T. D. Curtis

“ Of priests and lordlings, an infernal clan,
Who live by force, and fraud, and artifice.
The crown, associated with the cross,
Is held up by the church as the reward
Of souls that blindly follow in the lead
Of priests who advocate a stupid creed!
"A crown of gold," and nothing else, for loss
Of common sense, full payment can accord!
"No cross, no crown"—self-evidently true,
But not in the delusive sense implied;
If men beneath the cross would not bow down,
No devil, pope, or king, could wear a crown;
But they will wear it all the ages through
That men are willing to be crucified. ”

“ The most abominable of all things in a cheese-factory is tainted milk. It means floating curds, "huffy" cheese, bad flavor and poor prices. Yet, as milk is now managed, most factories will, in hot weather, get occasionally caught with a mess of tainted milk. There are hard work, anxiety and unsatisfactory results in it for the cheese-maker, and dissatisfaction and small profits for the patron. Such things never ought to be; but, when such a catastrophe happens, like other disagreeable things, it has to be borne and the best made of it that circumstances will permit. ”

“ As a rule, it may be said to be the duty of every dairyman to breed from the best blood obtainable, and to rear the heifer calves from his best cows. Unless this condition is fulfilled, the dairy as a whole must run down. It is only by constant care and breeding from the best that the present status can be maintained, and possibly a little progress made. It should be the ambition of every dairyman to constantly improve the value of his herd, and to make progress in every department of his dairy, while improving the quality of his product. ”

“ But, next to Mammon, men adore the god of war.
Or saints, or books, or images, or cross,
No matter what the object worshiped be,
'Tis all the same—idolatrous and gross;
It may be done in all sincerity,
Or only done in base hypocrisy,
As is the fancy of the worshiper;
Both classes bend the superstitious knee,
Hoping their god his favors will confer,
Howe'er the supplicant in life and tho't may err!
There is no efficacy in what's done
By way of worship; all is empty show,
External form; in not a single one
Does it inspire a strong desire to go
The straight and narrow path of duty. ”

“ It is not yet quite so universally admitted that generous feeding is equally advantageous, nor that a warm stable is as much an advance on an open, cold one, where the cows stand and shiver throughout the twenty-four hours, as a common shelter is an improvement on no shelter. Yet, a warm stable, which may be had for a small expense, is decided economy, in the saving of food, as well as a comfort to the cows; and generous feeding will be found a profitable investment, both by the increased flow of milk and by its increased richness. ”

“ The Jersey will not stand harsh usage; but for the man of refined taste and good judgment, who wants a nice thing and to turn out fancy goods, she is most decidedly the cow, and will not disappoint him. Solid colors and black muzzles are the fashion in Jerseys, but we are not aware that there is any practical merit in these. They have been bred down in size, to suit the taste of the English Lord, who wants them as pets on his lawns. This is rather against than in favor of the Jersey as a dairy cow, as it must of necessity reduce her capacity for converting food into milk and cream. ”

“ Thro' Mammon and the Church hell rules to-day,
And flaunts the cruel cross before our eyes;
Losing its hold on State, the church demands
All privileges which our thoughtless hands
Will grant unto its agents, who would slay
The Nazarene again as sacrifice.
Hell still is tempting men with wealth and power,
And finds of Judases a fearful host;
Free thought and speech it everywhere assails,
Religion's sure decay loudly bewails,
But while it reads the tokens of the hour,
It still persists in threat and empty boast. ”

“ One would hardly think of associating cheese-making with the fine arts; yet, in what other light can we view the subject of color? It adds nothing to the quality of the cheese, but rather detracts from it. It is expensive and troublesome, and grows more so every year, as the demand for annotto runs up the price and leads to adulteration. But as long as we make cheese for a foreign market, we must adapt our goods to the tastes of that market, whether they be physical or mental. Our home market would, perhaps, not suffer from the omission of color ”

“ A tricky man may juggle a bad mess of milk on to the best expert. How can the cheese maker tell whether the milk is from a gargetty udder, or the first milk after calving—both of which may develop in a very offensive way when the milk is heated up? So the milk may be so nearly tainted or so nearly sour that it will not stand the process of heating up and cooking. The law ought to be very severe on the man who delivers bad milk at a factory, or sells it to anyone. ”

“ Some kind of blessing through his pleading tones,
While bowing low upon his marrow-bones,
And has no thought of principle or law;
He thinks his very abjectness atones
For all offenses, and he stands in awe
Lest he offend the priest who smites him with his jaw.
Idolatry but feeds the soul on stones,
And makes it fear the living and the dead;
It worships arbitrary power in bones
From which all power to harm or bless has fled;
It puts a halo round some dead man's head
And worships him as one whose blood atones
For all the sins the human race hath bred ”

“ Great care should be taken in weighing milk, to not only weigh it right, but to make the patron feel that his milk is honestly weighed, and that he is likewise honestly credited on the milk-book. Much suspicion and hard feeling are liable to spring up, if the man who weighs the milk has the appearance of being hasty and careless—especially if he should be ill-natured and disagreeable in his manners. And it may not be out of place here to remark, that good manners and a spirit of accommodation are no more out of place in a cheese-factory than anywhere else. ”

“ Sour, whey-soaked cheese has been the rage, and it is generally supposed that acid alone makes a firm cheese, when the experience of every cheese maker is that it is very difficult, by the ordinary processes, to make a firm curd out of sour milk—which, of course, no one ought to be asked to make into cheese—unless it be pot-cheese. Acid may make a curd solid, but not until it has cut out a large share of the goodness of the curd, and the cheese resulting will be about as digestible as so much putty. ”

“ Or churches; so the mass submits and delves.
The world is told that men should bear the cross
Of robbery, oppression, want and woe,
Pg 23 On earth, that they a crown above may wear,
And ease their souls in everlasting prayer
Unto a God who shall repay all loss
By special gifts to those who bow most low!
The church has always taught submission here,
Not to the laws of being, but of state;
Hell calls for "stronger governments" to rob
And hold in terror the uprising mob
Which it provokes and seeks to rule thro' fear—
A horrid rule of wrong, and force, and hate. ”

“ But, in an old factory, where everything started off badly, the old adage, that "it is hard to learn old dogs new tricks," is apt to be exemplified. They dislike innovations, think a new man, who wants to be particular, wishes to put them to useless trouble, and they are not disposed to gratify him, but rather to growl at him, and feel that what was good enough for others is good enough for him. ”

“ His thoughts, more positive, come into view
As actual objects to the subject's mind;
So in our little realm, by law as true
As Life, our consciousness is all confined,
And we behold God's thoughts in matter's form designed. ”

“ Formerly, it was thought that anybody who could throw out coarse fodder and hay to cattle knew enough for all practical purposes about feeding, and that any sort of a shelter, or no shelter, if the animal survived, was sufficient. Better ideas are beginning to prevail. Few men now think they know all that can be learned about feeding stock, and those who know the most are the most anxious to learn. A thorough knowledge of feeding requires a knowledge of physiology and biology, with the chemical composition and nutritive qualities of the different kinds of food. ”

“ Now, what has the cheese-maker got on his hands, some sweltering morning, during the season when it is "too hot to make butter," and people kindly draw their dairy liquids to the cheese-factory? Why, on rising in the morning and rubbing open his eyes, he breaks the cream on his milk. The under surface has a sickish, sour smell, which tells him very plainly that it cannot be worked up too soon. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Cross and Crown. THE CROSS.
Emblem of Ignorance and Cruelty,
Ensign of Superstition's brutal reign,
Banner of Despotism's foul career,
Signal of Reason laid upon its bier,
Image of dark and gross Idolatry,
Object of worship since the Christ was slain!
The sign of the impostor and the fool,
By which they conquer and command the throng,
The cross is lifted upward everywhere
Man will submissive bow and mutter prayer,
The minion meek, or church's thoughtless tool,
Or worse, the cunning priest who knows the wrong. ”

“ The cow should not only be a good milker, but give milk suited to the line of dairying pursued. If cheese making is the object, there must be a large flow of milk rich in caseine. In butter making, a large flow of milk is not essential, but there must be a large percentage of fat in it. And the breeding must be such as to keep up the status of the herd. Some depend on purchasing cows, and exercise great care and judgment in so doing. In exceptional cases, a herd may be kept up in this way. But somebody must breed and rear good cows, or soon none can be had at any price. ”

“ Every cheese-maker has felt the want of some test whereby the exact point, when a curd is sufficiently "done" to dip, can be determined with certainty. Neither the sense of smell, the sense of taste, nor the sense of touch is infallible. The evidence of this fact can be seen in any factory during the season of cheese-making. A simple test of acidity, which is claimed to be conclusive, is the application of a hot iron to a lump of curd. The iron wants to be searing hot—not red hot, but hot enough to toast cheese. ”

“ The crown would crumble and the cross decay,
And Mammon's bribes be counted worthless clay;
A world redeemed would roll in Heaven's smiles,
With plenty, peace and joy on every hand.
What shall it profit man the world to gain
And yield his soul thereby to hell's control? ”