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. In Proverbs, 30th chapter and 33d verse, he exclaims: "Surely, the churning of milk bringeth forth butter." Isaiah, in the 7th chapter and 15th verse, declares of the coming Immanuel, that "butter and honey shall he eat;" and again (22d verse) that "for the abundance of milk that they shall give he shall eat butter."
IN SOUTHERN EUROPE.
Chambers says: "In ancient times, the Hebrews seem to have made copious use of butter as food; but the Greeks and the Romans used it only as an ointment in their baths, and it is probable that the Greeks obtained their knowledge of the subject from the Scythians, Thracians, and Phrygians, whilst the Romans obtained it of Germany." This would indicate that the Germans at that time were engaged in dairying. But, even now, in Southern Europe, butter is sparingly used, and in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Southern France, it is sold by apothecaries as an ointment. Dairying is now extensively carried on in all the countries of Northern Europe.