nd even a very dangerous
experiment to drink water in the New World. They were forced to do it,
however, in many cases; and to their surprise found that it agreed with
them very well, and that their health improved. Governor Winthrop of
Massachusetts, who was a most sensible and thoughtful man, soon had
water used as a constant drink by all in his household.

As cows increased in number and were cared for, milk of course was added
to the every-day fare. Rev. Mr. Higginson wrote in 1630 that milk cost
in Salem but a penny a quart; while another minister, John Cotton, said
that milk and ministers were the only things cheap in New England. At
that time milk cost but a penny and a quarter a quart in old England.

Milk became a very important part of the food of families in the
eighteenth century. In 1728 a discussion took place in the Boston
newspapers as to the expense of keeping a family "of middling figure."
These writers all named only bread and milk for breakfast and supper.
Ten years later a minister, calculating the expenses of his family, set
down bread and milk for both breakfast and supper. Milk and hasty
pudding, milk and stewed pumpkin, milk and baked apples, milk and
berries, were variations. In winter, when milk was scarce, sweetened
cider diluted with water was used instead. Sometimes bread was soaked
with this mixture. It is said that children were usually very fond of
it.

As comparatively few New England families in the seventeenth century
owned churns, I cannot think that many made butter; of course families
of wealth ate it, but it was not common as to-day. In the inventories of
the property of the early settlers of Maine there is but one churn
named. Butter was worth from threepence to sixpence a pound. As cattle
increased the duties of the dairy grew, and soon were never-ceasing and
ever-tiring. The care of cream and making of butter was in the
eighteenth century the duty of every good wife and dame in the country,
and usually in the town.

Though the shape and ease of action of churns varied, still
butter-making itself varied little from the same work to-day. Several
old-time churns are shown, the revolving one being the most unusual.

Cheese was plentiful and good in all the Northern colonies. It was also
an unending care from the time the milk was set over the fire to warm
and then to curdle; through the breaking of the curds in the
cheese-basket; through shaping into cheeses and pressing in th