The Milk Book on the Exhibition

Table of Contents Page

Up to the Alps: cattle drive in the Alpstein region 4 Switzerland and Swiss cheese 6 Butter = long-life milk 7 A hard life scavenging for hay 9 Alpine farmers as objects of study 10 Life in the Alps: idyll or drudgery? 12 Everyday life on the move 14 Selling Switzerland’s prime export product 15 The land of the bejewelled cows 16 The cow in advertising 17 Not just a pet, but a working animal 19 Milk on the move 21 The lowland dairy farmers 23 Precious manure 24 No calves, no milk 25 Carved treasures 26 Butter as an art form 27 From the shed to the parlour 28 Letting nothing go to waste 30 Off to the butcher 31 The breeder’s pride 32

3 Up to the Alps: cattle drive in the Alpstein region

01 Bells Only the three lead cows may wear these three large bells on the way up to the Alpine pastures. The straps are richly decorated and the bells are precisely tuned to one another. When the slope is steep, the herdsmen remove the bells as they are too heavy for even the strongest lead cow to wear for a long time. Once arrived on the pasture, the herdsmen’s bells are hung under the porch. They were be too heavy and precious to be used on the Alpine meadows.

02 Milking pail These buckets with decorated bottoms are treasures that are only used on the journey up to the Alpine pastures. The herdsmen carry these milk pails on their shoulders so that the elaborately painted bottoms are clearly visible. When they reach the alp, the base is removed to re- veal an unpainted version beneath, suitable for daily use.

03 Pipe and tobacco pouch A pipe (“Lindauerli”) and a tobacco pouch (“Baksäckel”) number among the Appenzell herdsman’s possessions. Both items are typically adorned with cow motifs. The little metal-coated pipe with a lid found its way to the Appenzell region via the market in Lindau on Lake Con- stance – hence the name “Lindauerli”. Tobacco has been consumed in Switzerland since the seventeenth century and was even cultivated in some places, too.

4 04 Herdsman’s festive costume On special occasions, such as the cattle drive up to the summer pastures, the herdsmen’s ball, or cattle shows, the Appenzell herdsmen wear their traditional costumes, which feature cows as a decorative motif in many of the details. The most striking part of the costume are the yellow, calf-length leather trousers and white knee socks. Unlike the herdsmen, the farmers sport a costume with long, brown trousers. Another particular feature is the “Ohreschueﬂe” worn in the right ear, an earring in the form of a cream skimmer. In terms of appearance, the herdsman’s costume has remained almost unchanged for centuries. One of the reasons for this is the attention from foreign guests, who since the nineteenth century have enjoyed coming to the Appenzell region for convalescence therapies.

05 Choreographing a journey to the Alpine pastures In the area around Säntis, there is a clear order for driving the animals up the mountain. The goats go first with the young herdsmen, followed by the lead herdsmen in yellow knee breeches with the milking pail across his shoulder. Then come the “Schellenkühe” – the three lead cows wearing bells – and another herdsman. The rest of the herd walk behind, flanked by the farmers in brown trousers. The mountain dog known as the Appenzell cattle dog is also essential for the retinue. Right at the back comes the “Lediwagen”, a transport wagon loaded with upturned milk churns and milking pails. This configuration can also be seen in the decorative tableau created by Johannes Müller.

Decorative tableau (“Sennenstreifen”) created by Johannes Müller around 1865: reproduction, original painting displayed in the Appenzeller Folklore-Museum, Stein AR.

5 Switzerland and Swiss cheese

The “Folle” 06 is a kind of drip funnel used to strain the fresh milk and filter out any particles of dirt. Fir twigs or plant fibres were placed in the funnel to act as a filter.

A cheese curd stirrer 07 is a device for keeping the curds in suspension. Simple wooden models or models with a wire mesh were very common.

The curdled milk is cut with a wooden spatula or a slicer 08. This job is very time-consuming with the spatula but can be shortened by using a slicer with metal wires known as a harp.

A cheese mould 09 is an adjustable wooden ring into which the cheese mass is pressed. The curds are gathered with a cloth, put in the mould and pressed. This gives the cheese wheel its round form. An especially large mould 10 was used to produce Emmental cheese. The huge size of these wheels derives from the fact that they were often exported and the tolls were calculated per piece and not according to weight.

The Alpine farmers would put the soft cheese in “Vätterli” 11 to form small cheese wheels called “Mutschli”. The wooden cheese moulds have holes in the bottom to let out the whey.

The Ziger skimmer 12 is used after the actual curdling. The left-over whey is acidiﬁed to separate it a second time. The whey protein, which clumps together in ﬂakes, is scooped off with the perforated skimmer – the fresh Ziger whey cheese is now ready.

6 Butter = long-life milk

13 Butter and cheese in competition Butter was a precious commodity for city dwellers. The existence of a thriving market for it outside Switzerland also regularly led to conﬂicts – particularly when the farmers took their butter abroad instead of deliv- ering it to the next town. The municipal authorities sought to guarantee the supply by introducing regulations and export restrictions. Full-fat cheesemaking fuelled the conﬂict, for it required the whole of the milk and so no cream was left over. In the nineteenth century, as more and more farmers in the Midlands converted to animal husbandry, there was a surplus of milk and for a while butter shortages were no longer an issue. Around 1900 the butter problem reared its head again because the price of cheese had risen and more and more dairies started to appear down in the valleys. Almost all the country’s milk was made into cheese and as a result cheap butter was imported from abroad.

The fresh milk is kept in ﬂat tubs called “Gebsen” 14 for one or two days. Because milk fat is lighter than the other components it rises to the surface and forms a layer of cream. For a long time the tubs were made of wood or ceramic but later they were also mass -produced out of metal.

A paddle-shaped skimmer 15 was used to draw off the layer of cream, leaving behind the skimmed milk.

Centrifuges 16 were increasingly used after 1870 for skimming the milk much quicker. The milk is spun like in a washing machine: the cen- trifuge hurls the heavy skimmed milk against the wall of the drum where it drains off, while the lighter cream collects in the centre.

7 A range of implements made of wood, ceramic, metal or glass were used to beat cream into butter. In the slender, upright plunger churns 17 a stirrer moves the cream up and down. With paddle or barrel churns 18 either the whole barrel is set in motion with a crank or a structure like a water wheel rotates inside the container. The turning motion beats the cream into butter. For he beating of butter at home, there were smaller agitator jars 19, consisting of a glass jar with a stirrer. This functioned like a modern hand blender – but without electricity.

8 A hard life scavenging for hay

20 Pegs for hay nets The farmers wrapped the dried hay in nets. To tie up the bundles, they ﬁrst inserted pointed pegs in the ground to tension the net. When it was full, the net would be fastened with the wooden clasps. The farmers carried the bundles of hay, each weighing between 50 and 80 kilo- grams, on their backs to the nearest animal pen or rolled them along on wooden runners. In the mid-nineteenth century, cables began transporting the hay down the mountain – initially as temporarily installed hemp ropes, and later as permanent cableways made of wire. Many of the pegs were marked by their owners to determine whose hay was in the bundle.

21 A horn for the whetstone Grass can only be properly cut with a ﬁnely honed scythe. Swiss mountain farmers known as “Wildheuer” often carried a cow horn on their belt to store a whetstone. This way they could sharpen their scythes wherever they were working.

9 22 Alpine farmers as objects of study

4 3

1 Milking stool: for sitting on while milking 2 Milking pail: bucket for the freshly collected milk 3 Milk tub: for transporting the milk to the hut 4 “Folle”: drip funnel for straining the milk 5 Cheese kettle: vessel for heating the milk 6 Ziger skimmer for scooping the ﬂakes of soft cheese from the whey 7 Cheese stirrer for cutting up the curdled cheese mass 8 Bowl with handle for scooping off the cheese milk 9 Flat tub for creaming off the milk 10 Bowl (“Schweid-Napf”): for drawing the ﬂoating white milk fat from the cheese kettle 11 Acid barrel: container for storing the acid for producing Ziger whey cheese 12 Cheese mould: mould for the fresh soft cheese 13 Paddle churn: implement used for making butter

10 6 8

7 9

11 12 13

“On the whole the herdsman is an honest, decent man, cast in the traditional mould of upstanding Swiss simplicity, regarding both his life and his behaviour; clad in a rough yet respectable smock; shod in wooden clogs, tied across his bare feet with two leather straps. A dairyman requires a herd, some twenty, thirty, forty or more cattle; he travels up the mountain at the start of summer, diligently watches over them, and collects milk, cheese, butter and ‘Ziger’ from them.” In a newspaper published on 1 April 1705 in Zurich, Johann Jakob Scheuchzer, an Alpine researcher from Zurich, described the herdsmen and their work.

Illustrations: Johann Jakob Scheuchzer, Oyresiphoites Helveticus, sive itinera alpina tria, London 1708.

11 Life in the Alps: idyll or drudgery?

23 Alpine blessing The Alpine blessing known as an “Alpsegen” or “Betruf” can still be heard in the mountain pastures of Central Switzerland, Valais and Grisons. Standing on a hill, the head herdsman intones the song through a wooden milk funnel called a “Folle”. In some regions the blessing is a wordless melody, although it is more frequently a sung prayer for protection. Chanted just before the eerie dusk of nightfall, the Alpine blessing is meant to help protect people from storms, beasts of prey, and ghosts.

24 Alpenhorn The Alpine herdsmen originally used the alpenhorn to lure their cows with its sound. Around 1800, playing the alpenhorn was an all but for- gotten art in Switzerland. It was only the interest of early tourists that brought back this musical instrument, to the extent that it has now become a part of Swiss folk culture. In the nineteenth century many poor mountain dwellers earned an additional income by blowing alpenhorns as supplicant musicians, or “Bettelbläser”.

12 25 “Älplerchilbi” The “Älplerchilbi” is a celebration of the end of the Alpine summer dating back to the seventeenth century in Central Switzerland. The festival is still organised by the Alpine brotherhoods or societies. In Obwalden and Nidwalden two masked ﬁgures, the “Wildmännli” (“wild man”) and the “Wildwibli” (“wild woman”), recite aphoristic rhymes about the Alpine summer.

26 Alpine legends In the Alpine region, legends have been orally handed down for hundreds of years, but only in the nineteenth century linguistic researchers began writing down the legends. They were particularly interested in stories about Alpine farming and animal husbandry, which were re- garded as especially archaic. The inhabitants of the Alps took delight in telling them tales not only of giant cows but also of ghost cows and be- witched cattle.

13 Everyday life on the move

27 “Hutte” The wicker backpack known as a “Hutte” was typically used by farmers for transporting hay, leaves and manure, especially on steep slopes in the cantons of Grisons, Ticino and Valais.

28 “Räf” Wooden backpacks known as “Räf” or “Reff” were the all-purpose means of transporting items on steep terrain. If a simple Räf was not sufﬁcient, it could be supplemented with a second one placed on top of the head. This allowed the carrier to distribute the load between shoulders and head.

29 “Brente” The Alpine farmers carried the milk from the cows to the dairy in a port- able tub called a “Brente”. In the lowlands, they were later used for transporting the milk to the village dairy. The wooden containers were gradually replaced by tin-plate vessels in the late nineteenth century.

30 “Käsevogel” The “Käsevogel” or “l’Oiseau” was commonly used to transport large cheese wheels, especially in the Gruyère region. With it, the cheese wheels could be carried on the head rather than on the back.

14 31 Yoke The yoke was an alternative to the “Brente”. It was used to bring the freshly collected milk from the pasture to the dairy hut. Two milk pails hung at each end of a shoulder yoke.

Selling Switzerland’s prime export product

On many Alpine pastures the cheese wheels are still kept in storehouses until they are transported to the valley in autumn. The dairymen turn the maturing cheese every day and rub salt into the wheels. A salt mill 32 shreds large chunks of salt. When the cheese storehouse was rebuilt on Untere Walalp (in the Nieder- simmental area in the canton of Berne), this door 33 came into the possession of the ROTH-Stiftung in Burgdorf. The numerous stamps on the door were put there by cheesemongers. These traders used the cheese stamps 34 to mark the wheels they had purchased. Some stamps could be taken apart so that they would ﬁt more easily in a rucksack. This was important because the cheesemongers would climb up to the pastures to inspect the maturing cheese during summer, typically in August. They tapped the wheels with the handle of the cheese drill 35 and assessed the sound they made. Sometimes they used the drill to extract a small tasting sample of the cheese.

The door of the cheese storehouse and several cheese drills and stamps are on loan from the ROTH-Stiftung Burgdorf.

15 The land of the bejewelled cows

36 Bells from Saanen (Canton of Berne) The bells, which ring at regular intervals, were made in the Schopfer foundry in Saanenland. Samuel Schopfer started the foundry in Schön- ried (canton of Berne) in 1810; the business in Saanen was subsequent- ly run by his sons, grandchildren and ﬁnally by former apprentice Alfred von Siebenthal. Under Charles Schopfer (1851–1922) the foundry was in its heyday. His famous “Dreizehner” (a thirteen-pound bell) was especially coveted and considered the most sonorous bell on the market. Schopfer bells come in twelve different sizes, each named according to their weight in pounds and tuned to a particular note. For this reason, several bells sounding together produce a melodious chiming sound.

The bells are on loan by Johannes Raaﬂaub from Saanenland.

16 The cow in advertising

37 Whey cures in Switzerland Visitors from all over Europe travelled to Switzerland on account of its whey – principally to the Appenzell region and to Grisons. In the eighteenth and nineteenth century, a combination of whey beverages and mountain air were commonly prescribed to treat a range of different diseases. Certain locations, such as Gais (in Appenzell Outer Rhodes) actually developed into centres for convalescents seeking whey-based therapies. For the farmers in these regions, the sale of whey, which was left over in any case at the end of the cheesemaking process, was a lucrative source of business. With the advent of modern medicine, whey- based therapies were considered as ineffective and around 1900 they began losing ground. It was not until after World War II that they experi- enced a revival.

38 Advertising posters Cows in Alpine pastures quickly became one of the standard images of the poster industry. Private railways in particular liked to use landscape images in their advertising, showing cows enjoying the breathtaking views.

39 Postcards Postcards reﬂect the way tourists perceive a region. When cards ﬁrst appeared at the end of the nineteenth century, there was tremendous appetite for images of foreign worlds. Cows were, of course, an essential feature of postcards of the Swiss Alps and an integral part of the landscape. Professional photographers swiftly recognized the cow’s potential as a postcard subject.

17 40 Wooden souvenir cows In the nineteenth century impoverished inhabitants of the Bernese Oberland began selling carved bears, ibexes, eagles and later also cows to travellers. They thus satisﬁed both the tourists’ consumerist demands and their own hunger. In Brienz, woodcarving became an important branch of the local economy. Although ﬁnely worked wooden cows were popular around the turn of the twentieth century, from the 1920s onward, the selection of souvenirs was determined by a new type of wooden cow developed by Ernst Schild. This hand-painted artefact with leather ears is simple, neatly constructed and shows off the wood from which it is made. Schild’s simple carving has stood the test of time and is still favored today both as a souvenir and as a toy.

41 Blowing horns Drovers used blowing horns made from cow horn to summon their animals. Decorated with edelweiss, the Swiss cross and other motifs, the horns would later become a popular souvenir.

42 Chocolate The invention of milk chocolate in the late nineteenth century made Switzerland one of the homes of chocolate. Thanks to the milk, the taste of the previously rather bitter substance was more suitable for mass consumption. Swiss chocolate makers could now use the universally loved cow for advertising purposes.

43 Thun majolica Majolica from Thun is a special kind of ceramic crockery featuring flowers and Alpine farming motifs. When tourists developed a taste for “farmhouse ceramics” in the mid-nineteenth century, the local arti- sanal potteries flourished once more. Pieces were produced directly for sale to foreign visitors. The large plate with Appenzell motifs was produced between 1871 and 1915 in the workshops of potter Karl Loder- Eyer in Steffisburg in the canton of Berne. This reveals the degree to which typical regional motifs were interchangeable when products were designed for foreign customers.

18 Not just a pet, but a working animal

44 Head yoke The head yoke was put on the forehead of the cows and secured to the horns.

45 Neck yoke The neck yoke was put on the neck and also ﬁxed to the horns. This example could be used to yoke two draught animals.

46 Withers yoke This yoke sat on the animal’s withers – in the area between the back and the neck. This distributed the load more equally on the body than the head or neck yoke.

47 Equipment for cattle care – from left to right Thanks to the cow-tail tether, the milker had a free view of the udder and could work in peace.

The calf puller was used to help cows going through a difﬁcult birth: as soon as the calf’s feet were visible, the halter was tied to the tiny hoofs and the animal was pulled from the womb.

After multiple births, many cows suffered uterine prolapse. To prevent this, a prolapse harness was often tied around the cow immediately after she had given birth.

19 Brands were used to mark the skin or horns of the cattle. The marks showed family crests, house emblems, or combinations of letters and assigned the animal to a certain breed or owner. Today, every cow wears an ear tag instead with a number from the Swiss database for animal trafﬁc.

Chain hobbles or shackles were ﬁxed to the legs of a cow to stop her from taking a step or walking away, especially during medical procedures.

Washing the cattle with louse vinegar was a means to get rid of vermin, which thrived in the warm, humid atmosphere of the cowshed.

Cows’ hooves needed considerable care, especially when the animals were kept inside all the time. A hoof scraper was used to remove dirt, while a hoof cutter could correct deformities.

A nasogastric tube could be used to help cows with digestive problems: the tube was inserted through the mouth and pushed forward into the ﬁrst stomach, the rumen. In this way medicine could be administered or excess gas vented. A distended rumen was also sometimes pierced with a trocar thrust through the skin.

A tethering chain was looped around the neck of the cows and secured with the bolt through the ring.

The horn trainer was used to brace the horns of calves and cattle as they grew and to train them in the proper direction. Well-developed horns were extremely important if the cow was to work as a draught animal and to wear a head yoke.

The cows were given medicine with a wooden drinking tube – schnapps or coffee, for example, if the animal had gripe.

Some farmers put muzzles on their cows when they were due to work. The animals were meant to concentrate on the job they were doing and not to be distracted by eating.

Milk on the move

48 Milk churns This photograph shows the forecourt of the Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company in Cham, in the canton of Zug. Founded in 1866, the company turned milk from the surrounding farms into condensed milk. The milk was delivered to the factory in milk churns. Around the year 1900, the company was receiving up to 66,000 litres of milk per day from 1,300 dairy farms. In the plant, the milk was thickened and preserved. Most of the resulting condensed milk was exported to Great Britain or to countries with tropical climates. In Switzerland, condensed milk was used for making milk chocolate. In 1905, the large Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company merged with its smaller competitor, Nestlé.

21 49 Dog cart This dog cart was used by a farming family in Oberscherli, Berne, to transport milk. It was in use from approximately 1900 to 1980. Especially in the lowlands, farmers often used teams of dogs to deliver their milk to the local or regional cheesemaking cooperatives. Dogs were cheaper draught animals than horses, for example. Often the children in the family would be responsible for taking the milk to the dairy with a dog cart.

50 Hand cart Until the 1960s, milkmen would deliver fresh milk directly to people’s homes in the cities. They used hand carts or dog carts to transport the bottles. Urban households received milk deliveries every day, and sometimes even more frequently during the summer, because there were no refrigerators until World War II. Raw milk was not pasteurised and had to be consumed immediately. Customers paid either once a week or once a month. The “Milk Book” was used to keep track of how much milk had been delivered.

22 The lowland dairy farmers

Milking pail Milking had to be done wherever cows were kept – but the pails could look very different. There are two main categories of pails: In eastern Switzerland 51, the buckets had hinged handles for carrying, while in western Switzerland 52, they had an elongated stave that served as a handle. There were also numerous regional differences.

53 Milking stools Just as the buckets came in all sorts of different shapes, so the milking stools could vary in appearance. One particularly handy version was a one-legged stool with a strap, but three-legged ones were also used in the barns, and there were even special small milking stools for children.

23 Precious manure

Before the introduction of artificial fertiliser, farmers only used slurry and manure to fertilise their fields and meadows. The liquid manure flowed through a drainage channel from the stable into the slurry pit. From there it could be ladled into the slurry cart 55 using a slurry scoop called a “Gon” 54 and then spread on the fields. Solid dung mixed with straw was piled up on the dungheap outside the stable using manure forks 56 and then similarly carted out to the fields. First, however, the manure had to be tamped down well with the manure beater 57 to ensure that it would not fall off the cart.

24 No calves, no milk

Muzzles 58 were used by farmers to control what their calves could eat and drink. Calves destined for slaughter by the age of twelve weeks were not allowed to eat hay or grass to prevent their meat from turning a darker colour. However, they shouldn’t suckle from their mothers whenever they wanted either, so the calves were separated from the cows and received their milk in a drinking bucket 59 – so that more milk was left in the milking bucket.

25 Carved treasures

60 Large toy cow This unusually large toy cow was a gift from Edwin Huwyler, who was the head of the science department of Ballenberg Open-Air Museum from 1991 to 2012. The cow’s horns and ears are made of leather, while the eyes are upholstery nails.

61 “Branch cows” It is easy to carve simple cows from cut tree branches; whittling out just a few rough shapes is sufﬁcient to produce a recognisable cow. “Branch cows” were particularly widespread in the canton of Valais, where many children had whole herds of them.

62 Wooden cows by Hans Perren These six spotted cows were carved by Hans Perren (1892–1985) in St. Stephan in the valley of Simmental (canton of Berne). Perren came from a family of mountain farmers and later became a farmer himself and judge at livestock shows. He began to carve wooden cows after handing over the farm to his son at the age of seventy.

26 Butter as an art form

63 Butter mould These wooden moulds were used to press butter into elegant, compact shapes. The intricately carved moulds would contain decorations or information about the place of manufacture and the weight of the piece of butter. Carving a butter mould is no easy task. In order for the letters to be legible on the butter, they have to be carved into the wood in mirror image. Butter moulds could consist of one or several parts, while some functioned like stamps that could be rolled across the butter or pressed into a ball of butter.

27 From the shed to the parlour

64 “Nidlenapf”, 1786 This cream bowl, known as a “Nidlenapf”, was made in Langnau in the canton of Berne and is dedicated to Christen Gerber, who was the Alp- meister or head of the alpine community of Rämisgrat in Langnau in 1786. At the end of the summer season, the Alpmeister would receive a beautifully decorated and inscribed bowl as a gift from the owner of the cow with the highest milk yield. Pottery from Langnau became famous in the eighteenth century for its lavish ﬂoral decoration, which was later supplemented by pictorial representations. Given the importance of dairy farming, it is no surprise that cows feature prominently on this decorated pottery. The bowl bears the motto “Der Segen komt von oben här, vill Kind die machen den Boden lär” (Blessings come from up on high, many children drink to the very bottom).

The bowl is on permanent loan from Schule für Gestaltung Bern (SFGB 150).

65 Wooden toys Alois Bürgler, a farmer from Hirzel in the canton of Zurich, carved this herd of cows, complete with herdsman and -woman, for his grandchildren in the 1950s. The bodies are made of branches decorated with tree bark and animal hair. The bull even has a leather halter and a metal nose ring.

66 The bull as an objet d’art From 1750 onwards, a great craze for the Alps began to sweep across Europe and brought forth numerous paintings and graphic prints 28 featuring cows. Painted mountain landscapes from Switzerland became fashionable as expressions of this longing. The animals conveyed the message that, despite appearing untamed at first glance, nature was accessible to human beings. One of the first artists to paint such pic- tures was Pierre-Louis de la Rive (1753–1817) from Geneva, who helped to define the genre.

67 Sandstone stove tile This stove tile was found in the house from Villars-Bramard (531) when it was being prepared for transport to the Open-Air Museum. Since it did not seem to belong to any existing stove, rather than being reinstalled in the house it ended up in the museum’s storage facilities. While the sandstone tile is impossible to date, it must be at least seventy years old. It shows how ubiquitous cows were in farmhouses – not only in the animals’ quarters, but also in the parlour.

68 Christening bottle, 1888 The father of a newly baptised child used this bottle to pour wine for his guests at the celebrations. Bottles like this were particularly prevalent in Emmental and Entlebuch. Even more often than cows, they featured coats of arms accompanied by maxims. This bottle was probably owned by a family for whom cows were very important.

69 Family photo from Rindermatt The cow is part of the family: This photo was taken in 1937 on the Alpine meadow of Rindermatt near Bürglen in the canton of Uri. The mother, Karolina Imhof-Heger, stands on one side of the cow while her children Josef, Emma and Michael pose on the other side. The man with the pipe is a farm hand. Three visitors can be seen in the background.

70 Writing case This pencil case was owned by a schoolboy named Beat Wälti, whose name is written on the back.

29 Letting nothing go to waste

71 Bone Larger bones can be used for carving objects such as jewellery. Bone glue was made by boiling smaller bones, skull fragments, and gristle. Today, bone glue is almost exclusively used by musical instrument makers. Bone glue becomes hard and brittle when it dries, so it transfers sound waves more efﬁciently than any other kind of glue.

72 Horn Horns could be processed whole to make whetstone holders and drinking or blowing horns. Powder horns were used to pour gunpowder into the barrels of front-loading guns before loading the bullet. Larger pieces of horn could be used to make jewellery or cutlery. Small horn chips served as fertiliser.

73 Tallow Beef tallow is fat from slaughterhouse waste. For cent uries, it was made into candles. In contrast, most modern candles consist of wax made from petroleum products. Tallow was also used to grease items like shoes, wooden barrels, and mooring ropes for shipping.

74 Hide Cowhide was used to make leather or hide knapsacks, school satchels, belts, straps, ropes, shoes, and other items of clothing. The spotted hide of some breeds is immediately recognisable as cowhide. Along with pigskin, cowhide is also the most important raw material for making gelatine.

30 Off to the butcher

75 Butcher’s hatchet Butcher’s hatchets and cleavers were used to halve the carcasses along the backbone.

76 Captive bolt stunner The captive bold stunner did not kill the animal, but stunned it by ﬁring a bolt into its brain. The butcher then opened the carotid artery to exsanguinate the animal. The invention of this device is attributed to Benjamin Siegmund, who was not only in charge of the Basel slaughterhouse, but also founded the Basel society for the prevention of cruelty to animals in 1887.

77 Pole hammer In the nineteenth century, animals were killed during butchering either by thrusting a blade into their neck or by a blow to the head. In the latter case, the butcher used a hammer, an axe, or a pole hammer. This special instrument consisted of an iron tip that was held against the animal’s forehead while another person used a hammer to ram it into the animal’s skull.

31 The breeder’s pride

78 Livestock photos Before the 1920s, when statistics began to be kept about milk and meat yields, livestock breeders evaluated their animals by their external appearance. Photography was adopted early on as a supporting tool. Livestock photographers were hired by breeders and breed associations to showcase the animals in the best possible light – a task that was not at all easy given the technology available at the time and bearing in mind that the cows were rather stubborn in nature. What the breeders wanted was not artistic compositions, but images that documented the animal’s entire body. The cow was frequently shown from the side with the legs positioned so as not to obscure the udder. Such full-length bovine portraits adorned stable doors and could also be found in farmhouse parlours alongside photographs of family members. They also served as documentation for pedigrees and breed registries and were published in the catalogues of livestock shows and markets.

79 Livestock shows While livestock markets are attested as early as the thirteenth century, livestock exhibitions did not begin until the nineteenth century. Such events were sponsored both by the cantons and, from 1879 onwards, by the Swiss government in order to promote livestock breeding. Never- theless, most exhibitions were fairly small-scale affairs, often organised by local breeding associations. In livestock-raising regions like Simmental, almost every village had a square where the best animals were presented to a jury once a year. A prize-winning animal would earn its owner some modest prize money and, more importantly, fetch a higher sale price.

80 Bührer tractor owned by Rudolf Minger (1881–1955) When Rudolf Minger served on the Swiss Federal Council in 1937 he bought this model CR tractor for his farm in Schüpfen, in the canton of Berne. It was built in by the company Bührer in Hinwil in the canton of Zurich. At 17 horsepower, the tractor has the pulling power of over twenty oxen. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that mechanisation fundamentally changed agriculture. The cows were affected as well – but that’s a different story.