIXIjAE.