Choice gleanings from 45-plus years of Unregistered Bull.

"Seems like," said John, "Secretary of Agriculture Benson is getting along pretty well with cowboys in spite of the cattle market, except for those that milk their cattle instead of punching ‘em.

"Whatever Benson does about the butter subsidy, dairymen won’t like it much. I’ll match dairymen against any other class of people in the world for being discontented. Maybe they’ve got a right to be that way. Relieving a bunch of cows of a big bucket of milk twice a day ain’t my idea of the abundant life. When you have to worry about how much butter you’re gonna get out of the milk, and then what the butter will sell for, you’ve probably got a good enough reason to be mad at the world. Especially when you’ve got a lot of other worries from mastitis to malfunctioning milking machines to pester you.

"I don’t know exactly why people eat less butter than dairymen would like for ‘em too, unless it’s because they can get oleo so much cheaper, or they’re trying to reduce or something. Maybe some of the older ones got their craving for butter satisfied when they were kids.

"Once upon a time, nearly everybody milked a cow or two and skimmed the milk for cream. After they got a batch of cream saved up, they had to churn. In the early days, they used a wooden keg with a wooden plunger which you jerked up and down through the cream till you beat the butter out of it. In hot weather you had to try to figure out some way to keep the cream cool or it wouldn’t make butter. In cold weather, you thought the cream ought to be warmed up. In any case, you thought you’d never get the job done.

"Then, the Daisy churn came along. You could sit on the shady side of the porch and turn a little handle, which was geared to a paddle in the churn. This was a wonderful invention, but it still didn’t make butter-making a very popular sport with housewives, kids or cowboys.

"I’ve seen people try different ways to churn without putting out a lot of hard labor, but none of ‘em worked too well. You could tie a half-gallon bottle of milk to a windmill rod, but that wasn’t much of a success. You could wrap the bottle in a sack and tie it behind your saddle and ride hard all day, hoping you’d jolt the butter fat into a form which was usable on hot biscuits. Meanwhile, you had to keep juicing that old cow twice a day and skimming off more cream. She’d stand there and eat in udder contentment, laughing at you when she swatted you upside the head with her wet tail, or when her calf hunched and skinned your knuckles. Then, if you got the least bit out of patience with her, she’d kick the bucket over or bow up and refuse to let her milk down.

"No, I’d say the butter business is in a bad shape. Nobody except country people will spend the labor or cash it costs. And country people are in the minority and getting more so all the time. Now, it looks like even artificial ice cream is coming up to add to the dairyman’s troubles.

"A few dairymen are philosophical about it, but they’re careful not to let the public or the government know it. One time I heard two of ‘em talking it over when they came to town to get their checks from the creamery.

"‘You know,’ said one, ‘it’s a cryin’ shame how cheap this milk price is. Did you ever stop to think that beer sells for more money than milk?’

"The other one looked around to see if anybody was listening, but I acted like I wasn’t paying any attention. ‘I’ll tell you confidentially,’ he said, "I’ve been milkin’ cows 20 years, but derned if I don’t believe it’s worth it!’" — (S.F. 04/09/53)