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ov c-HOW.
DAIEY FAEMING:
BEING
4
THE THEORY, PRACTICE, AND METHODS OF DA TRYING.
BY
.1. P. SHELDON.
ASSISTED BY LEADING AUTHORITIES IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES.
^3ift) ^rDejtti?=fit)e @oCoxtx*e6 "5?Cafes.
CASSELL, PETTER, GALPIN & CO.
LONDON, PARIS & NEW YORK.
[all bights llESEKVEll,]
CONTENTS.
Introduction'
Chap. I.-
II.-
IIL-
IV..
V.-
YL-
VII.-
VIII.-
IX.-
X.
XI.
XII.
XIII.
XIV.
XV.
XVI.
XVII.
XVIII.
XIX.
XX.
XXI.
-Bri:edin(: an'd Sei.ectiox of ])airv Cattle .
-Breed.s of ( 'attle : HuoinnoaNS, Avrshires .
-Breeds of Cattle {ninti/nu'f/) : .Jerseys, Losghorns,
Polled Breeds, Kerries, Welsh
-Feeding and Treatment of Dairy Cattle .
-Milking, Calving, and Calf-Eearixg
-Parturition, and Disea.ses or Dangers incidental to
-Dairy Homesteads and Buildings
-The Origin of Soils .... , . •
-Soils and Cli.mates Suitable for Dairying .
-Drainin<; ........
-Manuring and Treatment of the Soil on Dairy Farm
-Forage Plants and Weeds ....
-Hay-making .......
-Milk
-Cheese-making .......
-Cheddar and Cheshire Cheese ....
-Derbyshire, Gloucester, Stilton, and other British
-Cheese-Factories in England ....
-Butter-making .......
-^Artificial Bi"tter .......
-Condensed Milk .......
Herefokds, Devon
PiOK
-xxii
SUSSE,\,
Calves and Dairy Stock
Cheeses
1
10
25
42
55
65
78
92
108
113
128
1.54
177
186
196
215
233
252
284
.S23
328
COXTEXTS.
Thar XXII. Tin: Mii.k Thai.e .
XXIII. — Villa DAiiivixr.
XXIV. DaIKV FAliMING I\ IHKLAXD
XX v. — The Daiuyinc; or Amkhida
XXVI. — The Daiuy Caitli: op America
XXVII. — American- Dairy Products
XXVIII.- American .Milk Trade and City Supply
XXIX. — American Farm Dairying — Methods and Processes
XXX. — American Dairy Implements and Machinery
XXXI. — The American Factory System ....
XXXII. — Dairy Work in American Factories
XXXIII. — Recent Modifications in American Ciieese-making
XXXIV. — Canadian Dairying ......
XXXV. — Continental Dairying ......
XXXVI. — Pigs, Goats, and Poultry
XXXVII. — The Commerce of the Dairy .....
PAGE
340
351
356
3G5
392
413
4-2-t
433
446
4C5
475
487
497
506
546
559
INITIALS AND NAMES OF CONTJUBUTORS.
J. r. S.— .T. r. Sheldon, of .sheen, Aslibourne, Professor of Agriculture at tlie College of Agiiculturo, Downton, near
>Sali8bury, and formerly l"rofessor of Agriculture at the Royal Agricultural College ; who is also responsible
for all unsigned articles.
H. E. A.— Major IIenkv E. Alvokd, Easthainjitdu, Mass.achu.setts, U.S. America.
K. I). ]'. KoDERT Oliphant Pbinole, now flcceased, late Editor of the IrixU Farmen' Ou:cU.c, Author of "The Live
Stock of the Farm,"' &c. kz.
W. F.— William Fream, B.Sc. L:nd., F.G.S., Professor of Natur.al History at the College of Agricultuic, Downton,
near Sali.sbury, and formerly of the Royal Agricultural CoUoge.
II. I., de K. — Dr. H. L. DE Klenze, Government Professor of Agriculture, Munich. I'.avaria.
.1. O.— .John Oliver, West Harptree, near Bristol.
F. D.— FiNI.AY Dl'N, Foimcrly l.octurpr on Materia Medica and Dietetics at the E.liidiurgh Veterinary ( oUege.
LIST OF ILLUSTPv ATIONS
COLOURED PLATES.
A Dairy Show
Shorthorn Cattle
Ayrshire Cattle
Jersey Cattle
LoNGHORM Cattle
Hereford Cattle
Devon and Sussex Cattle
Polled Aberdeen Cattle
Norfolk and Suffolk Polled
Kerry Cattle
Welsh Cattle
View and Ground Plan of Dairy Homeste
(Two Plates) ....
Frontispiece
Tof
„;■ ixt.je
U
10
27
29
31
.33
35
Gatt-le
"
37
39
41
Geological Hap of the British Isles
Forage Plants -and Weeds : —
1. Leguminous Plants
2. Leguminous Plants and Weeds
3. Pasture Grasses
4. Weed Grasses and Parasites
Longford Cheese Factory, Derbyshire
Map — Dairy-Farming in America
Continental Cattle— Plate 1 .
Plate 2 .
Alpine Dairy Station in Summer
Swine ....
Poultry ....
I'o/acr page
153
157
163
167
259
367
523
527
535
551
559
DIIAAVINGS ON AVOOD.
The Escutcheon (Fig. 1)
Heads of Shorthorns (Figs. 2-5) .
Tether-Pegs (Figs. 6, 7)
Heads of Longhorn Cattle (Figs. 8, 9)
Milk-Pails (Figs. 10—12)
Milk-Syphon (Fig. 13)
Cow-JIilker (Figs. 14, 15) .
Ivory Cone in Teat (Fig. llj)
Tucker's Feeding-Pail (Fig. 17)
Anti-Sucking Devices (Figs. 18 2U1
Trochar (Fig. 21) .
Ladders (Fig. 221
Tattenhall Hall Farm-Buildings (Figs. 23, 24,1
Lord Tolleniache's Farmstead (Figs. 2.5, 26)
American Octagon Barn (Figs. 27 — 29)
Formation of Stratified Beds (Fig. 30)
Succession of British Strata (Fig. 31)
Formation of Soils (Fig. 32) .
Drains and Draining Tools (Figs. 33—39)
Plans of Drainage Works (Figs. 40, 41)
Outlet (Fig. 42) . . .
Effect of JNIanures on Plants (Figs. 43, 4 !
American Dairy Barn (Figs. 45 — 48)
Fruit of the Gillyflower (Fig. 49) .
Leaf of Rose (Fig. 50)
The Pea (Figs. 51-54)
Umbel of the Chervil (Fig. oo)
Chicory (Fig. 56)
T!ie Common Comfrey (Figs. 57, 58j
Dock (Fig. 59)
Buckwheat (Figs. CO, 61) .
Culms of Rye (Fig. 62l
Ligule of Millet (Fig. 63)
^^'heat (Figs. 64, 65) .
Spikelct of Vernal Grass (Fig. 66) .
Sedge, with Undergi-ound Stem (Fig. 67)
Smut on Maize (Figs. 68, 69)
Bunt on Wheat (Figs. 70, 71)
Mowing Machine (Fig. 72) .
Sharpening Knife (Fig. 73) .
11-18
26
30, 31
57
58
58
59
61
64
71
81
82, 83
86
88-90
94
95
100
114-116
120, 121
123
136, 137
59, 151
1.54
155
33, 156
159
160
160
161
61, 162
162
163
163
163
164
, 173
173 [
178
179
Hay-Milker (Fig. 74).
Horse-Rake (Fig. 75).
Hay-Loader (Figs. 76, 77) .
Stack and Rick-Cloth (Fig. 78)
Iron Hay-Barn (Fig. 79)
Horse-Forks (Figs. 80-83) .
Aj-tificial Hay-Drier (Fig. 84)
Jersey and AjTshire Milk (Figs. 85, 86)
Udder of a Cow (Fig. 87) .
C'olustrum (Fig. 88) .
Watering-Places for Cattle (Figs. 89, 90)
Floor- Wiper (Fig. 91)
Dairy Thermometer (Fig. 92)
Curd-Mill with Knives (Fig. 93) .
Portrait of Mr. Joseph Harding
Cockey's Cheese-lMb (Fig. 94)
Cheese-Press (Fig. 95)
Screw-opening Cheese-Vat (Fig. 96)
Diagram of Curd-Grain (Fig. 97)
Cheddar Curd Cutters and Breakers (Figs. 98-
Cluett's Improved Milk- Vat (Figs. 104, 105)
Cheshire Curd-Breakers (Figs. 106, 107)
Cheshire Curd-Drainer (Figs. 108, 109)
Cheshire Curd-Mill (Fig. 110)
Vat ivith Cheshire Curd in it (Fig. Ill)
Clieshire Cheese-Press (Fig. 112)
Cheese-Stand (Fig. 113)
Plan of a Cheshire Dau-y (Fig. 114)
Old Cheese-Presses (Figs. 115 — 117)
Curd-Mill iFig. 118) ....
Compound Lever-Press (Fig. 119) .
Travis's Cheese-making Apparatus (Fig. 120)
Pugh's App.aratus (Fig. 121)
Curd-Knife (Fig. 122)
Cheese-Room Stove (Fig. 123)
Hoop for Stilton Cheese (Fig. 124) .
Curd-Mill on Tub (Fig. 125)
Revolving Cheese-Rack (Fig. 126) .
Interior of Longford Factory (Fig. 127 1
Press-Vivt (Fig. 128) ....
PAOE
179
180
180, 181
182
182
183
184
187
188
195
200
202
203
207
217
219
219
219
221
221, 222
220, 227
228
228
229
229
230
230
231
234, 235
235
235
236
233
237
238
241
246
246
239
260
/ /.y T 0 F 1 L L US TRA TfOXS.
Cream r.auges and Lactometers (Figs. 129-13t>
Factory Milk-Can (Fig. 132)
AVeigliing-Can (Fig. 133} ...
Factory Millt-Vat (Fig. 104) .
Curd-Knives (Figs. 135, 136)
Stirring-Ralies (Figs. 137, 138)
Syphon and Strainer (Fig. 139)
Self-turning Cheese-Shelves (Fig. 140)
Brailsford Factory (Figs. 141, 142) .
Network of Milk-Gland (Fig. 143) .
Portion of Udder, showing Lobules and Ducts (Fi|
Lobule of JIUk-Gland (Fig. 145) .
Milk-Pan for Setting (Fig. 146)
Revolving Milk-Shelves (Fig. 147) .
The Swartz System of Creaming (Figs. 148 — 152)
Centennial Milk-Pan and Cooler (Figs. 153—155)
Orange County Milk-Pan (Fig. 156)
Cooley's Creamer and Can (Figs. 157, 158) .
Bench for Running oft Milk (Fig. 159)
Section of Cooley's Creamer (Fig. 160)
Hardin's Milk-Cooler (Fig. 161)
AVeidon's Creamer (Fig. 162)
The Bureau Creamer (Fig. 163)
Section of Ice-Hcuse (Fig. 1G4)
Centrifugal Cream-Extractor (Fig. 165)
Laval's Cream- Separator (Figs. 166, 167) .
Cream Dipper (Fig. 168)
Skimming-Dishes (Figs. 169 — 171) .
Butter-Workers, Hand (Figs. 172—176) .
,, Mechanical (Figs. 177 -l.'^<
Chums (Figs. 181—189)
Portable Engine and Boiler (Fig. 190)
Churning by Horse-Power (Fig. 191)
Churning by Dog-Power (Fig. 192) .
Butter-Scales (Fig. 193)
Butter Packages and Moulds (Figs. 194—199)
Brewster Condensed Milk Factory (Fig. 200)
Apparatus for Manufacture of Condensed Milk (Fig. 201)
Lawrence's Refrigerator (Fig. 202) .
Railway Milk-Cau and Lid (Figs. 203, 204
Improved London Cow-Shed (Fig. •20.-))
Holland Park Dairy (Figs. 206, 207)
Stall for Two Cows (Fig. 208)
American Pumping Windmill (Fig. 209)
Kentucky Blue-Grass ( Fig. 210)
Buffalo-Grass (Fig. 211)
Bermuda-Grass (Fig. 21"2)
Cross-bred Buffaloes (Fig. 213)
Jamestown Cattle (Fig. 214)
Jersey- Ayrshii e Heifer (Fig. 21.1) .
The " Oakes Cow " (Fig. 216)
"01dCro.an;er" (Fig. 217) .
"Jersey Belle " of Scituate (Fig. 2181
Sample Case for Cheese (Fig. 219) .
American Milk-Cans (Figs. 220—222";
Milk in Sealed Jars (Figs. 223—225)
An American Dairy (Figs. 226 — 229
American Milk Cellar (Fig. 230) .
Milk-Strainer (Figs. 231, '232)
MUk-Cooler (Fig. 233)
Milk Aerator (Fig. 234)
Milk-Can H.andles (Fig. 235)
Creamery Vat (Figs. 236, 237)
Fairlanib Can (Figs. 23?, 2 :!>)
Baker's Cream-Strainer (Fig. 240) .
American Churns (Figs. 241—253) .
American Butter- Workers (Figs. 254 -260)
Butter-Moulder (Fig, 261) .
American Butter Packages (Figs. 262—264)
PAOK
271, 272
274
274
274
275, 276
276
278
279
279, 280
284
285
285
291
291
293, 294
295, 296
296
296, 297
297
298
299
301
301
302
303
305
306
306
310, 311
312, 313
315—317
318
318
318
319
319, 320
335
337
.341
342
3-15
347
3.54
374
385
387
388
397
398
399
405
407
409
416
424, 425
427, 428
439
440
447
447
448
448
449
450
450
151 — 455
4.55—457
457
458, 459
Improved Weighing-Can Gates (Fig. 2*».'.)
Factory Scales (Figs. 266, 267)
Self-heating Milk- Vat (Fig. 26S) .
Curd-Drainer (Fig. 269)
American Gang-Presses (Figs. 270, 271)
Cheese Hoops and Bandages (Figs. 272—27.5)
American Cheese-Box Machine (Fig. 276) .
Portrait of Mr. Jesse Williams
Plans and Views of American Factories (Fig. 277 — 281)
Milk-Vats and Heaters (Figs. 282—28.5) .
Boiler and Engine (Fig. 286)
Self-fiUing Boiler-Tank (Fig. 287) .
Section of Curd-L\inip (Fig. 288)
Flat-side Pail (Fig. 2S9| . . ;
Cheese-Table (Fig. 290)
Cheese-Scales (Fig. 291)
G. B. Weeks' Factory (Fig. 292) .
Finck's Basin Creamery (Fig. 293) .
Wliitman and Bui-rell's Cooler (Fig. 294) .
Gaddis, McAdam, & C'o.'s Creamery (Fig. 295)
McAdam Cooler (Fig. -296) .
Cunningham Butter- Worker (Figs. 297—299)
Westcott Butter-Pail and Pounder (Figs. 300, 301
Philadelph-a Butter-Pail (Fig. 302)
View of Messrs. Hettle and Inglis's Creamery,
(Fig. 303) ....
French Milk Jugs, Cans, and Sieves (Figs
Cold and Hot Water Baths for Milk (Figi
Milk-Mixing Can (Fig. 311) .
French Railway MUk-Van (Fig. 312)
Ice-Funnel (Fig. 313)
Earthenware Milk-Pots (Figs. 314-316)
A Norman Dairy (Fig. 317) .
Nornjan Barrel Churn (Fig. 31a) .
Lump of Butter and Butter-Basket (Fij
French Cylindrical Churn (Fig. 321)
Wooden Butter-Dish (Fig. 322)
Moulds for New Skim Cheese (Fig, .323-325)
Cheese-Table (Fig. 32(i)
Paris White Cheese (Fig. 3'_'7)
Mould for Cream Cheese (Fig. 328)
Bondons and Similar Cheese (Figs. 329, .330)
Camembert Cheese (Figs. 331-334)
Calvados Milk-Setting Dish (Fig. .335)
Dairy and Apparatus for Fromaffe de Brie (Figs. 336
Mont d'Or and Gerome Cheese (Figs. 341, 342
Finishing Roquefort Cheese (Fig. 343)
Butter-making in Denmark (Figs. 344 — 3461
Danish Butter Packages (Figs. 347-349) .
C^heese-making in Denmark (Figs. 350 — .352)
Austrian Milk-Cooler (Fig. 3.531
Swiss Curd-Breaker (Fig. 354)
Dutch Milk Pails and Vases (Figs. 355, ,356)
AVell for Cooling Milk (Fig, 357)
Jlilk-Dishes in the Netherlands (Figs. 358,
Interior of a Dutch Dairy (Fig. 3(j0)
Novel Method of Churning (Fig. 361)
Working Butter in Holland (Fig. 362)
Dutch Cheese Presses and Fonns (Figs. 363—365)
Edam Cheese (Figs. 306-368)
Large White Yorkshire Pig (Fig. 3''.:i)
Small Yorkshire Pig (Fig. 3701
Berkshire Pig (F'ig. 371)
Essex Pig (Fig. 372)
Poland-China Pig (Fig. 3731
Pig-Troughs (Figs. 374-376)
Iron Piggeries (Figs. 377, 378)
Ringing Pigs (Figs. 379-381)
Pig-Holder (Fig. 382)
.304-308)
309, 310)
319, 320)
-340)
PilOIl
460
460
460
461
. 461, 462
463
464
467
475-477
478
479
479
483
480
480
481
483
483
483
4»4
484
1*4, 485
485
485
499
, 507, 508
508
509
509
509
509
510
510
511
511
512
512
513
513
513
51.3, 514
.514
514
516, 517
517
519
.522, 523
523
523, 524
532
533
541
541
.553
.554
5.56
5.5(i
INTRODUCTION
OR generations past, Dairy-farming in these islands has been an impor-
tant branch of our national enterprise, and its importance has been
steadily increasing, but it has not hitherto received the same relative
amount of notice and recognition that other branches of agriculture
have enjoyed. Not being the first to feel the effects of foreign
competition, it seems to have gone on quietly and uneventfully,
attracting but little public notice, minding its own business in its
own way, and making no special and comprehensive attempt at
improvement until late years, as, indeed, none seemed to be
specially needed. A very few years ago no kind of foreign dairy-
produce sent to us was admitted to be, in either quality or quantity,
sufficiently marked to justify much uneasiness, or to demand any
special exertion, on om- part. Some twenty years since, our importa-
tions of foreign cheese and butter were but a tithe of what they now are in quantity, whilst
their quality, generally speaking, was inferior to our home productions ; their consumption, too, was
limited to certain classes and to special districts. But now all this is changed, and at length
British dairying seems to be waking up to the demands of the age ; statistics are collected, and
reports issued, and various efforts are being made to bring it into system and order, and to
develop and improve its resources. About the year 1870 the factory system of cheese-making was
introduced into several of our best dairying districts; a few years later the British Dairy Farmers'
Association was formed; and, though last not least, the Royal Agricultural Society has now taken
the subject warmly in hand, and offers prizes for a variety of new or improved imiilements,
utensils, and machines, which the modern jihases of dairy-farming have made a necessity of the
day. All these are hopeful signs that at length dairy-farming is beginning to assume that com-
parative importance which belongs to it as the cliief home source, in one way or another, of the
nation's food-sujjjjly.
Breeds of Cattle.
It is not alone on account of cheese, butter, and milk — in themselves articles of the first
moment — that daiiy-farming is a sujiremely important factor in the sum of our national agriculture.
It is also the indirect — in many cases the direct — source from which our home supply of beef is
derived ; and the raising of cattle is, consequently, an important branch of it.
A comprehensive and painstaking history of the various breeds of cattle which are
found in the British Islands yet remains to be written ; and it may well be doubted if
such a history will ever be written, since the annals from which the earlier jjortions of it
would have to be derived are admitted to be meagre and obscure. Be this as it may, it is
not our purpose in this work to attempt any such account — first, because we have not space for
it ; and, secondly, we have nut the requisite materials. We shall, however, endeavour to indicate
1
ii DAIRY FARMING.
very Lriofly nonic of the outlines, i;'ivinj^ more or less of details wlieu dealing with speeial breeds,
which such an account would jircsent.
IIow and when the original animals from which our present hrecds of cattle are descended
first came to this country, it is now impossible to determine. That they have inhabited these
islands for a very long period is proved by those fossiliferous remains of them which have from
time to time been discovered in very ancient cave and drift deposits, which, though even ajiproximate
dates can hardly be given, were formed many thousands of years ago. More than once during
these vast prc-historic periods of time, the bed of the German Ocean has been elevated so that
England formed part of the Continent of Europe, and it may well be that the remote ancestors
of our herds of cattle, migrating westwards, came to Britain by dry land all the way, in the
period preceding the last time when the sea swei^t between this country and the Continent, and
England again became an island.
It is probable — but this, we susjiect, is a point which, like the preceding one, can never be
determined with certainty — that the various types of dairy-cattle, as seen in the distinct breeds
of the f)resent day, have all come from one original and individual stock which, before the land
was fenced in and cultivated, roamed at large for ages over the face of the countr3^ Even to this
day have survived, in the white cattle preserved in the parks at Chillingham, Chartlej'', and Lyme,
the lineal descendants of the ancient roaming herds, still retaining, though confined within a limited
area, the wild characteristics of their remote ancestors, and but little, if at all, changed by the
skill which man has brought to bear on what are properly called the " improved breeds."
We may lay it down as a first proposition that Nature, without the interference of man, has
from one original stock produced various races, or breeds, or families of animals ; and it is no less
true that she does not require man's assistance to preserve these from deterioration, providing only
that they are left to themselves. Her great laws of natural selection are the means by which
she brings about these results. On the other hand, we also witness around us everywhere the great
power which man possesses, by artificial selection and classification, and by rejection of unfit specimens,
of moulding and improving the various kinds of animals which he has reduced to domestication.
The striking differences which are seen between the Longhorns and the Shorthorns, the
Hcrefords and the Devons, the West Highlanders and the Channel Islanders, the Red Polled and
the Welsh Cattle, the Galloways and the Kerrys, may have been to some extent produced by the
peculiarities of soil and climate to which these breeds have been respectively subject, in the districts
in which they settled down, and of which they became a special feature; and the physical
development — or deterioration, as the case may be — which has taken place more or less in all
of them, is, perhaps, primarily due to those influences of soil, climate, and locality, and to the
law of natural selection working through these means. ISfore recently they have been im2:)roved by
domestication, and by artificial selection — principles which IMan has formulated into a science during
the past hundred years or so.
We may here regret that Britain did not share in the genius for arts, sciences, and literature
which several thousand yeai-s ago pervaded some of the countries of Southern Europe. Had she
done so, we should have had records of the cattle, and of the agriculture generally, which were found
in the country at that period. Such records, besides being interesting, would have thrown a flood
of light over the dark, early history of our country; and many points in the history of our native
breeds of cattle, which rest now, and must ever rest, mainly on conjecture, and on chains of evidence
wdiich are more or less imperfect, would have been tolerably clear and trustworthy. Even in later
times, when iMiglund began to have a written history, the dignity of our historians was more
gi'atilied in writing of wars and Court intrigues than of the arts which tend to peace — of cattle,
and (if jiastoral husbandry. Allusion is now and then made to domestic animals, as elements of
(rallic and of food, but nuthing is said of the different breeds, or of the excellences of any
one breed.
Fossil remains, discovered in beds of silt and in cave-deposits, demonstrate the fact that
the JJus jirimigcnins, or great o.x — a genus which has been extinct for ages — once existed in this
INTRODUCTION. iil
country; and tliough it is not aljsolutely pnived whether or not this genns had any eonneetiou
with them, it is on collateral evidence supposed that the far-away progenitors of our domesticated
breeds of cattle were lai^er-framed animals than those of the present era.
Be this as it may, however, our different breeds of cattle of the present day have, in the coui-se
of ages, and by the influence of locality, assumed the distinct tyjies and forms that we now see ;
and in some of them these specialities of form and colour are so far " fixed ■'•' and permanent that
they do not appear to alter much, if at all, wherever the animals are taken. Whether bred in
England, America, or Australia, Devons and Herefords remain Devons and Herefords still. This,
however, is not always the case with what, for distinction's sake, we may call " composite breeds. '^
Of these the Ayrshires in a limited sense, and the ordinary dairy-stock of the midland counties
in a more general one, may be taken as examples. Within comparatively recent times — say in the
past two centuries — these breeds have been built up, or, to say the least, very greatly improved, by
intercrossing two or more distinct breeds ; and they have been since, and are still being, improved
by careful selection and classification. Even the modern Shorthorns — the noblest breed of cattle,
so far as we know, that the world has yet produced — cannot well be called a pure breed in the
sense that the Devons, the Herefords, or the Channel Islanders can, though they are more excellent
than these — just in the same sense that Englishmen cannot be called a pure race, as the Chinese
or Japanese can. For some of the early breeders of Shorthorns sought to improve their cattle
by "stealth}/ crosses with other breeds," and even the celebrated Charles Colling, of Ketton, is
known to have had recourse to Kyloe and Galloway crosses. Whether any solid improvement was
obtained from these crosses is and must remain a disputed point ; but the fact of the crosses, not
being denied by the best authorities, remains on recoixl. When some kinds of cattle are taken to
other districts and countries, their offspring not uncommonly exhibit tendencies to " throw back "
more or less to their remote ancestral elements. In order to maintain the excellent quality of
the Ayrshires in any other country than their own — in England, even — it is found necessary to
repeatedly import fresh blood from the fountain-head. Shorthorns, too, in other climes, while
increasing rather than diminishing in constitutional vigour, not infrequently show signs of considerable
"rawness," and to check this tendency it is found necessary to use great care in selection and
in general treatment. Being in a sense artificial breeds, they require more or less of artificial
treatment to maintain them in the high position of purity and excellence which they have attained.
In course of time, if the system under which they are bred be persevered in, they may become
permanent in those features which at present are more or less fugitive. Those features, however,
will be the longer in becoming "fixed," because many of the best animals are continually being
transported and re-transiiorted from one district or country to another ; for where there is so much
migration of individuals it is difficult for a tribe to secure and to maintain fixed, uniform, and
unvarying characteristics — " fixed," that is, in the same sense as those of local and very ancient
breeds appear to be.
Far moi-e than any other breed, because the grandest and most fashionable. Shorthorns have
become cosmopolitan. They ar'e now found in every civilised portion of the world, and in some
portions which can hardly be regarded as civilised. The Shorthorn seems to be the Englishman's
shadow — it follows him everywhere. In all countries, if properly cared for. Shorthorns are found
to do well. Other breeds, notably the Herefords, have been introduced and extensively bred in
other countries, and they too are found to prosper, without such minute care, imder the new
conditions; while their distinguishing characteristics, being to all intents and purposes stamped
with the principle of permanence, so far as such matters can become permanent, do not change in
any marked degree. Yet it is probable that foreign soils and climates will modify them somewhat
in course of time. Not the least of the merits which English breeds of cattle carry with them
to foreign countries is their prepotency — their ability to stamp in a marked manner their own
qualities on the offspring of any of the native breeds with which they are intercrossed in such
foreign countries ; and in this way they are modifying the cattle of the rest of the world
in a degree analogous to that in which Englishmen are modifying its manners and institutions.
iv DAIRY FARMING.
Tliis proiiorty of pivpoteiicy belongs in ;i niai-ked degvce to tlie Shortliorns, the Herefonls, anil
the Devons; and, especially for breeding purposes, these cattle are held in high esteem in various
countries of Europe, in America, and in Australia. To the Shorthorns it especially belongs;
and, if such an analogy be permitted, we may assume that the physical vigour of Shorthorns, like
that of the luiglish nation, is owing in no insignificant measure to the ancient admixture of foreign
blood. In order to maintain unimpaired the size and reproductive vigour of a race. Nature occasionally
requires, as it would seem, either fresh soil and climate, or fresh blood. Confined exclusively
to themselves and to a given district, animals of all kinds, including man himself, appear to
deteriorate in size and \ngour, if not in purity of type. It must always be borne in mind, in
respect to the breeding of animals, that the power of prepotency— of impressing his characteristics
on his offspring, whatever their mothers may be— will depend mainly on a bull's physical vigour
and soundness of constitution, and that the offspring will most resemble that parent which possesses
these (jualities in the highest degree.
There are very few of the breeds or tril)es into which the native cattle of Britain have
resolved themselves that have not 1 e^n more or less improved by man's judgment and skill in the
art of breeding; and some of them, by careful selection only, and without crossing from other
breeds, have been very greatly improved. The improvements consist mainly in a nearer approach
to symmetry of form — so far, at all events, as our ideas of symmetry go — in earlier maturity, in
aptitude to fatten quickly on a miuimum quantity of food, and in the development of milking
properties. Nor can it be doubted that the improvement in each of these points is real and
substantial, though they are seldom found combined in a high degree in one animal or family.
In the breeding of pedigree Shorthorns, milking properties have only too commonly been sacrificed
to symmetry of form, early maturity, and rapidity of fattening — one or all of these. And yet
it is admitted to be possible that all these properties should be secured in the breeding of animals,
and we actually find certain families of Shorthorns famous alike for milk, symmetry, early maturity,
and rapid fattening. Where these aro all attained — and attained they undoubtedly are in some
instances — nothing is left to be desired, providing only that physical vigour and fertility are
maintained, for if these suffer, the rest are comparatively valueless. The breeding of cattle with
a view to symmetry and beauty of form, early maturity, and rapid laying on of flesh, and treating
milk as a matter of little importance, has caused many people to entertain the belief that beef
and milk in the same breed are somehow incompatible; that only one of these properties can be
secured in a high degree in any one animal or family; that the methods employed to produce
on the one hand a race of cattle excellently adapted for beef-making, and on the other for the
production in an equally high degree of milk and butter, usually result in milk being sacrificed
to l)ccf, or beef to milk; and that between these two stools either the breeder will fall to the
ground, or will have to be content with sitting on one of them. This belief rests on a fallacy
created Ity llie one-sided olijccts aimed at, and methods cmi)l(iye(l, by certain brecder.s of
show-cattle.
AVc have hitherto failed to be convinced of the soundness of this method of breeding, and
wc liuvc equally failed to see that the results of it are by any means deserving of having a hard
and fast theory in the art of breeding based upon them. AVe are well aware that high feeding
for show purjjoses, coupled with the practice of not allowing the cow to give any milk during the
greater part of the year, will soon result in dwarfing the lacteal organs; and that if persevered
in lor several generations, quick feeding and deficient milking properties will become marked
features in Ilic breed. It is a mere question of imjjerfeet exercise of milking functions. ^ ct
we know also lliat a diametrically opposite result may be obtained by similar methods; that
beef may be sacrificed to milk just as easily as milk may to beef, by simply breeding in that
direction. And it is equally true that a more excellent course than either of these may without
great dilfictdty be followed, and cattle may be bred with both milk and beef combined. Tiicse
qualities, we believe, are co-ordinate and correlative ; they may and do exist normally in the
same animal, and they may be devcl(i]i('d cither separately or jointly according to the direction
INTRODUCTION. v
in wliicli the Lrocdiug ami treatment of tlic animals are made to tend. Ilig-li milking' as well
as quick fattening properties are doubtless to some considerable extent artiiieial jiroductions.
Wild cattle are neither good milkers nor good feeders; and we see, in those parts of England
where calves are commonly allowed to run with their mothers, that the cattle are not famous
as good milkers. Milk much sooner leaves the cow when a calf sucks from her than when she
is milked by hand. The Hereford cattle are a marked instance of this; and yet we find the
Ilerefords are not by any means inferior milkers when they are treated as other dairy-cattle
are — when their calves are taken away at birth, and they are milked by hand instead. In all
breeds the milking properties of cows vary more or less; some cows are good, others bad, and
others again indifferent milkers; but with care and judgment in selecting animals to breed from,
not only may nearly all the animals be bred good milkers, but milking and feeding capacities
may he combined in them in a highly satisfactory manner.
Milk.
Milk, cheese, and butter are the productions, par excellence, with which is associated the
salient idea conveyed by the term " dairy-farming " — they are its specialities, its prominent features.
But the relative prominence of those features is changing rapidly in these later days. So far as
English dairy-farming is concerned, milk — for consumption as milk, and not as cheese and butter
— is taking the lead as a special commercial element. The quantity of cheese, if not of butter,
made in the British Islands is yearly diminishing ; and it is not improbable that, in course of time,
we may depend almost wholly on foreign supplies of cheese, and, to a very great extent, on foreign
supplies of butter; our own dairy-farming being devoted chiefly to the milk-trade. Yet dairy-
farming will not become any the less important on that account — rather the contrary ; but cheese
and butter making will become less important, esj)ecially in districts where railways offer facilities
for the conveyance of milk to oin- towns and cities. At present, however, cheese-making is still
a highly important branch of dairy-farming, and for some time yet will continue to be so ; but
it has, in some districts, already given way before the rush of the milk-trade, which has been
greatly stimulated in recent years. Two principal causes have contributed to this. First, the
operation of the Adulteration Acts, in the last eight or ten years, has so greatly increased the
consumption of milk by all classes of our urban populations, and fast trains on the railways afford
such facilities for rapid conveyance of perishable food, that a new and altogether extraordinary
opening has been made for country milk in our cities and towns. Secondly, the cattle-plague of
ten or twelve years ago destroyed the milch-cows in town cow-houses — particularly in London —
in such a wholesale manner that, in the great bulk of cases, they have not been, and in all
probaljility never will be, replaced; and the sources of our towns' and cities' milk-supply are now
found in country villages scores of miles away.
This is a new departure which is changing the whole complexion of English dairy-farming,
either directly or indirectly. In most dairying districts through which railways pass, the traveller
by the morning and evening trains may see, as he passes along, a number of milk-cans standing
on the station jilatforms, awaiting despatch to their destinations. There are but few if any stations,
however small, from which no milk is sent, while from some of the larger ones very considerable
quantities are sent away night and morning. The aggregate extent of this milk traffic, as will
be seen from the statistics and other information relating to it, which will be found in their
proper place in the body of this work, is enormous, and is yearly increasing. And when we consider
that almost the whole of this vast trade has sprung up within a comparatively few years,
the modern change which has come over a large portion of English dairy-farming will be j)lainly
seen, and it is no less plain that the new order of things will go on developing. To this great
featui-e of dairy-farming we shall devote the amount of space which its importance demands, and
we hope to give to our readers an adequate presentation of its various bearings. We think it
promises to become, in the not distant future, the sheet-anchor of a large section of our dairy-
farmers, while it is also a question of first moment to the public at large.
10,30
13-8 per
cent.
85-85
4-82
4-06
4-G2
•65
vi DAIRY FAR.MINC;.
We need no support when we say that only a tithe of the milk is consumed l>y our people
that ought to be, for the truth of the statement is obvious to every one. Unadulterated, undiluted,
unskimmed, and properly-treated milk, taken from a healthy cow in good condition, and produced by
the consumption of healthy and nutritious grasses and other kinds of food, contains within itself, in
proper proportions, all the elements that are necessary to sustain human life through a considerable
period of time. Scarcely any other single article of food will do this. When we eat bread and
drink milk, we eat bread, butter, and cheese, and drink water — all of them in the best combination
and condition to nourish the human system. All things considered, good milk is the cheapest
kind of food that we have, for 3 pints of it, weighing 3} lbs., and costing 4Jd., contain as
much nutriment as 1 lb. of beef, which costs 9d. There is no loss in cooking the milk as there
is in cooking the beef, and there is no bone in it that cannot be eaten ; it is simple, palatable,
nutritious, healthful, cheap, and always ready for use with or without preparation. Few kinds
of food are really more nutritious and healthful — none so complete. The National Lire Stock
Journal tells us that the average analyses of thirty-four samples of pure milk by S. P. Sharpless,
of Boston, gave the following results : — ■
Specific gravity
Cream volume
AVater
Sugar
Casein ...
Fat
Ash
According to Dr. Laukostcr, the composition of lean beef is : —
"Water 500 per cent.
Fat 300 „
Fibrin and albumen 80 ,,
Gelatine ... 79 ,,
Mineral ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 6'0 „
Wliile Professor Way gives for a particularly lean sample 53-81 per cent, of water, 3-10 per cent,
of fat, 21''0G per cent, of albuminous matter, and 19"3 per cent, of other substances.
If from these data we construct a table, we find that the chemical substances of 1 lb. of
milk and beef have about the following relations : —
Water
Flesh-forming constituents (nitrogenous)
Heat-producing constituents (carbo-hydrates)
Mineral matter
This is to say that, chemically, 3" 7 lbs. of milk is the equivalent of 1 lb. of beef in flesli-
forming or nitrogenous constituents, and 3"17 lbs. of milk is the equivalent of 1 lb. of beef in
heat-producing elements, or carbo-hydrates.
In a calculation, by Dr. Frankland, of the weight of various articles of diet required to be
consume<l to furnish the force requisite to raise a man of 140 lbs. weight to the height of
10, 000 feet, 8 lbs. of milk and 3'5 lbs. of lean beef are given for the figures. In another table,
furnislied by Letheby, the amount of food necessary to be consumed to furnish the necessary
nitrogenous constituents for a day's diet is given as 72"4 ounces for milk and 15'C ounces for
lean meat. In the table of the average daily diet required for active labour, we find 301 grains
of nitrogen and 0,823 grains of carbon — an amount supplied by about 11.^ llis. of milk (about
\\\ lbs. to sujiply the carbon, only aliout 9 lbs. to sujijily the nitrogen), or about 3^ lbs. of beef
1 lb. of Milk.
1 11). of Beef.
13-73 ozs.
8-0 ozs.
•65 ,,
24 „
1-51 „
4-8 „
Carbon.
Nitrogen
f)99
41
18.3-t
184
INTRODUCTION. vii
(about 3*6 lbs. to supply tlio carbon, and ii'l lbs. to supply the nitro-ren). The cailjon and nitrn<i;on
in average milk and beef are calculated by Dr. Lankester as below : —
Grains per lb.
Ca
Milk
Beef
We must therefore assume from the data offered, that the relative values of beef and milk
as human food are as 3^ are to IH, or as (in round numbers) 1 to 3^. If milk is 4d. a quart,
then it is the equal in food value to beef at Ojd. a pound; and, vice rem/, when beef is Is. O^d.
a pound, then milk should be 8d. a quart, calculated on its food value. We thus see that, at any
ruling prices, milk is certainly one of the cheapest, if not the cheapest, food that can be furnished
to the family, while all experience is in favour of its healthy qualities.
The production of milk in the animal economy is one of the most interesting and beautiful
of the many branches of study which natural history provides. That the offspring of the order
IMammalia should receive its sustenance for a time direct from the mother's body is singularly
interesting, and milk is perhaps the most beautiful of Nature's provisions for the support of life.
How milk is made is a subject well worth a few minutes' inquiry. A scientific journal describes
the process as follows : —
" We all know that milk comes from the cow, and is derived primarily from the food that
goes in at the mouth. The cow, indeed, is the machine which receives the raw material, the
grass or hay or grain, and in the natural laboratory of her body produces the sweet aud palatable
milk, so essential to infancy, so agreeable to the adult. How it is done is a most interesting
inquiry. It is not simply filtered from the blood, as water is filtered through earth or paper.
It is itself an organised material, containing bodies which possess form, and which are allied to
the animal which produces them.
"If we pass a bristle inward through the orifice of the teat, it traverses a duct or tube
which opens into a reservoir which communicates with other reservoirs or with ducts ; selecting
one of these ducts and continuing, it finally arrives at a small saccular cavity, which comprises
the extremity of the system. Within this cavity, the vesicle, as it has been named, the fat of
milk is produced — but how? A microscopic examination shows these little cavities, but about a
thirtieth of an inch, more or less, in diameter, are lined with cells of a uniform size, but if
anything smaller above than below. These cells produce the milk globules by forming new cells
in the following way: — A cell commences to bud at the extremity, and grows until the bud is
dropped off into the cavity; and there the water, containing casein and milk-sugar in solution,
and which has been transuded from the tissues, takes this young milk globule, but just now a
part of the living structure of the cow, and washes it down through duct after duct, till it reaches
the reservoirs and passes out through the teat. Thus the fat of milk is formed in the cow, and
the process is strictly an epithelial one, or a sort of a cell growth, as the nail cells elongate to
form the nail of the hand or foot.
" Let us retrace our way wdth the milk. The simple cell, which but just now was part of
the vesicle, or terminal acini, or ultimate follicle, has received the material for its growth from the
blood which has been brought to it by the system of capillaries, which has enveloped it with an
abundant network. This material, received into the cell, has become changed into fat by a species
of change aUied to degeneration, or the breaking up of previous compounds. This ultimate follicle
is grouped with other vesicles of a like character, to form a lobule.
" This lobule is arranged with other lobules, and the combined secretions of all the lobules
are passed onward to the main duct. To repeat, the vesicles secrete and pass their product, the
milk globule, into the duct of the lobule, and from this duct the globule passes into others,
continually more capacious, until it reaches the reservoirs, which are principally arranged about the
periphery and apex of the udder-gland.
viii DAIRY FAll.MING.
" AVc thus see tliat the milk "j^lolnile is at one time a portion of tlie livint;- oowj tliat it
must partake in some measure of the character of the cow. Ilenee, as cows differ — we know
that cows' meat differs, formed of muscle cells as it is, one piece of beef being tender and juicy,
another being dry and tough — so must there be differences in their milk."
Milk, then, is a liquid emulsion produced from the elements of bloud and chyle in thj
mammaiy-gland of the female animal of the oi-der Mammalia, after she has given birth to
young. Seen under a microscope it ajipears as a colourless fluid, in which float innumerable
little globules, which contain the fats of which butter is composed. The " shells " of these
microscopical sacs or globules consist of casein or albumen, uliiih, being white, give to milk
its peculiar opacity.
Some people do not relish milk now as they did once — when their tastes were uneducated
and unvitiated ; it is too simple and too dilute a food to find much favour in the eyes of those
who have long been accustomed to strong and concentrated meat and drink. Then, again, it is,
or has been in the past, very diflicult for townspeople to procure wholesome milk — milk from
healthy cows that have been fed on healthy food. Too frequently milk has contained, in one form
or another, germs of disease, which have caused sickness and sometimes death among the people.
We say "too frequently," because we now know that such has no need to be the case at all.
Assuming that the country is free from the diseases which have been repeatedly imported with
Continental cattle, cows will give sound and healthy milk, providing they are fed on sound and
healthy food, and are kept away from filthy water and from vitiated air. It is not our purpose
here, any more than it is our wish, to advocate a milk diet in preference to any other; but we
may j)oint out the great advantage which would accrue, to producers and to consumei-s alike, if
our citizens drank more milk than they do, and less of other things ; and we may also say that
if the people who use milk could always dej)end on getting it pure, the demand for it would
increase much more rapidly than it has done. True, the milk now supplied to townsfolk is much
more nearly what it ought to be than that of ten years ago, yet we still hear of frequent con-
victions for milk adulteration. Not only common honesty, but the health of the people demands
that the law as to adulteration shall be very strict and very vigilant. Dishonest milk-salesmen
must be made honest in spite of themselves — be they farmers or retailers. Farmers who adulterate
the milk they sell are exceedingly stupid, for they are hindering the development of a trade which
provides by far the most profitable outlet they will ever find for their produce j and retailers —
well, of some of them it might be said " 'tis their poverty, not their will, consents ; " but they,
and those who cannot plead poverty but still are dishonest, and the farmers too who water or
skim their milk, must be under the surveillance of a law strictly and impartially administered.
If we speak pointedly, it is because we feel strongly on this subject of milk adulteration. AVe
know that absolutely pure milk can always be obtained from several sources in the London milk-
supply; but we also know that much milk that is not genuine is still sold in the metropolis, as
well as in all other cities and towns. Both these things are obvious to every one who is
acquainted, however slightly, with the milk-trade j and it is no less obvious that pure milk coukl
be sujiplicd by every salesman to every customer, providing only that all men were honest, or
that the law were strict enough. It is blind fatuity on the jiart of every one who sells milk, to sell
an article that is not genuine; it is killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, that would
never leave off laying them, that would lay more of them each following year, if properly treated.
Fresh and genuine milk delivered regularly would be like a small but constant supply of fi-esh
country air to the denizens of our crowded cities, who need it sadly ; it would help Nature to
light against the influence of the vitiated atmosphere which they constantly breathe ; it would
restore vigour and health to those who are robbed of them by the anti-natural conditions under
which they live. One of the obvious duties of a Government is to see that the people are supplied
with genuine and wholesome food. Next to the jirotection of life and j^roperty, this ])rotection
against an unwholesome food-supply is the most important. Hence it follows that the law against
adulteration must be strictly enforced whenever and wherever necessary.
INTRODUCTION.
The Milk Trade.
Tliu 2)oinls in the milk-tnidc to wliich we shall chietiy direct attention are : — Its control in
summer and its develojnneut in winter; the best methods of cooling and aerating, so that milk may
carry long distances in the hottest weather, taking no real harm by the way; and the regulation
of its conveyance by rail, embodying increased facilities as to times and rates of transit. We
shall also treat upon the development of the factory system in connection with the milk-trade;
their partnership, so to speak, so that the one may be subservient to the other — cheese-making to the
milk-trade — on the plan already in some measure successfully carried out by several of the Derbyshire
factories and by the Aylesbury Dairy Company, so that when there is a plethora of milk in summer,
the surplus over and above the needs of the trade may, in the manner next most profitable, be made
u]) into cheese or butter, as the case may be, or into condensed milk. As the matter now stands,
an amazing quantity of milk is handled in a wasteful and unproKtable manner, owing to a
2Jrevalent lack of knowledge as to the best manner of preparing it for transit by railway, and as
to the best methods of cheese and butter making. The annual loss under these heads to individuals
or companies, and through them to the nation, is immense. This loss must, as far as possible,
be prevented.
Milk Production.
It is obvious that no estimate can pretend to do more than approxiuiatc t<j the quantity of
milk produced by the cows of the British Islands ; and this is all that can be done with regard
not only to the quantities of cheese and butter produced in this country, but also as to the
quantity of milk, of cheese, and of butter that our people consume. Such estimates may, and
probably do, come very near to the truth, but of this we cannot be certain ; they will, however,
be sufficient for our purpose here, which is to show how vast is the importance of our dairy-
farming. During the years 1876-8 the number, in the British Islands, of "cows and heifers
in milk or in calf " has seriously diminished ; the figures given in the agricultural returns are
as follows : —
187G 3,775,203
1877 3,744,647
1878 3,708,706
If we base our estimate on ;3,7UU,UUO cows, and assume that each of these animals produces,
on the average, 440 gallons of milk per annum, we have an aggregate milk production of
1,628,000,000 gallons. Of this vast quantity it is probable that about one-eighth is used in the
rearing and fattening of calves, leaving a balance of 1,431,500,000 gallons available for human
consumption in the forms of milk, cheese, and butter, including what is used in cooking and
what is wasted. If this balance were all made into cheese, it woidd produce over 500,000 tons
of ripe cheese, which would be a trifle under 10 oza. per week per head of our population. Made
into butter it would produce over 230,000 tons, or nearly 5 ozs. per week per head of the
population. When we come to reckon up the excess of our imports over our exports in these
articles, and add to such excess the quantities produced in these islands, we find that in reality
we consume cheese at a rate very little, if at all, exceeding 4 ozs. per weekjuey capita, and butter
at a rate very little, if at all, exceeding 3^ ozs. per week per capita.
But suppose we allow that each man, woman, and child in the British Islands swallows,
on an average, in the forms of milk and of various cookeries, one-third of a pint per day, or
15 gallons per year — and this, we think, is under rather than over the mark, and in a short time
will be considerably under it — these items of cousimiption dispose of some 525,000,000 gallons
per annum, leaving a balance of about 900,000,000 gallons to be converted into cheese and butter.
Ikaring in mind that scarcely any cheese at all is made in Ireland, and in the smaller islands of
the British group, and that in many parts of England chQcse-making is giving way to butter-
making, we are perhaps not very far wrong in assuming that some 350,000,000 gallons are devoted
2
X I)AII!V l'AK.MI.\(;.
to uhccse, aucl 550,000,000 to Ijuttcr. On that supiwsition, the quautity of cheese made per annum
will amount to about 120,000 tons ul' I'ipc cheese, and the quautity of butter to about 89,285
tons. lu these calculations we have assumed that, on an average, a little more than 1 g-allon of
milk is required to make lib. of "green" cheese, and that cheese loses about 15 per cent, of
its weight in ripening (on the Cheddar system, it is true, the shrinkage would be less, but on
other systems it is even more than this) ; and we have also assumed that about 'Z'Z pints of milk
are recpiired to produce 1 lb. of butter.
Some authorities place much higlicr the quantity of milk consumed by calves; and it
is true that in some counties, as Hereford, Devon, and Sussex, a great many cows do little, so
far as milk is concerned, beyond rearing their own calves, and that in other counties some stirks
and heifers may be similarly spoken of. But in dairying districts generally — and here it is that
cows give the highest averages of milk — the great bulk of the calves that are reared do not
receive as much as 50 gallons of new milk, which is considerably less than one-eighth of their
dams' production, as but few farmers rear even half the number of calves that fall to them ;
and as the great bulk of those that are sold oif receive even less new milk than those that are
reared, it may be taken for granted that our estimate is not much, if any, too low. Ten years
ago we should have been disposed to place the consumption of new milk by calves at a much
higher figure; but in the interval the demand for milk, and its price, have so far increased in
many districts, that calves now-a-days receive a minimum quantity of new milk ; they are given,
instead, skim-milk and various kinds of meal, and in many cases the skim-milk is administered
very early. We know it to be a not uncommon thing for the new milk to bo, at all events in
part^ cut off at the end of the first week of the calf's life.
COKDENSED MiLK.
Condensed milk is now becoming an important element in dairy-farming. As one of the
auxiliary products of milk it is likely to increase in importance as time rolls on. At present the
manufacture of it is very limited in this country, and in comjiarison with certain foreign countries
will probably remain so, because milk cannot in England be bought cheap enough to enable
any one to compete on equal terms with manufacturers abroad. Experiments in condensing
milk were begun more than thirty years ago in America, and earlier than that in Europe, but it
is only a little over twenty years since the art of making it successfully was perfected. Preparations
under the names of "desiccated milk," "milk powders," and "milk essence," had been on the
market for some time before, but they were all more or less unsatisfactory. It had long been
felt that if milk could be deprived of its water, leaving all the valuable constituents intact;
if it could be made to keep in its new form for long periods, and could at will be restored
to its original state by merely adding water to it; then the conditions necessary to its general
acceptance by those for whose use it was designed would be successfully met. But the articles
mentioned were preparations only, and could not be re-invested with the characteristics of actual
milk ; hence their ultimate uselessness.
The credit of being the first to jiroducc a thoroughly successful article under the name of
"condensed milk," which was, to all intents and purposes, actual milk mums the bulk of its
water, is ascribed to Mr. Borden, of AVhite Plains, New York, America. Under his process the
milk is not reduced to a solid or dry state, but at least six-sevenths of its normal percentage of
water is removed, while its valuable elements renuiin uninjured, and it assumes a consistency
somewhat resembling that of treacle. The true value of pure, fresh milk, as an article of food,
is at length meeting with a more popular and general recognition; and as condensed milk of the
best brands is, when re-mixed with water, very closely analogous to, nay, identical in all respects
with fresh milk itself, the result naturally follows that it will soon come to be considered, especially
where it is difficult to olitain milk fresh from the cow, a very tolerable and excellent substitute.
For the use of sailors and soldiers, and in parts of the earth where no cows are kept, condensed
milk is obviously of very great impurlance. Its condensiil form adds greatly to its portability,
TNTRODITCTION. xi
and, being in hevmctically-spalod cans, i( vomains sound and godd I'or an indefinite period. One
of the strongest recommendations in favour of condensed milk is iliis: it cannot be successfully
produced from milk that is not perfectly sweet and clean and of uniformly good quality. Any
imperfection in the original material is more apparent in condensed milk than it is in cheese,
though, perhaps, not more so than in Ijutter. Hence it follows that manufacturers of condensed
milk are extremely particular with regard to the quality, cleanliness, and soundness of the milk
they buy, for success is found to be impossible without it. Hitherto it has been customary to
add a given quantity of sugar, in order to give permanent keeping properties, where such properties
are needed ; but there is also a good deal made of what is calle<l " plain condensed milk," to which
no sugar is added ; this last is preferable to the other, on account of the absence of excessive
sweetness, but it is made for consumption within a reasonable time. It can hardly be expected
that condensed milk vnW wholly take the place of fresh milk where the latter is not very
difficult to procure, but it will in part supplant fresh milk in our larger cities and towns j not
because it is cheaper, but for the reasons that it is more convenient of carriage from the country,
and will keep good a much longer time. The conveyance of country milk by road and rail is
costly and unceasing, and will not admit of delay j but the carriage of condensed milk, and its
manufacture, will balance these expenses and inconveniences.
Dairy Management and Appliances.
Cheese and Initter making will also receive the amount of attention which they merit, and
this is very large. Not only the various time-honoured as well as modern systems which are
found in various parts of the British Islands and Colonies, but also the many foi-eign methods
will be described by competent writers. Comijarisons will thus be suggested rather than drawn.
The causes of success on the one hand, and of failure on the other, will be pointed out as far as
may be. As among the latter, it may be said that sufficient attention is not paid to details of
management, nor importance attached to care and cleanliness; and the scientific aspect of the
case is too commonly scouted as pedantic and supei-fluous. We must not any longer disregard
these matters, if we are to meet foreign competition with success. In most other, if not all
industries, whether agricultural or commercial, scientific research has done much more solid good
than is commonly owned. But while it is true that several eminent men have devoted much scientific
investigation to cheese and butter making, the teachings of science in these industries have not been by
any means generally accepted, and the great bulk of cheese and butter makers are working still in
their forefathers' groove. They seem as if they thought they could succeed well enough by sheer
plivsieal force, wthout paying attention to the delicacy of details; they look upon the minute
care, the unceasing attention, the scrupulous cleanliness, the almost microscopical attention to and
arrangement of details — the painstaking work, and the careful study of principles — which they
are told the French butter-makers and the American cheese-makers carry into their business, as
being in a sense puerile, and on the whole unnecessary. The almost loving devotion which the
Frenchman and the German pay to the making of their unrivalled butter, and of their many
curious kinds of cheese, and the earnest, long-sustained enthusiasm which the American factory
or creameiy manager throws into his profession, are regarded by the average English dairy-
farmer, and by British cheese and Initter makers generally, as belonging to the list of amiable
infatiuitions — useful perhaps, in some measure, but still infatuations. Herein lies at once the
difference and the difficulty. So long as we content ourselves with regarding the efforts of
others as unnecessary, and, worse still, if we regard them as puerile, we are veiy little likely
either to copy or to improve upon them. But when we are being palpably left behind in the
race ; when we are being beaten in our own markets, and in the estimation of the judges at our
own shows, by foreign productions, our eyes are opened somewhat, and we begin to admit that
not only ai-e our own methotls not quite perfect, but that there must be some merit in the system.",
carried on in other countries. When we have arrived at this point, there is a good prosiject of
improvement setting in. In the year 1878, at the great Dairy Shows of London, Frome, and
xii DAIRY FARMING.
Kilmarnofk, imd at many other shows of lesser importance, the comi)laint of the jiul<^es was ahnost
universal that there was a greater, proportion of inferior cheese than they had ever found before ; and
wherever American or Canadian cheese was broug-ht into competition with our o-mi, the vei-dict
was that l-lnglish cheese suffered by the comparison. Some such univei-sal and startling verdict
as this was needed, to enable our farmers to fully realise the i)osition in which they stand as
cheese-makers, and to finally convince them, in a practical sort of way, that they must take more
pains and use more thought than they have been in llu- liabit of doing, or the quick result will
be disaster of a very serious and lasting kind.
The unsatisfactory state into which cheese-making in this country has drifted, is attributable
to various causes. That there is a great deal of inferior cheese in the country, is a fact that he
who runs may read, but the reason or reasons why it suddenly became commoner than ever, and
worse, are not so easy to discover. Anyway, the year 187S was a disastrous one for che^-se-makers,
and cheese was lower in price than it had ])een for at least twenty years. Some say it was the
peculiar season that caused so much cheese to be bad ; that the large rainfall and the scarcity of
suu changed the character of the herbage; and that cheese-makers, not knowing this, were unable
to cope with it. This conjecture is ingenious, and no doubt true in part; but we have had
many equally rainy seasons without a corresponding result. Others attribute it to the use of
artificial manures and feeding-stuffs ; while others, again, say it is owing to the laud not being
improved, and that we cannot compete with Americans, because our land is so much inferior to
theirs. The former of these apologists have, at all events, probability in support of their opinion ;
for the average quality of English cheese is declared, by those who have every means of knowing,
to be worse than it was before guanos and nitrates and phosphates were so commonly used for the
imi)rovement of land. But the latter, we think, are wholly wrong in both their premisses. In
the first place, it is not true that the dairy-lands of England and Scotland have not been improved,
and many of them very greatly improved, in recent years, by draining, liming, and seeding with
fresh grasses, by the application of both natural and artificial manures, and by the consumption
of feeding-stulfs ; and, again, whoever has travelled through the dairy regions of Amenca, and
who knows good land from bad, cannot fail to have been struck with the plentiful evidences which
exist of American land, generally speaking, being inferior to our own for dairying purposes. One
plain proof of this is that our land will carry more stock, and, in fact, does carry much more
stock, than land in America carries. The following calculations show the number of different kinds
of stock maintained per hundred acres of land under grass, in the two countries respectively, in
the year 1875 : —
Ameuica. England.
Horses and Mules 71!) | Horses 9-26
Cattle l'*-74 Cattle 33-75
Shoop 241G I Sheep 111-23
We make these calculations from the official returns of botli countries, and on the grass land
only (including both natural and artificial— both permanent and temporary— grasses) , excluding
in both cases the arahle land, which, in America, certainly bears a larger ju-oportion to\\-ards the
grass land than it does in England.
Ag-ain, it is a long-established truism amongst dairy-farmers that "the poorest laud produces
the best cheese, but not the most of it." Those pastures are none of the richest from which are
made the finest qualities of Leicester cheese, which, all things considered, is perhaps the best
of our many excellent kinds of English cheese. Leaving out the famous Stiltou, which, being
more than a full-milk cheese, is not a fair competitor, there is no cheese made in England that
fetches so high a price as the finest samples of Leicester, yet it is made from land thai is admittedly
inferior in quality or richness to other land from which a less excellent cheese is made. It must
be borne in mind, however, that somewhat les-s cheese per acre is made in Leicestershire than is
made in most other parts of England from land of equal richness.
INTRODTTrTION. xiii
Other people, ayaiiij attribute the jirevalent Lachiess of cheese, in the year before mentioned,
to the growing carelessness and ineomijetency of those who make the clieese ; and dairymaids and
faetory-nianag-ers come almost equally luuler the lash. It is beginning to be freely said, that if
you tiud really good cheese in a farm-house, it has been made in nine cases out of ten by the
farmer's wife or daughter; and it is freely hinted that tlie heedlessness and lack of skill which
dairymaids have betrayed for j'cars, are now beginning to be copied by some factory-managers.
It is said that labour-saving appliances in both farm-house; and factories have too commonly
caused cheese-makers to become less careful ; and it not uncommonly happens, wo are told, that
the best cheese of a given district is found where tliese laliour-s.aving aiipliances have been but
sparingly adopted.
But if this be really the result of labour-saving appliances, it certainly is not they that are to
blame. Though in some, nay, even in many cases a disastrous result has, after a time, followed the
introduction of those appliances, they are not by any means necessarily the cause of that result;
and though they are made by some persons to bear the blame of it, it can only be so for want
of thought. We have seen instances over and over again, both in England and America,
where the finest cheese has been made by the aid of such appliances ; and in the latter country,
indeed, the wonderful improvement which has, in the past fifteen years or so, been brought about
in the average quality of cheese, is on all hands believed to be due in a great measure to those
very labour-saving appliances. If people really do grow careless through using them, it is the
fault of the people, not of the apjjlianees. It is said by men who are in a position to know,
that cheese-making is too much slurred over now-a-days — that "there is not enough work put
into it." Admitting the correctness of this statement, still the mischief does not lie at the door
of the appliances. Labour-saving appliances iu cheese-making were intended, not to make people
careless, thoughtless, and lazy, but to enable a large amount of work to be done by fewer persons,
in a shorter time, and with less discomfort than the old system admitted of; and it is mere
begging the question to blame them for any misfortunes that may occur.
Yet other people say that the mischief is owing to a lack of careful and thoughtful study
by cheese-makers of the principles which underlie their business, and which have lieen expounded
over and over again by scientifie men who have investigated them. This last conjecture, we think,
is very near the truth; but, be that as it may, it is quite true that our cheese and butter
makers do not by any means study the hidden princi23les of their business, nor do they attach
.so much importance to art in work, as the Americans and the Germans do; and hence, whilst it
is a fact that cheese is becoming worse just now, and butter is not improving, in this country,
American cheese and German butter have been for some years and are still improving. We
believe, however, that English cheese wall again come to the front in reputation, and that we are
only now passing through one of those repeated periods of probation which seem to be necessary
in most industries when a new step in advance of the old is required to be taken, and when there
is a danger of falling into a careless state. The period of depression in the cheese-trade, which
has been coming on for several years — slowly it came at first, but of late years its progress has been
at an alarming rat& — is also partly the result of over-i)roduction on the one hand, and of the general
dulness in nearly every department of trade and commerce on the other, coupled with the feverish
and unsettled condition of the political world throughout Europe and part of Asia. When the air is
filled with rumours of war, the arts of peace at once become timid, and they languish until the
air is clear again. After a time the clouds will have passed away, and trade will revive. But
meanwhile we should put our house in order; the causes of the many failures in cheese-making
should be looked into, and care must be taken to avoid disaster in the future.
There is no royal road to success in these matters ; it can be attained only by patient care,
sustained industry, regularity, cleanliness, and unremitting attention to details. And this scrupulous
cleanliness, this painstaking care, are no less necessary in cheese-making than in butter-making.
Success in cheese-making — which, moreover, is a more complicated process than butter-making —
depends less on technical knowledge than on practical skill, dexterity in the work, watchful
xiv DAIRY FARMING.
attuiitiim, fk'jiuly habits, and patient industry. And, we may add, even these excellent qualities
will he of hut small avail it' due care is not taken of the milk from the onset — at miIkino--time and
afterwards ; and the kind of food from which the cows produce it is a matter of importance, involving
as it does the question of its manufacture in the animal economy — a question we shall hope to touch
upon in till' hoily nf this worlv.
CuKKSE.
15y writers on hyyione, milk is regarded as tlie truest standard of human fuciil; l>ut it is s\ich
a quickl3'-j)erishable thing that it is necessary to place it, by artificial means, in some form in
which it is not so liable to early decay. Cheese and condensed milk are the only artificial
forms in which all the valuable elements of milk are retained in a form which is not quickly
perishable, and, of these two, cheese is by far the more convenient and serviceable as a common
article of fo(xI. The whole of the most valuable elements of milk are retained in full, or nearly
so, in a well-made cheese. It is in the first place deprived of some .55 per cent, of its water,
and the larger jiortion of its sugar is evolved in the whey, but very little of its fats and less of
its casein pass away in the process. The following is ;iii average of eight analyses of milk wliich
were made by Dr. Voelcker : —
Water 86-8-1
Butter — pure fat ;i-80
Casein (eontiiining Nitroi^fn •.')2) ... ... ... ... ... ... 3-9o
Slilk-sugar ... 460
Ulinpi-al Jfatters, Ash -81
• innon
And, by the same analyst, a cheese from the Derby Cheese Factory, made in l^i?!, was found
to be comjiosed of the following constituents: —
Watrr 31C8
ButtfT 3.5-20
Casein (containing Nitrogen 3-92) 24-50
Milk-sugar, Lactic Acid, &c 438
Mineral Matters, Ash 4-24
100-00
Cheese, then, is properly described as a concentrated essence of milk, iiiinns the greater part of
the sugar. The process of cheese-making is similar to the digestion of milk in the stomach
of an animal. Before it can be assimilated by the animal economy, milk undergoes a regular
succession of changes in the stomach. The process of coagulation proceeds in the same manner in
both cases, and is brought about by identical agencies. The digestive principle is used by art to
coagulate milk in cheese-making, and by Nature to coagulate it in the stomach ; and though
coagulation of milk in the former ease can be brought about by various other means — by acids,
and juices of plants, or by the pr(jcess of natural decay — no other agent has been discovered that
answers the purpose nearly so well as rennet, which is simply a solution containing the digestive
essence of a calf's stomach. This essence is a ferment, and consists of minute globular bodies
which float in myriads in the gastric juice, and the)' are the direct cause of digestion in the
stomach, and of coagulation out of it, when applied to warm milk. These processes of digestion
and coagulation up to a given point are identical — with these diiferences only: the quantity of
digestive essence which a calf applies to one gallon of milk in the stomach we apply to three or
four hundred gallons in the cheese- tub; and in the former case the milk is operated on by the
i>ssence at a temperature of 98" to 100^, -".vhereas in the cheese-tub it is operated on at about
SO", consequently the one coagulates in ten minutes, and the other in an hour. In each ease the
curd, soft at first, gradually hardens till the whey is nearly all separated from it, and it becomes
comjiaratively firm and solid — slowly in the one case, rapidly in the other. In the case of the
curd in the stomach the after-process is equally rapid, and digestion is accelerated and completed
INTRODUCTION. xv
]>y the greater heat, by the peristaltic motions of the animal's stomach, and by the greater
iiuautity of digestive ferment which is brought to bear. In the case of the curd in the cheese
the after-process is correspondingly slow ; the quantity of digestive ferment still at work in it, in
the same manner as in the calf's stomach, is less in quantity; and the temperature of the room
in which the ripening is carried on is some 30° lower than that of the stomach. But in a few weeks
or months, as the case may be, instead of a few hours, the firm and tough curd in the cheese
begins to yield to the digestive agency, and becomes less firm and tough, assumes the same salvy
and disintegrated appearance, and the same cheesy flavour, but not the same animal odour, as the
curd in the stomach of the calf. In the stomach the entire process of digestion, from beginning
to end, goes on rapidly, until the mass of curd again assumes a liquid form, and is carried away
when it has served the purposes of life; in the cheese the process of ripening goes on slowly,
so that it may be consumed at leisure. The coagulation of milk in the eheese-tub is exactly
like, only slower than, the early stages of digestion in the stomach; and when the curd is formed
into cheese the ripening is much slower still than the corresponding stages of digestion. It will
now be understood that a ripe, well-m;ide cheese not only represents very fairly and successfully
the milk from which it was nuule, but that, containing as it does such myriads of those globular
bodies, which are the principle and element of the digestive ferment, it is a most proper and
excellent article of food for man.
A good, ripe cheese is, in fact, partly digested before it is eaten; but, being a most concen-
trated food, it does not agree with many people who lead sedentary lives, if it is partaken of
too freely. Cheese alone is too concentrated a food, and it has not bulk enough to sufficiently
distend the stomach aj:d bowels, if no more of it is eaten than is necessary for the needs of the
body ; but its defective bulk is easily balanced by eating along with it bulkier and less nutritious
kinds of food, such as bread, potatoes, or fruit. And, again, the two classes of elements into which
chemistry divides our food do not exist in it in the proportion wliich Nature dictates in such a
perfect article of food as milk. Of albuminoids, or flesh-formers, and of fat and heat producers
in our food, we require the proportion of two and a quarter of the latter to one of the former.
Any deviation from this proportion is so far detrimental to health, and so far a waste. In
whatever proportions food may be lulministered, the body assimilates it according to its needs, and
rejects the surplus; the injury to health, resulting from improper food and too much of it, is
seen in indigestion ; the waste of food is not so jJ^tent to our senses, but it just as surely takes
place. The disjjroportion of the two classes of food-elements in cheese is owing to the loss of
the milk-sugar which has been carried oft" by the whey ; it is deficient, therefore, in heat-giving
principle. The following table ^vill show at a glance the proportions of flesh and fat formers
which res2)ectively exist in various kinds of food : —
Milk
Flesh-formers.
Kat-forincrs.
3-8;
per cunt.
8-2 per ceut.
24-0
310 ,,
14-4
29-9 „
11-8
74-1 „
13-0
67-6 „
7-5
76-0 „
2-0
21-0 ,,
22 -.5
40-.3 ,,
22-4
52-3 „
Oo
11-3 ,,
Flesh
Wheaten Fkmv
Ground Wheat ... ... ..
Rice
Potatoes
Beans
Peas ...
Fruit
Taking milk as the standard, it will be seen that all the others, except peas and flesh, deviate
more or less widely from what is considered to be a perfect article of food. Cheese has much
too large a proportion of flesh-formers, or albuminoids ; but this defect is easily balanced by eating
with it a considerable portion of wheaten bread, which has an equally large profiortion of fat-
formers, or heat-givers; potatoes and rice, from their connx>sition, are also well adapted to be eaten
along with cheese. A mixed diet is generally the best, and for those who lead sedentary li\csi,
Flcsli-lormi.'1-s.
Fiil-l"orUK-i
,. 240
310
5-9
37-0
29-9
080
.. 2S-8
59-8
xvi DAIRY FARMING.
(ir are in dclicato healtli, it is iiofe.ssary to eat ssiinple kinds of food, not as a rule concentrated,
Imt ea-sy of digestion and assimilation. Cheese provides the cheai>est and best food for those
who undergo eonsideraljle physical exercise; but it is not so well adapted for those who do not,
unless a properly-mado and thoroughly-ripe one could always be secured. The chief reason why
cheese does not enter more largely into the diet of our people is found in the fact that a great
deal of it is improperly made and immature.
Pound for jwund, cheese cont;iins more nutriment than bulchei-s' meat, and it may with
advantage be used instead of it, and especially so, as they may both be called " animal f(X)d."
Flesh is, of course, more nearly than cheese a perfect article of food, though less so than
milk. If it were possible that there should bo no waste of food in the animal economy, a pound
of Hesh would produce a pound of flesh in him who ate it. More than this it could not do; but
a pound of cheese, being stronger and more concentrated, would produce, by simply absorbing Avater,
more than a pound of flesh. It is, conse(|Ucntly, even if they are the same price in the market,
the cheaper of the two; for, still further than flesh, it lulds to tlio value of less nutritious kinils
of food with which it may be consumeil. Tlic i'olluwing slateinent of percentages will illustrate
oui' meaning more dearly —
1 llj. of Cheese
ilb. of Bread
2 lbs. of Flcsh-ineat
It will be seen that the pound of cheese and tlie half-pmuul of bread are actually rielicr
in both flesh and fat formers than the two pounds of flesh-nicat :nc, whilst the proportions of
those substances are in better combination in the former than in the latter. The cheese and
bread would cost not more than 9d., whilst the two pounds of meat would cost about
Is. 6d. Consiimed with bread or i)otatoes, cheese has thus an economical value that no other
animal food possesses. Flesh-meat, for instance, is so nearly perfect alone as an article of food,
that it does not impart, as cheese does, an increased value to the commoner and cheaper kinds
of food, and they do not serve to restore in it, as they do in cheese, the proper balance between
the two classes of food-elements. Unlike cheese, beef has no surplus richness to spare for the
improvement of those kinds of food that need enriching to make them fit for the sustenance of
our bodies. So, when bread and potatoes are eaten with flesh-meat, their surplus elements of heat
and respiration — starch and sugar — are wasted, and the only service they can perform in this
connection is to sujiidy the deficient bulk in the meat. (Icnerally speaking, and especially in summer,
we live too much on food which contains an excess of the elements that produce fat and support
respiration, the surplus of which contributes nothing to the sujiport of life ; and an article of
food that will restore to such other food the missing flesh-formers ought to be better appreciatetl
and more plentifully consumed. Cheese A\ill do this more cheaply and effectually than anything
else that is equally available, and we therefore advance its claims with confidence to the notice
of our readers.
In one respect cheese is uni(iue among our many kinds of food. We have sjwkcn before of
the singular agent by which milk is coagulated, both in digestion and in cheese-making. This
agent consists, as we have said, of infinitesimal globules, so minute that a single drop of rennet
lifpiid contains hundreds of thousands of them. These organisms remain in tlie coagulum they have
produced from the milk, and they are present in the cheese as it ripens, and until it is consumed,
retaining their vitality till the last, but it has not yet been determined whether or not they
increase in n\imber in the cheese. When cheese is undergoing digestion in the stomach, the globules
are set at liberty, their foi-mer condition of warmth being restored to them they at once resume
their natural activity, and become valuable in assisting to digest other food as well as the cheese
that contained them. That ripe cheese does really contain these globules or organisms is proved
by dissolving a piece of it iu tepid water : the solution will coagulate milk just in the same
INTRODUCTION. xvii
way that the original rennet did, if it is apjjlied to new sweet milk at the usual temperature of
SO" Fahr. ; and that it will really assist in the digestion of other food is equally true, though not
so easy of demonstration. Scientific truths have often been hit upon and practised for centuries
before the why and wherefore of them have been made plain. In many cases science does not
so much invent as explain what has been invented long before by instinct and necessity. Thus
it is that the practice of eating a morsel of ripe old Stilton after a heavy dinner, long established
and almost universal in society, has only in recent years been proved by science to be based on
sound dietetic principles — the cheese aids the digestion of the other food. The pungent taste which
is generally found in over-ripe cheese is owing to the presence of ammouiacal salts. During the
ripening of the cheese a portion of the casein undergoes decomposition, and is partially changed
into ammonia ; the ammonia, though an extremely volatile essence, does not escape, but combines
with several fatty acids which are formed from the butter in the cheese. The longer the cheese
is kept, within reasonable limits, the riper it gets, and the greater is the accumulation of these
peculiar ammoniacal salts. In a thoroughly ripe, well-kept, and sound old cheese, the ammonia is
not in a free state, but exists in the form of salts, of which the base is ammonia in combination with
butyric, eaprinic, caprylic, and other acids produced from the fats of which the butter is composed.
The milk of sheep and goats and cows has been, from the earliest times that have bequeathed
a history to us, a favourite article of food for man, and the oldest extant writings make not infrequent
mention of cheese, though, perhaps, nothing more than mention. It was a common article of
food among the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Jews. The oldest poet-historian of the world,
Homer, sings of the virtues of milk and cheese, in connection with the feasts of the warriors
of Troy :—
" There tlu'ice within the year the tiocks produce,
Nor master there nor shepherd ever feels
A dearth of cheese, of flesh, or of street milk
Delicious drawn from udders never dry."
Odyssey (Cowper's Translation), Book 4
In the Bible it is stated that Jesse commanded his son David to " carry these ten cheeses imto
the captain of their thousand, and look how thy brethren fare." And, again, they brouo-ht
" honey, and butter, and sheep, and cheese of Jcine for David, and for the people that were with him,
to eat." In the extreme north of the world the Laj^landers from an early period have made cheese
of the milk of the reindeer, and used it not only as an important article of food, but a medical
remedy applied to a frozen limb — the cheese is melted and the limb anointed with it. These
primitive people coagulate the milk with the sap of the plant butterwort [Pinguicular vulgaris). In
Stephens^ " Book of the Farm," pigs' stomachs are recommended for the purpose of coagulating
milk in cheese-making, and it is said that some persons believe they will make stronger rennet
than the ordinary kind. Lambs' stomachs, and, in fact, the stomach of any young animal of the
order Mammalia, will also coagulate milk. But calves' stomachs are the only ones that are at all
generally used for that purpose ; and all other kinds, if used at all, are used only in special districts,
or for the purposes o£ exjJeriment.
Oleomaugamne Cheese.
Oleomargarine cheese is one of the many singular productions of modern times. The high
price of butter in late years has led to its introduction. When fresh-milk butter fetches thrice
as much per pound as cheese does in the market, there is great inducement for cheese-makers to
take, at all events, a portion of the cream off the evening's milk ; and cheese dejjrived of its fats
is not only less valuable in proportion to the quantity of them that has been removed, but it will
not ripen properly unless some special provision is made to help it. To remedy the defective ripening
of skim-milk cheese, Mr. H. O. Freeman, of Sherburne, N.Y., devised the plan of restoring, by
artificial means, the fatty element of which the cheese had been deprived by skimming the cream
off the milk. His plan is to mix with the skim-milk, just before adding the rennet to it, some
clean cheap fat, such as rancid butter that has been purified, or oleomargarine derived from beef
3
sviii DAIRY FARMING.
suet. We are not a\v;iiv tliat oleomargarine cheese has ever Ijeen made in Entyland ; hut in
America it has heen niailc in eonsiderahle quantities, and some of it is so close an imitation of
full-milk cheese in quality, texture, apjiearance, and even in flavour, that only an exj^ert can at
once tell one from the other. There has heen much discussion and controversy among cheese
authorities on the other side of the Atlantic as to the merits of this oleomargarine cheese. It
has its friends and its enemies. It has heen vigorously attacked, and as vigorously defended ;
and now awaits the decision of that final court of appeal in such cases — public opinion 1
We think there is no need for controversy as to its merits or demerits — discussion ought to
suffice; for, after all has been said and done, this kind of cheese is a perfectly wholesome
article of food, and, so long as it is honestly made and as honestly sold, it is a legitimate addition
to our food-supply that may justly claim to stand or fall on- its merits. But if it comes to l)e
palmed off on the public as pui-e-milk cheese, it at once forfeits its claim to be treated Avith
fair-plav; and we are afraid that some injudicious makers of it will endeavour to pass it off
under a designation which is not correct.
Butter.
By all civilised nations butter is now used very extensively as an article of food, and wherever
refined taste exists it is held in high estimation as one of the chief delicacies of the age. It is
always found on the tables of the wealthy and refined, the peer and the peasant alike are familiar
with it, and if we were deprived of it, its absence would create a void that could not be filled.
Used in a great variety of forms, it has long been indispensable in the art of cookery. It is
employed in some shape or form in almost every kind of prepared food, and there are few dietetic
luxuries that are not more or less indebted to it. Every one knows that butter is obtained from
milk, or the cream of milk, by means of violent agitation in a churn. The end and aim of this
violent agitation are to break the casein-shells of the minute milk or cream globules which contain
the mixture of fatty matters that go to make up butter. These globules are a trifle lighter than
the liquid portion of the milk, and they consequently — the larger and better part of them, that is —
rise to the surface if the milk is allowed to remain at rest for some hours, and having so risen
they are called "cream.'" The cream being skimmed off the milk, leaves the latter poorer in
quality and less opaque in colour, for the colour of milk is owing in part to the cream globules it
contains, as its chief richness is owing to the fats they contain.
We are told l>y Dr. Yoclckcr that "butter consists mainly of a mixture of several fats,
amongst Avhich palmatin, a solid crystallisable substance, is the most important. Palmatin, with a
little stearine, constitutes about 08 per cent, of pure butter. ]\Iixed with these solid fats are about
30 per cent, of olein, a liquid fatty matter, and about 2 per cent, of odoriferous oils. The peculiar
flavour and odour of butter are owing to the jiresence of this small proportion of these peculiar oils —
viz., butjTin, caproin, and caprylin. In butter, as it comes to our table, we find, besides these fatty
matters, about 16 to 18 per cent, of water, 1 to 2 per cent, of salt, and variable small quantities of
fragments of casein-shells. The more perfectly the latter are removed by kneading under water, the
better butter keeps; for casein, on exposure to air in a moist state, especially in warm weather,
becomes rapidly changed into a ferment, which, acting on the last-named volatile fatty mattere
of butter, resolves them into glycerine and butyric acid, CgllgO^ ; caproic acid, C12II12O4; and
caprylic acid, CigIIjoOi. The occurrence of (hese volatile, uncombined fatty acids in rancid
butter not only spoils the flavour, but renders it more or less unwholesome."*
The demand for butter vill always be great, and if the jiublic could always procure sweet-
flavoured, pure, firm, and well-made butter, the consumption per capita would be much larger
than it is. As in milk and cheese, so in butter, a pure and genuine article always secures a large
• Journal of the Royal Agricultural Sociiti/, First Series, 1863, p. 291. It -nill l)c seen that tho composition of these
acids is identical, though tho proportions arc different. Tho moaning of the above sjTnhols is that hutyric acid consists of
8 atoms or parts of carbon (C), 8 of hydrogen (H), and i of o.\ygen (O). Caproic acid is formed by the addition of 4 atoms
of carbon and hydiogen to the same quantity of oxygen ; and caprylic acid absorbs yet an additional i atoms of tho
same substances
INTRODUCTION. xix
and unflagging demand. And butter is so delicate a production that it is easily sjioiled in the
making, it' great care, method, and cleanliness are not observed.
Some years ago we knew a widow lady whose butter, especially with respect to flavour, was
always of a very superior kind. We asked her what her secret was, for we had never tasted such
butter in a farm-house. " I have no secret," she said, " beyond this — I am always very particular
about keeping thoroughly clean every vessel with which the milk and cream come in contact. 1
frequently have them well scalded with boiling Avater, well scrubbed with a hard brush, and well
rinsed in clear, cold water; and I am also careful to keep the milk-room clean and dry, and well
supplied with fresh air. I am not aware that I have any secret beyond this — in fact, there is no secret
in the matter.-" True, no secret this, yet it is the whole secret of the matter ! "\Ve may add that this
lady had only for a short time been used to such matters; she was only for the time beino- takiuo-
charge of the household of her bachelor son, who had taken to dairy-farming as a pursuit in life.
That butter was known to the ancients is proved by the frequent references to it which are
found in the oldest wiiters, but how the production of it was first discovered is a j^roblem that
will never be solved. It is, however, probable that the discovery was accidentally made — in the
carrying of milk in skins slung over horses' backs or otherwise. By the Arabs in Barbary, and by
the natives of Caffraria, butter is to tliis day churned in goat-skins, which are suspended by the
legs from boughs of trees, and swung backwards and forwards until the butter comes. In the
Levant it is produced by securing the cream in skins, and then treading on them with the feet;
and in India by simply turning a stick round in the milk.
The principal use of butter among the ancient Greeks and Romans was as an ointment and a
medicine. The latter anointed the bodies of their children with it to make them pliable, and it
was commonly used in many countries in those early times as hair-oil. The Greeks are said to
have been made acquainted with it by the Scythians, Thracians, and Phrygians, and the Romans
by the Germans. Noble ladies in the olden times used it as a dressing for the hair, for Plutarch
relates that a Spartan lady paid a visit to Berenice, the wife of Dejotarus, and that the former
smelled so much of sweet ointment, and the latter of butter, that neither of them could endure
the other. It was, in fact, seldom used as food in the old countries of Southern Em'ojie, olive-
oil being used in place of it; and even in the present day it is but sparingly used as food in Italy,
Spain, Portugal, and the southern parts of France.
The ancient Christians are said to have burnt butter in their lamps, instead of oil ; and in
later times it was used for the same purpose in the Catholic churches of France, in order
to lessen the consumption of olive-oil. There is a tower on the Cathedral of Rouen called the
"butter-tower," from the fact that the Archbishop of Rouen, in a.d. 1500, finding the supply
of oil to fail during Lent, permitted the use of butter in lamps, on condition that each inhabitant
should pay six derniers, with which money the tower was built. There are other " butter-towers,"
at Notre Dame, Bourges, &c.*
Oleojiaugahine Butter.
Oleomargarine butter is now extensively made in America and on the continent of Europe.
Not cheese only, but butter is now produced in part in an artificial manner, and by aid of a
substance which, though not foreign, is still an adulteration. Several years ago, M. Mege Mouriez
made many experiments in the attempt to find ' a substitute for butter, which might be used in
the French army and navy. He came to the conclusion that the butter in milk was elaborated
from the fat of the animal that gave the milk, and that by melting beef fat at a moderate
temperature, an oil almost identical with the fats of butter would be produced. Pursuing his
experiments, his expectations were so far realised that this oil of fat, when churned along with
some mdk, yielded a product that was accepted by the French authorities as a substitute for
butter. Some years ago the manufacture of this artificial butter had made considerable progress
both in France and Germany. It grew into general use on Euroi>ean coasting steamers, ai:d was
* Scientific American, Oct. 25, 1873.
XX DAIRY FAIIMIXO.
exclusively used in the French na\y, notwithstanding occasional protests. About 1874 the United
States Dairy Company purchased the right of its manufacture, and a very large quantity of it
is being made in factories in New York and New Jersey. As in the case of artificial cheese, it
has been the cause of a great deal of discussion, some of which has not been of a A'ery friendly
kind, but its merits have been to a certain extent recognised, and its consumption has increased.
Mr. L. S. Hardin, who is an authority on American dairying, says of it : — " It has one quality
that will make it a dangerous rival with even the highest grades of butter, and that is its
keeping quality. Eeing only tallow to begin with, after the severest test it remains only tallow,
while even the best butter rapidly changes its chemical nature after it has once entered the
field of dissolution. In texture, colour, and quality, aside from its excellent keeping quality, this
oleomargarine butter is not only a dangerous rival for the higher grades of butter, but I am
most seriously alarmed lest it should supersede our farm-butter altogether."
There is a greater quantity of this butter, made principally on the Continent, and sold in
the English market, than people generally are aware of. AVe do not consider this in itself an evil,
because it becomes each j'ear more difficult to produce real butter in quantity sufficient to meet the
public demand ; but we must record a strong protest against the gross commercial immorality
which is involved, not in the manufacture of this artificial butter, but in palming it off on the
public as genuine milh butter. Tlie manufacture of this butter, and the sale of it, under existing
conditions of demand, are equally justifiable; what is not justifiable is the sale of it under a false
and deceptive designation. Artificial butter as such, and when sold as such, is a perfectly legitimate
element of commerce, and when made by a sound and careful process may be credited with being
an honest supplement to the list of our pre-existing foods ; but there is much of it now in the
market that is not so manufactured, and that is quite unfit to be considered a fair article of food.
Artificial butter, made from good beef or mutton fat, and by a careful and correct method,
whether sold to be eaten as it is, or to be used by pastry-cooks, is a product for which there
is an opening that is likely to become larger each year; but it will be incumbent on those
who are on the look-out for adulterations to narrowly watch the artificial butter market. The
method of its production is one that admits of, and induces, the employment of improper and
dangerous material; and if watered milk brings the lash of the laW|jon those who water it, we
may reasonably expect that they shall not escape who make or sell artificial butter that is not
what it ought to be. At the same time, the production of a genuine article — an article, that is,
made from sound materials — may very properly be encouraged, providing always that it is not sold
under false pretences. Such an article as this may fill most of the purposes to which inferior
milk-butter has been applied; and in that event, which we think is most likely to happen — which
has already hajipened to some not inconsiderable extent — it will be necessary that those who
make milk-butter should in all eases take the pains that are necessary to the production of
a first-class article. Longer marches than ever are now-a-days being stolen on those who, from
good raw materials, produce inferior manufactured goods. What were formerly waste, or next
to waste, materials are now utilised and made to serve important ends. This is the case now
in oleomargarine cheese and butter; in metallurgy, and in the manufacturing arts generally, it
has been the case for a long iime.
l.MPORTATIOXS OF DaIISY PrODICE.
A good many years have passed since cheese was first imported into this country from
America, the first shipment coming to us in the year 1830. In less than twenty years the
quantity imported per annum had risen to about 15,000,000 lbs. ; in ten years more it had fallen
back to some 5,000,000 lbs. — this was in 1858. Since that period the factory system of cheese-
making has grown up in America ; the quantity of cheese made has greatly increased, while its
quality has no less greatly improved; and we are now importing American cheese to the extent
of 115,000,000 to 120,000,000 lbs., or about ffty-three thousand Ions, per annum. There can
be no doubt that to the factory system is wholly due the marked improvement in quality, and
INTRODUCTION.
in ii o-rcat measure llie increase in quantity, wliieli have taken place in both American and
Canadian cheese in hvte years. It was in the year 1851 that Jesse Williams built the
tirst cheese-factory in the United States, near Rome, Oneida County, N.Y. ; and in less than
ten years afterwards factories had begun to multiply rapidly in the States. Seven or eight
years later the first Canadian factory was built, at Ingersoll, Ontario. These times mark
the period from which dates the rapid increase in the exports of cheese from the two
countries respectively. The importation of cheese from Canada is hence much more recent than
from the States; in 180-1 it had barely commenced, even if it had commenced at all, and five
years later it had only risen to some 4,000,000 lbs. ; but since that date Canada has been
coming rapidly to the front in many ways with respect to the amount of her exports, and we
are now receiving from her more than 30,000,000 lbs. of cheese, or over sixteen thousand tons,
per annum. From European countries we are imjDorting about 0'1',000,000 lbs., making a grand
total, from all sources, of nearly 220,000,000 lbs., or niiietii-eight tkoiisaiul three hundred tons, per
annum. Our annual home production of cheese we have estimated at one hundred and twenty-six
thousand tons, which is about one and a quarter times the amount of our importations. The total
quantities of cheese, and their value, imported annually into this country, for a period of sixteen
years, and from all sources, are given in the following table : —
Quantity.
Value.
Quantity
Viilue.
1863
756,285 cwts.
£1,886,887
1871
... 1,216,400 cwta.
£3,341,496
1864
834,844 „
2,176,248
1872
1,057,883 „
3,031,977
1865
853,277 „
2,463,299
1873
... :,356,728 „
4,061,456
1866
872,342 „
2,801,579
1874
... 1,485,265 „
4,483,927
1867
905,476 „
2,555,265
1875
... 1,627,748 „
4,709,508
1868
873,377 „
2,565,213
1876
... 1,531,204 „
4,237,763
1869
979,189 „
3,083,850
1877
... 1,651,088 ,,
4,763,053
1870
... 1,041,281 „
3,274,331
1878
... 1,965,949 „
4,939,009
And the quantities and values of butter importations through a corresponding period are similarly
given in the subjoined statement : —
Quantity. Value.
986,708 cwts. £4,537,157
... 1,054,617 „ 5,652,704
1,083,717 „ 5,945,884
1,165,081 „ 5,962,455
... 1,142,262 „ 5,854,271
... 1,097,539 „ 3,640,718
... 1,259,089 „ 6,923,210
... 1,159,210 „ 6,793,877
1803
1864
1865
1866
1867
1868
1869
1870
1871
1873
1875
1876
1877
1878
Quantity
1,334,783 cwts.
1,138,081 ,.
1,279,566 „
1,619,808 „
1,467,870 „
1,659,492 „
1,637,939 ,,
1,795,413 „
Value.
,939,040
,028,474
,955,264
,050,025
,502,084
,718,226
,538,305
,940,412
It will be seen in the foregoing tables that our importations of butter approach those of cheese ia
actual weight, while their value is nearly twice that of the cheese. Our exports of cheese and
butter are comparatively insignificant. For the year 1878 our exports of cheese were 10,522 cwts.,
valued at £06,001; and of butter 36,520 c\vts., valued at £243,032.
In 1802 our importations of bacon and hams amounted to 1,345,694 cwts., the value of
which was £2,477,005; in 1878 they had risen to 4,263,901 cwts., the value of which was
£8,611,590. In 1862 our importations of pork were 227,758 cwts., the value of which was
£409,018; in 1878 they had risen to 369,500 cwts., the value of which was £011,624. In 1862
our importations of lard were 530,090 cwts., of the value of £1,121,059; in 1878 they had risen
to 908,187 cwts., of the value of £1,786,925. In 1862 our importations of eggs amounted in
number to 232,321,200, and in value to £593,813; in 1878 they had risen to 783,484,320, the
value of which was declared to be £2,511,922; and the value of poultry has increased so rapidly
even of late years, as to have risen from £72,426 in 1870 to £125,521 in 1878.
A short inquiry into the origin of soils cannot fail to be both instructive • and interesting,
and our work will therefore treat of their formation and distribution, explaining their properties
xxii DAIRY FARMING.
and peculiarities. We shall si)eak of the soils and climates that are best adapted to dairying, and
of the methods of increasing the adaptation of those to which Nature has not pjiven the best
properties for the purpose; the exhaustion and improvement of soils will also engage our attention,
along with the best methods of cultivation and treatment employed on dairy-farms, and including
the application and treatment of manures both natural and artificial ; and, lying at the foundation
of all good husbandry on wet soils, we shall devote considerable space to the subject of draining,
describing its methods and explaining its principles. So far the soil. The various cultivated crops
found in the best dairying districts, including roots, artificial grasses, leguminous plants, cereals,
&e., and also weeds and worthless grasses, will receive due attention ; while the botanical aspects
of this section, so far as they are useful to the agriculturist, will be handled in a manner at once
scientific and popular. Dairy-homesteads, farm-buildings, fences, shelter, the supply of water, &c.,
will be illustrated and described. The various races, breeding, and selection of cows for dairy
pui-poses, with their feeding and treatment through the different parts of the year, will be fully
explained in the letterpress, and by the aid of illustrations supplementary to the text. Milking,
the reai'ing and fealing of calves, and the general treatment of stock both young and old, will
receive the amount of attention they merit. The various purposes to which dairy products are
devoted, the ways in which they are disposed of, and the commercial aspects of dairy-farming in
its different branches, will be fully explained ; and, lastly, the supplementaiy stock appertaining
more or less specially to dairy-farming will be dealt with in as liberal a manner as our space
may be found to admit of. We trust on these bases to present to our readers a comprehensive
and painstaking work descriptive not only of the duties and conditions, the benefits and the
drawbacks, but also of the elements of success, as well as the causes of failure that, separately
and jointly, fill in and rule the life of a dairy-farmer. AVe are assisted in these matters by
eminent authorities in various countries, each of whom writes on the subject with which he is
specially acquainted ; and, for ourselves, our part has lain in arranging the matter we have had
contributed by others, and in writing on the several topics with which we happen to be familiar.
The object we have in view is to promote the lively interest which, in places, has begun to
attach to dairy-farming; to keep alive the spirit of improvement which is manifesting itself in
various ways; to place before the public an account of the various methods of making cheese
and butter in different countries, as well as in different parts of our own country, describing
all the modem features and improvements, and illustrating the best of the various improved and
newly-invented machines, implements, and utensils which find favour with the more advanced dairy-
farmers of the present day; to trace out the "new departures^' into which dairy-farming has
developed, or is developing; and to give a general presentation of the whole subject in such a
manner that those interested may derive from our work instruction and assistance.
J. P. S.
DAIEY FAEMING
CHAPTER I.
Breeding and Selection of Daiky Cattle.
The Practical Difference between Good and Bad Stock— Illustrated by Cases— Importance of Breeding for Milk in Pedigree
Stock— Examples— Pedigree Breeding an Art— Main Principles of Breeding— All Animals tend to Produce their Like— Breeding
Consists of Accumulating the Tendencies of Successive Generations in One Direction— In-Breeding and Crossing— Evils of
Both— Means of Avoiding them, by Crossing Families— Effects of a "Raw" Cross— These Principles
<^ „^ ^^ Applicable to the Breeding of Dairy Stock— Directions for the First Selection— Practical Remarks.
"^EW things coutribute more to
a dairy-farmer's success thaii
skill in selecting and breed-
ing his dairy-stock. Some
men possess this skill in a
high degree intuitively ; others
_^ acquire it by careful obser-
^"■•' vation and long-continued experience;
otherSj again, never can or do attain it ;
but, however it may come into a man's pos-
session, it is no mean element in his success,
may lay it down as a first principle that a
farmer may just as well have a good class of stock
as a poor one. The land that will maintain
twenty common-bred cows will maintain twenty
well-bred ones, and the annual profit from the
latter will be considerably more than from the
former. It is, in fact, a dead loss to keep
common, weedy animals in the place of good ones ;
and the sum of that loss is just the difference in
the net profit which the two kinds respectively
give to their owners. As this difference is a
serious one, let us see in what it consists.
It is a fact, so well ascertained as to be no longer
disputed, that some cows will yield more milk
than others will on a given quantity and quality
of food ; and it is no less true that they will yield
more heef under like conditions. This superiority
consists in the greater ability of the one than the
other to convert the food she eats into milk or
meat, or both these, for some animals possess a
high order of merit in both departments. It docs
not matter what kind and quantity of food you
give to some cows, they will neither milk nor
fatten satisfactorily on it ; while others will do both
in a high degree. It is the same with an animal
as with a steam-boiler — the more complete the
combustion of the food or fuel it gets, the more
satisfactory will be the result, because there is
less waste. And animals can be bred up to this
just as surely as steam-boilers can be constructed
up to it : it is a mere question of skill in breeding
on the one part, and of construction on the other.
Again : dairy-cows are essentially food-con-
sumers and food-producers, and the more food
an animal can consume in a given time, providing
she produces a relatively large proportion of milk
or beef in return for it, the more profitable will
she be to her owner. This is mainly a question
of soundness of constitution and strength of
digestion. And, further than this, it is an easy
matter to reach the limit of production that an
inferior animal is capable of. She can only take
a given quantity of food, making an inferior use
even of that; while a really good animal will
not only eat more food, but will put what she
eats to a more profitable purpose. An ill-bred
one will not take much more food than is required
to make good the wear and tear of her body, and
it is only from the food over and above this that
2
DAIRY FARMING.
the farmer derives his profit. All cows have to
live, first of all, from the food they eat ; and,
when the requirements of life are met, the rest
of the food consumed goes, or should go, to
the production of milk or of beef. The object
is to secure such animals as will not be content
with merely living, but will put in plenty of
overtime for the benefit of their owners ; in
other words, cows that vdW consume food enough
to make a profit, turning that food to the best
possible use, and not make a beggarly return for
the advantages placed before them.
To illustrate the difference between a good
dairy-cow and a poor one, we will state two cases
in which both animals are fed up to their capacitj-,
showinsj the difference in result : —
Cow No. 1.
Dr. — To ordinary keep, ad. HI)., for
one year
To extra food, com, &r.
Cr. — By one calf
By 400 gallons of milk, at 8d. ...
s. d. £ s. d.
11
0
0
3
0
0
14
0 0
1
0
0
13
6
8
14
G 8
Cow No. 2.
Dr. — To ordinary keep, ad. lib., for
one year
To extra food, corn, &c.
£
11
6
s.
0
0
d.
0
0
£ s.
17 0
d.
0
Cr. — By one calf ...
By 700 gallons of milk, at 8d. ...
2
23
0
6
0
8
25 6
Profit
£8 6
8
These are not by any means extreme eases,
though imaginary ones ; for many cows give less
than 400 gallons of milk, whilst others give more
than 700 gallons in a season. Instances are on
record where cows have produced each 500 lbs.
of butter in one year ; and as a pound of butter
requires from two to three gallons of milk on the
average, it is evident that these cows must either
have given much more than 700 gallons of milk, or
that the milk was of unusual quality.
In tlie breeding of pedigree cattle of any kind,
particularly Shorthorns, the milking property has
been too much sacrificed to beauty and symmetry
of form. The fabulous prices which animals of
certain tribes commonly fetch have made the
question of milk appear one of small importance,
and the consequence is that not only are these
animals not bred to milk, but their properties as
milkers are seldom if ever inquired into by those
who buy them. This neglect of breeding for milk,
and the breeding instead for heavy flesh, light
bone, symmetry of form, beauty of expression and
skin, and early maturity, has been carried to such
a length that many of our pedigree Shorthorns
have not milk enough to rear their own offspring,
and foster-mothers have to be provided for the
calves. It is a question worthy of investigation how
far the milk of a foster-mother, especially if she is
a common-bred cow, influences the purity of breed
in the calf that is reared upon it, and we are not
aware that it has as yet had much attention, if
any, devoted to it. Be this as it ma}', however,
it is none the less a pity that the question of milk
has been so far ignored in the breeding of pedigree
stock ; not alone because certain families of
pedigree Shorthorns are still remarkable for the
quantity of milk which some of the cows give, but
also because pedigree blood is now being largely
introduced into the general dairy-herds of the
country, which it cannot fail to injure in the milk
department whenever it comes from a poor milk-
ing family. Three-quarters of a century ago the
Durham cows, from which all our Shorthorns have
descended, were celebrated as much for the quan-
tity of milk they gave as for their capacity to
fatten quickly ; and as some of their descendants
still possess both these properties, in addition to
beauty and symmetry of form, there would seem to
be no reason to doubt the possibility of breeding
for milk, in addition to the other excellences for
which Shorthorns are so deservedly famous.
There are, however, among our most famous
breeds of dairy-cows, two conspicuous exceptions
to this rule of not breeding for milk in pedigree
stock. The Ayrshires and Channel Islanders have
many pedigree families among them, and great
attention has been paid for a long period to
purity of blood. But in all cases milk has been
placed first in the list of the merits for which
these cattle are distinguished, and the result is
that we have in the two breeds, though they
differ widely from each other, the highest em-
bodiment of what dairy-cows ought to be accord-
ing to British and American notions. Nor has
symmetry of form been lost sight of in the
breeding of these cattle, yet the standard of
THE BREEDING 0¥ STOCK.
63'mnietiy differs very widely from that of the
Shorthorns. Milk is the chief object, form next;
but the form is specially adapted to milk, dif-
fering in this from the Shorthorns, whose form
is specially adapted to beef. In each ease the
object to aim at is well understood, and in each
case perfection has been attained — so far, at all
events, as the model is concerned.
The breeding of pedigree stock is an art, and a
high form of art too; it is the guiding, controlling,
and develoj)ing of some of the hidden principles of
nature, so as to produce animal forms that are as
nearly as possible perfect ; it is an art, to succeed in
which in a high degree needs much thought and
experience. Nothing short of a careful study
of pedigree, and of the laws which govern the
economy of animal reproduction, will enable a man
to tell, with anything approaching to accuracy,
what will be the result of a cross between two
animals of different families which are distantly or
not at all related. Sometimes the most promising
and likely mating of two animals will turn out in
the offspring to have been a misfit, while in other
instances the results will be more satisfactory than
could have been expected. We cannot pretend
here to give more than an outline of the leading
principles involved in the breeding of pedigree
cattle, and we should not have done even this were
it not the fact that many dairy-farmers now-a-
days breed their stock on recognised principles and
with almost as much care as pedigree Shorthorns ;
in fact, there are many carefully-bred herds of
dairj'-cows with long and respectable pedigrees in
their owners' herd-books, though perhaps they
have no place in the official herd-book of the
breed.
From a letter addressed by Sir John Saunders
Sebright to the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks,
nnder date August 1st, 1809, we take the following
extracts : — " Were I to define what is called the
' Art of Breeding,' I should say that it consisted
in the selection of males and females intended to
breed together, in reference to each other's merits
and defects. It is not always by putting the best
male to the best female that the best produce will
be obtained, for should they both have a tendency
to the same defect, although in ever so slight a
degree, it will generally preponderate so much in
the produce as to render it of little value.
"A breed of animals may be said to be im-
proved when any desired quality has been increased
4
by art beyond what that quality was in the same
breed in a state of nature. What has been pro-
duced by art must be continued by the same
means, for the most improved breeds will soon
return to a state of nature, or perhaps defects will
arise which did not exist when the breed was in
its natural state, unless the greatest attention is
paid to the selection of the individuals who are to
breed together.
" We must observe the smallest tendency to
imperfection in our stock the moment it appears,
so as to be able to counteract it before it becomes
a defect ; as a rope-dancer, to preserve his equi-
librium, must correct the balance before it is gone
too far, and then not by such a motion as will
incline it too much to the ojjposite side. The
breeder's success will depend entirely upon the
degree in which he may happen to possess this
particular talent.
" Regard should not only be paid to the quali-
ties apparent in animals selected for breeding, but
to those which have prevailed in the race from
which they are descended, as they will always
show themselves sooner or later in the progeny.
It is for tliis reason that we should not breed from
an animal, however excellent, unless w'e can ascer-
tain it to be what is called 'well-bred,' that is,
descended from a race of ancestors who have
through several generations possessed in a high
degree the properties which it is our object to
attain.
" The offspring of some animals is very unlike
themselves; it is, therefore, a good precaution to
try the young males with a few females the
quality of whose produce has been already ascer-
tained ; by this means we shall know the sort of
stock they get and the description of females to
which they are best adapted."
The Theouy of Beeedixg.
It must always be borne in mind that " like
produces like " — that is, some influence is always
exerted by the parents on the offspring. But this
is much stronger in some cases than in others.
In some instances the influence of the parents is so
strong that they produce an almost exact likeness
of themselves, or of one of them. In other cases
the immediate influence of the parents in stamping
their own individual peculiarities on their off-
spring is smaller than some dormant influences
which, though unperceived in themselves, they
DAIRY FARMING.
have inlicritetl from tlieir ancestors. Thus the
offspriiio- are liable to inherit not only the evident
peculiarities of their parents, but also the dormant
properties which come from ancestors ten or
twenty generations back. Still, however, it is not
often, except in the case of parents whoso owti
influence is not vigorous, that these ancestral traits
ai5pear in any marked degree through more than
four generations.
The capability of a bull to Iransmit to his
offsj)ring his own peculiar properties, or mould,
or excellences of any kind, depends on his having
inherited them from a succession of ancestors
endowed with similar characteristics. Thus it
follows that the older the pedigree of any tril)0
or family of animals which have been carefully
bred with a view to the development of certain
superiorities and to the eradication of certain in-
feriorities, the less likely will any of the offspring
of that tribe or family be to go back to remote
ancestors for certain peculiarities which are rightly
supposed to be dormant or dead. And thus " care-
ful breeding " consists in not breeding from any
animals which exhibit tendencies to " throw back,'"
as it is termed, to original imperfections — to
breed from those only in whom the various excel-
lences wo are trying to establish and secure are
most strongly marked, and in whom the deficien-
cies we are aiming to eradicate do not reajjpear.
By this system only can " pure blood" be attained;
and by " pure blood " is meant a sure succession of
a combination of excellences, accompanied by no
deficiencies of imjjortance.
The task of the breeder would be a simple one
if he wished to secure only one point of excellence
in his cattle; but as no beast is perfect by the
possession of one excellent point only, so it is
necessary in breeding to aim to secure the many
and various points, each and all of which are in-
dispensable to the jierfect animal. So in mating a
male and a female animal together, it is necessary
that the ancestry of each should be thoroughly
known for at least four generations. It is not
enough to know that the two animals themselves
possess certain combinations of characteristics
which would seem to fit them to produce superior
offspring; it is not enough that one of them is
especially excellent in certain points in which the
other is deficient, and vice versa ; but it is also
necessary to ascertain how far, by jircvious care-
ful breeding, the various excellences they possess
deserve to be regarded as flxed. It is also ex-
pedient 1o know for how many generations the
deficiencies which were common to the remote
ancestry of the tribe have been practically ob-
literated, have been dormant — dead.
" Distinctness of type " is secured by the same
means as " pure blood,^' but it cannot be regarded
as fixed until several generations have shown no
tendency to depart from it. Both these mean a
concentration of excellences and an exclusion of
imperfections, made permanent, or fixed, by careful
and exclusive breeding up to a given idenl.
In any case, it is a mistake to breed from
weakly or delicate animals, for diseases and
deficiencies lurk in them. Strong and vigorous
animals, on the other hand, if well bred, are
capable of very strongly impressing on their off-
spring those characteristics and qualities toward
which their own breeding has been made to tend.
This is very striking at times when a strong and
well-bred bull has been mated with a common-bred
and not too vigorous cow ; the offspring often has
all, or nearly all, the characteristics of the well-
bred sire. But these characteristics in the offsjjring
cannot be regarded as fxed in the sense they are
in the sire, for it is only the flrst cross ; and to
obtain fixity of type in this new cross would
require several more crosses through as many
generations ^\^th pure-bred bulls. One of the
chief disadvantages of close-breeding is that the
animals lose more or less of vigour, and it is
commonly found that the offspring of a cross
between two animals not at all related to each
other is more vigorous than either of the parents.
" In-breeding," as it is termed — that is, the
breeding for a time amongst near relations —
generally i-esults mischievously on the systems and
on the fertility of stock. Consanguinity of blood,
though valuable in the formation of pure-bred
types, and up to a given point, is a great evil if
carried too far. The effects of too close in-breeding
are most commonly tuherculosis, infertility, and
general debility; and what is only a slight and
transient form of disease in the first parents of
thai /amilj may, and often does, become a fixed
and severe form in succeeding generations — indeed,
the same result may be developed from what at
first is not a disease but only a weakened function.
If the family is kept exclusively to itself in the
breeding, this evil intensifies ; if it is bred into
other families, the evil tends to decrease.
PRINCIPLES OF BREEDING.
It is an established fact that the breeding
together of parent and progeny is ahnost always
less injurious than that of Ijrotlier and sister. This
is easy to understand, for the evil results of in-
breeding have not advanced so far in that ease as
in this — at all events, on one side. The evil effects
of too close in-breeding are with difficulty post-
j]0)ieii by killing off all the animals which exhibit
any of them ; they are only postponed, not eradi-
cated— and you may go on weeding out till none
are left.
The only method of obtaining pure blood, and
at the same time of avoiding the evils of in-
breeding, is to establish several families of the
same tribe, or several branches of the same family,
breeding them all carefully to one ideal or model,
weeding out all animals which are delicate or
which show a tendency to revert to original
imperfections, and breeding only from the true
and vigorous ones. These different branches of
the same family having been kept apart, though
bred to the same models, do well for crossing — or
rather, for getting a little fresh blood from time to
time of the same kind. But one great hindrance
to this lies in the different ideals which different
men set up, and the different methods by which
they seek to attain them. If there were uniformity
of taste, judgment, and method among breeders,
there would soon be uniformity of result.
It will thus be seen that families j)roceeding
from the same original stock — descending in parallel
lines from common ancestors — being practically,
and to all intents and purposes, of the same blood
and breed, are most valuable for subsequent inter-
mixing, with the view of maintaining the vigour
without impairing the purity of the breed. This
system, of course, confined as it is to the members
of one family or of one tribe which are more or
less closely related to each other, cannot strictly
be called " crossing ;" and yet by means of this
system most of the benefits of crossing are secured,
whilst its evils are avoided. By " evils " is here
meant impurity of blood or breed.
In all breeding it is necessary to introduce
fresh blood at times ; and the skill of the breeder
lies in his ability to select and introduce this fresh
blood in such a manner that the vigour of the
animals is increased, whilst their symmetry, if
interfered with at all, is improved. And to this
end animals are selected from other branches of
the same family, or from a distinct though
similar family, distantly or not at all related.
These different branches of a family are sometimes
produced for a deliberate purpose, with the view
of subsequent re-intermingling of the blood.
One of the effects of introducing wholly fresh
blood into a family is very curious, and it demands
to be taken notice of by the breeder. In most
cases, certain ancient characteristics of the breed
are lying latent; they have been laid to rest by
careful breeding against them. Mr. Darwin has
established the important fact that crossing itself
does undoubtedly give a more or less definite
imj)ulse towards characters long lost, but which
were present in far back ancestry. Thus the ten-
dency of introducing fresh blood, especially if it
be a distinct cross and entirely unrelated, is to
cause the offspring to " throw back," as practical
breeders term it, to an earlier and unimproved
type ; and the consequence usually is that the first
cross exhibits considerable " rawness," though it
is as commonly greatly increased in vigour.
Thus, continual and rigorous in-breeding, on the
one hand, produces, or rather develops, the inevitable
" weak spot ;" and, on the other hand, " raw cross-
ing" causes the stock to revert back to the original
condition of the breed. The breeder has to use
all the acumen of which he is possessed in order
to steer as clear as possible of both these evils, and
he therefore avoids in-breeding too closely on the
one hand, and too distinct crossing on the othei\
Tliis is not difficult to accomplish in Shorthorn
breeding, for as all the families are more or less
related to each other, or are at all events bred up
to one common model of perfection, crosses can be
obtained, or rather fresh blood, without interfering
in the least with the jiurity of the blood and breed.
The " principles of breeding," as here laid
down, refer more particularly to pedigree stock,
which must needs be bred with the greatest care
and judgment to avoid disaster ; but they are also
generally applicable to the breeding of dairy-cows.
It is the aim — not impossible of attainment — of
our dairy-farmers, to produce dairy-cows that will
possess both milking and fattening properties in
a high degree — the highest attainable. Whilst a
cow is kept in the dairy herd it is important that
she should be a " deeja milker ;" and it is a matter
only second in importance that she should be a
good fattener when she goes barren, or when she
is past the best as a dairy-cow. • A dairy-cow is
now no longer valuable on account of milk alone,
6
DAIRY FAHMIXG.
but also on account of beef; hence it follows
that practical dairy-farmers must develop in the
animals they hrecKl not only gocxl milking hut
gocxl fattening properties. And it is not by any
means impossible or even verj' diflicuH to do this;
but it requires skill, judgment, and care, almost to
the extent they are necessary in Shorthorn breed-
ing. Pedigree breeding is a ])ursuit in which only
the wealthy can engage; but there is room for the
exercise tif great skill in the breeding of ordinary
dairy-stock.
Selection of Daiuy Cows.
The first thing a young beginner must do is
to select a number of good young dairy-cows, full
of quality but not too full of condition. Good store
condition is better than more — it enables the buyer
to see what the animal really is. " Fat hides a
many faults," and it is no good to pay dearly for
superiluous condition in animals that are wanted
for breeding purposes, especially when that surplus
condition is detrimental to the object in view —
viz., breeding. But the animals should come of a
good stock, and should have plenty of quality.
lie should be careful to ascertain, if he does not
already know, the " lines " on which, and the kind
of stock from which, they have been bred, and he
will then have a correct notion as to how far their
(pialities may be regarded as fixed and trans-
niissilile. The next thing to do is to select a bull
from a still better family than the cows, for in
this way the herd may be improved by the intro-
ducli(jn of suj)erior blood through the agency of
(inc animal only. The first male will have a most
important infiuencc on the herd, and it is "penny
wise and pound foolish'^ not to get a really good
and suitable one, even though he costs fifty or
sixty guineas ; for if there are twenty-five or thirty
cows to put liim to, it will be only two guineas
per cow, and will g<'nerally be i'i']iaiil in the lirst
crop of calves.
The cows selected should have well-roniuleil,
robust -looking frames, indicating a strong and
vigorous constitution; the back and loins should be
level and wide ; the legs moderately short, with
a fair amount of bone ; the fore-quarters should
be deep, wide, and finely moulded ; the hind-
quarters mas.sive, well filled in with flesh, wide,
and deep ; the tail set on squarely, and the flanks
well let down; the neck should be fine, fairly long,
and elegant ; and the face should have a distinctly
feminine appearance, for a masculine-looking cow,
with a heavy muscular neck and a massive
clumpish head, is never a good milker, however
well she may lay on flesh. And last, though not
least, the udder should be well formed and the
teats squarely set on.
The bull selected should be symmetrical,
vigorous, fleshy, of good girth, strong in his loins,
of good constitution, well developed in his quarters,
and stout and strong on his legs; his head and
neck should be massive and masculine-looking,
and he should come of a good milking family.
In cows and bulls alike a good constitution is
indicated by a well-rounded form, the lustre and
oiliness of the hair, and the prominence and bril-
liancy of the eyes ; and quality is ascertained by the
general appearance of the animal, and the softness
and mellowness of the skin under the hand.
A great deal of discussion has been raised iu
recent years, particularly in America and France,
on the " milk mirror," or " escutcheon " theory of
M. Guenon, as indicating the milking capacity
of a cow. It relates to the various appearances of
the hair on the thighs and udder. In Fig. 1
(taken from Arnold's " American Dairying ")
it will be seen that a considerable portion
of the hair on the udder and thighs lies
differently from what might be expected ; the
slope of it, instead of downward, is upward and
outward. This reversed hair is the so-called
"escutcheon." If the sj)ace covered by the re-
versed hair, especially in the portion above the
udder, be large and broad, so that it extends far
outward on the thighs, the cow is said to be a
good milker; and if the upper part is broad
and smooth, she will give a good flow of milk
prolonged late on in the season. If, on the
contrary, the reversed hair occupies but a small
sj)aee below, and is narrow and irregular above,
it is said the cow will not give a large flow of milk,
cither for a short or a prolonged period. Professor
L. B. Arnold says : — " The connection of the
' escutcheon ' with the flow of milk is accounted
for by Magne, who says that the hair turns in
the direction in which the arteries ramify, and
that the reversed hair on the udder and adjacent
jiarts indicates the termination of the arteries
which supjjly the udder with blood. When these
arteries are large they are not confined to the
udder, but extend down through it and iqiward
and outwai-d, ramifying on the skin beyond the
MILK ESCUTCHEON.
udder, g'iving the hair the peculiar appearance
which distinguishes it from the rest of the surface.
If the arteries supplying the udder with blood are
very small, they are not likely to extend much
be}ond the udilei-, and hence form a small es-
cutcheon. Hence a small escutcheon indicates a
feeble supply of blood to the udder, and conse-
quently but little material to make milk of, and
hence a small How of miliv. Guenon studied and
explained these marks only as they appear on the
hind part of the bag, and the marks noticed by
him were supposed to ajiply
to the whole udder. This
could not well be true.
Each quarter of the udder
is supplied with blood by
a distinct and separate
arterial branch, and they
may, and often do, vary
considerably in size in the
respective quarters of the
bag. Those supplying the
two hind quarters of the bag-
are usually larger than those
which supply the front part;
but sometimes the reverse
is true, in whibh case the
marks on the back part of
the bag would not be a
correct indication of the
front part, and so with other
inequalities. Each qnarter
of the bag has an escut-
cheon for itself, made by
the ramification of the
arterial branch sup^ilying
it with blood, and which
serves as an index onlj^ to that division of
the udder. These ' mirrors ' bleud in the middle
and appear as one, but the outside of the reversed
hair varies for each quarter according to the size
of the arterial branch by which it is supported.
If there is more escutcheon on one side or one
qnarter of the bag, it indicates a flow from that
side or quarter corresjjonding to the excess of the
development.
" The size of the escutcheon is regarded as the
measure of the quantity of blood supplied to the
milk-producing vessels, and is evidence of their
capability of elaborating milk. In the same way,
the veins take up the blood and carry it back in
the milk-veins, which pass through the bag and
along the belly, and enter the body through one or
more holes on their way to the heart. The size of
these milk-veins and the holes where they enter
the body vary with the escutcheon, and, like it,
give evidence of the quantity of venous blood
passing away from and through the udder; and
they have the same significance with reference to
quantity as the supply of arterial blood and the
size of the escutcheon.
" But none of these indications, taken singly,
is an infallible evidence
of a large yield of milk.
They must be considered
together. A large escut-
cheon and milk - veins,
coupled with a small sto-
mach, would be marked
down at least one-half of
what they might otherwise
signify ; and a large di-
gestive apparatus, coupled
with small milk-veins and es-
cutcheon, should be marked
down in the same way.
Keeping the leading indi-
cations in view, observation
will soon enable one to make
close estimates.^'
This milk escutcheon, or
shield, then, is one of those
theories of which all that
can be said is that they
have more or less of truth
in them. Their correct-
ness is sometimes startling
• — like fortune-telling ; but
they arc so frequently incorrect — also like for-
tune-telling— that none but dreamers attach more
than an occasional and passing importance to
them. The escutcheon theory, therefore, is one
which we must neither unreservedly accept nor
lightly throw aside. A wide-spreading escutcheon
may be looked for as one of the points which go
to make up a first-class dairy-cow ; but it is only
one point, and it cannot be regarded as being
so important as some of the others that we have
mentioned, simply because it is not so reliable as
they are.
A smooth skin, with soft fine hair, is commonly
thought to be an indication of richness of milk ;
The Escutcheon.
8
DAIRY FARMING.
but this is not a sure and unvarying guide, for
some cows, wliose hair is neither soft nor fine, and
whose skin is not smooth, give very rich milk ;
whilst some of the smooth and fine-skinned ones
give millv which contains a low percentage of
cream. But it is the rule that smooth-skinned
and soft-haired cows should give rich milk, and
it is therefore one of the points to be attended
to in the selection of dairy-cows. If a cow is
delicate-looking, and has a pale, dry, sickly sort
of skin, she will always give milk of a poor
quality, and generally small in quantity ; while,
on the other hand, a cow whose skin is a rich
yellow colour, showing a tendency to accumulation
of fat in the cellular tissue beneath — whose hair
has a lustre and glossiness, as if it had been
cleaned with an oily brush, and whose general
appearance shows healthiness and vigour — will
commonly give rich milk, and plenty of it. On
animals that are well adapted for both milk and
beef there will always be a soft, velvety skin,
which will feel mellow to the touch, as if it rested
on a second under-skin like a cushion. This
" under-skin " consists of a network of cells, called
" cellular tissue," and when a cow is not in milk,
fat soon accumulates in it, and forms the "quality^'
or "handling" which indicates the extent to
which she may be considered fit for the butcher.
If the cow is in milk this fatty accumulation in
the cellular tissue goes instead to form cream in
the milk. An abundance of cellular tissue not
only indicates quality and strength of constitution,
but is always associated with a tendency and
ability to form fat to fill it with. A poor supjily
of cellular tissue is indicated by a thin skin, which
seems to fit very tightly on the bones. A cow
of this description will generally give milk of poor
quality, though she may for a time give a fair
quantity of it ; and she will be a poor fattoner.
The breed of cows to be selected will depend
very much on taste, kind of land, locality, and
climate. The Ayrshire breed is becoming very
popular and general in dairying districts, not in
Scotland only, but in England and Ireland, not to
mention the United States and Canada. They are
deep milkers — wonderfully deep for such small
cows; they will do fairly well on land which is
unfit to carry large cattle, and on good land Ihcy
are said to milk as well as any other kind; but
they are not so well adapted for fattening. As a
rule, the better breed of the general dairy-cows of
the country, which are mostly Shorthorn crosses
on old Longhorn stock, showing much more of the
former than of the latter, will be found to be as
profitable as most other kinds, especially on strong
sappy land. Where grass is abundant, and cows
have not to travel far to satisfy their appetites,
heavy massive cattle may be kept ^vith advantage,
especially if the land is sound and firm. To be
milked for a few years, and then turned into beef,
is a double ])urpose which commends itself to the
rent-])aying dairy-farmer of the present day; and
for this end Shorthorns and Shorthorn crosses are
well adapted. It is, however, doubtful if, in the
country of the Herefords, the Devons, the Sussex,
the Norfolk and Suffold Polled, the Channel
Islanders, and Ayrshires, a dairy-farmer can do
better, generally speaking, than to select a herd
composed of good specimens of the breed which
is peculiar to the district. There are, no doubt,
exceptions to this rule, and Shorthorus have
proved themselves to be possessed in a high
degree of the power of adapting themselves to
almost any soil and climate; but, generally
sjaeaking, it will be found that the breed peculiar
to the district has become endowed with pro-
perties which fit it pre-eminently for that district.
On this basis improvements may be made by
careful classing and selection; or, if purity of
breed is not desired, crossing with other breeds
may in some cases be tried with success. In
some districts, the dairy-stock of which have
been built up from Longhorn and Shorthorn
foundations, it is the practice to get a little pure
Longhorn blood among them occasionally, when
it is thought they have become too closely allied to
the Shorthorn side of the cross. Giving these
grade Shorthorns a dash of original Longhorn blood
now and then, is supposed to result in au increase
of milk and of physical vigour. Shorthorn crosses
on native breeds of cattle have commonly jn-oduced
a great improvement; on Ayrshires, for iustauce,
the cross results in a considerable increase of size,
coupled with earlier maturity and an increased
aptitude to fatten, but generally with a decrease
in milk ; this last, however, is, we thiuk, hardly
an unavoiilable result, and it ought to be possible
to improve the Ayrshires in other respects without
sacrificing their milking properties. Many native
breeds of cattle have been imjiroved in all respects,
including milk, by Shorthorn crosses; but the
Ayrshires are, for the size of them, such extra-
BREEDING FOR MILK.
9
ordinary milkers, that all we can expect to attain
in that respect by crossing tliem is to maintain,
and not sacrifice, their milkinf? properties.
\^'ith dairy-farmers, milk must always be a
matter of the first importance. Where cheese and
butter making are carried on, both quantity and
quality of milk are required ; but where the milk
trade is the opening toward which farmers devote
their energies, quantity is of more moment than
quality. Cows may be bred up to either of these
objectSj and the method of feeding influences them
also. The breeding for milk seems to be opposed
to the breeding for fattening and for early ma-
turity, and these two latter qualities are more
artificial than the first. A large and long-sus-
tained flow of milk is the result of domestication,
and of selection of animals to breed from whose
milking powers have become hereditary ; and the
conditions under which our dairy-cows exist have
given permanence of character to what was at flrst
only an unusual development of a natural func-
tion. In crossing two breeds of animals together,
one of which is celebrated for meat and the other
for milk, the properties of both are commonly
found in a high degree in the offspring ; but a real
difticulty is generally found when we try to maintain
this double character in the next generation — the
second generation of the cross is commonly found
to throw back sijeoially toward one or other of the
two properties which were combined in the first.
But as highly developed milking properties, early
maturity, and ajititude to fatten are all more or
less the result of artificial treatment and breeding,
it will folh)w that they ought, without very great
difliculty, to be successfully combined in the same
animal ; and the way to attain this desired end
is to make an intelligent use of the principles of
breeding, by repeatedly crossing animals together,
both male and female of which come of families in
whom all these desired properties are known to be
present in a satisfactory degree. A farmer will, of
course, breed from all his cows, but he will keep for
his own use in the herd the offspring only of those
whose superior qualities he desires to perpetuate
— the rest sh(juld go early to the shambles, and
not to the milk-pail.
If cows are kept constantly in-doors, not
only their own milking properties, but also those
of their offspring will be likely to suffer; a
sluggish life tends to fatness rather than to
milk, and the properties which are promoted by
habit at the outset soon become prominent and
hereditary. Instead of keeping dairy-cows under
constant restraint and confinement, they should
have a reasonable amount of exercise, if they are
to transmit unimpaired to their offspring the
milking properties and the vigour which are so
desirable in dairy-stock. Treatment not too far
removed from nature, and a liberal supply of
succulent and nutritious food, will tend best of
all to the highest development of the milking
properties ; and careful selection of animals to
breed from will soon give those or any other pro-
perties a fixed and permanent character.
CHAPTER II.
Breeds of Cattle : Siiortiiorxs, Ayrsiiikes.
Origin and Early History of Shorthorns— The Early Breeders— BakewcU Inaujjurates a New Era in Breeding— The Colling:s and their
Work— Ucniarkablc Sales of Shorthorns— Points of the Shorthorn— Origin and History of the "Alloy"— Has not AIRitici
the Hacc— Impressive Power of Shorthorns— Neglect in many instances of Milking Qualities— The Shorthorn a Good Milker
Naturally— Summary of Shorthorn Qualities— Ayrshire Cattle— Their Probable Origin— Establishment of a Herd-book— Keeent
Improvements in the Breed- Its Rapid Extension— The Ayrshire not necessarily a Bad Feeder— Produces
Good Cross-breeds— Points of a Good Ayrshire Cow— Some Practical Remarks— and Statistics— Summary.
1KI<] the rest of our native ami
distinct breeds of cattle, Sliort-
liorns owe, in no small measure,
their special features and elia-
racteristics to the influence of
soil and climate in that part
of the country which may be
rpfjarded as their original home. Now-a-
days their home is everywhere; but tlie
counties of Durham, York, "Westmore-
land, and Northumberland claim the proud
distinction of having produced them as a
breetl, and for a long time they bore the name of
" Durham cattle." By the climatic and geological
influences, whatever they may be, of the district
covered by those counties they were originally
moulded ; yet, more than most of our other breeds,
they are sup]iosed to be indebted to long bygone
crosses with foreign cattle. " Saxon, and Norman,
and Dane are we," and in a limited sense the same
may almo.st be said of Shorthorn cattle; for the old
Scandinavian conquerors of Britain, coming from
the west and north of Europe, not only mingled
their own blood with ours, but, it is supposed,
l)rought some of their large, raw-boned, coarse-
fleshed, short-horned, heavy-milking, strong and
hardy cattle, and grafted them on the native
cattle of the north-eastern counties of England,
where they landed on our shores. But still we
have no definite reason to believe, but only to
conjecture, that these foreign cattle actually did
come with the invaders to whom they belonged ;
nor, while admitting the probability that they
did so come, have we any better reason either
to believe or conjecture that they were lirotight
with a view of improving the native breeds of
cattle in this country. We have no evidence that
the art of breeding was either understood or valuetl
in those days; but in the early part of the last
centuiy there was a tradition floating among the
Shorthorn breeders of the Teeswater district that
a breed of cattle, much resembling in size, shajie,
and colour the cattle of North-western Europe —
of Holland, Holstein, and Denmark — had existed
many centuries before in Yorkshire, chiefly in the
district of Holderness. Yet nothing was certaiidy
knowia as to the people by whom, or the jieriod
when, they were introduced into Britain. They
were, however, popularly sujiposed to have been
brought by the warlike and adventurous natives
of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, who repeatedly
invaded this country, settling in portions of it,
many centuries before the Norman Conquest.
We are equally in the dark as to whether the
Sa.Kons and Normans contributed anything to the
improvement of cattle iu this country.
Whatever amount of influence we may accord
to the soil and climate of Northumbria, it is not
to be supposed — though we have no records bearing
on the subject — that no one, during those long
dreary centuries preceding and following the Nor-
man (Conquest, had consciously or unconsciously
tried to improve the qiuility and build of these
cattle. The .spirit of agricultural progress existed
in the northern counties long enough before it
was either publicly recognised or reduced to any-
thing like order or system ; and we are therefore
justified, by the ancient excellence of Shorthorns,
SHORTHORN CATTLE.
11
in pi-osumin;^: tliat many Ijroedors, whose names
unfortuuuk'ly have not been handed down to us,
greatly assisted nature in the improvemcut and
development of this noble race of cattle. Be this
as it may, however, we have no clear records of any
systematic attempts at improvement having- been
made earlier than the eighteenth century. Yet
the country was not wholly asleep in those days
that seem now to us so torpid ; progress, or the
foundation for it, was being surely though slowly
and obscurely made.
Whether by art or nature, or both these
combinetl, the Teeswater cattle were celebrated
many centuries ago as
yielding, under generous
treatment, larger quan-
tities of milk than any
other breed of cattle yet
known in these islands.
Though late to mature,
they afterwards laid on
flesh rapidly, and fattened
into heavy weights of
coarse - grained, dark -
coloured flesh, whose
flavour was inferior to
that of the smaller breeds
of cattle. They had coarse
heads, with short stubby
horns, heavy masculine
necks, high coarse shoul-
ders, flat sides, wide hips,
long rumps, and thick
thighs loaded with flesh.
They were, as now, of various colours — deep red,
pure white, red and white, roan, and not uncom-
monly light dun and j'ellow-red.
An ancient record, which is said to be still
preserved in Durham, states that cattle of great
excellence existed in that county so long ago as
the middle of the fifteenth century. And a tra-
dition was current a hundred years ago among
the breeders of Durham and Yorkshire that a
superior race of Shorthorns had existed on the
estates of the earls and dukes of Northumberland
since the latter part of the sixteenth century. It
is very much to be regretted that the early history
of Shorthorns rests on nothing more solid than
tradition. Sir Hugh Smithson, who had married
the heiress of that great family, and was raised to
the dukedom of Northumberland in 17(30, was a
great breeder of Shorthorns. He was in the habit
of weighing his cattle and the food they ate, so as
to ascertain the improvement they made for the
food consumed ; and so fond was he of his Short-
horns that his peers jokingly dubbed him " the
Yorkshire grazier." A century earlier than the
time of Sir Hugh, the Aislabies of Studley Park,
and the Blacketts of Newby Hall, had very fine
Shorthorn cattle, and had paid great attention to
their breeding. Even at that early day portraits
of these cattle adorned the entrance halls of their
owners' residences.
There had existed time out of mind on Ijotli
sides of the river Tees,
from Barnard Castle
downwards to Yarm, a
peculiar breed of cattle —
the Teeswater, or old-
fashioned Durham Short-
horns. And long before
the names of the jMessrs.
Colling had been heard,
those of the following
breeders and improvers of
them had obtained cele-
brity— namely, Milbank,
St. Quintin, Pennyman,
Brown, Hill, Wright,
Charge, Maynard, Jolly,
Hutchinson, Sharter, and
others. Long also before
Ketton or Barmpton were
known as Shorthorn
localities, the following
places were in repute — namely, Barningham, Aid-
borough, Barton, Cleasby, Manfield, Stapleton,
Dalton, Ne^vton, Morrell, Blackwell, Oxenfield,
Hurworth, Eryholme, Woi-sell, Sockburn, &c.,
so that even in the beginning of the eighteenth
centuiy Shorthorns had already attained notoriety,
and landowners as well as farmers were alive to
the expediency of improving their cattle.
The year 1780 is usually considered to mark
the beginning of a new era in the history of
Shorthorns. At this period, as it would seem, a
fresh impetus was given, and a new interest added,
to the pursuit of breeding these already famous
cattle. Many causes, no doubt, contributed to
this, some of which are more or less obscure. The
coixntry was advancing in prosperity, and popula-
tion was increasing; Shorthorn interests, previously
Fig. 2.— Shorthobn Bull, "Fifth Duke or Wetherbt.'
12
DAIRY FAinriXG.
more or less scattered, were becoming nuinerous
and important enough to command a sort of
systematic unity and recognition. The celebrated
llobert Bakowell of Dishley, in his management
of Leicester sheep, had reduced the art of breeding
to a system in which the results could be predicted
with moderate certainty, and his genius was
attracting many followers and admirers. His
principles, so far as he allowed them to be known,
were applied not to sheep only, but to horses and
cattle, and in each case with marked success. It
was evident that man had secured the secret of
moulding and improving domestic animals almost
at will, as a potter moulds his clay. They im-
proved visibly in each successive generation, until,
in a comj)aratively short space of time, animal
forms were built up possessing such beauty,
symmetry, and general excellence, that they have
not easily been surj)assed in more modern times.
Bakewell's system was the creation of his own
geniua, and differed widely from the usual jJrac-
tice of English stock-breeders of his day. He
dissected some of the carcases of his cattle and
sheep, minutely examined the flesh, bones, and
sinews, and so oljtained a sound and practical
knowledge of animal physiology. He put his
anatomical specimens in pickle, and afterwards
hung them up in his hall for subsequent reference.
From this scientific investigation he deduced a
system of the laws of animal nutrition and
economy at once sound, accurate, and practical.
His method in breetling was to select animals,
wherever he could find them, of the best blood,
and possessing as nearly as possible the form he
needed for the objects he had in view; he then
bred them strictly in their own family alone, only
going out of it when he found specimens elsewhere
which he considered would still further improve
his stock. His judgment was sound, clear, ac-
curate, and penetrating; and he was at once
a profound scholar and master of the j^rinciples
which, far more than any other man, he had
studied and formulated into a system. In the
strictest sense of the word he was a man of
" genius ; " and, more than to any other man,
England owes to him the marvellous improvements
in her cattle and sheep which have been made in
the past hundred years. He was eminently a
public man, much given to hospitality, and though
he made a great deal of money — for a farmer — he
is saiil not to have been rich when he died. Tlie
old farm at Dishley, which his commanding genius
consecrated into a shrine, has passed into the hands
of a stranger, but, like that of its old tenant, its
name is immortal. " Bakewell of Dishley " is
known wherever the science of agriculture is
studied, and his name is, and ever will be, revered
by those who take a delight in the improvement
of cattle, sheep, and horses. He died in 179JJ, at
the age of sixty-nine.
Some little time — about the year 1780 — after
Bakewell's fame had reached a high position, two
young men, Robert and Charles Colling, the sons
of a substantial Teeswater farmer, were about
starting business on their own account. These
young men had heai-d of Bakewell's extraordinary
genius as a breeder ; they paid him repeated visits,
carefully examined his stock — the Leicester sheep
and the Longhorn cattle — noted the improvements
he had effected in them, gathered all the knowledge
they could of his system, bought some of his
improved sheep, and continued breeding them to
his model, and applied his principles of breetling
to Shorthorn cattle. Their success was complete ;
their names are known in Shorthorn circles all
over the world, and the farms at Barm])ton and
Kettou, on which they subsequently settletl, are
almost as celebrated as Bakewell's old farm at
Dishley. Though Bakewell never took in hand
the breeding of Shorthorns, the principles he had
previously applied to the Leicester sheep and the
Longhorn cattle were found to be equally success-
ful with other breeds and kinds of animals, and it
was reserved to the brothers Colling to apply them
to the breed of cattle which has since become the
most famous the world has yet known. And to
Bakewell's transcendent genius this is the strongest
testimony — the universal success ^\hich has fol-
lowed the application of his principles. Under
the management of Charles and Robert Colling,
Shorthorn cattle soon attained a popularity they
had not previously enjoyed, and that popularity
has gone on increasing till the firesent day. The
system still pursued is identical with that which
the Collings established on Bakewell's principles — ■
viz., breeding " in-and-in," so long as constitution,
size, vigour, quality, health, and fecundity are
not injured by it. This appears to be the surest
way of raising superior stock — the breeding to-
gether of aninuils of the same strain of blood.
Attention to pedigree is found to be more effective
than attention to form without pedigree. And
SHORTHORN CATTLE.
13
this fact, coupled with fashion and liigh prices,
has a strong tendency to perpetuate " pure blood,"
and to prevent the ill-eft'eets which follow " raw
crossing ; " while on the other hand it has, no
doubt, the effect of causing far too little weeding
out to be done of unfit specimens.
The practice of close in-and-in breeding has in
some eases produced extraordinary results, and it
is, no doubt, strictly true that uniformity of type
and quality may be sooner and more certainly
attained by this system than any other; but
experience has proved that the number of families
on which the system can be long practised with
safety and success is very limited, and that in the
majority of cases it has resulted in more or less
of disaster and disappointment. The effects of it
are seen in weakened constitutions, in liability to
disease, and in frequent barrenness. The practice
of systematically using sires of the same line of
descent — of the same famUy, though not of the
same honscholcl — preserving the purity of blood
and a sufficiently close relationship, appears to be
most in favour; it is called "line breeding," and
by means of it, though perhaps more slowly, most
of the desirable effects of in-and-in breeding are
attained, whilst its evils are to a great extent
avoided. It is, however, only by the establishment
of several parallel lines of the same strain of blood,
keeping them for a time apart, and breeding them
all to the same model, that this system can be
thoroughly earned out; but it is not very diffi-
cult now-a-days, for these parallel lines in many
families have been long established. The practice
of " cross breeding," by mating a female of one
strain of blood with a male of another, the fami-
lies of both being of the first respectability, is
productive of more flesh, fecundity, health, and
vigour of constitution ; but sires so bred rarely
fetch prices equal to those commanded by sires
who have been carefully bred from one direct line
of ancestry, either by " in-and-in " or by " line
breeding."
Remaekable Shorthorn Sales.
Scientific and elaborate principles of breeding
have been more extensively emplojed on Shorthorn
cattle than on any other kind or breed of animals,
and the money value attached to the best specimens
of the most fashionable families has of late years
become fabulous. At Mr. Charles Colling's sale,
on the 11th of October, 1810, seventeen cows
fetched 2,GG9 guineas, or an average of 157
guineas; eleven bulls fetched 2,24'9 guineas, or
an average of 201.i guineas nearly; seven heifers
fetched 808 guineas, or an average of 115^
guineas nearly ; twelve heifer and bull calves,
under one year old, fetched 961 guineas, or an
average of 80 guineas. Among these animals
the highest-priced ones were the bull Comet,
1,000 guineas ; the bull Petrarch, 365 guineas ; the
cow Lily, 410 guineas; the cow Countess, 400
guineas; the heifer Young Countess, 206 guineas;
and the bull-calf Young Favourite, 140 guineas.
In all, forty-seven animals fetched £7,115 17s.,
or an average of £151 8s. These prices were in
those days considered to be enormous, and they
were not sustained at Mr. Robert Colling's sale,
on the 29th of September, 1818, where sixty-one
animals fetched 7,484 guineas, or an average of
£128 16s. 6d. nearly. Since those early days of
Shorthorn popularity prices have been continuously
advancing, and for a long time past it has been no
uncommon occurrence for j)ure specimen bulls and
heifers of the best strains of blood to fetch from
1,000 to 1,500 guinea.s, and later on the prices
have risen into several thousands for a single
animal.
In September, 1873, the bucolic world was
startled by the results of a sale of Mr. Campbell's
Shorthorns, at New York Mills, near Utica, New
York, America. At this sale six females of the
"Oxford" tribe averaged £1,087 10s., and the
bull-calves £396 16s. 8d. Eleven females of the
" Duchess " tribe made the prodigious average
of £4,522 14s. 2d., one cow fetching the un-
paralleled sum of 40,600 dollars, or, in our money,
£8,458 6s. 8d.
On the 4th of September, 1877, Mr. Thornton
sold, at Bowness, forty-five Shorthorns which Mr.
Cochrane, of Canada, had sent over to this country
for sale. The sum-total of the sale amounted to
£17,150, or an average of £381 2s. 2d. per animal.
The average price of thirty-seven cows, heifers,
and calves was over £420, and of eight bulls over
£300. The "Third Duchess of Hillhurst," red,
calved December 25th, 1875, and consequently
only twenty months old, was sold to Mr. Loder,
of Towcester, for 4,100 guineas; and the "Fifth
Duchess of Hillhurst," red, calved May 1st, 1876,
and consequently only sixteen months old, was
bought by Lord Bective for the still larger sum of
4,300 guineas I
14
DAIRY FARMING.
On the 19th of September, 1S78, the Duke
of Devonsliire's periodical sale of draft Short-
lioriis was held at Ilolker Hall, Lancashire. Mr.
StrafEoi-d was the auctioneer. In all there were
thirty animals sold; and the sum-total realised was
A,l!t,l};J;J lis., or an average of £U01 Is. 9d. per
head. Eighteen cows made £14,302 Is., or an
average of £794 lis. 2d.; and twelve bulls made
£5,020, or an average of £468 6s. 8d. Though
trade in the country was then in a depressed
condition, and Shorthorn sales during the year
had sliown a marked decline in prices, the sale
at Holker was a great success, proving that un-
limited capital and sound
judgment applied to the
art of Shorthorn breed-
ing still reap a rich
rewaid. Mr. DrewTy,
agent to the duke, had
managed His Grace's
hei-d of Shorthorns for \^S£ f
many years.
Points of Shorthorns.
Mr. John Thornton,
thecelebrated auctioneer,
describes Shorthorn cat-
tle as follows : — " The
breed is distinguished
by its symmetrical pro-
portions, and by its great
bulk on a comparatively
small structure, the offal
being very light, and the
limbs small and fine. The head is expressive, being
rather broad across the forehead, tapering gracefully
below the eyes to the open nostrils and fine flesh-
coloured muzzle. The eyes are bright, prominent,
and of a ])articularly placid, sweet expression, the
whole countenance being remarkably gentle. The
horns (whence comes the name) are usually short,
springing well from the head, with a graceful
downward curl, and of a ci'eamy white or yellowish
colour, the ears being fine, erect, and hairy. The
neck moderately thick (muscular in the male),
and set straight and well int(j the shoulders, which
when viewed in front are wide, showing thic'kncss
through the heart, the breast coming well forward,
and the fore-legs standing short and wide apart.
The back, among the higher-bred animals, is re-
markably broad and flat, the ribs springing well
out of it barrel-like, and with little space between
thiem and the hip-bones, which are soft and well
covered. Tiie hind-quarters are long and well
filled in, the tail being set square on to them ; the
thighs meet low down, forming the full and deep
twist ; the udder not too large, but jdaced forward,
the teats lieing well formed and of a medium size;
and the hind-legs standing short and straight to
the ground. The general appearance should show
even outlines. The whole body is covered with
long soft hair, there frequently being a fine under-
coat, and this hair is of the most pleasing variety
of colour, from tlie soft white to the full deep red.
Occasionally the animal
is red and white, the
white being found prin-
cipally on the forehead,
underneath the belly,
and a few spots on the
hind quarter and legs ;
often the whole body is
wliite, with the neck and
head partially covered
with roan, while again
the entire body is most
beautifully variegated,
of a rich deep puqile or
plum-colouretl liue. On
touching the points, the
skin is foimd to be soft
and mellow, as if lying
on a soft cushion. In
animals thin in condi-
tion a kind of inner skin
is felt, whiih is the 'quality' or 'handling,'
indicative of those great fattening propensities
for wliich the breed is so famous."
The Alloy.
We stated in the Introduction that Charles
Colling had recourse to Kyloe and Galloway
ci'osses in the breeding of his Shorthorns. These
crosses, having introduced a new Idood element,
were called " the alloy," and this alloy has been
the cause of interminal)le discussion and contro-
versy; for which, if for no other reai<on, it is a
matter of regret that it was ever introduced.
S])eaking of the Galloway cross, the late Mr.
A\'ill()Uglil)y AVood saj's : — " I proceed now to
address myself to the subject of ' the alloy.' It
originated from what has been unceremoniously
Shorthorn Cow, "Duchess Gwtnne 2nd,
SIIORTIIORN CATTLE.
15
called O'Callao-han's polled Galloway. Now tliis
same 0'Calla<i;lian was Colonel James 0'Calla<>han,
of the noble house of Lismore, and a j^reat friend
of the late Duke of Cleveland, one of whose
boroughs he represented for many years in the
House of Commons. The duke, as Lord Lieu-
tenant, also made him Colonel of the Durham
militia. Having pitchal his tent, in the decline
of life, at Heighington, in that county, he there
ended his days as he had lived, a very popular
character. Having bought a couple of jiolled
Galloway cows, he had no difficulty in getting
Mr. C. Colling, his near neighbour, to allow him to
send one of them to his
bull Bolingbroke. She
produced a bull-calf. It
w-as a roan, in due time
liad Jioriis, and showed
all the other indicia of
a true-bred Shorthorn.
Such was' Son of Boling-
broke.' Mr. C. Colling
bought liim and his dam
of Colonel O'Callaghan,
and put his cow, old
Johanna, to this son of
Bolingbroke. She pro-
duced a red and white
bull-calf, who, like his
father, took in all re-
spects after the Short-
horns. He was yclept
' Grandson of Boling-
broke' (208). To him
Mr. C. Colling put Phoenix, daughter, as we
have seen, of ' Old Favourite,' and she pro-
duced ' Lady,' as she had before done, by Boling-
broke, the bull ' Favourite,' the father of Comet ;
and also (by her own son. Favourite) Young
Phtenix, the mother of Comet. Lady was the
dam of Washington (674), Major (397), George
(276), and Mr. Wright's Sir Charles (592), and
also of Countess and Laura. At Mr. C. Colling's
sale, in 1810, this alloy stock sold at very high
prices — Major for 200 guineas; George for 130
guineas; Lady herself, at 14 years old, for 206
guineas; Laura, her daughter, for 210 guineas;
Laura's daughter. Young Laura, at 2 years old,
for 101 guineas; and Countess, the other daughter
of Lady, was hought of Major Unrld, of Marlon,
for 400 guineas. When we meet, therefore, with
descendants of ' Grandson of Bolingbroke,' or of
Major, George, or Sir Cliarles, such as ' Western
Comet' (689), Frederick (267), Keswick (453
and 1266), or of Countess or Laura, we encounter
the alloy. But what do we therein encounter
that is base or injurious? What is the meaning
of alloy ? Here we have a cross with a breed of
cattle of first-rate character and quality, and
pt)lled Galloway breeders might equally say they
had been alloyed by the Shorthorn cross. We
are satisfied, however, that in fact ' the alloy '
never took — that it was utterly and speedily
thrown out — and that, as did the son of the polled
Galloway by Boling-
broke, so did all his
descendants adhere to
the Shorthorn side of
the house. I have never
heard that any of them
were without horns, or
exhibited the least trait
of the polled Galloway,
except, it may be, in
the analogous good
qualities of that breed.
I incline to think there
is truth in the theory
that in crossing distinct
breeds the offspring does
take exclusively at once,
or very shortly, to one or
other side of the house.
" We appear then to
have, in the instance of
the alloy, an illustration of M. Malingie Nouel's
ingenious theory of the difficulty of changing the
type or characteristics of a long-established breed,
and that this difficulty is in proportion to its
purity of blood, or, in other words, to its antiquity.*
" If this be true, the non-infection of Short-
horns by the alloy affords an additional argument
in favour of the ancient and indigenous character
of the breed. But had the first offspring of this
cross partaken equally of the bloods of its different
parents, in what proportion would the Galloway
lalood exist in any modern Shorthorn? Seeing
how early capability of procreation exists and is
called into operation in that breed, and also how
rapidly generations of cattle pass away, I do not
* See vol. xiv., p. 214, of the Royal Agricultural Society's
Journal, First Series, 1853.
4.— Shorthorn Cow, "Darlington 15ih
16
DAIRY FARMING.
believe there is an extant Slioithorn wliieh has an
appreciable particle of the Galloway blood in its
veins. I must say I think this kind of crossing,
or perhapsj rather, attempted crossing, a mistake —
a mere waste of time.
" Take the case, well known to greyhound
coursers, of Mr. Goodlake's bull-dog cross. Con-
sidering the position the dogs thus ' alloyed '
hold as to their ' public performance,' does any
one think this cross has been injurious, or can
any one from their appearance discern it? Yet
I think it was a mistake.
" Being of opinion, then, that the alloy has
done neither good nor harm dlrecllj/, I am not so
sure that indirectly it may not have done good.
Those who had it in their stock became less
scrupulous on the score of pedigree, and, unlike
pedigree martinets, looked less to that than to the
good qualities of a bull. It may be thus, per-
haps, explained how it has come to pass that many
animals having in them this once dreaded bugbear,
the alloy, have taken the highest places in the
showyard. I do not allude more particularly to
these animals, lest I should revive against them
this stupid prejudice of ' the alloy ; ' and a more
stupid prejudice, a more complete phantom, cannot
exist. Breeders, however, will understand my
allusion. We maintain it then to have been
established by this narration that the Collingi itt
general, notwithstanding tohat Mr. Charles Colling
did in a particular instance, formed the inqiroved
Shorthorns ly careful selection from the local
breed, which had already attained considerable
perfection ; that such is the antiquity and indi-
genous character of the old-fashioned Shorthorns,
such its native purity, that even should any com-
mixture of ingredients of another kind have taken
place, yet, like an infusion of the same sort with
the waters of father Tees, it has been speedily
thrown off without affecting its perennial purity.
" The owners of our native Shorthorns, there-
fore, may snap their fingers at the ancient myths
as to 'wild cattle from Chillingham Park,' and
' Dutch or Holstein cattle from across the German
Ocean.' Those who have seen the wild cattle at
Chillingham will bear me out in saying there is
not a single characteristic or point of resemblance
exhibited by them which is j^ossessed by the
Shorthorns, except that Shorthorns are occa.sion:illy
while; but they are also sometimes red, yet no one
has ever ventured on that score to point to the
Devon or Sussex breeds as their original. As to
the Dutch or Holstein im])ortation, of which one
used to hear so much, the writer happened some
years ago to stumble on a fact tending to turn the
tables on the Holsteincrs. It seems, according
to Anderson (in his treatise on Commerce), who
quotes from Rymer's Fedcra, that Edwaitl IV.
allowed a favourite sister, Marg-aret, Duchess
Dowager of Holstein, to export from this country
annually, and for many years, into Holstein and
the Low Countries, great numbers of cattle and
sheep, for the purpose of improving the breeds of
them in those countries. Whence is it so likely
they were exported as from the ports of Hull an<l
Newcastle across the German Ocean ? And if it
be true, as has been said, that some centuries after
a herd of cattle was found there greatly resembling
our native Shorthorns, whence may it not fairly
be assumed the originals came ? And when, as
it is said — for it rests only on tradition — some of
these were brought into this country, what was
this but a re-importation ? what was it but that
England had her own again ? "
The foregoing is a clever argument in favour
of the j)urity of Shorthorn blood, and however we
may reserve our opinion as to its absolute, we may
freely admit its practical, coiTectness. Whatever
may have been the visible or invisible effect of
the foreign blood at the period of its introduction,
it is now substantially correct to say that the
effect of it will, under ordinary conditions, never
again be seen in pure-bred Shorthorns, though it is
still possible that it may now' and again crop out
in raw crosses of Shorthorns with other breeds.
It has not yet been determined how long a period
of pure breeding is required to so thoroughly
eradicate the alien blood of a previous cross that
it will not, under any conditions whatever, betray
itself in the future.
Qualities of SiioiixiiORNs.
One of the chief merits of Shorthorns — perhaps
the most striking and i)ractieal merit — is their
power of improving in a marvellous manner, and
in a very short time, most other breeds of cattle
with which they are allowed to mingle their blood.
But qualities recently aeqtiired are soon lost if
there is a lack of physical vigour in the breeding
Miiimals. The qualities of the more vigorous male
— or female, as the case may be — will be found in
the offsj)ring, for when health and vital force are
SHORTHORN CATTLE.
17
full to overflowiiio-, injivichuil chavactevistics of
whatever kind are most surely transmitted ; but if
the vital force diminishes, and the animal beeonies
weak and delicate, the qualities last aecjuired
will be the first to disappear — so important are
strength and soundness of constitution. Leaving
out the Devous, Herefords, Channel Islanders, and
one or two other breeds which still remain distinct,
Shorthorns have o-reatly improved, and are still
greatly improving, the whole of the cattle of these
islands. In Ireland and Wales and Scotland
their influence is seen almost everywhere. In the
Isle of Man and in the Orkneys and Shetlands
they are found. In America and Canada their
influence has been very marked on the old breeds
of the country, and there are many pure-bred
herds existing from which young bulls are drafted
for use in continuing the improvement of the
" grade cattle " of the country. In Australia and
New Zealand they have been long established, and
are doing remarkably well. Even in Russia and
Japan they have made their home; and indeed
they are strangers in no country which can lay the
smallest claim to civilisation.
It is to be regretted that in the breeding of
some families of pedigree Shorthorns, milking
properties have been sacrificed to early maturity
and aptitude to fatten, for the reputation of the
breed as milk-producers has suffered somewhat in
consequence. To such a length has this tendency
been carried that it is well known to be a fact, in
many cases, that " wet nurses ■" have had to be
emj>loyed to help the pedigree mothers to rear
their offspring, and in some cases to rear it wholly
without that help from the mother which she
ought to have been able to give, but could not.
Now a cow that cannot su^jport her own calf
forfeits, in the economy of nature, her claim to
existence, though her form and symmetry may be
perfect, and her pedigree as long as one's arm. In
order to restore to the Shorthorn breed the lost
])ortion of their reputation as deep milkers, it is
only necessary that breeders should retrace their
steps with regard to milk, and make this chief
use of a cow one of their chief considerations in
breeding ; for a cow that is a poor milker fails to
give to her owner that larger portion of profit
which, under proper conditions, she is specially
designed to yield. There is no reason why the
Shorthorn breed should not acquire that superior
reputation for both beef and milk of \vhich we
know the breed is capable. There are instances on
record of Shorthorn cows giving thirty or more
quarts of milk per day for a length of time, and
being at the same time possessed of superior
fattening properties. And it is no disjjaragement
to any other breed that Shorthorns should take
high rank in both these departments of usefulness
and profit, for they have a place to fill which no
other breed could fill so well, and the other breeds,
on their part, are well suited to many districts, and
purposes for which Shorthorns could not be kept
with profit.
One of the chief sources of profit to a Short-
horn breeder lies in the sale of his young bulls
at good round prices, and the exjwrience of the
past few years amply proves that he depends each
year more than before on finding among bond fide
dairy-fanners the great bulk of his customers
for such young bulls. It also proves that as the
market is now well filled with good pedigree stock,
the supply having so far overtaken the demand
that the price of well-desceuded bulls is now
within the reach of even small dairy-farmers, it is
more than ever necessary that breeders should make
their stock popular with practical, rent-paying
dairy-farmers. This can only be done by culti-
vating the too much neglected milking projjerties,
so that Shorthorns may everyvfhere be regarded as
thorough-going dairy as well as grazing stock;
and it will only be done when breeders cleai'ly
discern in the signs of the times the fact that the
most profitable market will be that, in which the
demand is for animals descended from herds which
are noted as being not only good grazers but deep
milkers. Many families of pure-bred Shorthorns
are known to be deep milkers, and though their
milk is less rich than that of the Alderneys,
both in colour and quality, the milk globules
are of a good size, so that the cream rises
quickly.
The main objections urged against Shorthorns
are, that many of them tend to convert the food
they eat into fat and flesh rather than into milk,
and that they are not so well adapted as the
smaller breeds — the Ayrshires, for example — for
hilly districts, for cold climates, and for poor land.
Their size, delicate constitution, and generally
tender nature unfit them for withstanding the
hardships incidental to low temperatures and ex-
posed situations ; and their most suitable habitat
is in warm, low-lying districts, where level or
18
DAIRY FARMING.
slightly iiiululatin^^ land of exceptionally good
quality prevails.
The animals i^iven in the forco-round of the
coloiiretl plate are Mr. B. St. John Ackers' " Sir
Roland," Lord Fitzhardiuge's " Rugia Niblctt,"
Mr. Richard Stratton's " Fairy Queen," and
Mr. W. T. Carrington's " Charmer." The first-
mentioned cow is red, with white on thigh ; the
second roan ; and the third red, with little white.
The last one, though not entered in the herd-book,
is one o£ the three capital dairy-cows to which
was awarded the 100-guinea prize at the first
Dairy Show in London, in 1876. Other tyiics
arc shown in the en-
gravings, ■i^^-^'-j
Ayrshires.
Mr. James Buehan-
nan writes as follows
concerning this breed of
cattle : —
" This hea\'y-milking
and hardy breed of dairy-
cattle is well suital to
the soil and climate of
Scotland, where it has
been long established
and is highly valued.
Small in size, short in
the legs, and with fine
clean bones, Ayrshires
thrive and give a fair
share of milk where
large and less hardy
cows would scarcely live,
of Scotland, where large cheese-dairies are kept,
it is a rare thing to find any other breed of
cows used, and the knowledge of this fact enables
us to appreciate the justice of Mr. Scott Burn's
remark, in one of his books on the Dairy, &c.,*
where he says : * For dairy purposes, in cheese
districts, the Ayrshires are justly celebrated ;
indeed, they seem to possess the power of con-
verting the elements of food more completely
than any other breed into cheese and bixtter.'
" Little is known as to the manner in which
this favourite breed was first brought into or bred
in Scotland, but it is generally believed that the
cows from which both they and Shorthorns are
.^^
In the south and west
* " Outlines of JloJurn Farming."
Lockwood & Co., 1875.
By Mr. Scott Burn.
descended were the country cows belonging to the
district lying between the Wear and the Tees ;
and it is probable that some of these cows — which
were famous for being good milkers more than a
hundred years ago — were bought l>y Scotch dealers,
or drovers, when returning to their own country,
after disposing of their ' drives ' of black cattle
in England. The mothers of the milky heixl
being thus introduced into Scotland, there is
gocKl reason to believe that bulls of the AVest
Highland breed were used for crossing; for
West Highland cows are to the present day
good milkers, and we often see a brindled Ijull
or cow of the Ayrshire
*^=*^.<-.i^^ breed ; but, above all,
~ ^ ~" " ''" in the size and shape
of the horns of a true
Ayrshire there is clear
evidence of West High-
laud blood. Another —
not very pleasant — trait
of character might also
be mentioned, which still
further confinns this
supposition : both breeds
are of spiteful and pug-
nacious dispositions, and
always ready to gore or
rip up each other when
a fair chance offers. Ayr-
shires, although bred
together, will do this,
and it is safest to screw
wooden or iron knobs on
their sharp horns, which prevent their injuring
each other.
" Great attention and care have been bestowed
on the improvement and development of this
valuable breed of dairy-cattle, during the last
thirty years, in Scotland. An Ayrshire Herd-
book has been established, milking competitions,
and of late years an annual exhibition of cows,
calletl the 'Ayrshire Derby.' This has brought
large numbers to the county from which these
cattle take their name; and the competition for
the thirty-five prizes offered in the ' Derby ' is
very keen indeed.
" Large numbers of Ayrshire cows are annually
bought, and sent to England, Ireland, and the
United States of America, and the breed is rapidly
rising in favour in all those countries, fur allliough
-Shorthorn Cow, "April Rose,
AYRSHIRE CATTLi:.
19
tliov are profitable on poor anil inferior pastures,
they are much more profitable where grass is rich
and plentiful. The returns from individual cows,
and from whole dairies of this breed, have fre-
quently been published in the ao^ricultural jsapers,
and from these statistics it is easy to understand
why many tenant-farmers and dairymen are
anxious to obtain cows of so profitable a kind.
The first cost being much less than what is paid
for large cows, and the fact that a considerably
larger number of the small cattle can be kept on
a given acreage, induce many men to give the
northern breed a trial, especially where milk is the
chief desideratum.
" Any one who remembers seeing Ayrshire
cows exhibited at a Scotch show, thirty years ago,
Avill notice the difference between the appearance
of the prize-takers now and then. At that time
judges of Ayrshires looked chiefly to very fine
bones, thin soft skins, small deer-like heads and
necks, narrow muzzles, and prominent eyes ; and
these points, with large well-shaped udders (about
which the same ojiinions still hold), were, and are,
sure indications of great milking powers. But it
began to be felt that more stamina and stronger
constitution were desirable, and therefore, at the
present time, a cow is thought more of for having
a thicker skin, if soft and flexible, stronger bones,
and the horns need not now be so thin and fine ;
and if a cow has a light fore-end, with a clean
"well-veined neck, judges like to see her with a
good covering of flesh, believing that although
such a one will probably give no more — if as
much — milk as her prototype of thirty years ago,
yet the thicker and stronger cow is to be pre-
ferred, because her appearance indicates strength
and hardiness, with a proportionate capacity for
resisting sickness, and an improved aptitude to
fatten.
" In Cork and Kerry, the Agricultural Societies
have endeavoured to promote the importation and
breeding of Ayrshire cattle by offering special
prizes for them. In Kerry, particularly, the
Agricultural Society there (which is one of the
most flourishing of the kind in Ireland) fully
recognises the imj)ortanee of the breed. One of
its members, an extensive land agent, has lately
imported a number of Ayrshire bulls for the use
of the tenantry on a number of the estates for
which he is agent. Lord ^^entry has also imported
and bred some excellent sjjecimens of the breed ;
6
>\hile an extensive farmer has informed me that
ho intends keeping no other breed of dairy-cows
on the two farms he occupies in that county :
on the one farm he is to breed Ayrshires, on the
other he keeps a Shorthorned bull, and rears
crosses for fattening.
" When the Royal Agricultural Society of
Ireland visited Tralee, in 1870, there was a fine
show of Ayrshire cattle, and although the com-
petition in the cow class was very strong, the cow
which was awarded the first prize had been bred
and reared iu the county.
" The numbers of good milch cows brought
to a large show are seldom very great, and they
mostly belong to gentlemen who wish to sell
them or their produce. There are few dairymen,
or others, who keep cows for the milk alone, who
will send away a number of their best cows in
the middle of the milking season to a showyard,
where they will be kept for nearly a week in an
unnatural — or, at any rate, unusual — way for them,
and all for the chance of a small money prize.
Cows so exhibited, when they return to their own
stalls, are seen to have fallen off a good deal in
the yield of milk, and are otherwise no better for
their trip. It is quite different with large cows,
which are valued chiefly for the calf they are to
produce, and which are seldom overburdened with
milk at any time; hence we see many of the
latter exhibited, but comparatively few of the
former, and no doubt for the reasons I have
stated."
Ayrshires as Butchers' Beasts.
" It was no uncommon thing in Scotland, at
the time to which I have referred, for breeders of
Ayrshires to systematically under-feed their young
heifer-calves and yearlings, in order to get the
points developed which w'ere then in most request,
and this could not be continued without weakening
and injuring the constitutions of the animals to
some extent. IMany peojjle, seeing the stunted
appearance of these half-starved Ayrshires, natu-
rally concluded that, whatever their value might be
for milk, they would never do for butchers' beasts.
But this foolish and hurtful fashion has happily
passed away, and with it the prejudice against
Ayrshires as fattening beasts is fast disappearing
also, as feeders have opportunities of testing the
breed alongside of others.
"Mr. WilUam M'Laren, Hcrrington Hill,
20
DAIRY FARMING.
Sumlerland, who has for a number of years
fattened cattle extensively, says in a letter dated
26th April, 1878: — 'I bouo-ht four Ayrshire
calves in June and July, 1S7C, from Mr. J.
M'Laren, Red House, Sunderland. They were
very small and poor-looking, and, indeed, haixlly
seemed worth rearing at all, but we let them
run about with the others, and gave them very
little milk or attention ; however, they seemed to
freshen up wonderfully last summer, except one,
which was lame nearly all summer — caused by
" foul " in the foot. They were put into boxes at
Martinmas, and got good feeding, and I sold three
of them last month (March) at 10s. 3d. per
stone of l-h lbs. ; they weighed 47, 47, and 4:3
stones respectively. The one which was lame I have
still, and he is now about as good as the others
were when they were sold. They were very little
to look at, and probably would not have sold for
more than 40 stones in a market (they were all
bullocks, and as nice as heifers), but I sold them
to weigh, as I knew they generally weighed much
more than any one would call them.' Mr.
M'Laren gives a number of other instances of
Ayi'shires which he has fed, and for which he
realised very satisfactory prices, and he concludes
by saying, ' I wish I could buy more of them to
feed ; if I have an opportunity I shall not miss
it.'
" Now those four calves were out of cows I
had sold to Mr. J. M'Laren in the beginning of
March, 1876 — cows which were all in calf to an
Ayrshire bull, so that the calves were certainly
pure Ayrshires. Mr. J. M'Laren sends his new
milk into Sunderland, and probably those four
bullock-calves got very little of it during the
two months or so he kept them before selling —
hence their small size ; but when sold fat they
could not have been above two years old, and yet
the two best ones realised over ££4 each, and
the other, sold at the same time, over £32.
" From these statistics in fattening Ayrshires
we may conclude that there is not nearly so great
a diiference in the fattening qualities of the dif-
ferent breeds of cattle as is generally supposed ;
and when we speak of the lean, lanky, ill-shaped
bullocks of sixty years ago, and contrast them
with the handsome Shorthorn or Hereford which
is prime fat at two years of age, we ought to
remember that the breeding und frea/iiteui of
the two animals have been as different as their
ai>pearance, and that the fat and handsome young
animal we so admire has probably cost more to
his owner during the last year of his life than the
other cost //is owner during the whole of the four
or five years during which he found his food in the
fields, with perhaps the addition of a little hay or
straw during a severe storm, or if kept in a yanl
in winter, with no other food but straw.
" When estimating the value of any breed of
cows for the dairy, we naturally look first to the
quantity of milk they yield, but we ought also to
take into consideration their aptitude to fatten ;
and if Ayrshires were as unsuitable as some people
think them for the stall, it might well be doubtal
whether men farming prime land should keep
them, notwithstanding their admitted merits as
milch cattle.
" As cows or heifers can be bought at moderate
prices at any time of the j'car in Scotland, farmers
who Avish to keep Ayrshires on good land in
England should replenish their stock from the
north when required, and they should buy a
strong-boned, heavy-coated, masculine-looking
Shorthorned bull for crossing with their Ayrshire
cows. These crosses pay as well for fattening as
any breed. Like the pure Ayrshires, they kill,
when fat, considerably heavier than they appear to
be ; their flesh is of a peculiarly firm texture and
of excellent quality.
" Having a dairy, and selling the milk to a
dairyman, my calves are reared on as little milk
as possible, and soon sent away to find their food
in the fields, where they get a small allowance of
cake for a few months; after then they get no
more cake at all, but about the 1st of November,
when they are a little over 2i years old, they are
put into boxes, and fattened with roots, meal, and
a little hay. For a number of years I have sold
nearly all of my own rearing of cattle to a butcher
by weight, and in 1877 the average weight of
these bullocks was 778 lbs. each, or nearly seven
cwts. The first one was killed on the 10th
January, the last on April 4th, and their ages
would be, on an average, about thirty-four months.
These figures were commented on by several
])ersons, and one gentleman thought the cross
would not fetch the highest j)rice of beef per pound.
This drew a reply from ilr. Morris, the butcher to
whom I have referred, in which he said, ' I may
say that I consider the cross admirably adapted
for the trade (particularly now, as customers have
AYRSHIRE CATTLE.
21
become so fastidious as to what tlicy eat) ; they
have an abundance of good flesh, without the large
quantity of fat common to Shorthoi-ns and some
other breeds, and are liglit in the bone.' Further
on he continues : — ' Let half a dozen half-breds
be bought, with the same number of pure-brcds
(Shorthorns), and fed together, I think the result
would dispel a little prejudice that exists as to
the merits of this cross.' Mr. Morris had pre-
viously said, in reply to a question from me, as to
whether he thought the cross-bred Ayrshires as
good butchers' beasts as the Shorthorn, ' They
are better beasts, both for the butcher and the
consumer;' and as he has bought nearly all my
winter-fed beasts of this breed for the last four
years, his opinion is entitled to respect, especially
as he is a farmer himself, and fattens a number of
good beasts.
" In this year (I87S) my eross-bred bullocks
have weighed from a little over six to nine cwts.,
each killed between February 13th and end of
April, fed in the usual way, ages about thirty-
five months on an average. I have no trouble in
getting the top price per pound for them. For years
they have paid me better than the larger cattle
which I have bought in, and I have no doubt that
a cross with a Hereford bull would yield equally
satisfactory results.
" In the LTnited States of America the Ayr-
shire cows have long been prime favourites, in
those districts especially where cheese is the chief
product of the dairies. American farmers have
found out, by very close and accurate investiga-
tion, that they are almost, if not quite, superior to
every other breed known on that continent for
cheese-making."
A^iiSHiRE Points.
"The favourite colour of the Ayrshire is a
light brown or brown and white ; some few are
found black and white (a notable bull, belonging
to the Duke of Buccleuch, of this colour won
many prizes two or three years ago), and now and
then even a pure white one is seen ; but, so far as I
have seen or heard, they are never roan-coloured.
Some years ago an Ayrshire was hardly considered
pure unless it had a black nose, but a white nose
is not looked upon as any drawback to a good
cow at the present time. When a cow or bull
is slightly brindled it is pretty sure to have a
black nose, or if the prevailing colour is dark
brown, the nose and some other points are likely
to be black ; this is merely an indication that
the West Highland blood is re-appearing. Some
people think if a cow shows a ' notch ' in each
of the ears it is a sign of a pure Ayrshire, but
this is a mistake ; it belongs, nevertheless, to some
families, and is regularly transmitted, but it is
no particular advantage, and an Ayrshire cow is
just as well without the notch. Nor do I attach
any importance to the 'escutcheon,' never having
observed that a cow was better or worse for having
a large one.
" The iidiJer is the chief point from which we
can infer the milking capabilities of a cow of any
sort, and especially of an Ayrshire. Take the fol-
lowing description of what good judges esteem
the best shape and appearance : — ' It should, in
form, be long from front to back, stretching well
forward on the belly, broad behind, filling up well
the space between the legs, but should not be too
deep vertically — that is, hang too far down — space
being obtained in it rather through length and
breadth.' I may add to this description that
some cows, even with large well-shaped 'bags,'
are not nearly so good as they look, on account of
their bags being fleshy; and it is sometimes hard
to tell, from their appearance, whether they have
been milked or not. A cow having a far less
udder, but which can be emptied, or 'milked
down' as it is called, is of more value, and will
probably keep on milking fairly well for a much
longer time than the former will do ; it is always
satisfactory to see the large veins on the belly full
and prominent, with a good large cavity at the upper
end of each. When well-fed, a good Ayrshire cow
will give milk up to within two or three weeks of
calving, but she ought never to be allowed to do
so, as it injures her considerably for the following
season; milking once a day should be begun
about ten weeks before the cow is due to calve,
and she ought to be quite dry at least eight weeks
before calving. There is often considerable difficulty
in doing this, but the animal should be kept on
straw and water until the milk leaves, if found
necessary.
"As young Ayrshire heifers and cows have
generally very small teats, inexperienced or heed-
less milkers should not be employed to milk them •
after they have had one or two calves, their teats
get larger, and they are as easily milked as cows
of any other breed. As tliese cows are of lively
22
DAIRY FARMING.
and active dispositions, it is very seldom indeed
they require any help when calvinj;, unless they
have been allowed to get too fat ; this sometimes
happens when they have nin on to ilidsummer
before calving, and when they have had very good
pasture. The best way is to turn a cow, when
she is about to ealve, into a roomy loose box or
yard, and leave her alone; it is very seldom that
interference with her on these occasions does any-
thing but mischief. When any unusual symptoms
are observed, she may be looked to occasionally,
and assisted if really necessary.
"A few words may here be added as to the
best times and ages at which Ayrshires should be
purchased in Scotland by farmers \\ho wish to
try the breed in England or Ireland. Those who
wish to keep iip a supply of milk in winter as
well as in summer, and who have small farms,
must no doubt buy cows near calving or already
calved, but there are serious risks in conveying
them a long distance by rail. If the cows are
calved, they are very liable to catch colds at
draughty stations ; they cannot be regularly milked
on the journey, and consequently we often hear of
such taking milk-fever after arriving at their
destination. If, on the other hand, the cows piir-
chased are very near calving, there are obvious
risks of their calving in trucks, in which case I
have found they do not recover from it during the
whole season. Perhaps the best way for those to
do who cannot keep heifers for a few months is
to employ a cattle agent, in a district where many
of the breed are kept, to go to the farmers' houses
who have cows to sell, and to buy them when
they are only beginning to ' spring,' and these
may be conveyed with comparative safety by rail.
To the English or Irish farmer, however, who has
a good outlet for cattle through the winter, I
recommend him to buy at some of the Scotch fairs
in October or November ; he will get good heifers^
rising three years old, warranted in calf, from £1:J
to £14 each : these will thrive on grass fields
through the winter, and they do not require any-
thing extra until snow or frost comes, when a
little chaff daily will keep them M-ell enough until
they can get a sufficient supply of rough grass
again. I purchased twelve such heifers in Lanark-
shire last year (1877), and now, at the beginning
of ^lay, those dropping their calves are in very
high condition ; some of them are actually too
fresh, having had a month's good pasture. Good
cows, from four to six years old, will cost, at
calving, from £1G to £22 each, according to size
and appearance, and such cattle imported in
Fcbniary or March will, in all probability, leave
the first cost of themselves to the owner before
Christmas following, provided he can sell all their
milk for the very moderate price of 6id. per gallon.
" It may be convenient here to give a few
well-authenticated cases of the quantities of milk
given, or weight of butter produced, by some
good specimens of this breed : —
" Mr. Burn tells us, in the book previously
quoted from, that the Duke of Athole bought an
Ayrshire cow from ^Ir. Wallace, of Kirklandholm,
which produced 1,305 gallons of milk from 11th
April, 1800, to 11th April, 1861, or about 17
quarts daily for forty-four weeks. He estimates
the value of the new milk at 9d. per gallon, and
that would give £48 18s. 9d. in a year.
"In June, 1868, I set aside the milk of a
number of my best cows, in oi-der to try how
much butter they would each yield in seven days,
with the following results : — The best cow pro-
duced 14 lbs. of butter, and the worst very nearly
12 lbs., in the time named; these cows were all
pure Ayrshires, bred from stock which I had
imported from Scotland. The pasture they had
was first year's clover seeds, and they had no
other food whatever; the quantity of milk re-
quired for each pound of butter was nearly 1 2 quarts.
The experiment was made on the farm of Sackville,
near Tralee, Ireland, and was conducted with
great care and exactness.
" In County Durham there are many farmers
who keep Ayrshire cows. In Julj-, 1876, one of
those farmers showed me his dairy-books, from
which it appeared that in 1875 the gi'oss returns
from his thirty-six cows were over £25 each cow ;
and he assured me that he thought it a very bad
year indeed when they produced less than that
figure each. This gentleman had carried on his
dairy for nearly thirty years in that neighbour-
hood, and had always, up to that date, bought
cows as he required them in Scotland. This seems
the best plan for English farmers to follow ; for
whether it is due to the climate, food, or their
management, it seems certain that those bred and
reared in England seldom prove as good milkers
as those which are brought from the north; the
latter are always much liardier also, and in the
midland and southern counties thev thrive verv
AYRSHIRE CATTLE.
23
well, with little or no shelter, even in winter
time, i£ only they have a fair bite of grass on the
j)asture."
At a recent meeting of the New York Dairy-
men's Association, Mr. Robert M'Adam read a
paper, giving the results of his experience of
Shorthorns and Ayrshires in the dairy. He said
he began dairying in 184;3 in Scotland, and fol-
lowed it till 1869; that he had studied the two
breeds carefully on the farm and at fairs ; that he
had known many large milkers among the Short-
horns. He thinks the preference given by the best
Scotch dairjonen to the Ayrshire over the Shorthorn,
Avhere either could be easily obtained, ought to go
a good way in deciding the question between the
two ; that a few great milkers are not evidence
of the general quality of a breed, but rather the
average produced by large numbers. In 1863 he
purchased the milk from a neighbouring Short-
horn herd, and mixed it with that of an Ayrshire
herd, and found that the mixed milk was poorer
than that of his own herd had been before. He
made a comparative test next season (1864-), and
for the month of June found the following result : —
Ayrshires — 64 cows — 6.5,380 lbs. of milk;
cheese, 6,424 lbs. — ratio, 10*17; daily average of
milk per cow, 33 lbs. ; cheese, 3^ lbs.
ShortJiorns — 64 cows — 52,680 lbs. of milk;
cheese, 4,797 lbs. — ratio, 10"98; daily average of
milk per cow, 27 lbs. ; cheese, 2 7-15 lbs.
He says both herds were pastured in adjoin-
ing fields, on land of similar quality. Both herds
were esteemed first-class of their respective breeds.
He for some years was an instructor in cheese-
making, and made cheese in a hundred different
places, and had opportunities of examining a great
number of herds ; took notes of the yields of
various dairies, and the general results were in
favour of Ayrshires. He thinks that land which
will maintain cine Shorthorns will keep ten Ayr-
shires, and that the latter will yield more and
richer milk, and are hardier and more prolific.
For a period of twenty-five years the average
yield of his own dairy was 500 lbs. of cheese per
cow.
Qualities of AyRsiimE Cattle.
Under the microscope the milk of the Ayr-
shire is found to be well stocked with nitrogenous
matter, or casein, and the cream globules are
numerous, but very une([ual in size. This defect
tells against the Ayrshire as a butter-cow, for
the cream does not rise well when the globules
are unequal in size, nor is all the butter got
out of it except by skilful churning.
Mr. Allsebrook, of Wollaton, Nottingham,
Avrites to us as follows on Ayrshire cows in the
jNIidlands : —
" During the last ten years I have had Ayr-
shire cows in my dairies in Warwickshire and
Nottinghamshire, and where a large quantity of
milk is desired I consider they are more valu-
able than any other breed. They are specially
valuable where the pasture-land is not of a first-
class quality, for their mouths seem to be harder
than those of Shorthorns, and they do well on dry
wiry pastures that would starve cattle of more
aristocratic blood. On second or third rate land,
heavy costly cattle require much extra care and
artificial food, or they will be sure to lose money,
but Ayrshires on such land thrive and do well.
" One of the objections urged against Ayr-
shires is that they will not feed — they are bad
grazers. Doubtless some are; but some of all
breeds are bad ones for that purpose. I have had
many that would get fat as readily as cattle of
other breeds, and if such are selected as appear
likely to feed there will be little disappointment
in that direction. Still, if we get a little cow that
eats but little, and did not cost much ; that will
yield some four or five gallons of milk per day for
months together, year after year, we may well
forgive her if she is not easy to feed afterwards.
If breeders of these very useful animals would pay
more attention to the point indicated, it would
doubtless be an advantage, and if dams that are
good milkers and also ilesh -carriers are selected,
the objection would cease to be valid.
" Milk from Ayrshire cows is of a good
quality, though not so rich as that from Channel
Island cows. I have found, from repeated tests,
that where Ayrshire cows were fairly matched
against graded Shorthorns, ordinary Derbyshire
cows, or good Irish cows, the AjTsliires had the
best of it, their milk yielding about two per cent,
more cream than the others.
" More Ayrshires can be kept on the same
quantity of food. Three Ayrshires usually eat
about as much as two ordinary Derbyshire cows,
and three of the former will give more milk than
three of the latter. Then they cost less to begin
u
DAIRY FAiniL\(l.
with, fully (inc'-tliii'd less, so the oggs arc jiut into
more baskets.
"Therefore, in comparing otlior (Liiry-cows
with Ayrsliires, we got these results : — They cost
less to buy; they cost less to keep; the capital
risked in one animal is smaller; the quality of the
milk produced is better; the quantity is greater
per head, and much greater for the outlay. Here
is the evidence ; can the verdict be doubtful ? "
The great points of an Ayrshire cow are lier
udder and teats. The udder must reach well for-
ward, and be firmly attached up to the body, not
coming out behind or hanging loosely down ;
the quarters alike in size, and the teats set on
widely and eqiially apart, neat, and not very large,
square at top like a cork, not hanging together
like a bunch of parsnips under a loose flabby bag.
For breeding, milking, and ultimate fattening
combined, the first place must be assigned to the
Shorthorns, but for milk alone that place may
probably be assigned to the Ayrshires. They
are esjieeially hardy and vigorous in constitu-
tion ; and their superiority over many other
breeds is most apparent under adverse circum-
stances— hilly land, with scant pasturage, and a
climate subject to sudden and extreme changes
of temperature. The cheerful look, the earnest-
ness of manner, and the great physical activity
of the Ayrshires stamp them at once as being
valuable and trustworthy cattle ; and these quali-
ties, combined with those previously mentioned,
are a strong recommendation to farmers in districts
to which nature has not licon kind, as well as in
those which are favourably situated. Dairying
districts, as a rule, are those in which the climate
is more or less variable, where the atmosphere is
cool and showers of rain are frequent, favouring
the growth of pasture-grasses; where the winters
are not infrequently severe and the springs and
autumns treacherous ; where the general conditions
of weather and soil are adapted to the growth of
green rather than grain crops. To such condi-
tions, particularly in more extreme cases, Ayrshires
appear to be sijccially well adapted, so far as phy-
sical fitness is concerned ; while, as regards their
milking jiroperties, there is hardly room for two
opinions. On wet, clayey, or heavy soils of any
kind, on which heavy breeds of cattle do much
harm in a " dropping season," the lighter Ayr-
shires are an advantage, because they do not
tread up the ground so much, and so destroy
less of the grass. The Ayrshires possess, of
course, a few undesirable qualities, but the only
ones worth mentioning are their somewhat de-
ficient aptitude to fatten, the shortness of their
teats, and their sleepless pugnacity of disjwsition
toward each other.
The Ayrshire cows given in the Plate are
His Grace the Duke of Buccleuch^s " Lady
Kilburnie,'' winner of the ''Ayrshire Derby" in
1877, Mr. CasseFs "Jeanie," and Mr. Dunlop's
" Daisy." The first is red with but little white,
the second has many small spots of colour, and
the last a few and larger spots.
CHAPTER III.
BuEEDS OF Cattle [conliiuieil) -. Jerseys, Longhorns, Hereford.-;, Devons, Sussex,
Polled Breeds, Kerries, 'Welsh.
Channel Island Cattle— Probable Origin— Qualities— Great Milking Powers— Longhorns-Bakewell's Herd— Not as a rule R^markahle
for Milk— But Capable of Improvement in this Respect— Instances— Herefords— Recently Modified in Colour— Characteristlics—
Devons— Two Types- Richness of the Milk— Sussex Cattle— Probably an Offshoot from the Devons— An Improving Breed
— Polled Breeds — Galloways — An^s or Aberdeen Cattle— Norfolks and Suffolks — West HiglJand
Cattle— Kerries— Their many Good Qualities— Irish Cattle Generally— Welsh Cattle.
HE Jersey and Guernsey cattle
have been known for a long
time past as " Alderneys " and
as " Channel Islanders." The
former of these terms is merely
adventitious, and not suffi-
ciently descriptive. Happen-
the shipping point for all
lands of the group, viz., Jersey,
Guernsey, Alderney, and Sark, and
only so because it is nearer than the
others to the coast of England, Alderney gave its
name a long time ago to all cattle coming that way,
whether from the other islands or from the main-
land of France. The latter term is more correct
as well as more descriptive. But the term " Jer-
seys " is now taking the lead of the others, partly
because the island of Jersey is the largest of the
group, and partly because its cattle are the most
fashionable. There is, indeed, so little practical
distinction between the cattle of the different
islands, that the concrete name of " Jerseys " may
well, for simplicity's sake, take possession of all of
them. There is, it is true, some difference in size
between the Guernsey and the Jersey cattle, the
former being somewhat the larger and coarser ;
but as the latter are the more nearly exact
embodiment of what the breed is claimed to be in
its various excellences, they are already the tj'pe
towards which the others are more or less tending.
There is also a slight difference in colour, the
Guernseys being usually a light fawn-colour,
patched with white, while the Jerseys are a
somewhat darker or dun colour.
The source from which the Channel Island
cattle originally sprang is not known with any-
thing like certainty ; presumptive evidence, ho\\-
ever, points to Kormandy and to Brittany, on
account of their nearness to the islands. But as
these island cattle are now totally different in
type from those of the adjacent mainland, it is pro-
bable that if they ever came from there at all they
must have come many hundreds of years ago. The
Brittanios are mostly black-and-white in coloiu',
and the Channel Islanders never so. This striking
difference between them removes to a very distant
point the probability that they have had a common
origin. An island home for cattle is, of course,
highly favourable for the formation of a type
differing from the original stock, providing the
natural influences of soil and climate are sufficiently
marked to bring about the change ; and in this
case we may infer that identity would not be
maintained by repeated importations from the
mainland, for the inhabitants of the islands have
long been jealous, and have prided themselves in
their jealousy, of the purity of the breed of their
beautiful cattle — and, indeed, a most excellent
jealousy it is. The radical differences which exist
between these island cattle and their neighbours
on the mainland, providing the remote origin of
both is identical, are so marked, that it must
have taken ages almost to bring them about;
and, besides this, the type of the former is so
"fixed," that we have no room to doubt its great
antiquity.
Be their origin what it may, however, these
Channel Island cattle are, and long have been.
20
DAIHV FAinri\(i.
famous for the quantit\- and nchiicss of tlieir
milk, and for their surpassiug excellence as
"butter-cows." The Brittanies are smaller in
size, but with this exception the Channel Islanders
are less fleshy, physically w-eaker, lio^liter boned,
and fjcnerally smaller than the cattle of the
adjoining districts of France. These differences
are accounted ft)r by difference of soil, of climate,
and of treatment. The mainland cattle generally
are stronger, robuster, and hardier than those of
the islands, because they live in a less genial
climate, have less affectionate care bestowed upon
them, and roam at large on the pastures ; and the
Brittanies are smaller and hardier on account of
a poorer soil and a severer climate. The climate
of Jersey is remarkably genial, and its soil is
fertile ; on the north and west the island is
fringed by a high rocky shore, which secures to
'* /
Fig 6.— Iron Tethek peo
the southern-sloping land a grateful shelter against
the cold and boisterous winds of winter. The
breezes of the Atlantic that sweep over it, and the
strong tides that wash its rocky beach, are greatly
tempered b\' the warm and softening influence
of that Gulf Stream to which the west coast of
Ireland owes its adventitious mildness and fertility.
The grass is green and nutritious, and the japonica
blooms throughout the winter; so that the winters
and summers of Jersey are not in violent contrast,
and all its seasons are mild and uniform. So far
the influence of climate on the type of cattle.
The agriculture of Jersey is gardening rather
than farming, so thrifty and industrious are the
people. The farms are usually very small — say
twenty acres or less on the average ; the cultivated
crops are to a great extent raised by spade-hus-
bandry and hand cultivation, and the abundant
seaweed provides a cheap anil viiluable manure;
tiie fields are very small, and their pr<iductive
ca])acit3' is raised to a high position. When deep
)iloughing is needed for the growth of root crops,
the farmers join their teams and help each other,
turn and turn about, because on one of these small
farms the horses kept are not alone sufficient for
the purpose ; and high farming on a small scale is
carried out to a degree scarcely to be found any-
where else, out of China and Japan. The jjastures
on which the cattle graze in summer are orchanls
or small crofts, and from their birth none of the
animals are allowetl to roam at will, even in those
small enclosures, but tiny are always either
tended by children
or tethered.
A convenient
and effectual tether-
peg is made from a
bar of iron three-
quarters of an inch
in diameter (if of
steel, half an inch
is sufficient) , by
twisting it into the
form of a corkscrew,
bending it at the top
into a ring, to which
the rope is attached.
Such an implement
is shown at Fig. C,
and when screwed
into the ground will
hold an animal very
securely, and some-
times be found very
handy for other purposes. Another excellent iron
tether-peg has been patented in America, and
is shown in Fig. 7. In this form the top is
hollowed out, and the rope secured by a large
knot. Such a peg cannot possibly be pulled out
of the ground, neither can the rope get twisted
or caught roiuul the top.
This method of treatment, and the great care
bestowed up(m them at all times and seasons, have
made the Channel Island cows very docile and
gentle, though at the same time less hardy and
vigorous than they otherwise would have been.
The comparative want of exercise has, however,
done more than affect the character and phy-
sique of the breed — it has influenced it also with
regard to the exceptional richness of the milk.
-Improved American
Tether-peg.
-^"^^
CHANNEL ISLAND CATTLE.
•27
"Where there is little or no exercise there is no
hard breathing, and consequently only a moderate
degree of oxidation or combustion of carbon iu
the animal economy ; and as the hydrocarbons
of the food the animal eats are converted into
butter, the less exercise an animal takes the
richer the milk will be in the fats of which
butter is composed. On the other hand, physical
exercise tends to the formation of muscle or
flesh rather than of milk — that is, the food of
the animal is in part diverted away from the
production of milk, and especially of rich milk.
Such being the ease, it naturally follows that
animals treated and bred in the way the Jerseys
have been for generations will acquire, as one of
their marked features, the capacity to produce
milk very rich in quality ; and this feature is
transmitted from parent to offsf)ring just as surely
as any other quality that has been acquired by
breeding in a given direction.
Bred on islands limited in size, whose inhabi-
tants for generations past have been most particular
not to admit the cattle of other countries, and in
this way have constantly aimed at maintaining
the purity of their own stock, the blood of the
Channel Island cattle has become more nearly
thorough in its concentration, prepotency, and
refinement, than that of most other breeds of
the bovine race. In the island of Guernsey, for
instance, stringent local laws were enforced long
before the present century ; and when an attemjit
was made to have them repealed, on the plea of
cheapening butchers' meat, a counter-petition was
j>resented to the Crown not to allow the repeal,
and after the arguments on both sides had been
heard and discussed, an Act was jjassed strength-
ening the time-honoured customs of the island.
Similar laws apply to the island of Jersey. But
though to the purity of the breed of these cattle
such uncommon value was attached a century or
more ago, they have in modem times been very
greatly improved by careful selection in breed-
ing, and the Channel Islanders of to-day are
very superior to those of seventy years ago. Yet,
writing even in 1834, Youatt says* "they fatten
with a rajsidity that would be scarcely thought
possible " when not in milk. Under the fostering
influence of a genial climate, a fertile soil, kind
and generous treatment, and a jealous watchful-
* " Cattle : Their Breeds, Management, and Diseases,"
p. 268.
7
ness as to purity of blood, the Jersey cow has
ripened into what she is — a small, gentle, and
exceedingly useful animal, famous alike for
meekness and for milk, for butter and for
beauty 1 The uncommon richness of the milk
she gives, and the quantity and quality of the
butter it will yield, are characteristics acquired
by careful breeding through a long period of
time. Butter made from her milk is a higher
colour than that from the milk of perhaps any
other breed, and it has the adrantage of being
more easily worked, and of being finner and more
wax-like in texture. The cream globules are
larger in size, and this aceovmts for the cream
rising so readily and thoroughly on the milk ;
the envelope of casein seems thinner and weaker,
and to this may be ascribed the ease with which
the butter comes out of the cream in churning;
while the unusual firmness, richness, and flavour
of the butter are due to qualities not yet de-
termined.
The cream globules of milk are in all cases
infinitosimally small, but they difiier in size in
the milk of different breeds. The globules in
Ayrshire milk are intermediate between those of
Dutch and Jersey, and the following figures
illustrate the difference between those in Jersey
and in Ayrshire milk : —
Jersey, average size ... - ... ... Jj^ of an inch.
Ayrshire ,, ... ... ... ^Lj „
In England, Jersej^s are not much used as
ordinary dairy-stock, but they are in great demand
for family use where only one or two are kept.
In America many large herds of them are kept for
purely dairy purj)oses, where clotted cream and
finest quality butter are in demand; and it is
no uncommon thing in the latter country, where
results are carefully noted, for cows of this breed
to produce an average of upwards of 300 lbs.,
and in some cases 400 lbs., of butter in a year.
Instances are on record where single cows have
yielded even upwards of 500 lbs. in the same
period.
A curious experiment was recently made by
General W. S. Tilton at the National Soldiers'
Home, near Augusta, Minnesota, f The herd con-
sisted of Dutch cattle, grades, and Jerseys. The
average of milk per day for the whole year, as
t " Prize Essay on Jersey Cattle." By Georjje E. Waring,
Junior,
2S
DAIRY FARMINC;.
compai-Ofl witli the average wei^Iit of llic eows
of each class, was : —
Dutch .
Gradog .
Jtrsevs..
'hi Pf'' fcnt. of live weight.
The proportion of cream was as follows : —
Of Dutch, it took ... Sjlj Ihs. live weight to produce
1 quart.
Of Grades „ ... 3,';-;-, lbs.
Of Jerseys „ ... 2j^ lbs. „ „
So that if an animal (other things being equal)
consumes food in proportion to its weight, then,
in order to make as much cream from the other
breeds as can be made by a Jersey consuming
2,000 lbs. of hay, we must feed a Dutch cow
2,649 lbs., or a grade 2,402 lbs. As the cream of
Jersey milk produces more butter per quart than
that from the other sorts of cattle, the advantage
in butter-making is still more in favour of the
Jerse\"s.
All the animals in the Jersey plate, except the
one on the left, are the property of Mr. Simpson,
of Wray Park, Reigate, to whose courtesy we are
indebted for the photographs from which the
portraits were painted. Their names are — the
bull Prince Albert Victor; Jersey Lily next to
him; Luna in the foreground; Alice Grey close
behind ; and Her Majesty farther off on the right.
The cow on the left of the plate is an excellent
specimen of a Jersey, named " Young Panzy,"
now in America, and exported to that country
from the i.sland. The cow Luna has been three
seasons in milk, with the following record : —
1870
1877
1878
876 I
898
81G
This is a return rarely surpassed by cows of more
than twice the size of Luna, and is a powerful
testimony to the extraordinary ability which, under
generous treatment, the Jerseys possess for the
production of a very large quantity of milk, the
quality of which is also superior to that of most
other breeds of cattle. We have known the milk
of a Jersey cow throw up 25 jier cent, of good
firm cream.
LOXGUOEN CaTTLK.
Y^orkshire is a famous county ! To have
produced, or at all events to have greatly helped
in producing, the noblest breed of cattle the world
has yet seen — the Shorthorns — were enough to
lend to the county a lustre which time will not
efface. But this is not all, for the Longhoms,
too, sjirang from " the district of Craven, a
fertile corner of the ^^'est Riding of Y'orkshire,
bordering on Lancashire," while their great rivals
and supplanters came from the other side of the
county. The Ayrshircs, too, are said to owe a
great deal of their blood to Y'^orkshire. We may
again regret that nothing more definite than
tradition exists to supply us with a record of the
early doings of these Yorkshire cattle. It is not
known whether the Longhorns were imported into
Yorkshire from some foreign country, or whether
to the peculiarities of the soil and climate of the
Craven district we are to give the credit of
developing them out of the ancient roaming cattle
of the north of England. One thing, we think,
is circumstantially clear, viz., that the farmers of
Y'orkshire, two or three centuries ago, were ahead
of those of the rest of the country in their ideas
as to the improvement of the bovine race; for,
however much soil and climate may have had
to do in the matter, it is not to be supposed
that only in those two limited districts were the
natural influences so active as to produce, unaided
by man, two of the most famous breeds of cattle
that have yet been known. Be these things ' as
they may, however, the Longhorns had spread
over most of the midland counties, and had
become the prevailing stock in them, long before
the Shorthorns had begun to migrate far from
their original home. Looking at the stock which
now prevails in those counties, it is difficult to
realise that Longhorns were universal in them less
than a century ago. But it is a fact, nevertheless ;
and the great change that has taken place in the
short space of a single century speaks volumes in
favour of the prepotency of the Shorthorns.
The -earliest record we have of a systematic
attempt to improve Longhorns relates to that of
Sir Thomas Gresley, of Drakelow House, Burton-
on-Trent, and dates back to the early years of the
eighteenth century. The next relates to a farmer
and farrier named Welby, also a Derbyshire man,
who had obtained his " valuable breed of cows "
from Sir Thomas, and took a pride in " improving
them and keeping the breed pure." The next
improver of the breed, so far as we know, was
a Mr. AN'ebster, of Canley, near Coventry; he, too,
had some of the stock of Sir Thomas Gresley,
and was at great pains to procure bulls from
LONG HORN CATTLE.
29
Lancashire and Westmoreland. Ilis success was so
marked that he is said to have had the best cattle
then known ; and one of his admirers says " he
possessed the best stock, especially of heace, that
ever were, or ever will be, bred in the kingdom."
It may be interesting; to relate that the word
" beace," meaning dairy-cattle, is still used in
some parts of the midland counties.
AVe come next to the greatest of all breeders,
the famous Robert Bakewell, of Dishley, who was
himself born, in 17^5, at the place whose name,
along with his own, will never be forgotten. It is
not to Longhorn cattle, however, so much as to
Leicester sheep, that Bakewell's fame attaches ;
yet he did so much even for the cattle that posterity
have awarded to him the merit of having created,
as it were, a new breed. He took in hand the
Longhorns, because the Shorthorns were then but
little known ; and we can but regret not only that
he did not try his hand on the Shorthorns as
well, but that he left behind him no record of
the eminently sound principles which guided him
in his selection and classification of animals in
breeding. The results he attained we Icnow — they
■were, a small proportion of bone and offal and
a large one of meat, utility and beauty of form,
superior quality of flesh, early maturity, and
aptitude to fatten — but of his own unique system
we know nothing, or next to nothing, except from
conjecture. He made excursions into various parts
of England, inspecting celebrated herds of different
breeds, but less to buy stock than to ascertain the
highest possibilities of breeding. He thus formed
in his own mind a sort of eclectic model of what
an animal ought to be, and, under his perfect skill
in classing the animals together, the various excel-
lences he sought to attain soon fell into the one
mould he had made for them. His Longhorns
trace back to those of Sir Thomas Grcsley, for he
bought tv.'0 heifers from Mr. Webster, of Canley,
and procured a promising bull of the same breed
from Westmoreland. To these and their off-
spring he chiefly confined himself, so mating them
together as to develop and establish the desired
points of excellence, and as his stock increased in
number he was able to do this without too close
in-breeding. In a very few years his stock were
unapproachable for fineness of bone, smallness of
offal, quality of flesh, and symmetry and beauty of
form, l)ut — not for milk. And yet Longhorns are
not inferior milkers, but, as in too many Shorthorn
families of tlie jircsent day, milk was sacrificed to
other qualities in the famous herd of Longhorns
at Dishley. The farms of Drakelow, Canley, and
Dishley stand in relation to Longhorns much in
the same way that those of Ketton, Kirklcvington,
and Warlaby do to Shorthorns ; but the influence
of the former has not radiated so far as that of the
latter trio of bovine shrines, though these have
borrowed their light from the former.
Mr. Bakewell was a man of surpassing kind-
ness. His servants remained with liim twenty,
thirty, and even forty years, and his treatment of
the cattle is described by Arthur Young in these
terms : — " Another peculiarity is the amazing
gentleness in which he brings up these animals.
All his bulls stand still in the field to be examined ;
the way of driving them from one field to another,
or home, is by a little switch ; he or his men walk
by their side, and guide them with the stick
wherever they please, and they are accustomed to
this method from being calves. A lad, with a
stick three feet long and as big as his finger, will
conduct a bull away from other bulls, and his cows,
from one end of the farm to the other. All this
gentleness is merely the effect of management ; and
the mischief often done by bulls is undoubtedly
owing to practices very contrary, or else to a total
neglect." To this we may add that a good deal
depends on the natural disjjosition of the bull.
We have said that the prevailing stock in the
midland counties less than a hundred years ago
were Longhorns, and that they have been displaced
by Shorthorns. Writing m 1S09, William Pitt
says,* " The natural breed of cattle in Leicester-
shire is now the Longhorns." He also makes
similar statements vsdth regard to Derbyshire and
Staffordshire. The change from Longhorns has
been effected by repeatedly crossing with Short-
horn bulls the ordinary dairy-cattle of the country,
and now the prevailing type is Shorthorn. It
is thought by some that the Shorthorn element
predominates too much, and that a dash of Long-
horn blood now and then would be beneficial.
In some districts this has been tried, but, we
believe, with indifferent success. The offspring-
are found to be very raw ; yet we think if the
system were fairly tried through several genera-
tions, the two elements would be found to blend
together, to the advantage of the stock as dairy-
* " A General View of the Agriculture of the County of
Lpiccster," 1809, p. 21C.
30
DAIRY FARMING.
cattle and as bcof-produoers. The home of the
Longlioras is still in the midland counties, but
there are not very many pure-bred herds ; we arc,
however, glad to know that these grand old cattle
are coming once more into favour, and a herd-
book has recently been established to promote and
systematise the breeding of jicdigrce Longhorns.
A well- written account of the breed, by the Hon.
Secretary, Mr. Lythall, ajipears in the first volume
of the herd-book, and there are 286 bulls and
a still larger number of cows entered in that
volume. These form nuclei from which the
Longhorns may again be disseminated throughout
the country, though we
can hardly expect they
will again occupy the
relative position they
once did. Among the
leading breeders whose
names are given in the
first volume of the herd-
book we find His Grace
the Duke of Bucking-
ham; Sir John Harpur
Crewe, Bart. ; Major-
General Sir F. W. Fitz-
wygram, Bart. ; Colonel
Inge, Tamworth ; the
Hon. M. W. B. Nugent,
Hinckley; Messrs.
B. H. Chapman, St.
Asaph; W. S. Shaw,
Lichfield ; R. Brown,
Lichfield; J. H. Bur-
bery, Keuilworth ; John Godfrey, Hinckley ; and
nearly seventy others — enough, in fact, to gua-
rantee that the old breed of the midlands still
retains its hold, and that it will not be lost
sight of.
Among the folk-lore of the midland counties
it is not uncommon to find traditions to the
effect that the old cattle of the district were \'ery
good milkers and beef-makers. As to the former
qualification, it is stated by jMr. Pitt, from whom
we have previously quoted, that in the Vale of
Belvoir " the cows are in part Holderness or
Shorthorn ; these eat the most food and give the
most milk, but the milk of the Longhorn is richer,
and will produce more cheese or butter." And as
to the latter In-eed, he tells of two oxen, bred by
Mr. Princcp, of Croxhall, Derbyshire, and fatted
Fig. 8. —Head of Longhorx.
in 1791 by the Marquis of Donegal at Fisher-
wick. " These oxen," he says, " I saw a short time
before they were slaughtered ; they were much
alike in size and condition. One of them was
carefully weighed by Mr. Bowman, his lordship's
steward ; the four quarters weighed 1,988 lbs.,
the tallow was 200 lbs., and the hide 177 lbs.;
this ox, at the common price of beef in the
country, was worth £00, or guineas." At the
sale of Mr. Paget's Longhorns, November 14th,
1793, the bull Shakspeare fetched 400 guineas,
" and afterwards served cows at 25 guineas each.
I saw him at Mr. Stone's, Qnorudon, W. P."
INIany Longhorn cows
have been famous for
^ gi^'ing very large quan-
tities of milk, but the
breed, generally speak-
ing, is more celebrated
for the qualitj' than for
the quantity of it. Mr.
R. H. Chairman, of St.
Asaph, a famous breeder
of Longhorns, iufomis
us of a herd of twenty of
these cattle, belonging to
Mr. Taverner, of Upton,
making 4| tons of cheese
in the season without
any extra keep, and
of one cow that gave
16 quarts of milk at a
meal.
The Longhorns whose
portrails are given in the plate are the property
of, and were bred by. Sir John Harpur Crewe,
Bart., of Calke Abbey, near Dei-by, by whose
courtesy we are enabled to present our readers
^\■ith good typical specimens of the breed. Then-
names are " The Abbot of Calke," " Canley 2nd,"
in the foreground of the plate ; " Lofty 2nd,"
the middle one of the three cows farther off;
"Tuhp 10th," on the left; and "Beauty 4th,"
on the right of the picture.
Herefords.
The Herefords are said to be an aboriginal race
of cattle, bred for ages in the county from whose
name their own name is derived. Very little that
is tnistworthy is known of their history earlier
than the present century, but they are commonly
Jd^
HEREFORD CATTLE.
81
adniitted to be one of our oldest breeds. The
Hereford breeders of a century or two ago, content
with their hardy, superior, meat-produciuo- breed
of cattle, were not careful to leave us any of
the information which, familiar enough to them-
selves, is now lost to us for ever. This absence of
definite knowledge has led to many conjectural
statements and to much conflicting argument con-
cerning this fine old race of cattle. Some writers
have contended that they were originally "self-
coloured," like the Sussex and Devon cattle;
others that they are in part descended from a very
ancient race of white cattle, having red ears,
which existed a thousand years ago in the counties
of Brecknock and Rad-
nor ; and one writer *
went so far as to say ^ V-- ^
that, more than two
centuries ago, Lord j:~-
Scudamore had imported
from Flanders cows of
the "red and white face"
breed. Mr. Rowland-
son saySjt " the old Here-
fords ai'e said to have
been browni or reddish-
brown, and it is only
wdthin the last eighty or
ninety years that it has
been the fashion to breed
for white faces; " and he
tells the story of the
supposed origin of white
faces, which is said to have been purely accidental,
or a mere freak of nature, as owing to a favourite
cow, belonging to an ancestor of j\Ir. Tully, who
lived at Huntingdon, having produced a white-
faced bull-calf — an instance, he says, that had
" never been known to have occurred before."
But Mr. Smith writes, J in direct contradiction
to this, " that the race w^as originally red with
a white face is clearly indicated by the almost
perfect uniformity of colour which the breed of
the county now presents."
In the presence of such conflicting testimony,
and in the absence of any that is more authorita-
tive, it is not easy to come to any satisfactory
conclusion as to what the ancient Herefords really
* Jlr. J. A. Knight, of Downton Castle, 1809.
f Journal of the Eoyal Agricultural Society, 1853, p. 450.
+ Joiininl of the Eoyal Agricultural Society, 1858, p. 366.
were in colour. That they have not always been
so uniform in colour as they now are is evident
from the fact that Mr. Eyton, on issuing in 1845
the first volume of the Hereford Herd-book, found
it exijedieut to divide them into four classes — viz.,
mottle-faced, light grey, dark grey, and red with
white face. The first three varieties are now
nearly extinct. Writing in 1805, Mr. Duncumb
says : § — " The cattle of Herefordshire have long
been esteemed superior to most, if not all, the
breeds in the island. Those of Devonshire and
Sussex approach nearest to them in general
appearance. Large size, an atliletic form, and
unusual neatness chai-acterise the true sort; the
prevailing colour is a
reddish - brown, \vith
^~ ~ white faces." And ]\Ir.
Youatt, writing thirty
years later, says : || —
" They are principally
distinguished by their
white faces, throats, and
bellies. In a few the
white extends to the
shoulders. The old Here-
fords were brown or red-
brown, with not a spot
of white about them.
It is only within the
last fifty or sixty years
that it has been the
fashion to breed for
white faces." Rowland-
sou's statement respecting colour is evidently a
transcript of Youatt's. It is probable that the red
with white face is, and always has been, the true
Hereford colour, and that any deviations from it
are the results of various haphazard crosses with
other and adjoining breeds of cattle ; for, as Mr.
Duckham well observes,^ " had the previous tale
of the bull-calf been true, his progeny could not
possibly have given the prevailing character to the
breed of the county in so short a space of time."
Even if it had been possible that one animal, born
five quarters of a century ago, should have given
to an entire breed a new and distinct character, so
§ "General View of the Agricultui-e of the County of
Hereford," 1805, p. 110.
II " Cattle : Their Breeds, Management, and Diseases," 1834,
p. 31.
•U Journal of the Bath and West of England Society, 1876,
p. 1-27.
Fig. 9.— Head of Loxghoejt
32
DAIRY FARMING.
far as colour is concerned, there would still be
numerous instances of departure from it, and not
that striking uniformity that we see. It is, how-
ever, possible that in the far-away past, before
the breed became domesticated, the progenitors
of the Hereford cattle were, as most animals in
a state of nature are, self-coloured ; and it is
also possible that the white portion in the colour
of the present representatives of the race may be
due to an ancient cross with the wild white cattle
of Wales.
But however many differences in colour there
may have been among llerefords in the past, the
foi-m and build of the different sorts were much
the same. They were, as they are, noble-looking,
having a free and easy gait, heavy-necked, strong-
boned, deep in the fore-quarters and rather light
in the hind. The characteristics of the red and
white faces are stated by Mr. Duckham in the
following terms : — " The face, throat, chest, lower
part of the body and legs, together with the crest
or mane, and the tip of the tail, a beautifully clear
white ; a small red spot on the eye, and a round
red spot in the middle of the white on the throat,
are distinctive marks that have many admirers.
The countenance is at once pleasant, cheerful, and
open, denoting good temper and that quietude of
disposition which is so essential to the successful
grazing of all ruminating animals ; yet the eye is
full and lively; the head small in comparison to
the substance of the body; the chest deep and full,
the bosom sufficiently prominent, the shoulder-
blades thin, flat, and sloping towards the chine,
and well covered on the outside witli mellow flesh ;
and so beautifully do the blades blend into the
body, that it is difficult to tell, in a well-fed
animal, where they are set on ; the chine and
loin broad, hips long and moderately broad, legs
straight and small, the rump forming a straight
line with the back ; thighs full of flesh to the
hocks, a well-sprung rib and deep flank ; the whole
carcase well and evenly covered with rich mellow
flesh ; the hide thick, yet mellow, well covered
with soft glossy hair, having a tendency to curl."
So far as bonis are concerned, they belong to
what is called the "middle horn" class.
Hereford steers are still extensively used in
some of the south-western counties for work on
the farm ; and after working for a few years they
are fed for the butcher. The beef of this race of
cattle is held in hit^h estimation on account of the
pleasant admixture of fat and lean and the excellent
flavour; and male and female alike are said to be
second to no other breed in rapid fattening on a
given quantity of food. Though not so hardy as
the Devons, they are active in search of food, doing
well in districts not suitable to Shorthorns.
Hereford cows, as a rule, are not good milkers.
Having in the past been only required to rear
their own offspring, as the custom of their native
district is, they have in this respect been left
almost wholly in a state of nature. Hence their
milking properties have been left to take care of
themselves, aptitude to fatten having been culti-
vated instead. It is probable that no equally
capable milkers have been allowed to acquire so
poor a reputation as dairy-cattle. AA'hen the re-
quirements of the offspring are the sole medium
by which the parent's milk is regulated, it follows
that no great quantity of milk will be given, and
the period of its flow will be of limited duration —
this is what nature dictates. And deep-milking
characteristics are the result of treatment tending
that way, of breeding for that object, and of
domestication generally. These kinds of treatment
and breeding have not been applied to the Here-
fords in times gone by. But in many parts they
are now being bred with a view to the dairy, and
their milking properties are being specially de-
veloj)ed ; their calves are nt, g allowed to suck from
them, and they are being hand-milked instead ;
and they are already, under training in the right
direction, rapidly gaining favour as dairy-cows,
and are proving themselves to be well qualified
for the production of cheese and butter, for their
milk, though not very great in quantity, is rich
in quality. So far, good.
Mr. Duckham says : — " The Hereford is pecu-
liarly a flesh-producing animal, displaying great
aptitude to fatten, and unsurpassed for early
maturity. The soil of the county, the home of the
breed, is not adapted for dairy purposes ; thus the
general system of calf-rearing is to allow it to ruu
with its dam during the summer months, weaning
it when the cow is brought to the straw-yard for
the winter. In all well-cared for herds the calf is
never allowed to lose the flesh it has thus acquired,
but during the winter months it is fed ujxju
hay, roots, and a small allowance of linseed cake.
Whether steer or heifer, it pays for a fairly liberal
treatment, that it may go out to grass in the
spring in fine condition. The steers so managed
DEVON CATTLE.
33
will, at eighteen months old, rcaUsc tL pur month
on their age."
It is claimed for the Ilerefonls that they will
fatten on less food than the Shorthorns, that they
mature as early, that their flesh provides us with
hetter beef, and that they are hardier and more
active. It is not, of course, claimed that they are
as good, or nearly as good, dairy-cows ; but that
they are in most other, if not all other, respects
the equal of their great rival, and that in some of
them they are decidedly superior. But if their
milk is smaller in quantity than that of the Short-
horns, it is richer in quality. Whoever visits the
Bath and West of England Society's Show will
find Ilerefords so superbly well-projiortioned that
no kind of animals, be they Shorthorns or any
other, can be found to surpass them. For a long-
time they have been in great demand for grazing
purposes in the counties adjoining the metropolis,
and perhaps for a still longer time they have been
highly esteemed on account of the fine quality of
beef they yield, which, " by the intermixture of
fat and lean, presents that marbled appearance
so much prized by the epicure, and commands the
top price in the market."
In parts of the United States, in Canada, in
New Zealand, and in Australia, the Herefords are
great favourites. In the two former countries the
breeding of these cattle will probably be stimulated
by the fat cattle and fresh meat trade which has
been established quite recently, because they are
specially well adapted for meat production. In
those foreign countries to which they have been
sent already, they are found to readily acclimatise
and adapt themselves to new conditions, retaining
all the while their character, form, and quality.
These facts go far to prove antiquity of type, for
recently-acquu-ed qualities do not stand the test
of other countries and climates. They are a noble
race of cattle, handsome and picturesque, docile
and profitable; and now that they are turning
out to be reasonably good milkers, we may expect
them to multiply in number among the dairy-
farms of Britain. Public attention is being turned
toward them, and they have been and are being
greatly improved by careful selection in breeding.
The Devons.
The northern part of the county of Devon has
long possessed a breed of cattle, whose compactness
and general beauty, activity as workers, and apti-
(ude to fatten have made the county and the cattle
alike famous. In the southern part of the county
a similar race of cattle prevails, possessing the same
general characteristics of form and colour as those
of the northern part, but somewhat larger and
coarser. The difference is chiefly caused by the
difference in soil and climate. In the north there
is much poor, very poor land, which is bleak, wet,
and exposed, and it is here that the North Devons
have acquired their compactness, hardiness, and
activity. In the southern and western counties of
England it is still quite common to use steers for
draught purposes both on the road and in the
fields, though not so much on the former; and for
this purpose the North Devon steers are said to
be unequalled by those of any other breed.
If it be true that what is called " self -colour "
— that is, the same colour throughout — is a proof
of the antiquity of breed, then the Devons may
fairly be regarded as one of our aboriginal breeds
of cattle. Red is the true Devon colour, though
the red varies as to shades from a rich dark red to
an almost pale chestnut ; still, the colour prevails
all over the animal, and no other colour is found
among it in patches, as the case is with most of
the northern breeds of cattle — to wit, the Short-
horns, the Longhorns, and the Ayrshires. Some
animals have patches of white among the red, but
these are regarded as not true Devons. Domestica-
tion has not at p)resent, whatever crossing may have
done, caused much, if any, deviation from the true
original colour. At the famous Smithfield Show
the place of honour in the catalogue is always
given to the Devons, and their singular neatness,
compactness, and symmetry always command the
admiration of the visitors who come to the show.
They have also a gentle and pilacid look which is
very attractive ; and while their hardiness enables
them to withstand a cold climate, and to thrive on
a herbage where the larger Hereford and Short-
horn would starve, they always do remarkably well
when removed to a warmer climate and a richer
soil. The North Devons, too, may be regarded as
the true Devons, for while the larger and coarser
cattle of the south of the county owe their differ-
ences of type chiefly to a richer soil and a warmer
climate, they are said to owe them also in some
measure to crosses with the old Somerset and
Cornish cattle ; the South Devons are, in fact, an
offshoot of the North Devons, more or less altered
by the conditions under which they have been bred.
31
DAIliV l-AUMIXC
The Devons are the prevailiiioj cattle in several
districts in the southern counties. Though e\d-
(k'ntly related, the cattle of these districts are
found to vary in size, the Somersetshire variety
being larger than the North Devons, and those of
South Hams larger still. The last mentioned arc
locally known as the " Southammer breed," and
are said to be a very good variety both for beef
and milk. These several varieties, indeed, form by
easy gradations the connecting links by which the
relationship Ijetwecn the Sussex and Devon cattle
is inferentially established. Naturalists trace in
the Highland Kyloes, one or two of the "Welsh
breeds, and the Devons, the descendants, more or
less altered by crossing, by soil, and by climate, of
the Bos longifrons, the small Celtic breed, which,
was sujiplanted by the Bos iirus [anfiquoi-um), or
Bos priini genius [recentiornm), varieties of which, it
is supposed, were introduced by the Teutonic ally-
conquerors of Britain, and to which it is thought
our different varieties of cattle are traceable.
The Devons are not celebrated for giving
large quantities of milk, but their milk is rich in
quality, and Devonshire cream is known far and
wide. A large quantity of milk is indeed scarcely
compatible with very good quality ; but with
regard to this matter there is a great difference
among breeds of cows. The size of the cow, again,
is, or ought to be, taken into consideration with
respect to quantity of milk, and as the Devon cows
are rather small it is not to be expected that they
should give large quantities of milk, and par-
ticularly so when they have not been specially bred
for that piirpose, as, for instance, the Ayrshires
have. In times past the Devons, like the Herefords,
have been bred chiefly with a view to the develop-
ment of the male rather than the female animal,
because of the value of the steers for draught pur-
poses; the cow, consequently, is as a rule much
smaller than the ox. Now, however, the ease is
being altered, and the cows themselves are being
greatly improved, while they are becoming more
valuable as dairy-cattle. As beef-makers the
Devons are not easily excelled by any bi-eed what-
ever, and comparisons have lieen made which prove
that on a given quantity and quality of food they
will make more beef than almost any other breed,
while the beef itself is of excellent quality, com-
l)act, sweet, and juicy. The North Devons com-
monly have a beautiful curly coat of hair, whilst
that of (he South Devons is usually straight and less
pleasing. The skin is mellow and elastic, handling
well. The bone is usually very fine, and the offal
generally is small in proportion to the meat. The
horns are of the middle size. The countenance
is cheerful and pleasing, and presents a deer-like
appearance that establishes its beauty and refine-
ment. The eye is full, round, and clear, and has
a pale, golden-coloured circle around it, which adds
to its expression. A well-bred fat Devon presents
a form whose symmetry and compactness are as
nearly faultless as anything we can hope to attain,
and it may, in fact, be taken as a model in the
breeding of bovine stock.
Sussex Cattle.
Leaving out the question of size, the resem-
blance between the Sussex and the Devon cattle
is striking. They are of the same colour, a rich
rod throughout ; and they are much the same in
form, except that the former are larger, coarser, and
somewhat less proportionate. The Sussex more
nearly resemble the Herefords with regard to having
strongly-developed fore-quarters, giving an undue
proportion of less valuable meat. The resemblance
between the two former breeds is, however, so
great that, taking into consideration the effect of
locality, it is obvious they have at some period
Ijeen one and the same breed. It is probable that
the Sussex cattle are an offshoot of the aboriginal
Devons, though of this we have no proof. Like
the Devons, they have in the past been bred chiefly
with a view to draught purposes, but now the
breeding is tending in the direction of beef and
milk. They are not now, and have not been in
the past, celebrated for milking properties; and in
this respect they partake of the general character
of the breeds of cattle in the southern counties,
for, while cattle have been largely bred in the
north for milk and beef, they have been bred in
the south for work and beef. The direction in
which the breeding of the northern animals has
been made to tend is the one which is now most
in favour and most useful ; for though steers are
still used extensively in the cultivation of the soil
in the southern and western counties, they are
yearly becoming less valuable for this purpose, and,
on the other hand, milk is in great demand for
consumption in towns and cities. Youatt says : —
" The Sussex cow does not answer for the dairy.
Although her milk is of very good quality, it is so
inferior in quantity to that of the Holderness or
POLLED BREEDS OF CATTLE.
35
Suffolk, that she is little regarded for the making'
of butter or cheese. Almost every mongrel breed
finds its wa}' into the dairy in preference to her."
Great pains are now being taken to breed the
Sussex cattle without the large and heavy bone
which is no longer necessary, and the model aimed
at is the smallest bone with the largest quantity
of flesh. In the j)ast there have been very large
Sussex oxen. One fattened many years ago at
Burton Park was a huge animal : his height was
5 ft. 6 in. ; his length, from the back of the horns
to the tail, 8 ft. ; wdth from hip-bone to hip-
bone, 2 ft. 8 in. ; depth of shoulder, 4 ft. 7 in. ;
girth behind the shoulder, 10 ft.; and his weight,
287 st. 4 ll)s. This animal was of course a wondei',
but he had an immense quantity of bone, and he
was generally coarse and uneven — not in any sense
a profitable butchers' beast. Yet, as a rule, the
Sussex oxen are favourites with butcher and con-
sumer alike, and mature in good time, making-
great weights at an early age. At the Smithfield
Show the fat Sussex steers usually form a j)romi-
nent and even handsome exhibition in themselves;
and whilst some breeds are said to be stationary
so far as improvement goes, the Sussex cattle are
said to be improving year by year in form and in
quality. The Sussex breed has not at present been
able to win the Blue Riband of the Smithfield
Show, but it may do yet. We tliiuk it will one
of these days.
Polled Breeds.
The different breeds of polled cattle have never
yet, in our opinion, met with the amount of favour
that they really merit. Apart from the fact of
their not being disfigured by those ugly and
dangerous excrescences called " horns ■" — a most
benevolent omission by nature in their case — they
are really a superior type of cattle. Some of them
are celebrated for milking properties, and all of
them for the quality of their beef, while many of
them come to early maturity and attain consider-
able weights at a 3routhful age. But the absence
of horns is their chief merit over the other breeds,
and it is no small merit. It is not claimed for
them that they are superior to some of our other
breeds in the various qualities for which cattle are
most valuable ; but that they are capital feeders
is proved by the fact that the champion prize of
the Smithfield Show has on three occasions in the
past twelve years been awarded to them — in each
8
case, however, to Scotch polled cattle. Yet the
mere fact that they have no horns is a most valu-
able recommendation of these cattle. Nature gave
horns to cattle for purjioses of defence and attack,
and in a ■wild state the animals no doubt required
them at times; but in a state of domestication
horns are not only useless, but a source of danger,
mischief, and inconvenience. If, in the breeding
of all kinds of cattle, horns could be abolished,
the gain would be great. The Americans are
turning their eyes wistfully in the direction of
hornless cattle, because of their superior handiness
for the cattle trade to England ; and, indeed, there
can be no question that in no single instance would
the absence of horns be anything but an unmixed
good. The cattle would be less spiteful toward
each other if they had no weapons wherewith to
put their spite into practice, and very little harm
could be done by bare heads only. There has been
an outcry against the cruelty involved in the
practice of dishorning cattle — that is, cutting off
the horns close to the head — but in some circum-
stances there may be less of cruelty in that than
in leaving them in possession of weapons with which
to rip each other uj) when they get a chance to do
so. We do not, however, advocate cutting off the
horns of cattle, but we do recommend the breeding
of animals to -whom a beneficent nature has denied
those terrible weapons.
Galloways.
The Scotch Galloways are, and long have
been, a noted breed of cattle. Centuries back
they were sent in numbers to be fattened in
England ; and writing nearly half a century
ago, Youatt tells us " the polled beasts were
always favourites with the English farmers."
Long before the railways were dreamt of, Youatt
says, "for more than 150 years/' very large
numbers of these cattle were sent to be fed on
the rich pastures of Leicestershire and the Eastern
counties. Mr. Gilbert Murray tells us that as
many as 25,000 to 30,000 head were thus sent
away from Dumfries alone, the journey occupying
several weeks, and he assumes, we think on fairly
good grounds, that the polled cattle of Norfolk
and Suffolk are descended from these Scotch
migrants. Youatt stated long since that "the
Suffolk, like the Norfolk beast, undoubtedly sprang
from the Galloway." The Galloways were liked
in England because "they fattened as kindly as
86
DAIRY FARMING.
the others, they attained a larger size, their ilesh
lost uone of its firmness of grain, and they
exhibited no trace of the wildness and dangerous
ferocity whicli were sometimes serious objections
to the Highland breed."
The distinguishing featiire of the race is the
hornless head, both in the male and female; the
colour of the animals is mostly black, though some
true-bred ones are red or bro\\Ti, or even dun, and
others, again, have white faces, and sometimes arc
marked with white in other parts. They are
symmetrical and compact in form ; the skin,
though thick, is soft and mellow to the touch,
and is covered with a wealth of long silky hair;
the flesh is well and evenly distributed over the
frame, coming well down to the knees and hocks ;
the shoulders are well thrown back, giving width
to the chine and expansive prominence to the
chest; they have long sides, with well-sprung
ribs and well-rounded hips; are straight and broad
in the back, short in the leg, and exhibit every
symptom of soundness and hardiness of constitu-
tion. But they are not good milkere, and for this
reason they have been supplanted in some districts
by the Ayrshires. Youatt tells ns that a Gal-
loway cow, giving 12 to 16 quarts of milk per
day, is considered a very superior milker. The
milk, however, is very rich in fats, and for this
reason the Galloways are good butter-cows ; but it
is as butchers' animals that they have chiefly won
the good opinion of those who know them well.
They would greatly improve as milkers if they
were bred and trained in that direction.
The counties of Wigton, Dumfries, and Kirk-
cudbright form the original home of the Gal-
loways ; and though they now occupy a less area in
these counties, or at all events are not so numerous
as they formerly were, they are still held in high
esteem in many parts.
Polled Angus or Aberdeenshire Cattle.
There are many points of resemblance between
these cattle and the Galloways, but they are usually
larger, flatter in the side, thinner in the shoulder,
and longer in the leg, so that their de\-iations
from the Galloway type can hardly be regarded
as improvements on it. Nevertheless, they are
fine, noble cattle, and in the hands of such breeders
as Sir George Macpherson Grant, Mr. M'Combic,
(if Tillyfour, &c. &:c., they have attained con-
siderable celebrity, and are still gaining ground.
At the Paris Exhibition of 1S7S these cattle
won the prize for the best group of foreign cattle.
They are very hardy, good breeders, little liable to
disease, arrive early at maturity, fatten quickly,
and thrive well on a moderate quantity of meat.
The prevailing colour is black, sometimes with a
few spots; but some are a kind of yellow of various
shades, or a dun, and they have a thinner skin and
a smoother coat than the Galloways. Nothing
whatever is known of the origin of either of these
breeds of cattle, but the}' are regarded as distinct
from each other, though it is more than probable
that they were once the same. Like the Gallo-
ways, the Angus cattle are not good milkers
when compared with Ayrshires or Jerseys — not
good, that is, for the size of them ; but this
fault is attributable to the long-established prac-
tice of allowing the calves to suck from their
dams. There are, however, many excellent milkers
among the Aberdeens, and it is safe to assume
from these instances that the breed is not by
any means destitute of the qualities which go
to make up a first-class dairy-breed ; the one
thing needful is to cultivate, as has been done
in other breeds, the development of the lacteal
organs. Were they treated as the Ayrshires
or the Shorthorns have been, there can be little
doubt of their improving in milking proper-
ties. When regularly milked by hand they are
commonly found to give a very fair quantity, and
under this training, and careful breeding in the
same direction, these polled cattle would, after a
time, be found equal to some of the more widely-
established dairy-breeds. Deep milking, like any
other physical property or quality, is a question
of breeding and training. By ^Ir. M'Combie's
courtesy we are enabled to place before our
i-eaders, in the plate of Polled Aberdeens, the
group of animals to which were awarded, as the
best animids for breeding and for beef-producing
puqjoses, the Grand Prize of the Paris Exhibi-
tion of 1878. Their names are — Gaily, Sybil
2nd, Pride of Aberdeen Oth, Halt 2ud, Witch of
Endor, and the young bull Paris.
Norfolk and Suffolk Polls.
" Until the beginning of last century," says
Youatt, writing in 1831', "and for some yeai-s
afterwaixls, the native breed, of Norfolk be-
longed to the middle horns. Their colour was
usually retl, or sometimes black; they possessed
■^/■/^ i \
WEST HIGHLAND CATTLPl
37
many of the eliaracters of the Devons on a
smaller scale, with their pointed, turned -up
horns. A few of them are yet occasionally
seen in the less cultivated parts of the country,
and in the possession of the small farmer or
the cottager. They have, however, been almost
superseded by a polled breed." And he goes on
to state that the farmers of Noi-folk selected some
of the imported Galloways, probably on account of
their superior form and quality, and bred fi-om
them a race of cattle superior to their own — a race
they had long been in the habit of procuring from
Scotland; and the polled cattle gradually so gained
on the horned ones that they came after a time to
be regarded as the peculiar and native breed of the
county. " They retain much of the general form
of their ancestors, the Galloways, but not all their
excellences," says he; "they have been enlarged
but not improved by a southern climate and a
richer soil."
It is very interesting to read, in a valuable work*
recently published, of the existence in Norfolk of
a race of white polled cattle which, springing
directly from the ancient wild cattle of the country,
had become more or less domesticated, and were
excellent milkers. The Norfolk branch of this
race was brought by the first Lord SufReld from
Middleton Park, in Lancashire, to Gunton Park, in
Norfolk. The Gunton Park herd no longer exists,
but we are told, in the work above alluded to, that
" it had, however, while it existed, a great effect
upon the cattle of the district." It is probable,
therefore, that the cattle now known as the
Norfolk polled have other polled blood in their
veins than that of the Scotch Galloways, and
it would be interesting to ascertain the process,
with its variations, by means of which the two
became merged together. The Norfolk polled
cattle of to-day bear, it is true, no resemblance in
colour to the white polled cattle of Gunton Park ;
but as colour is a property which undergoes great
modifications in the domestication of cattle, the
difference is no j)roof of non-relationshij) between
the two.
The Suffolk cattle are, according to the oldest
records, said to have been polled, and they were
* "The "Wild 'RTiite Cattle of Great Britain : An Account
of their Origin, History, and Present State." By the late
Rev. John Storer, of HelUdon, Northampton.shire. Edited by
his son, John Storer. (Cassell, Fetter, Qalpia & Co. : London,
Paris, and New York.)
originally described as being dun in colour, but
later on as red, red and white, and brindled. Like
the Norfolk, the Suffolk polled cattle are possibly
descended from the Galloways, and perchance from
some of the Angus blood. The dun-coloured not
infrequently found among the last mentioned
would seem to establish some connection between
them and the old Suffolk. Two or three centuries
of life under a warmer climate and a richer soil
have caused both the Norfolk and Suffolk cattle to
deviate more or less from the type of their far-
away ancestors. The colour of both is now chiefly
red, and they are specifically known as "red-polled"
cattle. But in other respects the Suffolk may be
said to have deviated less widely than the Norfolk
from the Galloway type. They are, for instance,
somewhat lower in stature and finer than the
Norfolk, shorter in the leg, broader and rounder,
and have a greater propensity to fatten, often
attaining greater weights. The old Suffolk cows
were said to be extraordinary milkers, some of
them giving from six to eight gallons of milk per
day ; and the red-polled cattle of both Suffolk and
Norfolk of the present day are unquestionably
good milkers, proving that the inferior milking
projierties of the Galloways are not by any means
a fixed characteristic of the breed, but that they
are just as capable of development as those of any
other cattle. The Norfolk and Suffolk red-polled
cattle are excellent fatteners, combining in them-
selves in a high degree the two leading uses of
cow-existence — milk and beef.
To the courtesy of Mr. Lofft, of Bury St.
Edmunds, we are indebted for the photographs
of the animals whose portraits are given in the
plate of Norfolk and Suffolk Polled Cattle.
West Highland Cattle.
The West Highland cattle, or Kyloes, as they
are sometimes called, are a singularly interesting
breed of cattle. They are always picturesque in
the field or park, and they are food for an epicure
on the table. While the Ayrshires and the polled
cattle owe their phjsical characteristics to the low-
lands and less exposed districts of Scotland, the
West Highlanders are essentially the cattle of
the highlands and mountains. They possess all
the features which a mountainous district will
produce — compactness, agility, fearless courage,
hardy constitution that no sort of weather can
subdue, most sagacious instinct, diminutive stature,
38
DAIRY l'ARMlN(i.
aiul :i warm, shaggy coat of liair. Tlicy aro oi;
various colours — black, duu, cream, rcil, briudled,
&e. — but there is seldom more thau one colour on
the same animal. Reared in a bleak and boisterous
district, they have acquired the ability of shifting
for themselves, and of subsisting on food that
would starve the lowland cattle. As with all the
other breeds, nothing definite is known of their
origin ; it is probable that all alike have descended
from one common ancestry, and soil and elinuite
must be held accountable for the modifications.
Be this as it may, however, the Kyloes are adapted
to their native district, and they are found to do
well when removed to others. They give, for
the size of them, a fair quantity of milk, the
quality of which is very good, but they are chiefly
celebrated for the singular excellence of their beef,
which always commands the highest price in any
market.
liMSii Dairy Cattle — The Kerhy Breed.
We are indebted to Mr. R. O. Pringle, author
of " The Live Stock of the Farm," and editor of
the Irish Farmer's Gazette, for the following
notes : —
"The Agriculturd Returns for 1878 state that
in the month of June of that year there were
1,481',23S milch-cows in Ireland. The returns for
previous years show that of late the number of
cows has undergone a considerable decrease. Thus,
in 1872 the number returned was 1,551,784,
so that in six years there has been a decrease in
the number of cows to the amount of 67,516
head ; as compared with 1877, there was a decrease
in 1878 of no less than 37,022 cows.
" This serious decline in a leading department
of Irish agriculture is chiefly owing to the difficulty
experienced in nearly all parts of the country, of
getting women servants qualified for dairy work.
Many who were formerly engaged as dairy-women
have emigrated, whilst those who remain are either
imperfectly trained, or expect wages which the
owners of dairies are unwilling or unable to pay.
Hence, in many instances, dairy-farming has been
abandoned, and the pastures stocked \\ ith young
store beasts or with sheep.
" Irish cattle have from time immemorial been
noted for their milking properties. The old-
fashioned cow, now extinct through crossing, gave
a large quantity of rich milk. Those cows were
not Kerriesj they were short-legged cattle, long
in the body, and many of them were hornless,
or, as they were called in Ireland, 'moyle' cattle.
Others had wide-spread, elevated, and projecting
horns. They were of all colours, but chiefly black,
brindled, or red, and some were mottled along the
ridge of the back. These characteristics, although
indicating some distinction as to kind, did not
affect the value of the cows for the dairy. No
attention was paid to selection in breeding ; but
notwithstanding the neglect with which they were
treated, their milking properties remained intact.
" The Kerry breed of cattle is undoubtedly an
aboriginal breed, and is now the only native breed
existing in Ireland; for although the common or
native cattle of Connaught are larger than the
ordinary Kerry, and differ to some extent in shape,
still it is evident they are from the same original
stock as the Kerry. There is much in the Kerry
A\hieh indicates a relationship between it and the
small Breton breed, and considering that Brittany
and Kerry are the nearest points of France and
Ireland, it is not improbable that at some remote
period cattle may have been conveyed from one
country to the other.
" The Kerry cow is a neat, light-made animal,
with fine and rather long limbs, fine small head,
lively eye, fine white horn, which in many cases,
after projecting forward, is turned or ' cocked '
backward. The rump is narrow, and the thigh
light. The fasliionable colour is pure black
throughout, but some are black and white, and
others red. The skin should have a mellow touch,
and should be well coated with hair.
" The ' Dexter ' variety is distinguished from
the pure or true Kerry in having a round plump
body, short and rather thick legs; the head is
heavier, and wanting in that fineness which marks
the true Kerry, and the horns are longer, straighter,
and coarser. The real origin of the Dexter variety
is not well understood, but it is supposed to be the
result of special selection. Youatt described the
Kerry cow as ' truly the poor man's cow, living
everywhere, hardy, yielding for her size abun-
dance of milk of a good quality, and fattening
rapidly when required.'' This is a correct descrip-
ti<in of the breed, both the true Kerry and the
Dexter. In Ireland the Kerry is much esteemed
as suitable for small villa farms; as the cows,
although naturally active, are very gentle, and do
well when tethered on confined bits of grass. They
also thrive when kept constantly house-fed. Wo
!B!5a.s«f " ■■-?s>"- -SB
IRISH CATTLE.
39
have known a Koriy cow to Le kept for five years
in a dark stable in Dublin without injury to her
health. About 12 quarts of milk daily is an
average yield for a Kerry cow when she is fairly
kept, and we have known some cows to give as
much as IG quarts daily for a considerable time
after calving. The yield of butter is 1 lb. from
11 quarts of milk; but we have kno\vn a higher
percentage of butter to be obtained.
"Youatt says the Kerry cattle fatten rapidly
when required. This is true when they have been
kept, as cows or otherwise, for a time on fair pas-
ture; but poor Kerries, especially bullocks, when
obtained direct from their native mountain graz-
ings, take some time before they begin to show
improvement. Once they do begin to improve
their jsrogress is rapid, and when slaughtered their
flesh is of the best quality, fine in the grain and
rich-flavoured. Their weight, when fat, is from
28 to 30 stones imperial. Extra-fed beasts will
make 40 stones imjjerial.
" With a few exceptions, the breeders of Kerry
cattle did not until recently devote much atten-
tion to the proper maintenance of the breed, and
the fact that Kerry cattle have survived the
neglect with which they have been treated without
material deterioration, is strongly in their favour.
The Knight of Kerry has a herd of Kerry cattle
which has been bred with great care for a long
period, and other gentlemen in that part of Ireland
have also devoted attention to the subject ; but
the reputation of the breed has been considerably
enhanced by the interest which has been taken in
it by various gentlemen residing in other parts of
Ireland, who have taken up the breeding of Kerry
cattle not merely as a ' fancy,' but from the in-
trinsic merits of the breed as dairy-stock. The
late Earl of Charlemont had a large herd of Ker-
ries at his seat at Marino, near Dublin, which,
under the management of Mr. James Brady, was
long well kno^vn in Irish showyards. Of late
years, ]VIr. James Robei'tson, La Mancha, Malahidc,
county of Dublin, has been a most successful
exhibitor and breeder of Kerry cattle. His stud
bull Basan took eight first prizes at shows of the
Royal Agricultural Society of Ireland and of the
Royal Dublin Society. He has also exhibited
many animals in the female classes at these shows
with great success, and at the recent International
Exhibition at Paris he was equally fortunate, and
a special medal was awarded to his herdsman. At
the Dairy Show in London, and elsewhere in
England, Mr. Robertson has taken honours, and
at present he may be regarded as the champion
exhibitor of Kerry cattle.
" Some attempts have been made to cross
Kerries with other breeds. The West Highland,
which may be regarded as a kindred breed, has
been tried, with the result of giving more size
to the Kerry, but in other respects the cross was
not an improvement. We have seen cattle wliich
were evidently derived from an intermixture of
Ayrshire and Kerry blood, and also of Dutch and
Kerry, but in neither case was the cross desirable.
It is possible that these crosses were more the
result of accident or of careless management than
of intentional experiment. When a Kerry cow
is put to a suitable Shorthorn bull, the produce
possesses great aptitude to fatten, with superior
quality of flesh and an increased weight of
carcase. Crosses of this kind are frequently met
with at shows of fat stock in Dublin, and seldom
fail to obtain a good place in the prize list, and
to secure a sale at top rates to the butcher.
" The following are the measurements of a prize
fat Kerry cow exhibited at a show of the Royal
Dublin Society : — 38 inches in height at the
shoulder, 70 inches in girth, and 42 inches in
length from the top of the shoulder to the tail-
head. We are inclined to believe that the cow of
which these were the measurements was of the
Dexter variety.
" The ordinaiy description of dairy-cows in
nearly all parts of Ireland have much Shorthorn
character — in fact, the more they have of it, the
better they are liked. Nor is this confined to the
cattle belonging to the owners of large dairies, for
the cattle belonging to tenants holding small
farms, say all under 50 acres, are as much
imjiroved as any, which is due to the large
number of well-bred bulls which are to be found
in most parts of the country. Many landed
proprietors are in the habit of keeping well-bred
Shorthorn bulls for the use of their tenants — a
practice which has done much of late years to
improve Irish cattle. In some parts of Ulster the
farmers are jiartial to Ayrshire cows, and import
these and also bulls from Scotland, so that the
shows of the North-East Association, which are
held at Belfast, usually present a fair display of
that breed. AjTshires, or what goes by that
name, are also kept in some parts of the south.
40
DAIRY FAEMIXG.
but in such eases the breed has become degenerated
from a want of fresh blood. The Dutch black
and white breed, which formerly existed in the
south, has been crossed with the Shorthorn, and
is extinct.
" While the Kerry is essentially the cottier's cow
in Ireland, the prevailing dairy-cattle are either
Ayrshires or Shorthorn crosses on the old native
stock. Shorthorns have, in truth, done great
service in Ireland ; and at the j^resent time the
great bulk of the cattle in many parts of the
country are, to all intents and purposes, as truly
Shorthorns in character as are the cattle of the
midland counties of Enghind. In the mountain
districts of Ireland, where the land is poor and
cold, and the herbage poverty-stricken, the Kerry
is, and must remain, the poor man's cow; and
beyond this she is cultivated in some of the better
districts. The Kerries, for instance, whose portraits
are given in the plate are from the herd of j\lr.
Robertson, and to the courtesy of this gentleman we
are indebted for the photographs from which the
plate was composed. Then Ayrshires, again, have
taken fast hold of some of the dairying districts.
But, generally speaking, the Shorthorns may be
regarded as really the dairy-cattle of Ireland, and,
indeed, excellent cattle they are; the soil and
climate suit them to a nicety. Yet the Kerry
is the only one of the old Irish breeds that still
exists in its pristine purity ; the rest are more or
less derived from English stock. Formerly there
was a breed of native Longhorns in Ireland.
These, too, are merged in the English crosses."
"\Vi;t.sii Cattle.
Tliere are, or were, three breeds of cattle in
Wales from which the various types descended.
Deviations from these breeds were found in
different parts of the country, but they were no
more than could be easily accounted for by the
influence of locality and by more or less of
crossing. Of those three breeds the Glamorgans
are said to be now extinct, or nearly so, having
faded away before the advance of the Shorthorns,
Herefords, and Devous. This is much to be
regretted, for they are said to have been excel-
lent milkers, while their flesh was of superior
quality.
In the colour of these cattle there 5\'as some-
thing remarkable, for while the cows were
generally a rich brown or red colour, and many
of them black, the bulls were invariably black
with more or less of white on them.
The Pembroke or Castlemartin cattle still
flourish in the Principality. In 1834 Youatt
said of them, " Great Britain does not afford
a more useful animal than the Pembroke cow or
ox." They are fairly good milkers — as good, it
is said, as most of the improved breeds. The
meat produced by them is said to be of a superior
kind, both in texture and quality. Their colour is
black, as a rule, a few of them having a brown
tinge of a peculiar hue, and now and again they
have a little white on the faces or about the
udders ; but white about them anywhere, especially
in the face, is regarded as an indication of strange
blood. It has been feared that these cattle, like
the Glamorgans, are likely to disappear as a dis-
tinct breed. We may, however, now hope that
this misfortune will be averted, for a Welsh Black
Cattle Herd-book, edited by Mr. R. H. Harvey,
a well-known breeder of these very useful cattle,
has recently been established, and it will doubt-
less have a great effect in preserving the breed
select and in promoting its improvement. In
the second volume of the herd-book the number
of cows registered reaches 215, and of bulls 90;
and from these it is to be hoped the breed will
again become numerous in the district to which
it is so well adapted. The best English breeds,
however, the Shorthorns chiefly, have penetrated
into every part of Wales, and they are rapidh-
effecting a transformation of the native breeds.
But the admirers of the Castlemartins have taken
the projier steps toward the preservation and the
improvement of a breed which had well-nigh been
lost through sheer supineness, and we may reason-
ably look forward to its re-establisliniont in many
of the old haunts fruni wliiuh it had already
vanished.
The Anglesea cattle, though claimed to be a
distinct breed, very much resemble the Pembrokes.
They are black in colour, but it is usually a deeper
black than that of the South ^Yales cattle ; this,
however, may be attributed to the difference in
climate. They arc also a little larger, though not
much, and are hardly so refined in head and neck.
The milking properties of the Angleseas have been
neglected for ages, and they are consequently in-
ferior dairy-cattle. As with the Herefords and
Scotch Polled, the raising of young stock, and not
cheese or butter, has been the chief purpose to
WELSH CATTLE.
41
which the Augleseas have been devoted; and it is
not surprising' that as milkers they are inferior.
But as g^-azing stock they are, and long have
been, justly celebrated. Their flesh is of excellent
quality, and they are sent long distances to be
fattened. It is perhaps less likely that the Angle-
seas may become extinct, than other Welsh cattle ;
their native habitat, and the primitive habits of
the people, will tend to preserve them a long
time in all their pristine purity. Still, the only,
or at all events the chief, property that will pre-
serve any of the British breeds of cattle intact in
the present day is that of milk. Beef alone is
not enough, nor is milk, perhaps; but the two
combined are indispensable to a thoroughly pro-
fitable breed of dairy-cattle ; and if any breed
proves itself incapable of being trained and bred
into giving a good paying quantity of milk, it
must lose its hold on the suffrage of the people.
In an economic age like this, antiquity of breed
alone is not enough to preserve a race of cattle
from extinction — utility is the one thing needful.
It is, however, a pity that any of these time-
honoured breeds should die out; they should rather
be improved in those qualities in which they are
deficient, so that they may hold their own against
those breeds which will otherwise take possession
of the entire country.
There is no need whatever for the old breeds
of any district or country to die out, unless they
are hopelessly beyond the reach of improvement
in a suSiciently reasonable time ; and this is cer-
tainly not the case with any of the British breeds
of cattle. The laws which govern animal repro-
duction are now well understood, and the principles
of breeding are equally well established. It is a
well-ascertained fact that to intelligent cultivation
and treatment all our breeds of cattle respond in a
manner which leaves little or nothing to be desired,
and this in a very short time ; hence we infer that
as a rule it is better that all our races of cattle
should remain in their native districts, and not be
w-holly disjjlaced by others from a distance. This
end will be attained if the cattle that need it show
the measure of improvement which is certainly
within the reach of those who own them.
It is true that several of cm- more famous
breeds have great aptitude for adapting themselves
to new districts, climates, and soils, and that they
are quickly at home in almost any portion of the
British Islands, not to mention foreign countries.
This fact, indeed, supplies a reason why they have
jjenetrated so far, and why other races have faded
away before them, and no doubt it does away to
some extent with the economic reasons for main-
taining the old breeds; at the same time we do
not think the reason sufficient for the total dis-
establishment of the old breeds, and we should
much prefer to see them so much improved by
careful selection that they may be able to hold
their own in any fair competition with those who
otherwise threaten to supplant them. If the
Welsh cattle do indeed die out, it will not be for
the reason that they are not worth preserving, and
we trust the time has come for them to re-assume
their ancient popularity.
The portraits of Welsh cattle given in the
plate are chiefly from photographs, for which we
are indebted to the courtesy of Lord Cawdor and
J. B. Bowen, Esq., M.P.
Some foreign breeds of cattle will be noticed
in treating of Foreign Dairy Farming.
CHAPTER lY.
Feeding axd Treatment of Dairy Cattle.
Importance of Correct Principles in Feeding Cattle— Effects of Food— Differences in Milk from Poor Land or Greater Exercise-
The Two Allied— General System of Clieese-Dairy Management— Evils of Over-milking Cows about to Calve, or of Under-
feeding Them— Various Components of Good Food— Soiling Cattle— Connection of Soiling with Arable Dairy Farming-
Various Crops Suitable for Soiling Cattle— Rye— Vetches— Rye-Grass and Clover— Maize-Turnips-
Kohl-Rabi— Cabbage— Lupin— Prickly Comfrey — Lucerne— Straw.
i^HAT the feeding and treat-
"~ ment of cattle is a most im-
23ortant question few will be
slow to admit, and yet in
practice it is too generally
neglected. If all dairy-
farmers could be made to
realise the simple fact — so simple that
it is commonly lost sight of — that
whatever milk or beef is produced
must be produced wholly from the
food that the animals eat, a great change in
the treatment of cattle would spread over the
face of the country. Not a morsel of beef and not
a drop of milk are produced without food; not
a movement of a limb can be made and not a
breath be drawn that is not compensated for in
food. If the cows travel two miles or one mile
to pasture, or if they are hitrried, or abused, or
frightened — all is paid for by the food. If they
are chased by dogs, or by flies, or by men, they are
chased at the cost of food, and the milk is poorer
in butter — the nervous excitement uses it up.
There is not one degree of heat in the body of the
cow that is not produced from the food she eats.
If cows are exposed in winter to a temperature of
fifteen degrees below zero, if they are " deformed by
dripping rains or withered by a frost," food enough
must be burnt in the stomach to make up for the
loss of heat by the body. This is nature's law
of equivalents : " Something must be paid for
everything, for it is impossible to produce any-
thing from nothing."
A\ ith regard to dairv-cows, it must he borne
in mind that they have first of all to live
before they can produce any milk at all from
the food they eat; and about two-thirds of
their food goes to keep them in fair condition
before any milk can be made from it. This has
been tested and proved over and over again.
Some dairy-farmers seem to think that they can
with imj)unity keep their cows on " short com-
mons " during the winter, and that they will pick
up in the spring and milk as well as ever; but
this is a great mistake. A poverty-stricken cow
must first of all supply the wants of her system
and get back into decent condition before she can
possibly give rich milk and jjlenty of it ; and many
cows for months in the summer do not fully
recover from a winter's starving ; some never get
over it at all. All profit that comes from either a
dairy-cow, or one that is being fattened, is derived
from the food over and above that which is
necessary to sustain the offices of life ; and in a
feeding animal that weighs no more at the end
of the season than at its beginning, the food con-
sumed has, except for the excreta, been wholly
wasted — that is, the farmer derives no profit from
it. So with a dairy-cow; if she gives no more
than 300 gallons of milk in the season, she is
kept at a loss.
A dairy-cow is simply a machine for the
production of milk, just as a steam-boiler is a
machine for the production of steam ; and food
is fuel to the cow exactly as coal is fuel to the
boiler. If the cow is pinched of food she will not
yield a profitable quantity of milk; this explains
the proverli, " You had Ijetter be over-rented than
EFFECTS OF FOOD.
43
over-stoeked." So with the boiler, if it receives
only enough eoal to make the water warm, there
will be no steam. There is, of course, as already
pointed out, a great difference in cows, as thewi
is in boilers, as to the return they make, for
the fuel consumed; some cows and some boilers
seem to bum a great deal of fuel to waste, and it
is from the fuel, not from the cow oi- the boiler,
that we derive our profit. It is, therefore, a
mistake to bestow good and abundant food on
cattle whose physical imperfections prevent their
turning it to the best account. It is advisable to
carefully test the milk-producing capacity of a
suspected cow ; this may easily be done by weigh-
ing the food she eats and the milk she yields
during a given period, and comparing them with
similar records of a cow that is a satisfactory
milker. Such tests and comparisons as these are
very instructive; and whoever makes them care-
fully and repeatedly is pretty sure to carry out
the lessons they teach, which course will soon
result in the production of a first-class herd of
dairy-cows — a consummation that is within the
reach of every dairy-farmer. It is scarcely neces-
sary to say that calves from cows that are poor
milkers should never be used to replenish the
hei-d with ; they should go to the shambles, not
to the milk-pail.
Effects of Food axd Exercise.
Tlie effect of food in animal nutrition, more
particularly with regard to the production of
cheese and butter, and taking into account the
influence of breed in the animal consuming it,
has been carefully investigated by Dr. E. L.
Sturtevant, of jMassachusetts, and he gives as
follows a summary of his conclusions : — •
1. That the production of butter is largely
dependent on the breed.
2. That there is a structural limit to the pro-
duction of butter in each cow.
3. That when the cow is fed to this limit,
increased food cannot increase the product.
4. That the superior cow has this structural
limit at a greater distance from ordinary feed,
and is more ready to respond to stimuli than the
inferior cow.
5. That, consequently, the superior cow is
seldom fed to her limit, while the inferior cow
may be easily fed beyond her limit ; and as a
practical conclusion, increased feed with a superior
lot of cows will increase the butter product ; but
if fed to an inferior lot of cows, waste can only
be the result.
6. That the character of the food has some
influence on the character of the butter; but even
here breed influences more than food.
7. That there is no constant relation between
the butter product and the cheese product.
8. That the casein retains a constant per-
centage, and that this percentage does not appear
to respond to increased food.
9. That the casein appears to remain constant,
without regard to the season.
10. That increase in the quantity of milk is
followed by an increase in the total amount of
casein.
11. That insufBcieut feed acts directly to
check the proportion of butter, and has a tendency
to decrease the casein of the milk and substitute
albumen.
12. That the best practice of feeding is to
regulate the character of the food by the character
of the animals fed — feeding superior cows nearer
to the limit of their production than infei'ior
cows; feeding, if for butter, more concentrated
and nutritious foods than for cheese ; feeding
for cheese product succulent material which will
increase the quantity of the milk yield.
It will thus be seen that to secure a full
measure of success the dairy-farmer must devote
at least as much care to the breeding of his
cows for milk-production, as he does to their
feeding and treatment, and to the improvement
of his land for the same end. Not one or
even two of these points, but all three of them
demand special attention.
One of the reasons why poor land produces
milk which, as compared with that produced on
good land, is deticient in fatty mattei'S, and so is
better adapted for cheese-making than for butter-
making, lies in the fact that the grasses on it
contain a larger proportion of flesh-forming ingre-
dients— as albumen, fibrin, casein, gluten, &c. —
and a smaller oue of fat-forming ones — as starch,
gum, sugar, &c. — than are found in the grasses
of rich land. But another reason is found in
the additional respiration of oxygen which take§
place in the animal economy when cows ai-e pas-
tured on poor land, and have to go through
more exercise in the search for food. The oxy-
gen of the air, which is inhaled to an increased
4i
DAIHV I'AHMJXO.
exU-nt \iy aniin.-ils who take an i-xlia aiuduut nf
exercise, has a ilirect tcndeucy to rousunie the
fat in the system of the animal — actual combus-
tion of the fat takes place. Hence the increased
heat of tlie animars body, and hence also a
diminished amount of fat among the tissues, and
a diminished proportion of butter in the milk.
Again, the more exercise an animal takes, tin
greater will be the waste or breaking up of the
tissue of the body; and, as this is the source from
which the curd in milk is derival, milk produced
on land whose herbage is scanty will contain a
larger proportion of curd than milk produced on
land whose herbage is abundant. And so the
milk of unduly exercised cows, in whatever manner
that exercise may be brought about — whether on
poor land in search of food, or in travelling a
distance to and from the pastures, or in being
chased by dogs, or flies, or men — will likewise
have a large proportion of casein in it and a small
one of butter.
It is unnecessary to point out that the less
exercise an animal takes, the sooner it will fatten,
for this simple fact is known to every farmer;
and it is equally well known that the more exercise
an animal — a horse, for example — is made to take,
the more food is required to maintain the con-
dition and bulk of that animal. And the ratio
of the consumption of fat is equivalent to the
violence and extent of the exercise.
It will now be perceived why it is that the
milk produced on poor laud has a larger proportion
of curd and a stnaller one of butter than that
produced on good land ; it will be equally plain
that the smaller the distance cows have to travel
to and from their pastures, whether those pastures
be rich or poor land, the richer in fats their
milk will be; and it will be even still more evi-
dent that the faster they are made to traverse
that distance, the poorer their milk will be.
Distance and speed bring about a greater in-
halation of oxygen, and the more the oxygen that
enters the system, the greater will bo the consump-
tion of fat in it.
In the hot weather in summer, when cows are
tormented by flies and by heat, the evening's milk
will always be found poorer than the morning's
in butter. This is explained on the same prin-
ciple ; and so is the fact that the milk of stall-fed
cows is richer in fats than the milk of cows who
roam at large on the pastures, presuming that
the two sets of animals are fed on exaetly the
same kinds and quantities of food. Experiments
have demonstrated the truth of this position.
Upwards of thirty years ago. Dr. Lyon Playfair
analysed the milk of a cow that was fed out in the
meadow, and afterwards the milk of the same cow
fed in the stall, and with the food the same in
both cases ; the milk produced in the meadow
was found to contain more curd and less butter
by several per cent, than that produced in the
stall. The law holds good throughout the entire
series — the more exercise a mileh-cow takes and
the more heat is given off by the body, the greater
the amount of combustion of fat and the less
butter will be found in the milk.
Professor G. C. Caldwall, of Cornell University,
writes as follows on the relation between the
composition of fodder and that of milk : — " That
the composition of the milk may change with the
changes in the composition of the food in the
animal producing the milk, is another principle
also fully established by the results of both ex-
perience and experiment ; within certain limits
the milk may be made poor or rich by supplying
poor and watery fodder or rich fodder. Whether,
however, this change simply affects the proportion
of the solids as a whole to the water carrying these
solids, or wdiether the composition of the dry sub-
stance of the milk of the same cow can be altered
by ebanging her food, so that she can be made
to give milk richer in fat without at the same
time being richer to the same degree in each and
every one of the other constituents, the albumi-
noids, sugar, and mineral matters, is a question
that has been much discussed in the last few
years ; it is manifestly a question that can be
settled only by the chemical analysis of that
dry substance, while increased richness of the
milk in general — a smaller proportion of water
and a larger proportion of solids — can be detected
by the lactometer, the cream-gauge, or even by
the appearance of the milk to an experienced eye.
" The composition of the dr_y substance of the
milk under varying conditions has been made the
subject of many careful researches, some of which
have aj)peared to lead to the result that it remains
essentially the same for the same cow whatever
may be the character of her ration — so long as
it is a healthy ration. The statement, in accord-
ance with these results, that the proportion of fat
in tlie milk cannot be sensilily increased by any
GENERAL DAIRY MANAGEMENT.
43
system uf feoding willunit at the siime time in-
creasino; the richness in albuminoids and sugar,
was undoubtedly misunderstood in many cases,
and taken to mean that the richness of the milk
in fat cannot be increased in any way by increas-
ing the richness of the fodder in fat, or any other
constituent. Such a misapprehension may have
been the origin of some of the expressions that
appeared in the agricultural papers of a want of
faith in methods of scientific inquirj- that led to
such manifestly false conclusions.
"The most careful series of investigations on
the influence of the composition of the ration on
the composition of the milk has been carried
on under the direction of Gustav Kuehn. From
the results of these and other researches the fol-
lowing conclusions have been deduced, and may
be reg-arded as sufficiently well established for all
practical purposes : Firstly, an increase of the
ration with respect to both nitrogenous and non-
nitrogenous matter does, within limits, increase
the j-ield of milk, and the richness of the milk
in dry substance ; and the better the natural yield
of the cow, the larger will be this increase.
Secondly, changes in the proportion of carbo-
hydrates only in the fodder produce no effect on
the yield of milk. Thirdly, the proportion of
fat in the ration bears no spec^ial relation to the
proportion of fat in the milk, but an increase
of fat in the fodder rather increases the production
of milk as a whole. Fourthly, the most constant
interdependence between composition of the fodder
and the yield of milk was found to exist with
reference to the proportion of albuminoids in the
fodder. "Within certain limits the pi-odnction of
milk rose and fell with the proportion of albumi-
noids in the ration. But for every animal there
was found to be a limit beyond which any addition
of albuminoids to her food produced no effect in
the yield of milk. Fifthly, in general the compo-
sition of the dry substance of the milk was not
sensibly altered by changes in the composition of
the ration ; but to this there were some striking
exceptions."
General System of Dairy Management.
The great bulk of dairy-farms, particularly of
those which do not touch our towns' and cities'
milk trade, are still conducted on the same general
outlines that have been followed for many genera-
tions, though in most cases certain improvements
in details have in one way or another been intro-
duced in late 3'ears. On farms whose speciality
is the production of cheese the practice still is,
as it long has been, to have all the cows dropj^ing
their calves in the early months of the year; the
bulk of them in March and April, and some of
the heifers in May. In the first or second weeks
of I\[ay, or whenever there is grass enough to go
on with, the cows are turned finally out on the
pastures, having for a week or two previously
been pastured on " seeds " or other early grass
during the day, to accustom them gradually to
the change from dry to green food and from
in-door to out-door feeding; and they commonly
depend wholly on the pastures from this period
xmtil the time when the aftermath in the meadows
is available. Later on they have early turnips
or cabbages carted out to them on the pastures,
until the time comes when out-door keep begins
to fail, and the blasts of early winter give warn-
ing that it is no longer wise to keep them out of
doors ; they are then taken in 0' nights, still going
out in the days for a short time longer, after which
they are kept wholly in-doors until spring-time
comes round again. This is, in brief, the old and
still general system of managing dairy-cows on
cheese-makin g dairy-farms.
The time for cows to calve which appears to
be most in harmony with nature's laws is the
sjjring of the year ; and in obedience to these laws,
as well as to the expediency of having them in
the flush of milk when "grass day" comes, dairy-
farmers — but not those who have gone into the
milk trade — always have their cows timed to
calve between the middle of February and the
middle of ]May. For purely cheese-making pur-
poses there is nothing important gained by having
them calving before the middle of February, for
they would then have passed through the flush
period of milk before the time when the grasses
in the pastures are most plentiful, luxuriant, and
nutritious ; indeed, the only advantage of having
them calving very early — say in January and the
first half of February — lies in the better chance
there is then of those calves that are intended for
the herd eventually being well reared in good time;
but this does not counterbalance the disadvantage
of having the cows past the flush of milk when,
the period of succulent grasses comes on.
It is a serious mistake, and one too generally
committed, to allow milch-cows to get into a
46
DAIRY FARMING.
low condition of system dunns' t'"^' '^'^t tlivoe or
four montlis of the gestation period, or, indeed,
at any other time for that matter; and this is too
common]}' done «hen they are " dry for calving."
Many farmers milk their cows on too far into the
winter, giving them too short a resting time
before they calve again, and this is, where fol-
hnved, an almost inevitable cause of winter lean-
ness of milch-cows; for as the time of parturition
approaches, the cow has enough to do to supply
the increased nourishment which the calf in the
womb demands, without giving milk in addition.
Some cows, indeed, are such willing milkers
that it is difKcult to let them dry at all before
calving, and it is even necessary in some cases
to put a cow on " short commons " for a week
or so to check the flow of milk. Generally
speaking, however, cows show ' signs of drying
up in milk some six or eight weeks prior to
the time at which they are due to calve, and
it is as a rule advisable that they should give
no milk during the last month or two of
gestation ; the length of this period may be
governed by the quality of the food which the
cows receive ; the better the food, the shorter
the period of dryness, and rice verm. Some
farmers think cows are less liable to lose quarters
if they are not let dry at all ; but all danger
of this disaster is avoided by drawing the teats
now and then, after the cows are let dry, to
rid them of any milk that may accumulate. And,
indeed, they should always be let dry in a gradual
manner, by milking once a day for a time, then
once in two days, and so on till the milk is gone ;
this done, the quarters are safe enough.
If cows are lean and weak at calving-time, they
are occupied during the best part of the ensuing
summer in " getting their backs up again," during
which has sli])ped away that which ought to be
the flush period of milk ; and it should ever be
borne in mind that well-bred cows are particularly
honest and grateful animals, always returning
excellent interest on any little additional capital
which is invested in them in the shape of nourish-
ing food, especially at those times when they
need it most — that is, when their systems are,
or ought to be, laying in vigo\n' for the following
summer's work. Farmers too seldom think of this,
and seldomcr still do they put it in practice. The
most profitable milking season — the one, that is,
wheu tliere is the liit>-hest return on the lowest
expenditure, and with the least labour — is when
the grass in the pastures is most nutritious and
tender, in the months of May, June, and July,
and the lacteal stage of the cows themselves
should correspond with this, In' their having but
recently passed through parturition. If cows are
turned out to grass in good condition, and have
not been calved too lf)ng, they will always give
a good account of themselves, providing they arc
of a good sort for milk.
Many dairy-farmers make the custly mistake
of thinking that when cnws are dry for calving
is the time to economise food by keeping them on
straw or weathered hay — or on anything, in fact,
which they would never think of giving them if
they were in milk. And yet this is the very time
when a generous diet will lay the best i'<nindation
for after usefulness. It is true that the inferior
kinds of forage may be most conveniently con-
sumed at this period, but they should be improved
by the addition of a few pounds of cake per day
to each cow ; and if straw is being used at this
time, it should be chaffed and improved by adding
to it some kind or other of meal, and its bulk may
well be increased by brewers' grains; but in any
case the qualilj/ of the ration must be made at least
equal to that of good meadow hay : less than this
is insufficient to enable in-calf cows to acquire
before parturition that amount of bodily condition
which is necessary to enable them to give a good
flow of milk during the coming season. A handy
system of improving inferior hay, without chaffing
it, is to scatter a handful or two of maize-meal
over it in the mangere before the cows ; this done,
not only will the hay be consumed with a relish,
but the mangers will be kept clean without any
trouble on the herdsman's paj-t; the quantity of
meal so used will be regulated by the quality of
the hay and the condition of the cows. It will
])ay well to treat even good hay in this manner,
])articularly when fed to cows in milk and when
it is rather scarce, so as to spin it out to the best
atlvantage ; this is the best way to save haj' in
winter, when there is no other bulky food to be
had.
It is necessary in artificial feeding of cattle
to remember that the flesh-forming and the heat-
producing elements should be made to bear a
given relationship to each other, accoi-ding to the
season of the year. If a cow is not in milk she
may not need any more albuminoids in cold than
ARABLE DAIRY FAR:\I1NG.
47
ill \v;irm woatluT; but slio will need iiKirc lieat-
producing food. In summer she will require 3 lbs.
of heat-producing food for every 1 lb. of Hesh-
forniing food she uses, and in winter 5 or 61bs. ;
and she will live well on food in such proportions
if she is doing nothing more than merely living.
25 lbs. of good hay per day would sujiply her with
2 lbs. of flesh-forming and 10 or 11 lbs. of heat-
producing elements, and on this .she would do well
enough, along wth water ad lib. But when she
is in milk she requires a much larger proportion
of albuminoids, say 2 to 5 lbs. ; so to keep up the
flow of milk she must receive those kinds of food
in which albuminoids bear a larger proportion, as
compared with heat-pi'oducing materials. These
kinds of food would be meal of various kinds
and corn generally, bran, oil-cake, cotton-cake,
and hay cut a little under-ripe. The following
table shows the proportions of these different
elements in various kinds of food, and a careful
study of it will enable a farmer to give his cows
such a ration as will admit of the least waste
of food and loss of money : —
■S.S
? ■
^ O M
®-s
boo
^H 510
Various Foods.
If
5^.
^
1^
1*
^|.a
Linseed-cake
28-3
41-3
10-0
76
Decorticated cotton-cake
41-0
57-0
100
105
Undecorticatcd „
24-0
46-9
8-0
58
Bean meal
2V.3
4.5-5
2-0
62
Pea „
22-4
52-3
2-5
62
Eye „
no
69-2
2-0
30
Indian com
10 0
68 0
7-0
25
Eice meal (best)
6-9
77'0
4-0
25
Palm-nut meal
14-0
76-0
4-0
28
Wheat bran
14-0
SO-0
3-8
55,
Oats
12-0
60-9
6-0
23
Barley
9 -.5
66-6
2-5
25
Malt
9 0
76-0
3-0
26
Malt culms
26-0
60-0
4-0
71
Alsike clover in blossom
1.5-3
29-2
3-3
^Vhite „ „ ...
14'9
34-3
3-5
2
Red „ „
13-4
29-9
3-2
2
Lucerne
14-4
22-0
2-3
2
Maize, cut green
3 0
39-0
1-1
2
Common meadow hay
8-2
41-3
2-0
15
Pea straw
6 -.5
35-2
2 0
8
Oat
2-5
38-2
2-0
8
Barley „
3-0
32-7
1-4
8
Wheat „ ;; ;;;
2'0
30-2
1-0
8
Potatoes
2-0
21-0
0-3
7
Carrots
1-.5
7-0
0-2
4
Turnips
l-I
5-1
01
4
Mangels
2-0
80
0-2
In using the foregoing substances, or any of
them, the farmer will naturally be guided to some
extent by the market prices of all those of them
that he has to buy. At present jirices (£7 per
ton), decorticated cotton-cake is decidedly the
cheapest and best article that a farmer can buy
for milch-cows, especially in winter. (In the
summer, when the cows are receiving a large
quantity of green food of one kind or another,
which is always more or less relaxing in its action
on the bowels, it will generally be found advisable
to use undecortieated cotton-cake, which is an
astringent, and counteracts any undue relaxation
of the bowels cau-sed by green food.) Palm-nut
meal is offered on the market at a reasonable price
(£G 10s. per ton), and from its eomjiosition it can
hardly fail to be a valuable and cheap article of
food. Malt culms are excellent milk-producers;
but as they are singularly forcing in their action,
and have the property of swelling out into a
large bulk when soaked in water, it is advisable to
use them with discretion.
For the production of milk, grass of good
quality is the most nearly jierfect food that cows
can eat. If it is required to increase the quantity
and the value of the milk for cheese -making
purposes, artificial food rich in nitrogenous mat-
ters— albumen, casein, legumen, &e. — may be fed
to the cattle; if to increase them for butter-
making, non-nitrogenous food may be given, in
which there is a large proportion of starch, gum,
sugar, oil, &c. And in winter it is well to prepare
the food so that it may be easy of digestion and
assimilation, taking gi-ass as a standard of per-
fection in this respect. This can only be done
either by steaming the food, or by moistening-
it -vvith water or pulped turnips, and allowing
it to lie together in a heap until the fibre is
softened by incipient fermentation. In cold
w^eather, tepid -water given to cows will increase
the flow of milk.
Arable Dairy-Farjiing.
We naturally, or rather from force of habit,
associate dairy-farming chiefly with grass land.
The districts specially known as devoted to dairying
in the British Islands are the grass-land districts,
in those sections of the country where the humidity
of the air is well suited to the growth of per-
manent pastures ; and our arable districts, on the
other hand, are chiefly those in -which, ow'ing to
the dryness of the climate, the area of grass land
is very limited, and where dairy-farming is carried
48
DAIRY FAH.MIXC.
out (in a very small scale. In only isolated cases
lias dairy-farming been extensively followed on
an arable basis, with only a small amount of per-
manent grass ; and we have consequently grown
to regard dairy-farming as being inseparable from
a large proportion of grass land.
This idea, however, though based on the prac-
tice of many generations, is not necessarily the
only one that may be entertained with respect
to dairy-farming. Permanent grass land, as the
leading feature of the farm, is not by any means
essential to successful milk-production in the great
bulk of cases, and in dry climates it is certainly
unfavourable to profitable dairying. While it is
true that some kinds of land in given districts are
more profitable in grass than under the plough,
it is none the less so that other kinds will not pay
either the landowner or the farmer if they are
kept in permanent pasture. It follows, therefore,
that in some districts, and almost everywhere on
light and naturally dry land, dairy-farming will
yield better returns in conjunction with arable
cultivation than it will in any other way.
On farms that have hitherto been given up
mainly to the grow-th of cereals and to sheep, the
changes necessary to dairy-farming are not difficult
to bring about. Nearly all that is required is an
increase of green and a decrease of white crops;
instead of taking two cereal crops in a rotation,
only one must be taken, and its place filled in
with a variety of green crops. On a 300-acre
fami, 200 of which are under the plough, the
rotation suitable to dairy-farming might be as
follows : —
First year, Oats, or other straw crops 40 acres.
Second „ Turnips, mangels, carrots, &c. ... 40 „
Third „ Winter oats in part, rye, or vetches 40 „
Fourth „ Clover, trifolium, lucenie, &o. ... 40 „
Fifth „ Second year's clover, or lucerne ... 40 „
It would always, providing the farmer was not
lionnd under a given order of eropjnng, be a simple
matter so to vary the items in the rotation as to
suit the requirements of the period. A rotation
of this kind, in which the land does not often lie
still more than one clear year, is so pliable that it
may be made to suit almost any pui-pose. More
straw, roots, clover, vetches, or any other crop
may be grown at will ; any one crop may be
dropped wholly or in part to make room for an
increase of another one. The clover, or lucerne,
or rye-grass may lie a second or even a third year
if it is found necessary, and if they are doing
well ; green crops may displace white ones, or the
latter may supplant root crops, and a regular suc-
cession of those crops that are intended for soiling
maj' easily be arranged, and a maximum area of
forage crops may with equal facility be secured.
On this system, wdiere the farmer has freedom
to crop as he likes, dairy-farming may be carried
on with a very small area of permanent pasture,
or, for the matter of that, with none at all ; but if
pasture were wholly dispensed with it woidd of
course be necessary to keep the cows and young
stock wholly in sheds or yards, and feed them
there, cutting and carrying to them all the green
food in spring, summer, and autumn, as well as
the dry food in winter. And it is true that on
this method a larger nimiber of cattle can be
maintained than on any other, because the land,
being constantly under cultivation for the several
crops, produces a maximum supply of food, and
also because the waste of food is reduced to a
minimum. It must be borne in mind, however,
that the labour bill, the outlay in manures and
feeding-stuffs, and the w'ear and tear of horses
and implements will all be much greater on this
plan than on any other ; and as all farming is or
t)ught to be carried on to the profit of the farmer,
it will be necessary to ascertain which system will
admit of the most satisfactory results.
The Soiuxg Svsteii.
The practice of " soiling" dairy-cows, through-
out the spring, summer, and autumn, with one
kind or another of green food, is coming greatly
into favour, especially with those who send off
their milk to some town or city. Some have even
carried the system to the length of keeping the
cows in the sheds all the year round, cutting and
c;irting to them all the green food they eat ; and
there can be no doubt that this system is a money-
making system, provided it is intelligentU' and
thoroughly carried out. But where it is followed,
two-thirds or more of the land is necessarily
under arable cultivation. On this system it is
possible to carry on dairy-farming in a profitable
manner on land which, being of a light and dry
character, and situated in a dry climate, is com-
monly considered most suitable to sheep, roots,
and cereals. Such land will commonly grow good
rotation crops of clover, rye-grass, Trifolium in-
carnafinii, vetches, S:c., all of which are well
TIIK SOILING SYSTEM.
49
adapted to soiliug' ; wliile it will in-oduce, in the
shape of straw and other I'ora<;\>, jjloiity of food
for winter consumption.
There can be no doubt that on lig-ht land
in a dry climate dairying can only be profitably
carried on in conjunction with arable cultivation
and the growth of green crops for soiling. Left
in permanent grass, such land is of very little
value. It can only bs made to pay by keeping it
constantly under the plough, taking many green
crops, and now and then a white one, and
manuring each of them lightly, instead of one
of them heavily and the next not at all; for
light land does not retain manure from one
year to another as heavy land does. It is,
however, doubtful whether such a system of
dairy-farming would be suitable to cheese-making
on English methods. It is well known to English
dairy-farmers that when cows are eating in the
early spring young clovers and grasses on newly-
seeded land, it is very difficult to make sound
cheese from the milk ; and on some kinds of land,
particularly marls, this difficulty is very marked.
In the dairying districts of France the soiling
system is much more extensively practised than
it is in England, and both cheese and butter of
excellent quality are made; but the French make
principally soft cheese, much of which is for early
consumption ; and the English hard cheese differs
so w^dely from the French soft, that a system
of farming suitable to the one would in all
probability not be suitable to the other. But a
great deal depends in all cases on the care and
sj'stem on which the cheese and butter are made,
and on this point we shall have more to say
later on.
Where the soiling system is carried out in
its entirety it is necessary to have a regular
succession of green crops, commencing with the
early spring and continued until winter sets in.
It is important to remember that dairy-cows
when in full milk should have an abundant
supply of succulent food; and on land which is
well adaptetl to the growth of various kinds
of green crops a special effort should be made,
and a regular system laid down, to provide these
crops for consumption from April to November
inclusive, along with a small proportion of dry
food. It is a good system to give the cows
throughout the summer one feed a day of green
and dry food chaffed up togetlier. The drv food
may consist of straw or hay, whichever happens to
be the more plentiful, and the mixture may with
great advantage be improved by an addition of a
moderate quantity of bean, pea, palm-nut, rice,
or maize meal, bran of wheat, malt culms, linseed
or cotton cake ; for these kinds of food will supply
the albuminoids of which, as a perfect ration for
cows in milk, the addition of straw or hay may
have made the mixture more or less deficient.
Lucerne and various other clovers are excellent
soiling crops, and when cut whilst they are in
blossom contain a proper proportion of the different
food-elements required by cows in milk ; but most
other soiling crops, such as rye-grass, green rye,
vetches, green maize, and the like, are more or
less deficient in alb\iminoids, and these elements
should be supplied by one or other of the concen-
trated kinds of food mentioned above.
Ckops
Suitable for Arable Dairy
Husbandry.
For earliest green food in spring, rye is found
to answer very well. Sown in September, on corn
or potato land, it is usually ready to cut for soiling
early in April. As soon as the corn or potatoes
are harvested, the land should be well cultivated,
cleaned and manured, and the seed drilled in at
the rate of 2 bushels per acre ; or, if the land is
clean, they may be broadcasted. One of the best
manurings for rye is soot, at the rate of 100 to
200 bushels per acre; but if soot cannot be readilv
obtained, 10 or 12 tons per acre of good farm-
yard manure, ploughed under when the land has
been cultivated and cleaned, will be found to
produce a good and early crop. It must be borne
in mind that the rye will be ready for cutting
a fortnight earlier if the land is well prejiared and
manured than it will if these matters have been
imperfectly ])erformed or neglected altogether ;
and the secret of early cutting rests in having
the land in high condition. The period dm-ing
which rye is available for soiling is short, as it
becomes too tough before May has far advanced ;
but it may commonly be used until the succeeding
crop is ready to take its place, and as soon as it is
cleared off, the land may be ploughed up at once,
and planted with turnips, cabbages, or some other
green crop, for autumn consumption.
To come into use immediately after the rye
is finished, winter vetches, sown at several times
in September and October, either with or without
50
DAIRY FAimiXG.
a little \vlu>;it <ir winter oats to koop tliem
staiuliiifi', will provide a large amount of food
in May, June, and July. Spring- vetches should
be sown at intervals from the beginning of
March to the middle of May ; and if there
arc two sowings in the autumn and four or
six in the spring, the successive crops will
liridge over the summer, from ISIay to October,
cs])coially if they are assisted in May and Juno
with clover or rye-grass — they will last, in fact,
until turnips and cabbage ai'e available. As
vetches are in the best state for use when the
seeds are beginning to form in the pods, the first
spring sowing may bo so regulated that the crop
will be ready for use when the winter vetches
are cleared off. There necl, however, be no great
amount of anxiety on this point, for clovers and
rye-grasses are available in May and early June.
To secure a good thick -set crop of vetches, 4
bushels of seed per acre should be sown if they
are sown broadcast, but if drilled, .'i or '61 will be
enough; and drilling is the best system, on account
of the facilities it affords of hoeing the lanti so
as to keep down the weeds until the crop is fairly
Gstabliished. A good crop of vetches will com-
pletely smother all the small annual weeds, and
most of the others too ; but with a poor crop the
land is certain to become so foul that it is better
to plough it up at once and put in some other
kind of a cro]). Along with spring vetches it is
a good plan to sow a little rape-seed, say 1 lb. per
acre, in order to keep the vetches standing better
than they would alone. Though rape is an ex-
cellent green food for sheep, it is not much used
for dairy-stock.
I^yp-g™ss and red clover, cither together or
separately, arc commonly sown on a eroj) of corn
in spring, and they come into use the following
spring. They are exceedingly useful for a time
for soiling purposes, say from the beginning of
May until the middle of June, after which it is
nectssary to cut the remainder for winter forage,
because if overgrown they are far less valuable
than they are up to the blossoming period of the
clover. Some farmers advocate sowing rye-grass
early in July on land from which a crop of Tri-
fidhim incarnatum has recently been consumed ;
it is only necessary to surface cultivate the land,
providing it is clean, when it is fit for the rye-
grass seed. 'When sown alone, \\ bushels per
acre is recommended ; when with clover, 1 bushel ;
of clover seed, II lbs. ])er acre along with the rye-
grass will be enough ; if alone, 20 lbs. To gn.w
cither rye-grass or clover successfully the land
must be in good condition, or failing that the
crop must be well manured just before sowing,
or at some convenient period afterwards. A good
dressing of well-made farmyard manure, well
incorporated with the soil, will ensure a good
crop; failing that, the crop may be dressed in
early spring with 2 ewt. of guano per acre, or
a mixture of nitrate of soda, superphosphate of
lime, and gypsum — say 1 ewt. of the fii-st, li cwt.
of the second, and 2 cwt. of the third. These
artificial manures are best sown in damp weather.
Maize is an excellent green crop for soiling ;
it has for years been extensively grown for that
purjjose in America, and it is, in fact, the favourite
green crop in most of the great dairying districts
of that country. It is also grown widely in
France and other continental countries for soil-
ing dairy-cows. It is a plant whose growth is
rapid, and it answers well when sown for succes-
sive crops ; it is, however, deficient in albuminoids,
and though a most valuable crop in itself, it is
greatly improved by cotton-cake, pea or bean meal
being fed along with it. Simple of cultivation,
a large cropper, of rapid growth, and rich in
sugar and other heat-producing elements, maize
ought to become quickly popular in Britain for
soiling purposes or for winter forage. It is suited
to a variety of soils, and when the land is in good
condition and the weather hot enough, will grow
an astonishingly large bulk of food per acre. It
is especially adapted to the production of milk,
increasing the quantity and improving the quality;
while, being tender, sweet, and succulent, it is
much relished by cattle, so long as it is not over-
grown. When the land has been well prei)ared
Ijy cultivation, maize may be planted after the
manner of potatoes, the land well manured, and
the seed scattered pretty thickly in drills 2 feet
apart; this admits of the horse-hoe being used
freely for a time. There need be no hesitation
about sowing a good quantity of it, say an acre
for each six or eight eows, to come into use in
successive half-acre lots, for if there is more than
enough for soiling purposes, it is a simjile matter
to cut and stook the over])lus, after the manner of
oats, and it will be found to make excellent winter
forage.
Turnips arc mure costly and troublesome to
THK SOILING SYSTEM.
51
grow than tlio pveecHlinfy props, nnd are iioj so
well adapted to the produetion of milk, not alone
because they will not produce so much of it, but
also because they give it an unpleasant flavour ; yet
are they useful because they come in when most
of the other green crops ai'e over. Owing to the
attacks of numerous enemies, of which the " fly "
is the most destructive, turnips are a crop on
which no certain dependence can be placed, and
this very uncertainty detracts greatly from their
value. It is estimated that one-sixth of the
turnips sown in these islands are annually de-
stroyed in this manner. One chance of check-
ing such wholesale destruction lies in having the
soil well pulverised and mellowed by winter frosts,
and in manuring it well in the spring, so that the
crop may make rapid progress out of the reach of
its enemies ; and yet this forcing of the crop ii)
its early stages diminishes its subsequent keeping
properties, and it is liable to early decay. The
turnip-fly is said to be driven ofE if the land
has been manured with dung that has been pro-
duced in stables where disinfecting powders are
constantly used ; or by a sprinkling, repeated
now and again while the danger lasts, of paraffin
oil diluted with water over the young j)Iants.
In some districts it is the custom, when the land
is clean, to plough under 10 or IZ tons per acre of
farmyard manure in the autumn, and to give it
a further dressing of 3 cwt. of superjihosphate in
the following spring at sowing-time ; but as farm-
yard manure may generally be applied with greater
advantage to meadow land and to the growth of
soiling crops, it is on the whole better to keep
it for those purposes, and to grow the turnips
with 3 cwt. each of superphosj^hate and dissolved
bones. The thinning-out and repeated hoeings
which turnips require make them an expensive
crop to grow, and when to this is added the uncer-
tainty of the crop, it is no matter for surprise that
they are much, less widely cultivated than they
were a few years ago.
Turnips and swedes alike are grown to the
greatest advantage in a cool, moist climate, and
on rather light, friable Ljams. Swedes are very
useful for pulping purposes in the early winter
months, because they keep sound longer than
turnips ; while mangels, which grow best on a
strong, deep soil, and in a hotter climate than
turnips or swedes, are most useful in the early
months of the year, because they keep sound
10
longer than either of the other roots, and also
because they improve in quality by keejiing until
February or March. The cultivation, manuring,
and general treatment are much the same with
all of them.
In some localities kohl-rabi has of late years
attained a certain amount of popularity. It has
been found a good substitute for swedes where the
latter have failed. The chief advantages of this
root over others are that it is comparatively free
from the attacks of insects and game, and does not
siiffer like them from drought and mildew. The
cultivation of kohl-rabi is similar to that of swedes,
though, being of slower growth, it requires a
month's earlier sowing.
Of all crops cultivated for late autumn con-
sumption, cabbage is without doubt the most
valuable in all respects. Under generous treat-
ment it will produce heavier crops than any other
kind of green food, while its adaptability to the
produetion of milk is of a very high order. It does
not impart, as turnips do, unpleasant flavour to
milk, its feeding piroj^erties are much superior to
theirs, and withal it is a healthy and most valuable
article of food for dairy-stock. The seed is usually
sown in the autumn on well-jirepared beds, the
plants are moved later on into other beds, and in
the spring are finally transplanted out in the fields.
The soils best suited to them are deep, rich, friable
loams; but if the land is well manured and
properly prepared, they will grow successfidly in
almost any soil. It is best, generally speaking,
to ridge the land, as if for potatoes, and after
putting in 12 or 15 tons of well-rotted farm-
yard dung per acre, along with 2 cwt. of nitrate
of soda, or 3 cwt. of Peruvian guano, the ridges
should be re-sjilit, and the caljbage plants "pricked
in ■" about two feet apart. The horse-hoe should
afterwards be used once or twice between the rows,
and the soil "earthed up" again with the ridge-
plough.
The lupin is well known in England as a
large and handsome flowering plant for the garden
or shrubbery, but though it is extensively cul-
tivated, both for its seed and as a forage plant, in
Northern Germany, it has not at present gained
much popularity amongst the farmers of Britain.
The plant itself, if cut young enough, makes
excellent hay, while the seeds are found to be very
superior food for fattening sheep, as well as for
ewes and lambs. It is said to grow fairly well on
52
DATEY FARMING.
laud dial is too poor to grow even middling crops
of anything else; striking its roots deeply down
into the subsoil, it procures more or less of hard-
earned nourishment that is out of the reach of
other crops, and it is consequently, being perennial,
well suited to occupy poor, sandy, or chalky soils,
which do not pay to cultivate under any regular
system. It needs first of all a soil which ha6
depth enough, and though it may be more pro-
ductive than anything else in a comparatively
barren soil, it will of course do still better in a
fairly good soil. Any way, it would seem to
possess merit enough to recommend it to a fair
trial on certain kinds of soil. As to the seeds,
the following analysis will show that they possess
a hiarh order of merit as food for stock : —
Water
Flesh-formers
Fat-formers
■Woody fibrd
Mineral matter
14-15
33-3G
32-37
11-12
3-04
The lupin will be found represented in the
coloured plate containing clovers and other legu-
minous plants.
Prickly comfrey {S?/mji/ii/fiim asperrininm) has
in recent years attracted considerable notice as a
forage plant ; but though many farmers have tried
it on a limited scale, it does not at present appear
to be gaining ground as one of the aclcaowledged
crops of the farm. Providing only that animals
would eat it freely, it might and would, after
a time, come into extensive cultivation, but we
not uncommonly hear the objection urged against
it that they will not ; this objection, if sustained,
is of course fatal to its popularity. The plant,
however, is said to possess such uncommon mei-its
that it deserves to be much more widely tried
before it is discarded. It is said to be " especially
adapted for the feeding and fattening of stock,
and for increasing the milk of cows; it grows
more rapidly and luxui-iantly than any other green
soiling plant, producing in a given space a far
greater quantity of forage. Being a deeply-rooted
plant, it is independent of weather or climate,
and in the hottest seasons it will afford several
heavy cuttings, when all other vegetation is either
burned up or at a standstill. It comes in earlier
than other crops, and lasts longer, continuing to
affoi-d forage until it is cut down by severe
frosts. Comfrey culture is simjjle and not costly.
The ground is either forked or ploughed 0 or
S inches deep, and well manured. The crowns, or
root cuttings, are then planted like potato sets,
3 feet apart. The plant, when dried into hay,
makes a good food for horses, cattle, sheep, and
pigs. When once the plant is established, no
further expense is needed. It may be cut several
times during the growing season, and will jaeld
80 to 120 tons of green food to the acre." This is
certainly magnificent testimony, but, so far as our
own observation goes, it is not borne out. We
have it in two or three plots in the botanical
gardens of the Royal Agricultural College at
Cirencester, and it has been used as food for
horses; yet not only are the horses averse to it,
but it is not by any means an extraoixlinarily
heavy cropper; still the land there is light, dry,
and generally inferior, and under more favourable
conditions the plant would, no doulit, do verj^ much
better; but we feel bound to express our unqualified
disbelief in the statement that it will produce " 80
to 120 tons ■" per annum of green food to the acre.
It is said to be a native of the Caucasus, and,
according to Loudon, was first introduced into
England in 1799; but its reputation as a forage
plant is quite recent. Dr. Voelcker says of it : —
" In its fresh state, comfrey contains still more
water than white mustard; but, notwithstanding
this large proportion of water, the amount of flesh-
forming substances is considerable. The jtiice of
this plant contains much gum and mucilage, and
but little sugar." A representation of it will be
found in the chapter on forage plants.
Lucerne {3ledicii//o safira) is already, and
most worthily, popular in some parts of Britain,
and we venture to predict that its poptilarity will
increase. In the Western States of America,
particularly in California, it is held in very high
estimation, and under the name of alfalfa it is
very extensively cultivated both for soiling pur-
poses and for winter forage. A practical Califor-
nian dairy-farmer writes of it in the following
terms : — " We speak our own experience, which
has been considerable, and the experience of every
dairyman in the northern half of the State, when
we say that alfalfa is the best butter and cheese
making plant we have ever fed cows upon, either
in the summer or winter, cither as grazing or
hay. Indeed, it is the general testimony of
dairymen who pasture cows on the native grasses
and on alfalfa, that when pasturing on alfalfa the
milk and butter are at least 20 per cent, greater,
THE USE OF STRAW.
53
and imuli riclier ami tiuer, than wlien pasturiiio^ on
native grasses." Lucerne, being one o£ the many
kinds of clover, requires the same sort of general
treatment as the others doj like them, it does
best in a deep soil into which its roots pene-
trate deeply, and though it prefers a soil that is
not very dry, it likes a warm climate. Under
favourable conditions it is said to produce 30 to
40 tons of green food, or 5 to 6 tons of hay, per
acre per annum, in three or four cuttings. This
plant will be found in the same plate which con-
tains the lupin.
The Right Use of Straw.
Tlie remaining crops grown on a dairy-farm
where soiling is practised will be wheat, oats, or
barley, as the case may be ; a portion of the land
will be in permanent pasture for the use of young
stock, and the remainder in meadow. While
meadow hay is nest to indispensable in winter-
time, all the straw of the cereal crops will be
turned to good account by being chaffed and
mixed ■with pulped roots or brewers' grains, and
brought up to a high standard of quality by the
addition of various kinds of purchased feeding-
stuffs, the selection of which \vill be partly
governed by the state of the markets. In many
cases, however, csiieclally where the farmer has no
conveniences for chaffing his straw, and where the
straw is very good in quality, well harvested, and
not overgrown, it is expedient to feed the straw
to the cattle without chaffing it ; and where it is
given this way, it is found to be enhanced in value
by setting the " battens " or sheaves on end out
in the stack-yard a few days before it is eaten,
and either pouring water over it or allowing the
rain, if any, to soak it; the soaking softens the
fibre of the straw, prepares it for the stomach,
makes it easier of digestion as well as of mas-
tication, and the cattle relish it better, eat it ujj
cleaner, and there is less waste. Tliis may appear
too simple an expedient to be valualjle ; but try it
— we can recommend it. If there is any good
in "steaming" such food, it is just the same
good, done in a different way, which the straw
derives from the soaking with water out in the
rick-yard.
The same principle is involved, done in yet
again a different way, and along with certain
other improvements, in the system of prej)aring
straw-chaff described as follows by Mr. Samuel
Jonas, in the Joitnial of the Royal Agricultural
Society, vol. vi., 1870 : —
"I use a 12-horse-power engine by Hornsby,
which enables me (when used ou home premises)
to thrash, dress, and sack the corn ready for market,
and cut the straw into chaff. I use one of
Maynard's powerful chaff-cutters, which sifts and
puts the chaff into bags, ready for being carried
into the chaff-house. The straw, when delivered
from the thrashing-machine, is carried by rollers
to the height of 9 feet ; it then comes down an
inclined plane. Three men get in the straw, and
hand it to the chaff-ciitter ; it is then cut, and
carried into the chaff -barn and well trodden down,
mixing about a bushel of salt to every ton, and
also a certain quantity of green-stuff. Tares or
rye, cut green into chaff, are sown by the hand as
the chaff is brought in. This causes it to heat,
and adding the amount of green-stuff required
to give it a jn-oper heat is the secret of the suc-
cessful operation of storing chaff.
" Respecting the quantity of green-chaff to
be mixed with the straw-chaff to cause a proj)er
fermentation : I use about 1 ewt. to the ton of
straw-chaff, and 1 bushel of salt (56 lbs.) to the
ton of chaff. But some judgment is required as
to the state of the green-stuff. If it is green rye
on the ear, a full cwt. is required ; if very green
tares, a rather less quantity will do, as the degree
of fermentation depends upon the quantity of sap
contained in it. This is done in spring and
summer — the chaff is not used till October and
the winter months. I can thus thrash and dress
the corn crops, and cut the straw into chaff, in one
process, the expense of cutting and storing the same
being about Is. per acre; the principal additional
expense is for about 4 ewts. of coal per day, and
we thrash and cut from 8 to 10 acres per day."
This extremely simple, inexpensive, and in all
respects excellent plan of dealing with straw for
feeding purposes recommends itself to farmers
throughout the length and breadth of the land
as one of sterling practical value, and it is to be
hoped the system will obtain a wide-spread popu-
larity. The straw annually wasted in these islands,
in one way or anotlier, would keep thousands of
dairy-cattle through the winter; and there is a
still larger quantity which, though not absolutely
wasted, is "next door to it." Vast quantities
of straw which, prepared on Mr. Jonas's simple
plan, would make valuable food, are now trodden
54
DAIRY FAHMIN(J.
down into manui'e as expeditiously as pussiblc,
as if that was the first object for which straw-
is cultivated and the best use to which it can Ije
put. This, however, cannot ho lielped at present,
because most farmere are forbidden to sell their
straw, and on many arable farms there is not half
enough stock kept to consume it, unless treading
it down into manure can be called consuming it.
It is easy to understand why, half a century ago,
they should be forbidden to sell it, for at that
jieriod they had no chance of restoring its value to
the farm in the form of purchased manures. But
a different state of things rules in the present
day, and the restriction has now become both
useless and injurious. Numbers of dairy-farmers
would be rescued from serious and frequent embar-
rassment in the management of their stock if they
could buy good straw at a moderate price, for it is
a simple thing to improve it so that it will answer
admirably for the winter-feed of cattle. It may
be hoped that these useless and absurd restrictions
will shortly disappear, as they are already doing
\inder the more enlightened landlords.
The following analyses by Dr. A'^oelcker show
the composition of ordinary meadow hay, Mr.
Jonas's fermented straw-chaff, and of ordinary
wheat-straw chaff respectively. Tabulated side by
side, the reader can see at a glance the great
improvement produced by the fermenting process,
and also the difference which yet remains between
the fermented chaff and meadow hay : —
COMrOSITIOHS OF
Ordinary
Meadow
Hay.
Fermented
aud i>repared
Straw- chaff.
Wheat-
Straw chaff.
Moisture
Oil and fatty matters
•Albuiniuous compounds )
(flesh-forming matters) j
Sugar, gum, and other j
soluble organic com- [
pounds )
Digestible fibre
Indigestible woody fibre j
(cellulose) ... \
Mineral matter (ash)
14-61
2-56
8-44
41-07
27-10
G-16
7-76
1-GO
4-19
10-16
35-74
34-54
601
13-33
1-74
2-93
4 "20
19-4U
54-13
4-21
100-00
100 00
100-00
• Containing nitrogen
1-35
•67
•47
In respect <>f these anal^'ses. Dr. "\''oclckev
remarks: — (1) The prepared wheat-chaff is one-
fourth richer than the unprepared in materials
which produce the substance of the lean fibre of
meat, or of muscle; (2) the percentage of sugar,
gum, &c. amounts to nearly two and a half the
quantity which occurs in good unprepared wheat-
chaff ; (;3) the treatment rendered soluble 50 "85 per
cent, of the vegetable fibre of the fermented chaff,
whilst the soluble portion of vegetable fibre does
not amount to more than '26^38 per cent.; (l) the
fermentation has the effect of rendering the hard
and dry substance, which constitutes tlie bulk of
straw, more soluble and digestible than it is in
its natural condition; (5) the prepared straw-chalf
has all the agreeable smell which characterises good
green meadow hay, and a hot infusion with water
produces a liquid which can hardly be distinguished
from hay-tea; and (6) about 2 cwts. of decor-
ticated cotton-cake ground into meal and added
to 1 ton of fermented straw-chaff constitutes a
mixture which agrees closely in composition with
good meadow hay.
No definite rules can be laid down as to the
quantity of food which dairy-cows should receive
— this will depend entirely on the capacity of each
cow individually; but it must be borne in mind
that it is an imwise policy to over-feed them.
They should receive just what they will eat up
cleanly ; more or less than this will be detrimental
not only to the condition of the animals, but also
to the quantity and quality of milk they give.
The feeding of stock both requires and rewards
careful and intelligent attention. Over-feeding is
not only a waste of food, but is injurious to the
cattle. Indiscriminate and lavish feeding will
keep the cattle poor. During the time a cow is
in calf aud in milk, and especially toward the end
of the period of gestation, she will require an
increased proportion of albuminoids or nitrogenous
food, and a smaller one of carbonaceous, than if she
is neither in milk nor in calf — if she is merely
growing or fattening.
The question of feeding cattle on sound prin-
ciples is one that needs to be studied more than
it has been by practical farmers, and we are glad
to see that this is coming to be the case in many
parts of the country.
CHAPTER V.
Milking, Calving, and Calf-Hkaiuxg.
Times and Places for Milking— Number of Meals per Day— Milking-Pails -Sore Teats— Milking-Machines— Hard Jlilking and its
Cm-e -Rearing of Calves— Necessary to the Dairy-Farmer— Time of Calving— The Teat or the Pail— Improved Feeding-Pail
—Early Feeding— Condimental Food— Killing Calves-Later Treatment of Stock Calves— Preven-
'^ tion of Black-leg, or Quarter-evil- Early Maturity— Anti-sucking Devices.
wm
ODERN exigencies have
very much upset mauy
old - fashioned methods ;
and milking has shared
in the chan<>:e which seems
^\0: J to have passed over all
tilings : the hour — five in
the morning and five in the evening
— which used to be pretty uniform
throughout the country, is now varied
in different places to meet the needs
of the milk trade. A given train has
and the station is two or three miles
milker therefore often sits down to
his cow in the morning wliile the cold stars are
still seen in the sky. Punching his hat well into
her flank — a hat well covered with hairs, much
battered and shiny with grease from the skin of the
cow, and w^hich is kept for this one use, and lasts
through mauy years — he tugs away lustily with
hands and arms aud shoulders, first ou the fore
teats and then ou the hind, the hands working
alternately because it is easier so.
Out of doors the milker is exposed to all sorts
of weather. Storms of wind and rain contrive to
be at their worst when tlie milking is half done.
Very soon the soil is soaked with rain, in a day or
two it is mud, and it sucks at one's boots. The
three-legged stool, whose rade surface is roughly
polished by use, sinks deeper and deeper into the
mire. The gates, and the trees, and the old rails
in the fence are dripping with wet, and the air is
a vapour. The rain runs in streams from the back
of the cow and pours ou the arms and thighs of
the milker, while the wind blows Ijig drops into
the nape of his neek. But in fine weather, when
the cows are contented, out-door milking is not the
least pleasant of the farmer's duties.
After considerable exjxn-ieiice witli both ways,
we are strongly in favour of having the cows
brought into the sheds and tied for milking, rather
than of milking them out of doors in a corner of
the field, and especially so if the corner is not
railed ofE from the rest. On some inconvenient
farms, however, the pastures are so far away
from the buildings that it would be a mistake
to bring the cows to the sheds to be milked,
for the more exercise of this kind dairy-cows are
compelled to take, tlie less milk they -will give.
In cases of this sort it is a necessary evil to milk
out of doors. It is necessary because it is an
unsound policy to bring the cows home from a
distance, aud it is an evil because the milkeVs
themselves lose a great deal of time in going to
and from the milking field. The cows are, espe-
cially in hot weather, much more restless out of
doors than in, and it is consequently not only more
troublesome, but more annojang to milk them so.
Wherever the pastures are within easy reach of
the buildings, it will be found more satisfactory
in all respects to milk the cows iu their stalls.
In winter more particularly, but at any other
period if the cows are kept in-doors and fed there,
it is well before the milking commences for some
person to go round with a brush or a coarse cloth
in his hand and rub off from the cows' udders all
the loose dirt and dust, iu order to keep the milk
clean, and iu some cases it may be found necessary
to wash the udders and teats ; and it is no less
expetlient that those who are to do the milking
5fi
DAIRY FARMING.
should first wash their hands, and should never
have long finger-nails, or the cows will have
sore teats. Really good and careful milkers are
scarce and valuable, and cows will soon fall off
in flow of milk under the hands of poor milkers.
More frequently than people imagine, especially
in the hot weather, milk has been injured by
milkers' luiclean hands and by cows' unclean
udders at milking- time ; and we have seen
milkers, with the false idea of milking easier,
dip their dirty fingers into the milk in the pail,
and then go on milking, the drops of dirty milk
oozing out between the fingers and returning to
the pail from which they were taken. Where
this is done, the cheese and butter will suffer in
quality more than those who do it are in the
habit of thinking. I\Iilk is a peculiar product,
and exceedingly susceptible of injury from dirt
of any kind and from impure odours; and if it
is not iaken proper care of it soon goes sour in
hot weather, its natural tendency to decay being
always j)romoted by the presence of impurities.
Twice a day, generally speaking, is often enough
to milk a cow, but for a few days after she has
calved — and afterwards if she is a deep milker
— it is a good thing to milk her thrice a day.
Some people say that each cow should, if possible,
be always milked by the same person, as all
cows will not let down their milk to strangers.
Now this, in our opinion, is the very way to
train cows not to let down their milk to strangers,
and when the person who has been in the habit
of milking them happens to be away, the result is
that some of them are milked with great difficulty
by strangers. A better plan is to accustom every
cow from the first to be milked by any one to
whose turn she happens to fall.
Milking should always be done quietly, regu-
larly, and thoroughly, though at the same time
quickly. It should be done quietly, without any
scolding or beating of the cow — some cows, though,
are very provoking— and with as little talking and
noise as possible, for some cows will hold their milk
if they are scolded. It should be done regularly,
for cows give their milk more freely, and they
soon learn regularity themselves, if they are treated
with regularity and system. It should be done
thoroughly, getting out every drop when "after-
ing," because a cow will soon fail in her flow of
milk if she is not milked clean each time ; and
it should be done quickly, for cows appreciate
despatch, providing you do not hurt them, and
because a good milker is almost invariably a quick
milker. Undue nervous excitement not only
lessens the quantity but lowers the quality of the
milk. Cows are essentially creatures of habit ;
they soon learn to come toward the sheds at milk-
ing-time, grazing homewards, and sooner still
they learn their own places in the sheds ; they
soon also acquire the habit of letting down their
milk at regular times, and it is therefore de-
cidedly necessary to always milk them in the
same order in the sheds, beginning so that each
successive cow can be sat down to without dis-
turbing the previous one — that is, begin first
with the cow whose left or near side is next to
the wall at the end of the shed, and they will
all very quickly learn to expect being milked
in order as they stand. This milking in order
is one of the advantages of shed milking, for
if the cows are milked out of doors, standing
loosely about, it commonly follows that all the
easy ones are milked first, but not in order, each
milker aiming to get hold of the easiest cow he
can find ; but in sheds the cows must be taken
in order as they stand, and so each milker gets
his share of the " hard " ones.
Some farmers tie together the hind-legs of each
cow, in order to prevent her kicking the pail over
while she is being milked. With many cows this
is absolutely necessary, and we are inclined to
think it is a good system to adopt, for now and
then a most respectable sort of a cow, when any-
thing hurts her, and sometimes when it does not —
a cow whose general conduct is above reproach —
will lift up her foot suddenly and overturn the
pail in the twinkling of an eye, not that she
intends at the time to be vicious, but it is a way
cows have. It is a most unpleasant and startling
thing for one to have his pail of milk knocked
over when he is milking, and this is oftenest done
by cows whose character is good, and with whom
he is not so much on his guard as he is with one
whose morals are shaky; hence we think it a good
system to tie all cows' legs at milkiug-time, as
the milkmaids do in Ireland.
Whether cows ought or ought not to be milked
oftener than twice a day is essentially a matter
in which circumstances alter cases ; but the fol-
lowing propositions may be accepted as being
fairly established : — 1. As a general rule, milking
three times a day influences the secretion of milk,
MILKINCx PAILS.
57
so f;ir as its quantity is cdiifpi-ned, nioro favouvalily
than twice miliiing'. ^. Under certain circuin-
stanees, in the case of cows that are hirge milk-
f^ivers and are highly fed, and are yet in the early
period of lactation, milking three times a day may
be absolutely necessary for their health, especially
with a view to the prevention of diseases of the
udder. 3. The shorter the time that has elapsed
since the last milking, the richer and fatter is
the milk ; so that in milking thrice a day a milk
richer in dry substances is obtained than is given
on the twice-a-day system. On the other hand,
the following points require to be taken into con-
sideration : — 1. Milking three times a day neces-
sitates a greater demand on the strength of the
jiropcrly and an improperly constructed mdking-
l)ail, so far as the milker's comfort is concerned.
Decj), narrow cans are not only difficult to hold
between the knees, but they are generally awkward
and uncomfortable. Milking-i^ails slioidd always
be narrower in the bottom than at the top, as in
Fig. 10. Some people still prefer wooden pails
to milk in, but they are objectionable chiefly on
account of the greater difficulty of keeping them
sweet and clean. In Fig. 11 we give an illustration
of one of these pails, to which is attached a pair of
ears which, resting on the milker's knees, are very
useful in sustaining the pail between the knees.
In Fig. I'Z we give an illustration of a newly-
invented milking-pail, for which se\'erai advantages
Fig. 11
10.
Milk-Pails.
cows. Only where this is compensated by a cor-
responding amount of nourishment can milking
three times a day be of lasting advantage. The
better the cows are fed, the more likely is thrice-
a-day milking to be more profitable than twiee-a-
day milking. 2. The better milk-giver a cow
is, and the less she is advanced in lactation, the
greater is the advantage of the thrice-a-day over
the twiee-a-day system. 3. On the thrice-a-day
system the greater amount of labour requii-ed
in it must be taken into consideration, a factor
in the calculation which becomes of no little im-
portance when the pasture grounds of the cows are
at any considerable distance from the dairy.
Milking-Pails.
Every one who has been accustomed to milking
is well aware what a difference there is between a
are claimed — viz., the scat and pail are combined in
onej the cow cannot kick over or put her foot
into the pail ; the milk is kept free from hairs and
dirt by the strainer inside the funnel ; and the
impure atmosphere of the cow-shed comes as little
as possible in contact with the milk. We cannot
speak practically about this pail, never having tried
it, but we think the former two advantages are
practical ones, whatever the latter two may be.
At some periods of the year, oftenest in the
autumn, cows' teats are apt to crack and become
sore. A little fresh lard, applied at milking-time
and well worked into the skin of the teat during
the operation of milking, will generally cure the
sores with three or four dressings, and it cer-
tainly makes the milking much less painful to
the cow, whether it cures the sores or not;
but where the lard fails to cure^ a little well-
58
DAIHY FAinrTxr;.
u
Fijj. IX -JI11.K
Sypiimx.
prepared siilve slimild lio used. A fow will
now and again have a teat badly cut, or
scratched, or torn by accident, and sometimes
a sore ■\\'ill come which re-opens every time
she is milked, and which for a time defies all
attempts made to heal it. These injuries cause
s^reat pain to a cow when she is being milke<l by
hand ; and to avoid giving this pain, as well as to
give the sore a good chance of healing, it is a
good thing for a dairy-farmer to keep
always in his possession, locked up
in a place whore it can at any time
l)e found, a silvi-r " syphon," or
" milkiug-tubc." The sore teat should
be milked with this whilst the sore
remains, and the tube should be care-
fully smeared with fresh lard before
using, in order that it may bo easily
inserted into the teat, and it should
be carefully cleaned each time after using, in order
to prevent clogging up with coagidatcd milk.
Milkixg-Machixes.
It is estimated that 200,000 persons are re-
quired to milk the cows in England alone, so it is
easy to understand that an incalculable amount of
time and labour is expended in milking cows by
hand, and it is hardly too much to say that milk-
ing is the great bugbear of dairy-farms. It is far
from being easy work ; it comes round twice a day
with monotonous regularity, and it must be done,
whatever else is left undone. Dairy-farmers feel
the strain, and servants dislike the task of milking.
A great number of attempts have been made to
produce a thoroughly satisfactory milking-machine.
There are many different machines in this country,
and more in America, for which patents have been
taken out, and it is to be hoped that one will
before long be produced which shall embody the
necessary qualifications of simplicity, effective-
ness, rapidity in working, and harmlessness to the
cows' teats ; such a machine would be a great
boon to dairy-farmers. The Royal Agricultural
Society of England, alive to the importance of
this matter, offered a special prize of £50 for
an cfl[icient and satisfactory milking-machine at
the Bristol Show in July, 1878 ; but as no
machines were entered for competition, it is ])lain
that no inventor had then produced one which
he deemed likely to be successful. This is, how-
ever, essentially an age of meclianical inventions.
and \vi' feel confident of the ultimate production of
such a machine. Attempts have been made in
the direction of imitating the manner of a calf
sucking, by means of india-rubber sockets which
enclose the teat, and, by forming a vacuum inside
the sockets, a partial success has been achieved.
AVe think this is the right direction, and that
l)erseverance in it will be eventually successful ;
but a great difRculty lies in the diversity in the
size and position of cow's teats, and in the ap-
plication of the motive power. But the bulk of
the "cow-milkers" hitherto invented are on the
syphon principle — that is, tubes of one pattern
or another are inserted into the cows' teats, and
as these tubes have holes near the u]>per end,
the milk simply runs out by the force of its own
gravity. These various machines resemble each
other .so much, and' are so closely identical in
principle, that we need only mention one of them,
described as a "new self-acting cow-milker," l)y
way of illustration. It consists of four metal tubes,
n, a, a, a (see Fig. IJ), two inches long, attached
Fi''. 14.— Cow'-Mii.KF.R.
JIn.KER IJJ ISE.
to india-rubber tubes,, i, I, I, b, seven inches long,
which are fastened together at the lower end,
and which conduct the milk into the pail. The
contrivance is effective enough so far as milking
the cow goes, but the objection to passing tubes
into a cow's teats every time she is milked is a
serious one. The internal mechanism, if we may
so term it, of a cow's teat is of a most delicate
description, and is easily deranged by the intro-
duction of foreign substances. At the lower end
of the teat is an aperture closed by an elastic
band, which prevents the emission of milk, except
under pressure ; farther u]) is a cavity enlarged
in the middle, and .at the to]) of it a diaphragm,
which separates the cavity in the teat fnmi a larger
Tin: REARING OF CATA'KS.
59
piivitv ;iljnvi' it, and a lioli' in tlie diaphragm aljout
the size of a pi^a ; tho upper cavity serves as a
reservoir for holding milk, and the diaphragm
at tho base of it ])reveuts an undue pressure of
milk in the teat when the udder is full. Tubes
inserted into cows' teats arc, unless inserted with
great care, apt to produce inflammation. We have
known at all events one cow, a valuable heifer,
killed in this way; and if the tubes do no other
harm, a comijlaiut is lodged against them to the
effect that they permanently distend or otherwise
derange the opening into the teat, so that the
milk runs out of its own accord and is lost. Fig. 15
is a representation of the milker in ojieration.
We have heard both favourable and unfavourable
opinions given as to its utility ; and though we
should not venture to recommend its indiscrimi-
nate use, we consider every farmer should possess
one, if only to milk very " hard " cows a few times
with it. The teats of such cows would be all the
better for being distended a little.
It is recommended to milk a few drops from
each teat before using the cow-milker, then insert
the tubes (not exceeding an inch), when the milk
will flow freely. No difficult)^ will be experienced
whatever if the oiJerator, in the first instance,
take the precaution of seeing the hole in the teat
before inserting the tube. The apparatus should
not be allowed to remain in the teats after the
milk has ceased to flow, or air will find its way
into the udder.
Some cows are extremely " hard " to milk, and
are consequently seldom milked " clean ;" this is
sure to cause the flow of milk to diminish, for
if any milk is left in, the udder becomes more
or less inflamed, and the milk falls off in quantity.
The hardness in milking is
caused by the hole in the
end of the teat being too
small ; it may be distended
by the insertion of a small
l^lug or cone of ivory, bone,
Ol hard wood, well oiled,
when the milking is over,
and leaving it in the teat
until the next milking-time,
after which it must be re-
inserted each time until the
cow becomes easy to milk. The cone should be
made as seen in Fig. 16, with a head at the lower
end, then a neck, after which it is sloped to a
11
Fig. 16.— IvoKY Cone.
point. W made 1 hi> right size, no harm will
come of its use, and in a short time the orifice
in the teat will become i)ermanently enlarged,
and the cow will no longer be difficult to milk.
The Rearing of Calves.
It may be laid down as a first proposition that
a dairy-farmer should raise at least as many heifer-
calves as are required to fill up the vacancies
which occur year by year in his herd of dairy-
cows, and it is all the better if he has a few more
than he wants for that purpose. Some people
contend that three-year-old in-calf heifers can be
bought for less money than they can be raised
for, counting in the risk ; this, however, depends
entirely on the facilities a man has for keeping
young cattle so as not to interfere with his milk
pastures. On all mixed farms it is commonly
a simple matter enough to summer and winter
young cattle so cheaply that it is better to raise
them than to buy others for the dairy-herd, and
many farmers find it to their advantage to raise
them for sale when " on note," or to fatten for the
butcher. Judiciously carried out, rearing pays
very well, and heifers raised on the farm are
commonly found more suitable to it in after-life
as milkers than others that are raised elsewhere
and purchased; besides which, it is more than
proljaljle that rearing will always pay well in
the British Islands, providing only that the stock
is of good quality, for the demand for milk in
our towns and cities is sure to go on increasing,
and there will always be a brisk demand for store
stock of good quality for grazing purposes. A
careful breeder can but seldom buy dairy-stock
that will suit him as well as those of his own
rearing; those he buys may, perhaps, be as well
bred as his own are in every respect, but if they
are only as well and no better bred, they will
scarcely ever do as well in the milk-pail as those
that have been reared on the farm.
There should always be one or two loose boxes
available into which cows may be taken if any-
thing is wrong at calving- time ; but, generally
speaking, they need not be taken away from
their stalls at this period. There is a good deal
of lAilanthropy wasted on this point by some
people, for a cow will be more composed and
tranquil in her own stall than in a loose box to
which she is strange. It is a mistake to huny
cows over their calving. Give them time,
GO
DAIRY FAEMING.
supplement tbe efforts of nature, not supersede
them altogether, and iinmeiliately they have ealved
give each cow about two quarts of cold loaler ; it
takes away tlie sickly feeling better than chilled
water does, and it does the cow no harm whatever.
Afterwards it is a good thing to give them linseed
and flour gruel for a few days; it strengthens the
cow and promotes the flow of milk. We have
tried this system for years, always with the most
satisfactory results.
It does not follow that a eow need be in very
good condition herself in order to produce a strong
and healthy calf ; rather the contrary. A cow will
often be rather lean at calving-time, if she has
been indifferently fed, and yet produce a sur-
prisingly good calf ; the calf is the explanation, in
part, of her leanness, and if she had been better
fed she would not only have produced a still better
calf, but would have been in a more profitable
and satisfactory condition herself. On the other
hand, it is not uncommon for a eow in very high
condition to either produce a small and delicate
calf, or to go barren altogether.
Many farmers like to have a given number of
their best cows calving rather early, so that they may
have their number of rearing calves in forward con-
dition before cheese-making gets into full swing.
There is, indeed, no real but only a fanciful reason
why calves that are dropped in April should not
be as well reared as those that are dropped in
February. But the reason commonly assigned is
this — as soon as cheese-making has fairly begun,
the calves are begrudged the milk which is freely
enough given to them before it commences. And
yet milk applied to cheese-making is not by any
means so essentially the most profitable use to
which it can be devoted that the later calves
should be unduly deprived of it on that account.
This is a point on which a little reflection will
dispel much of the prejudice that exists; and it
must be borne in mind that calves will thrive
faster in May than in March on a given allow-
ance of milk, simply because the weather conditions
are then more favourable. It is, however, an
advantage to have the calves so far advanced
that when grass-day arrives they are fit to be
turned out on the pastures in good form, and this
they hardly can be unless they are drojiped pretty
early.
Perhaps the most ])o(ent argument in favour
of giving calves as go,,,! a slart as possible iu
life lies in the fact that at no subsequent period
do they grow so rapidly on a given quantity and
quality of food. Moreover, if they are well
started they nevei-, as a rule, except from accidental
causes, suffer a check in their progress to maturit}'.
In anj' case, no matter when they are bora, it
is " a pennj' wise and ))Ound foolish " policy not
to rear them very well — always avoiding jiamper-
ing them, mind. Except when rearing pedigree
stock, or in ease of late calving, it is seldom a
good plan to allow the calves to suck at all from
their mothers, because it makes the cows and
calves alike unsettled ; and, once acquired, a
calf seldom forgets the habit of sucking, but in
after-life will commonly begin to suck the other
cows of the hei-d, or even to suck herself, which
is most objectionable. And yet there are com-
plaints sometimes of young calves dying from
an excess of coagulated milk forming in a mass
in the stomach when they are fed from the pail —
a misfortune which is said never to occur when
they obtain their sustenance in the manner which
nature so beautifully teaches. The complaint
is certainly not without foundation in fact, for
calves are apt to drink too greedily from a pail,
in which case a due proportion of the saliva of the
mouth is not mixed with the milk. One of the
digestive agents is thus deficient in quantity iu
the stomach ; hence the formation of masses of
casein, which are simjjly evidences of imperfect
digestion. This, to a great extent, if not wholly,
may be obviated by allowing the calves, during
the first week or two, to have only a small quantity
of food at a time — a regimen which nature dictates
to the instinct of the liow — and they should have
that little often.
At the same time we think it is well in some
cases, especially when the udder is " hogged," to
allow a stirk or a heifer to suckle her first calf
for a week or two, even at the risk of making
her unsettled when the calf is taken away, for
she comes to milk freely in a shorter time, and
there is less risk of spoiling her temper. Yet
we should not advise this to be followed as a
regular practice with stirks and heifers. It must,
however, be always remembered that a calf will
as a rule do better when sucking from its mother
than when it is brought up by hand, and it will
in the former case seldom take any harm at all
even in bad weather, while in the latter it needs
f(i be most carefully sheltered.
Till-: REARING OF CALVKS.
61
il^ 17 — rEF[lIN( TWI
The t'eodiiig-pail, (if which we give an illus-
tratiou (I'ig'- ^^), wiif^ invented .several years ago,
and it is claimed for it
that, by causing' the calf
to suck the milk through
the India- rubber tube
shown in the engraving-,
nature^s process is closely
cdpied, and the calf can-
not gulp down its food,
as it too commonly does
when drinking from a pail;
the saliva of the mouth
mixes freely with the milk,
and an improved digestion is the result ; it ob-
viates the necessity of teaching the calf to
drink by putting one's linger into its mouth ;
and as the pail stands on a broatl base and cannot
easily be knocked over, one person can tend a
number of calves whilst they are being fed, and
none of the food is wasted. We have used these
feeding-pails, and although they recpiire more
cleaning than ordinary pails, we consider they are
a useful invention.
Young calves that are intended for dairy-cows
eventually should always ho. allowed to receive
a sufficient quantity of new ipilk for the first
three or four weeks ; after this period skim-milk
may be fed to them, but it must be improved by
ground linseed, with ground wheat or oatmeal
added. And these additions to the skim-milk
should always be boiled or steamed, and not given
raw to the calves — not so much that they may
possiljly do harm in the raw state as that they
are made more effective and are more easily
digested by having been cooked; and the food,
when it is given to the calf, should be at a
temperature of 95" to 98", which is the tem-
jierature of the milk in a cow's udder. If the
prepared food is higher or lower than this, it
is so far a deviation from nature's rule in this
respect, and so far it will be improper.
While the cpiautity of food a calf requires
will naturally increase a little day by day, over-
feeding should always be carefully avoided, for
a calf will always thrive better when its apjjetite
is stimulated by under rather than satiated by
over feeding, and iu the first two or three days
it should be decidedly under rather than over fed.
It is difficult to lay down any rule as to the quan-
tity to be given, for a strong and vigorous calf will
naturally recpiire more than a weak and delieate
one — this is a point on which judgment must lie
exercised at all times. For the first two or three
days 2 to 3 quarts of mothers' milk per day
will be enough, and this may be increased to 4
or 5 quarts by the end of the first week, to
G or 8 in the second week, and to 9 or 10 by
the end of the first month. These quantities
refer to new milk or to its equivalent, and to
a full-sized and healthy calf. The food should
always be good in quality and reasonable in
quantity. When skim-milk is used, linseed-
meal should ]je employed to make amends for
the cream which has been removed, and a little
oat, pea, or flour meal to restore the lost casein.
By the time they are two or three weeks old young
calves will begin to niljble a little sweet green
hay, if it is given to them in racks or nets, and
it is a good plau to teach them to eat it early.
This is best done by suspending a netful of hay
so that it dangles in front of them; rubljing their
noses, they soon begin to nibble.
Many people are in the habit of giving " hay-
tea," as it is called, to young cows along with
the milk, with the view of getting them used to a
hay diet before they are able to eat the hay for
themselves. The tea is made by putting some
hay in a kettle that is half filled with water, and
letting it simmer over a slow fire for an hour or
two ; the water is then poured off and set aside
for use. There is, no doubt, a good deal of merit
in this system, for the calves get all the nutriment
the hay contains without any of the indigestible
fibre. It is well, however, as soon as the weather
is warm enough, to get the young calves out of
doors for a few hours each day, so that they
may nil)ble the fresh and tender grass.
CONDIMENTAL FoODS.
For some years we have used condimeutal
food in the i-earing of calves — just a "pinch"
in the " beastings," and increasing it as the
time goes on to a good tea-spoonful — and we
have found it an excellent thing in keeping the
calves healthy, and an effectual preventive of
" scour," a malady from which young calves, when
reared away from their mothers, are constantly
liable to suffer. The condiment gives a tone
to the stomach, and when used in moderation
is a very useful kind of food. There are various
kinds of condimeutal food iu the market, some
62
DAIRY FARMING.
of which have obtained considerable reputation,
but the chief objection against them all is that
they are sold at a far higher price than a fair
profit would seem to justify. ]\Iuch credit has
been claimed — and we believe justly so — for the
stimulating effect which a properly prepared
" cattle-food " has on the digestive organs, and
it is no doubt true that a sparing use of it will
prevent many illnesses in young stock; but the
price at which it is usually sold is far higher than
any farmer is justified in paying, especially when
he can compound for hiniself, at a reasonable cost,
a food which will be found equal to any that
are sold, and superior to most — vastly superior
to some of them.
Mr. Pringle, in his " Live Stock of the
Farm," gives the following formula, which re-
presents a safe mixture : —
C'wta. qrs. llis.
Locust beans, finely yrouiid, at £('i prr foil ... fi 0 0
Indian com „
£7 „ .
.. !)
0
0
Linseed-cake „
£10
.. a
0
0
Powdered turmiru-
Sd.porlb. .
.. 0
0
40
Sulphur ...
•Jd. „
.. 0
0
40
Saltiietro
5d. „ .
.. 0
0
40
Liquorice
Is. „
.. 0
0
•27
Ginger (ground) ...
6d. „ .
.. n
0
3
Aniseed
9d. „ .
0
0
4
Coriander
9d. „
.. 0
0
10
Gentian
8d. „ .
.. 0
0
10
Cream of tartar ...
... Is. 8d.
.. 0
0
2
Carbonate of soda
4d. „
.. 0
0
6
Levigated antimony
(id. „ .
.. 0
0
6
Common salt
Jd. „
.. 0
0
30
Peruvian bark
"4s.
.. 0
0
4
Fenugreek
8d. „ .
.. 0
0
22
20
0
20
A ton of coiidimontal fond compomulcd of the
materials specified in the foregoing list, in the
quantities and at the prices named, will cost only
£1;3 4s. ik\., which is about one-fourth of what
is charged for certain much-advertised articles.
Nothing is simpler than for three or four farmers
to unite in the purchase of the materials for a ton
of the food, mix them, and divide the ioodpro rain.
The food, we may add, will be found useful to
various kinds of animals, and 1 cwt. of it will
go a long way in the rearing of calves. But care
must be observed not to use too much of it in rearing
store calves, or they will after a time be found
to have been over-forced, and when turned out to
grass will be apt to fall away in condition, and
comu to a standstill so far as progress is concerned.
With calves that are being fattened for the
butcher the case is different ; the object with
them is to feed them as quickly as possible
consistently with safety, and they may receive
as much milk as they will take, along with an
increased quantity of condimental food. With
fattening calves we have not to consider the effect
of the feeding on their constitutions in after-life,
for they have no after-life, and all we want is
to quickly and successfully fatten tliem.
It is a common practice to bleed fat calves
some hours before they are killed, and to keep
them without food for a day or so ; these " dodges "
are supposed to improve the veal somehow or
other — a great mistake. It is better to kill the
calf without jjreviously interfering with any of
its natural functions. The veal will be better
and healthier in all respects if the calf has not
been put through any change of treatment, and
there is a gain on the side of humanity.
The calf-houses should not only be kept as
clean as possible whilst the calves are in them,
but when the calves are turned out to grass they
should be thoroughly cleaned out, the floors
scrabbed and swilled, and the walls lime-washed.
Whilst the calves are in them they should be well
ventilated, but not cold, and a daily supply of
litter — the old litter being removed once or twice
a week — should be placed on sparred floors, which
will admit of the urine passing freely away. On
a sparred flixir the litter keeps clean and dry for
a much longer period than on an ordinary floor,
and the cost of it is soon saved in litter aloue.
Such a floor is cheaply and quickly made of
young larch-trees, split down the middle, and
nailed across on sawn spars, on unsplit larch-
trees, or on any odd pieces of planking that
will rest on the paved floor beneath. The in-
tervals between the lower spars may be about
2 feet, and between the upper ones about
1 inch. Put down in squares not too large
— say 4-feet squares. These sparred floors are
easily taken out to be cleaned, and as easily
replaced. If well cleaned, dried, and stored away
when the calves have done with them, they will
last several seasons ; and they not only keep the
calves clean, dry, and warm, but also economise
litter, and on dairy-farms straw can be put to a
better purpose than that of mere litter. These
precautions properly attended to, young calves
will seldom suil'cr much h\m\ any kind of ill-
THE KKARTNG OF CALVES.
less
health, aud tlioy will certainly grow the faster
on a given quantity of food.
The surest way to prevent scouring in calves
is to feed them regularly, and to keep them clean,
dry, and warm, but not too warm. Neglect of
these matters is a fruitful cause of "scour,"
and of the other ailments to which young calves
are liable, while attention to them will prevent
much troidjle, loss, and disappointment. Since
adopting these measures, now some years ago,
and by giving the calves from the first a little
condiment or spiced food in their milk, we have
had no losses and scarcely any illness of any kind
among young calves. The usual complaints met
with in rearing calves will be treated in the next
chapter.
The Guowinc; Calves.
There is much difference of oj)inion as to the
after-treatment of calves — say from the time they
are turned out to grass until they are twelve or
fifteen months old. In their first winter, esjjecially
in certain localities, calves are extremely liable to
the fatal disease of " hyant," " sjjeed," " quarter-
evil," or " black-leg," as it is variously termed.
This scourge is said to be the effect of an excess
of fibrin in the blood or of some kind of blood-
poisoning. Be that as it may, however, the causes
to which it is more obviously due are changes of
food and of temperature, and it generally seizes on
the best and the worst calves in the lot, passing
over the medium ones. It is a very precarious
malady, being- much more active in some years
than others, and in autumn and spiing rather
than in mid-winter, but it is not infectious.
We have tried many highlj--recommended nos-
trums, both scientific and eclectic, with a view
of preventing it — curing it is out of the
question. Some of these would seem to succeed
one year and would utterly fail the next, and
we have frequently, in spite of the nostrum,
lost half the number of calves in the course of
a single winter. For some years past, however,
we have lost only one calf from this cause, and
the immunity is owing to an improved system of
treatment : — The calves are taught, when they are
six or eight weeks old, to eat linseed -cake, Ijroken
into small pieces and put into their "suckling,"
and when the latter is cut off, which is commonly
done soon after they are turned out to grass, the
cake is c<jntinued to them throughout the summer
and winter and until the following "grass-day,"
along with a pinch of common salt to each calf
once or twice a week, and they rijn loose all the
winter on a sheltered portion of the land, having
a building or shed into which they can go when
they choose to eat the hay which is placed at
their disposal inside. Instead of hay, tliey some-
times have had chaffed oat-straw and hay, improved
by some kind or other of meal — rice, maize, oat,
pea, or bean meal — and they have liad the linseed-
cake in addition ; this last is a uiie qua non. The
one calf we lost from "black-leg" since com-
mencing the system just described owed its death
to decorticated cotton-cake, which we thought we
might safely substitute for the linseed-cake.
When a calf is seized with " black-leg " it
will go away from its companions, and will stand
in a dejected manner under a fence or in some
out-of-the-way place, quite alone, and it prefers
not to move away. It does not seem to be in
much pain, but it will go lame if made to stir
about, and sometimes will carry the infected leg
clear of the ground. The location of the disease
is easily ascertained by passing the hand over
the infected quarter ; a rustling, crackling noise
is heard under the skin, as if there were an
accumulation of air or gas in the subcuticle,
whicb in reality there is. After a time the poor
animal sinks into a kind of stupor, from which
there is no release but death.
Linseed-cake, given daily throughout the sum-
mer, autumn, and winter, starting before the
calves are weaned from liquid food, we have proved
to be efficacious in preventing " black-leg." When
the calves are turned out to grass they may
receive as much cake as they care to eat (but that
will not be much, say \ lb. each per day), along
with a little common salt, say a table- spoonful
among half a dozen, once or twice a week. As
the autumn comes on they mil require and
will eat a little more cake, say 1 lb. per day,
and this may be gradually increased during
the winter until they are getting 2 lbs. per
day per calf ; but on no account must cotton-
cake be given instead. If the calves are on
sheltered land, with an open shed as a protection
against storms, and are receiving good hay in
addition to the linseed-cake, they will commonly
be big enough to put to the bull during the
ensuing summer ; and it is thought they become
better milkers — they are thrown more into milk —
64
DAIRY FARMING.
by having;- tlieir liisl ciill' wlioii they are two
instead of tliree years old. 15ut it is necessary
to rear them well if this system is carried out ;
half-rearing will not do. The chief advantages of
this system lie in getting them into work a year
earlier, and in saving pail of a year's keep.
The system of wintering may be varied.
Chaffed food, of the kind the rest of the stock
are receiving, may, for instance, be given in the
place of hay; but we consider the linseed-cake
should in all cases be given, whatever may be the
other kinds of food they have, and not alone on
account of securing the calves' safety against
" black-leg," but also because it pays well in all
other respects. In their second summer the
" yearlings " should run on a good pasture, so
that the rate of progress may be maintained ;
and in their second winter they should have a
generous diet, and be kept in -doors, for the same
reason. If at fifteen months old any of them
are found to be unfit to go to the bull, these ought
to run on another year, and come into the herd as
heifers instead of stirks — that is, at three years
old instead of two. Formerly all young stock
ran on to three years old before the first calf,
and it would have been thought strange to
"bring them in" as stirks; but now it is the
exception rather than the rule for them to run
on to heifers before calving. The new order of
things is in keeping with the spirit of the time.
Anti-suckix(i Dkvices.
One of the chief objections against rearing
young calves by allowing them to suck from their
mothers lies in the fact that they frecpiently ])iik
up the habit again in after-life, and suck their
companions or themselves — generally their com-
panions. Some years ago we had a cow who had
acquired by some means or other, by accident or
by instinct, the habit of sucking herself; she was
very cunning over il, :in<l for a time defeated all
our efforts to cure her of the habit. We tried
what is called a " cradle " round her neck, and
smeared her teats and udder with various nau-
seous things; but all to no purpose. At length
a neighbour lent us a nose-jiiece that would
cure her, he said, simple though it seemed to be.
The nose-piece was made out of a piece of oak
board, S in. long, 5 in. wide, and alx)ut 4 in.
thick, and was shaped like Fig. IS. We sprung
or bent her nostril until the piece fitted, us
seen in Fig. 19, and watched the result with
interest. The cow tried again and again to get
Th
Fig. 1!!.— The Nose-piece in Use. Via. 18.— The Nose-piece.
one of her teats into her mouth, but all to no
purpose, for the nose-piece, hanging down, always
came between the mouth and the teat. At length
she gave it u]) in disgust, and went on with her
grazing. The nose-piece formed no obstacle to her
in eating, for it floated easily over the grass, and
was really no detriment whatever. In making
such a nose-piece care must be taken not to make
the two points of it too far asunder, as it will
easily slip off the nose. The points should be
about i in. apart, and nicely smoothed and rounded
off so that they will not hurt the cow.
Another device is shown in Fig. :JII
is useful in preventing
calves from sucking cows,
or cows from sucking each
other, but we have not
found it effectual in pre-
venting a cow from sucking
herself. The nose-piece,
on the other hand, it
must be remembered, is not
so effectual as the spiked
halter in preventing one cow from sucking
another. All dairy-farmers should have both
these devices in readiness. There are various
other kinds, but none of them that we have
ever seen or tried are so certain in action as
the two we have deseribetl and illustrated. The
spikes in the halter are simply wrought-iron nails,
with llattened heads, stuck through a stout piece
of leather, and the heads protected underneath by
another piece of leather. The woodcut sufficiently
describes the form, size, and method of attaching
the halter. These devices may also be used to
prevent calves from sucking cows when both are
out together on the pasture.
Fig. 20.— SpiKEii Hai.ter.
CHAPTER VI.
Pautukttion, axd Diseases or, Dangers Incidental to Calves and Dairy Stock.
Normal Breeding and Gestation— Abortion— Parturition— Protracted Labour— After-birth— Flooding— Straining— Inversion of the
Uterus-Protrusion of the Vagina-Milk Fever— Inflammation of the Womb -Garget-Sore Teats— Wind- Gorging of the First
or Third Stomach- Foot-and-Mouth Disease— Pleuro-Pneumonia— Black-leg- Parasites- The New-born
\ x irffit t^j^ Calf— Navel-ill-Indigestion— Scouring— Husk or Hoose— Useful Works of Reference.
i
':^i£. AIRY-STOCK are subject to
ja^^ various accidents and diseases,
miiiiy of whicli are, however,
either entirely jsrevented or
greatly mitigated by intel-
ligent care. Well reared
when calves, neither stinted
, nor over-fed, allowed the exercise which
young growing animals require, and put
to the bull when about two years old,
there is seldom difficulty with their breed-
ing. Where any delay or difficulty occurs, change
the feeding and management of the heifer, aud
try another bull. If oestrum is irregular, or more
fretjueut than eighteen days, service should not be
allowed. One service is sufficient, and the cow
should thereafter be kept quietly by herself for
at least one day. The average 2ieriod of gesta-
tion is 284 days; small cows, heifers with their
first calf, and old animals usually go a day or
two less ; bulls are carried a day or two longer
than cow-calves.
Abortion, or sUpphig — the most serious mishap
affecting cows during gestation — results from long
fatiguing travel, the shaking of a railway journey,
the galloping and excitement caused by the sudden
appearance of foxhounds, laborious toiling through
a yard full of wet manure or a muddy lane,
slipping or getting crushed in an awkward stall.
The overloaded stomach sometimes presses in-
juriously upon the gravid uterus ; the foetus is
injured by the eating of ergotted grasses or grain,
or of frozen roots, or by the copious drinking
of ice-cold or of foul water. ]\Iouth-aud-foot
complaint and contagious pleum-pneumonia also
often produce abortion. These and other such
causes directly injure or kill the foetus, or more
gradually interfere with the health of the dam,
so that the offspring is insufficiently nourished
and prematurely brought forth. But many cases
result from a species of contagion or nervous
sympathy. Other in-calvers in the same house,
yard, or j)asture with an accidental case, within
a week or ten days often abort, and thus the
mischief steadily sj)reads sometimes throughout
the whole breeding cows of the farm. The evil
is also liable to recur ; the cows that slip one year
are ajjt to do so about the same period of their
subsequent gestation. The mishap comes on sud-
denly, usually without warning. The foetus being
of small size is generally got rid of easily and
without assistance; if over seven months it is
occasionally born alive ; unless near the full period
the subsequent yield of milk is not so large as
if matters had gone on naturally. The cleansing
often clings firmly to its uterine connections, and
does not entirely come away for wrecks ; it is not
desirable to use much force to remove it, but
annoyance and smell are much abated by washing
the parts twice daily with carbolic soap, or with
one part of carbolic acid to 100 of tepid water,
and if need be by injecting such a solution into
the uterus. The chief preventive measures consist
in keeping the in-calf stock quiet, f)roteeting them
from undue excitement and from being run by
dogs. When the gadfly is aboutj have them in
the yards ; see that no blood or decomj^osiug,
badly-smelling refuse is about the yards or
pastures; avoid ergotted or mildewed fodder;
keep them out of woods and i)lantations where
66
DAIRY FA H:\riNG.
yow and oflu'r ivsiiiuns lenves and Iwiys an>
apt to be ea(en; provide puro water; lake care
that the stalls are comfortable and not too much
on an incline ; immediately remove to oiitlyin<?
premises any cow that has aborted, and keep her
apart for some weeks and until all discharge is
gone. Before returning her amongst the herd,
wash her well with carbolic soap ; bury the fcctus
promptly ; cleanse aud disinfect the place where
it was dropped, and do not for some weeks
use it for in-eal\ers. Endeavour to prevent any
impending attack of abortion by perfect quiet,
laxative rather than concentrated food, and, if
there is straining, by frequent doses of opium,
belladonna, aud chloral, or other antispasmodics.
As parhirition opjiroaclics, the cow instinctively
separates herself from her fellows and seeks quiet.
Tliis natural feeling should, if possible, be satisfied.
If housed at night, she should have a box or quiet
stall. In large herds the haunoliing and running
of heavy in-calf cows should be avoided by placing
them by themselves. Some big poor cows, owing
to the relaxation of the ligaments of the pelvis,
for some days, or even for a week or two before
calving, are unable to stand ; but so long as no
sj'mptom of illness is observed, alarm need not
be felt. The cow may be fed as usual, mainly
on sloppy, moderately good food. If she does
not care to exert herself and rise, she should be
propped comfortably yni\\ boltings or bags of
straw, turned night and morning, care taken
that her udder does not get pressed upon ; any
milk that can be got should be drawn away t\viee
daily. Released of her burden by calving, she
will usually sjjeedily recover the use of her limbs.
T/ie siyns of approaching partiirilion are dis-
tension of the udder, swelling and firmness of
the teats, secretion of milk, loosening of the liga-
ments of the pelvis, giving the cow a rocking,
uusteady gait, relaxation of the external organs
of generation, and discharge of a glairy mucus
from the vagina. These a])pcaranees may continue
for several days. Within an hour or two of calving
the animal usually, in addition, is restless, seeks
to be alone, gets up and lies down frequently,
and whisks its tail. Labour pains, continuing for
one or two minutes, now occur; the anuiial, or
water-bag, is forced against the os uteri, gradually
dilating it and the vaginal passages; shortly the
bag bursts, softening and lubricating the parts ;
and cessation of labour pains, continuing sometimes
fur half an ho\ir or longer, occurs. The cow, if
hitherto loose, slumld now be tied up. If an
examination as to the position of the foetus and
condition of the passages through which it has
to come has not already been made, as it generally
is after straining has begun, it should be done
now. The hand and arm are oiled, the fingers
and thumb drawn together and carefull}- introduced,
advantage being taken of a j)criod when straining
has ceased. Special notice is taken of the amount
of dilation of the os uteri, the presence of any
tumors or other obstructions likely to interfere
with delivery, the position and size of the calf,
whether it is alive, whether there is more than
one. JMost cows calve standing : the labour pains
are more powerful and effective; the diaphragm
and abdominal muscles are more readily brought
into play, whilst in the standing position help
can be more conveniently and effectiudly rendered.
Roomy cows, having had several calves, sometimes
get through parturition in fifteeu minutes ; it
■ more usually occupies an hour; but when there
are false presentations or other difficulties it is
sometimes prolonged for a day, or even longer.
The calf most commonly comes with its
fore-limbs outstretched and its head (a little to
one side) resting upon its knees, and into this
position it must be got when it comes with the
anterior extremities first. There occur, however,
abnormal or, as they are termed, false presentations.
One or both fore-limbs may be bent at the knees,
when the calf must be put back and the limb
or limbs straightened. One limb is sometimes
over the head, or the head is depressed underneath
the breast or laid to one side, or the head protrudes,
whilst the limbs, closely compressed, lie underneath
the body. Occasionally the calf comes backward,
with the hind-feet in the passages, when it should
be got away with all reasonable speed, as the
coi-d in a tardy delivery is rather apt to get
l^ressed upon, and suffocation may ensue. Occa-
sionally the hind-limbs are flexed at the hocks,
which are the first parts grasped, and require to
be pushed back and the hind-feet got into the
passages. A still more troublesome presentation
is when nothing but the tail and buttocks can
be felt, and the hind-limbs are down underneath
the body. Occasionally all the four feet are
presented together; sometimes only the back of
the calf can be felt. Twins, being usually smaller
than when there is only onC) seldom cause much
PARTTTRITTON.
67
trouble, unless eac-li liappon to lie with a leo-
in the passages. The successful management of
these and other abnormal presentations often
demands much tact, patience, manual dexterity,
and strength. It is usually necessary to raise
the cow's hind-quarters ; conls are placed round
the head and any limbs of the calf that are
accessible; the hand of an assistant is often
usefully introduced to replace the calf as far as
possible into the womb, whilst the operator en-
deavours to rectify the faulty position, raise and
straighten flexed limbs, and get into the passages
either the fore-limbs and head, or the hind-limbs,
as may be most convenient. When this is effected
there is seldom much difficulty in getting away
the calf. The cow, if exhausted or long in
labour, should meanwhile be supported with gruel,
ale, whisky and water, or other nutrient stimu-
lants. If the pains are feeble, or have ceased,
infusion of ergot of rye may be given. Simul-
taneously with the occurrence of the pains, gentle
steady traction is applied to the limbs, round
which a little hay is twisted to secure a firmer
hold, or broad straps, as described, are fastened.
Pulling should be made not horizontally or straight
back, but downwards towards the cow's hocks,
which increases the amount of room. Whilst the
head or buttocks are coming, the hand of the
operator should be occasionally passed round the
contracted holding j)art of the os. Sometimes,
when the head, mthers, or other part apjjears
wedged and almost immovable, progress is attained
by putting the calf back a little, allowing a short
respite, and turning the intractable portion some-
what more obliquely. Precipitate, rash, violent
interference is unjustifiable and often injurious.
More time may be allowed in cattle than in other
animals. Calves have been got away two or even
three days after labour pains have occurred, and
after a portion of the amnial fluid has escaped.
Protracted labour usually depends upon the
false presentation, death, or deformity of the
foetus ; on disease of the foetal membranes ; on
weakness or deformity of the cow ; rigidity, spasm,
or torsion of the cervix uteri, or tumors in some
of the passages. Careful skilful examination can
usually discover the cause of difficult labour, and
can frequently remove it. When the calf is
discovered to be dead, if the water-bag has pre-
sented and burst, assistance should be rendered,
as the natural pains are seldom so regular and
12
powerful as when the calf is alive. When the
maternal pelvis is of insufficient capacity, from
tumors in the passages, from adhesions between
the fcetus and uterus, or from unusual size or
deformity of the calf, natural delivery is some-
times impossible, and the foitus must be reduced in
size, usualljf by the removal of one or more limbs.
The calf is sometimes retained in the uterus much
beyond the natural period. Sometimes it softens,
putrefies, and causes enuo-metritis ; sometimes it
is broken up and discharged piecemeal ; some-
times it becomes shrivelled up and mummified.
Whilst the uterus is thus occupied the cow cannot
breed, but occasionally continues to come to the
bull. A manual examination readily discovers
the state of matters.
Tlie fxtal memhranes, cleansing, or after-birth,
often comes away shortly after the calf, especially
if it has reached its full period. Sometimes,
however, it is wholly or in part retained for
many daj's — a source of annoj'ance to the cow
herself, and from the offensive smell very unde-
sirable in premises occupied by in-calf cows, in
whom it is apt to excite abortion. When firmly
attached, dangerous bleeding may result from
rashly tearing it away, and the safer course is
to twist the protruding portion into a cord, attach
a weight to it, giving a few extra twists daily,
and waiting for natural separation. Irritation
and smell are abated by washing the external parts
with carbolic solution, about one part to a hun-
dred; and if there is much offensive discharge,
injecting daily tepid water and a similar carbolic
solution into the uterus. In such cases the cow
is often low and weakly, and requires liberal
feeding.
The slight bleeding occurring after severe labour
seldom lasts long, but occasionally blood is shoi-tly
poured forth with alarming rapidity. Rags soaked
with cold water must be laid over the loins, and
kept wet by pouring water freely on them. A
cloth wetted with cold water is introduced into
the uterus; ice, if procurable, is placed in the
uteiTis and vagina, large doses of opium and lead-
acetate given, and ergotine injected subeutaneously.
St rain in ij, or after-pains, ensue sometimes from
the retention of clots of blood or portions of foetal
membrane, which are removed by the hand or by
injection of tepid water. But sometimes they
result from invereiou of the utenis or vagina, and
still more seriously from tearing or injury of some of
DAIRY FAEMTXPt.
the 23assn<^es, cffoetinl in severe or protracted lal)our,
whilst occasionally they depend only on weakness
and nervous irritability. Perfect quiet, soothino-
injections, full doses of opium, chloral, and Ix'lla-
donna, and laxative, digestilile, i^-ixid iood aii' the
appropriate remedies.
Inrersion of the uterus results from violent
continued straining, from undue force in hrin<4in<;'
away the calf, from a relaxed state of the weak-
ened, over-taxed organ. It usually occurs within
twii days after calving. So small a portion of the
horn in which the calf has lain may be inverted
that it does not protrude externally, and is only
discovered when the straining suggests exami-
nation. But unless soon rectified the iinnatural
position excites more straining, and gradually a
large bulk of the inverted uterus is jirotruded,
constituting a jjear-shaped tumor, weighing some-
times as much as 100 lbs., reaching down to the
cow's hocks. Sometimes the foetal memliranes
are still attached; sometimes it becomes much
congested, dark-coloured, and gangrenous ; some-
times it gets torn and bruised. When first thrown
out it is seldom diflieult to return. The cow, if
down, should be got on her legs and firmly se-
cured, her hind parts raised, her rectum and bladder
emptied. The uterus, supported on a level with
the vulva on a tray or sheet held by two assis-
tants, is carefully washed and thoroughly cleansed
with tcjiid water ; the placenta, if adherent, re-
moved. Subsequent sponging with or immersion
in ice-cold water for five or ten minutes contracts
the organ and facilitates its return. When con-
gested or abraded, it is moistened with diluted
spirits, astringents, or laudanum. The cow, if
straining, is much quieted by tweezers in the
nose, a chain round the chest tightened when
straining comes on, and a full dose of opium,
belladonna, and chloral. The displaced organ, held
well up and kept moist with cold water, is usually
returned by pressing steadily with the closed fist
against the horn, the farthest part protruded, and
forcing it backwards and inwards, taking advan-
tage of the intervals between the pains. Care
must be taken that reijlacement is properly made,
without twisting, folding, or irregularity of the
membrane. To retain the uterus the hand should
lie held within it for some time ; injection of cold
water, or a cloth steeped in cold water placed in
the vagina, causes contraction if the organ is soft
and flaccid ; straining is combated by full doses
of antispasmodics. Pessaries, pads, and bandages
are sometimes required to retain the irritable
organ. In extreme cases, when the uteinis cannot
be returned or has been hopelessly injured, it is
sometimes successfully amputated.
Protrusion or inversion of the vagina occurs
within a few days after calving or abortion,
depending upon the pai'ts being injured by the
i'orcible withdrawal of the calf, or from the cow
having undue over-exertion shortly after. It also
frequently appears in lymphatic, wide-hipped cows
as pregnancy advances, and the gravid uterus is
j)ressed back upon the vagina, when the digestive
organs are over-filled with bulky food, or the
animals lie in sheds with a sharji slope. The soft,
yielding tumor varies in size from an orange to a
child's head, is j>erfectly smooth, and marked in its
lower surface by a depression leading to the urethra.
Unlike the cornu of the uterus, for which it might
be mistaken, it has no cotyledons or placental
follicles ; unlike the everted urinary bladder, it is
not corrugated, has no openings or urinous smell.
Although easily returned, it is apt to reappear; is
usually more unsightly than dangerous ; is much
abated by keeping the cow with the hind parts
raised. When in an irritable or congested state it
should be wetted twice daily with an astringent
lotion, made with an ounce of sulphate of zinc to
a quart of water; in bad cases a pad or bandage
is applied.
Alilk fcrer, or ^mrturient apople.ri/, is a for-
midable disease, attacking good milk-cows in the
])rinie of life, at their third or fourth calving,
\\hen their time has been an easy one, when they
are in high condition, or are poor and suddenly
transferred to liberal dietary. It usually comes
on within three days after calving. Its nature
is not clearly imderstood. The large sujjplies of
blood which have been nourishing the rapidly
growing calf are suddenly thrown, as it were, on
the system ; brain congestion ensues, specially apt,
according to Professor Walley, to occur in rumi-
nants, owing to the special arrangement of the
vessels of the brain. Such congestion is favoured
by any conditions which withdraw blood from the
skin, digestive organs, or udder. The cow is dull,
with drooping head, is careless of its food and its
calf; the milk flow is diminished; the gait is
staggering; the red and blood-shot eyes and hot
head point to lirain congestion. This is shortly
relieved by effusion of bloixl, more often of serum,
MILK FEVER AND INFLAMMATION.
69
and anscmia coiisoqucntly ensues, producing- tho
paralysis, unconsciousness, and convulsions so
eliaracteristic of tlie later stages. The earlier
the cases occur after calving', the more rapid and
fatal they are. Returning consciousness, ability to
swallow, warmth of the surface, the passage of
urine and fseces indicate a favourable issue. Three-
fourths of the cases early and properly treated
should recover.
The cow, if still on her legs, or if, although
down, she has a tolerably full and firm pulse, and
slow, deep breathing, may be bled to the extent of
3 or 4 quarts, drawn from a large opening in
the jugular vein. In the later stages, when the
pulse is weak and fluttering and the surface cold,
bleeding only hastens death. If the animal can
still swallow, a full dose of purgative medicine
is given, consisting of i lb. each of common
and Epsom salts, 20 drops of eroton oil, 2 ozs.
of oil of turpentine,, and 1 lb. of treacle, dis-
solved together in 1 or 2 quarts of water. En-
deavour should also be made to rouse the torpid
bowels by laxative stimulant clysters, repeated
several times daily. It is most essential that the
cow be placed in a eomfortal)le position, jiropped
on her broad breast-bone, supported by boltings of
straw or sacks containing chaff, her drooping head
raised by bags of straw or chaff, and steadied by
a halter attached to the manger or other elevated
fixture. Thrice daily the jsatient should be turned,
the udder rubbed and emptied, the bladder also
emptied. Ammonia liniment or mustard paste
should be rubbed down each side of the spine, or
counter-irritation produced by a hot smoothing-
iron used night and morning, a piece of rug or
several folds of paper bemg interposed between
the skin and the hot iron. Stimulants are useful
almost from the outset ; a glass of whisky or other
such cordial, and a drachm of carbonate of ammonia
given in half a pint of water, may be repeated
every two hours. Beware, however, of attem^^ting
to give stimulants or anything else if the cow
cannot swallow; congested and inflamed lungs, and
sometimes immediate suffocation, are thus apt to
be induced. As appetite returns, care should be
taken that the animal is provided for a few days
with only a moderate supply of sloppy food ;
solid, bulky fare is apt to cause indigestion and
relapse. Recovery once begun is generally rapid.
To prevent milk fever, good milk-cows with great
appetites and in the prime of life, as they approach
within a month of parturition, should be kept
somewhat sparingly on laxative fare ; they should
not be allowed to graze all day on abundant first-
class pasture ; they should, however, have plenty
of exercise. A week before calving, or earlier if
the udder is distended, it should be drawn, and as
much milk as possible removed. INIany obser-
vant dairymen regard the establishment of the
milk secretion so important in preventing milk
fever that they never allow the best Guernsey,
Alderney, or dairy Shorthorns to become dry
between their calvings. Bleeding before parturi-
tion is .not desirable, but a dose of physic should
be given to all predisposed subjects a week before,
and another as soon as calving is over. For three
or four days subsequently the diet, as stated, should
be laxative and rather sparing.
MefrUis, or inflammation of the womb, attacks
cows that have aborted or had a hard time of
calving, that have had inversion of the uterus,
retention of the foetal membranes, that have been
over-driven, knocked about shortly before or soon
after calving, or have been exposed to morbid
poison, which the vascialar uterus at this time is
apt to absorb from the hands of persons assisting
at parturition, or even from an impure atmosphere.
In from two to eight days after calving fever comes
on ; there is restlessness, shivering, and straining,
which continues even after the fcetal membranes are
removed and the uterus injected with tepid water.
In marked contrast to puerperal aj^oplexy, or milk
fever, in which the temperature is normal, or even
below normal, the thermometer, especially in the
rectum, sj^eedily rises above 100". There is grinding
of the teeth and colicky pains ; the external organs
of generation are swollen, and the swelling extends
to the udder and down the thighs; from the vagina
there issues an offensive, often blood-stained dis-
charge. But even to the last the animal rises and
lies down, and retains consciousness. The disease
runs its course usually in three or four days ;
about half the cases are fatal. Examination dis-
covers that the uterus contains foul, decomposing
serum, blood, and portions of the foetal membranes.
Its walls are not contracted, but are soft and
thickened, and its mucous lining dark-coloured
and filtrated. Sometimes the inflammation has
extended to the serous covering of the bowels,
constituting metro-peritonitis. To allay inflam-
mation and Ijring away irritating secretions, the
uterus should be carefully syringed with tepid
70
DAIRY FARMING.
water, containiug about one part to sixty or ei<^bty
of carbolic acid, or otber effectual disiiifectaut; and
this cleansing' ought to be repeated twee daily.
Sulphites or carbolates which counteract septic
poisoning may be administered ; laxatives are
prescribed if necessary ; frequent small doses of
alcohol and (jther stimulants, with good gruel,
help to sustain strength. Regarding preventive
measures, avoid rough treatment during calving,
or too early over-exertion or exposure subsequently.
If any injury has been inflicted in bringing away
the calf, esjjccially if it has been dead and putrid,
inject tc2)id water and carbolic acid night and
morning; remove carefully retained foetal mem-
branes ; administer twice daily 1 oz. of sulphite
of soda ; supply the best of digestible food ;
avoid having calving cows in yards or fields where
any animal has had metritis or metro-peritonitis;
and never allow herdsman or shei^herd to help in
calving who has recently been about such cases,
who has been removing offensive placentas, or
otherwise handling putrefying animal matter.
Garget, mammltis, or inflammation of the udder,
is induced by careless dripjiing, by sore teats, or
by the cruel practice of over-stocking, or hefting.
It also results from blows and injuries, from
attacks of foot-and-mouth complaint, and from
exposure to cold and wet, which seize on the mucous
and fibrous textures of the udder — the most sensi-
tive, vascular, and vulnerable part of a good milch-
eow. ]\Iany recently-dried feeding-cows suffer
from garget. Wet weather, succulent or forcing
feeding, stimulate the recently-active udder; milk
is secreted ; the irritable engorged state of the bag
often, however, escapes notice ; the fluid is not
drawn away ; it becomes stale, and the source of
irritation. Hot \veather especially favours this de-
composition. On strong wet land the cows are
further liable to suffer from garget conjoined with
rheumatic inflammation of the joints.
Sometimes the skin and mucous coat of the bag
are first and most prominently affected ; the case
is a sort of catarrh of the udder ; the skin of the
aft'cctod portion becomes hard, shining, and some-
what reddened. But in the worse cases the glan-
dular and, connective tissues are also inflamed ;
one quarter or one half is attacked; more rarely
the whole organ is involved ; often the seizure is
ushered in by shivering and fever. From exuda-
tion pressing upon and blocking the secreting parts,
the yield of milk is diminished ; it is drawn away
with difliculty, and is serous, cui-dled, and offensive.
The bag in a few days is very tender and painful,
much swollen, hard, and nodulous, and the swelling
extends to the chest and back to the hind-quarters.
The cow usually stands, or lies with the inflamed
side upwards. 'When inflammatory symptoms are
not combated within a week, itiduration and loss
of a quarter or of half of the gland usually result.
Sometimes during the several months the cow is
dry, the induration gradually disappears, and the
damaged quarter again becomes serviceable. When
inflammation has been intense, and continues for
six or eight days, suppuration may be expected,
and abscesses form, opening into the teat, bursting
externally, or requiring to be opened. When the
whole gland becomes inflamed, and is not promptly
relieved, still more unfavourable results may ensue,
the part may be mortified, or the acute inflamma-
tion and fever kill the patient.
As to treatment, the first matter is to empty the
udder of every particle of milk that can be with-
drawn. If the teats are too tender or are blocked
with knots of curd, a syphon must be used, and
milking repeated at intervals of two or three hours.
Warm fomentations, followed by poultices of
spent hops, tea-leaves, or bran, afford much relief,
should be frequently repeated and applied suspended
in a web passed round the loins with a T-shaped
piece running backwards and upwards between the
hind-limbs, and secured to the web passing over
the loins. Such poultices and bandages, softening
and mechanically supporting the inflamed organ,
remove congestion and pain, and greatly hasten re-
coveiy. Extract or ointment of belladonna, rubbed
daily over the tender udder, not only abates tension
and pain, but also lessens the troublesome secretion
of milk. Clots of curd accumulating in the teats
must be gently broken down, and got away either
])y the hand or by the teat-syphon. In chronic
eases the hard swelling should be rubbed twice
daily with a stimulating dressing, which may con-
sist of equal parts of compound solution of iodine,
tincture of opium, and soap liniment. Abscesses
must be opened and dressed with antiseptics. Con-
stii^ation and febrile symptoms should be combated
by oil and treacle ; and a daily dose of 4 ozs.
of l']psom salt and 1 oz. of nitre will relieve
fever and lessen milk secretion. In acute cases
aconite is prescribed. Unless the cow is reduced,
the diet for some days should lie sparing ancf not
succulent.
DISEASES OF MILKING STOCK.
71
The teats are sometimes elosod eongenitally, or
from exudation filliu<>- tlio tubes. The careful pas-
sage of a teat-syphou usually suffices, but where
the obstruction is considerable a bistoury or per-
forating sound must be introduced, and the opening
kept clear either by retaining the syphon in the teat
for several days, or by passing a bougie twice daily.
Crach and sores on the teats, interfering with
milking or sucking, are sometimes irritable, exten-
sive, and bleeding, requiring that the milk be
withdrawn by a syphon, that the parts be kept
scrupulously clean, and dressed at each milking
with glycerate of tannin or other mild astringent.
Sore teats, when neglected or mismanaged, are apt
to cause mammitis.
Horeii tympanites, or distension of the rumen
or first stomach with gas, is not peculiar to dairy-
stock, but milk-cows, being often greedy feeders,
furnish a large proi^ortion of such cases. Prominent
amongst the causes are frosted grass or clover, wet
roots, raw grain, especially wheat, a meal of un-
accustomed food, or a foreign body in the gullet.
A few morsels of unsuitable food sometimes suffice
to interfere with digestion ; the mass of soft food
ferments, with evolution of gas. The animal be-
comes much distended, especially on the left side ;
its nose is poked out ; it blows, moans, and, unless
relieved, sometimes dies from the jjressure of the
enormously distended stomach on the lungs and
heart. Moving the animal about often favours
expulsion of the gas; but if not promptly effectual,
administer a full dose of oil of turpentine, whisky,
medicinal ammonia, or carbonate of ammonia in a
pint of oil, milk, or cold gruel. If no relief occurs
in an hour, another stimulant should be given.
When stimulants, a dose of physic, exercise, and
external friction have been vainly tried, and the
symptoms increase in severity, an
opening must be made into the
il rumen with a large knife, or,
I better still, with a trochar and
I canula (Fig. 21), at a point
£ equi-distant from the spine of the
lumbar vertebra?, the anterior
tuberosity of the ilium, and the
last rib. In all cases, and espe-
Fi". 21.— Trochar cially if an operation has been
necessary, it is important for
several days that the animal be restricted to mo-
derate amounts of soft food which can be digested
without the need of rumination.
Impaction of the Jirst and third stomachs with
food. — The first and third stomachs of cattle are
liable to be over-gorged with dry innutritive food,
such as chaff or straw insufficiently moistened by
roots or cake, too liberal supjjlies of undecorticated
cotton-cake, or hard stems of clover or vetches. The
nervous jiower of the organ appears to be impaired ;
the muscular contractions which should move the
food onwards are hence feeble or wanting ; appetite
and rumination are suspended; the belly becomes
distended ; any dung passed is dry, caked, and
covered with mucus. When the first stomach is
over-gorged, the symptoms of abdominal fulness
and distress are early and urgent. A full dose of
physic, with stimulants, is prescribed, solid food
withheld, every encouragement given to drink
treacle-water, salt and w-ater, and other diluents;
in extreme cases the overloaded piaralysed rumen is
cut into and relieved of its contents. When the
food has got impacted between the leaves of the
third stomach, constituting fardel-bound, symp-
toms of indigestion and constipation are more
slowly shown ; usually there is a moan or groan
resembling the grunt of pleuro-pneumonia ; some-
times there is vertigo, convulsions, and other symp-
toms of nervous derangement. In many of those
cases the mucous membrane of the third and fourth
stomach is inflamed. Hence the large and repeated
doses of drastic physic formerly given are not ad-
visable. All solids should be interdicted, and the
animal allowed only thin gruel and treacle-water.
A pint of oil, with 1 oz. each of laudanum and
tincture of belladonna, helps to open the bowels and
relieve gastric irritation; soap and water clysters
aid in unloading the bowels. A few doses of
aconite and salines abate any febrile symptoms;
2 ozs. of Epsom salt and 1 oz. of powdered
gentian, repeated once or twice daily, impart
tone. It is mischievous to attempt by powerful
physic to force the bowels to resume their func-
tions; and in cattle there is no fear of imme-
diate death from constipation or torpidity; ten
days in such cases sometimes elapse without any
movement, when the bowels gradually resume their
action.
Foot-and-mouth disease, or contagious eczema,
is apt to attack dairy-cows, and punishes them
more severely than it does store stock. It is a
contagious, eruptive fever, characterised by the
appearance of blisters or vesicles on the skin and
mucous surfaces, and attacking sheep, pigs, and
72
DAIRY FARMING.
poultry, as well as cattle. It was introduced into
Great Britain fromthecontinent of Europe in 1839,
and, althonoh it has frequently been reduced witliin
naiTow limits, it has not since been extirpated.
Cohabitation with infected subjects, and the eating
of food on which they have slavered, in experiments
at the Brown Institution were found to communi-
cate the disease; but the litter on which patients
had stood did not convey it, nor was it produced
by rubbino' the gums with infected saliva, or scari-
fying with it the gums or feet. But although
attempts artificially to produce the disease are
attended by negative results, it must not be con-
cluded that manure from foot-and-mouth infected
premises can with imjninity be brought amongst
sound animals. The movementi of stock, placing
them in markets or fairs, trucking them by rail,
conveying them by vessel, and the carelessness of
dealers in herding together sickening or convales-
cent animals have been the means by which the
virus lias been preserved and disseminated. A
period of incubation, varying from one to four
days, elapses between the inception of the infective
material, and the elevation of temperature, appear-
ance of the slavering, congestion of the mucous
membrane, and eruption of the characteristic vesicles
about the mouth, on the udder, or between the digits.
Vesicles also often occur throughout the alimentary
canal, causing gastric derangement and diarrlnca.
The udders of cows in full milk, being very sensi-
tive, usually suffer; the thin skin and the mucous
lining of the teats and milk ducts are inflamed,
milking causes j)ain ; milk is hence apt to remain
in the imperfectly dripped udder, causing garget.
Abortion and uncertainty in breeding arc also
very common results amongst dairy-stock. Milk
secretion is early diminished, but what is yielded
contains yellow granular masses, pus corpuscles,
bacteria, and other abnormal matters, and doubt-
less the special infective virus, for when given to
calves or pigs it usually produces diarrhoea., and
sometimes kills these young animals within a few
hours. The mortality from foot-and-mouth com-
plaint dues not exceed two per cent. ; but this does
not adequately represent the vexatious loss it pro-
duces both in herd and flock — heavy fat beasts
lamed and thrown back during several months;
cows in full profit suddenly dried, slipping calf,
becoming uncertain breeders, or permanently de-
teriorated by damaged bags ; feeding sheep lamed
and stripped of Hesh ; ewes slipping lamb ; lambs
wasting and dying. Throughout a mixed herd
the loss from an outbreak of this complaint averages
£3 to £4 on the numbers attacked, whilst 20s. per
head is the depreciation usually suffered throughout
the affected flock. To prevent these ever-recurring
wide-spread losses — for, unlike other eruptive fevers,
foot-and-mouth attacks the same animal in conse-
cutive years — the Contagious Diseases (Animals)
Act, 1878, has been framed to check the re-intro-
duction of fresh virus from the continent of Europe,
and to stamp out the disease both in Great Britain
and Ireland by stringent uniform measures of
inspection, isolation of infected subjects, and dis-
infection of sick and convalescent animals and
of infected premises. Whenever the temperature
of a beast reaches 103*' Fahr., it should be care-
fully watched, for some fever or other mischief is
apt to be brewing. As it runs a definite course,
medical interference is less needful than good
nursing, soft, easily-masticated digestible food, and
clean comfortable quarters, and in cows careful
attention to the udder. The mouth and feet, if
sore, may be washed several times daily with dilute
Coudy's fluid or other mild astringent antiseptic
lotion. After perfect recovery, it is a wise pre-
caution to wash or dip the subjects of such a con-
tagious disorder with a solution of carbolic soap
before placing them with healthy stock.
Fleiiro-piieumoitia, or coTiiagio\is\im'^(-om\Aiuut,
causes serious losses, especially in town and sul)ur-
ban dairies recruited by frequent purchases in open
market. The disease is propagated by some infec-
tive material, perhaps by special virus, which is,
however, long and uncertain in producing its pro-
minent constitutional effects. The increased tem-
perature, dry cough, grunt, and other symptoms
may show themselves in three weeks after exposure
to contagion, or may not be developed for three
months. Professor G. F. Yeo, in his rejjort on the
pathological anatomy of plcuro-pneumonia {Jounial
of the Royal Agricultural Society, vol. xvi., 1878),
demonstrates that inflammation and exudation may
extendfor several weeks in the substance of the lung,
causing consolidation, without seriously disturb-
ing the health of the cow, or attracting the atten-
tion either of attendant or owner; but that so soon
as the pleura becomes involved, febrile and other
prominent distinctive symptoms are apparent.
Professor Y'eo defines pleuro as " a chronic, s])ecitic,
local disease, starting in the bronchi, and insidiously
implicating the parenchyma of the lung, by oeclu-
DISEASES OF DAIRY STOCK.
73
sion of the bronchi and inflummatiou extending
along the lymphatics; the other organs and the
l)lood possess a singular immunity from the specific
contamination. It is not accompanied hy consti-
tutional symptoms, and only gives obscure physical
signs. At any time during the progress of the
disease its existence may be manifested clinically by
the occurrence of complications — acute pleurisy or
h»morrhagic infarction with pleural inflammation —
■which excite high fever with various functional
derangements." Cohabitation appears necessaiy to
the transmission of the disease ; but many experi-
ments, notably those of Professtir Burdon Sanderson
and ilr. Duguid at the Brown Institution, indicate
that the exudation from the lungs of diseased sub-
jects does not reproduce the lung eomjjlaint. Inocu-
lation with such exudation, usually on the tail of
healthy animals, has been proposed as a preven-
tive to pleui'o, and has found favour especially in
Australia, and with some German veterinarians;
but the supposed protection at best is uncertain ;
inoculated cattle frequently take pleuro ; and the
operation has besides the disadvantage of occasion-
ally depriving the cow of her tail. French expe-
riments indicate that about one-fifth of the animals
subjected to contagion prove insusceptible. Of
those attacked 30 to 40 per cent, die in periods
varying from ten to fifty days. Even in favour-
able cases, carefully nursed and doctored, recovery
is generally tedious, and often leaves the animal
wasted and ^Wth diseased lungs. These considera-
tions, and the hope of stamping out the comjjlaint,
wisely dictated those clauses of the Contagious
Diseases (Animals) Act, 1878, which order the
slaughter of all pleuro-pneumonia cases, allowing
their o^\Tiers two-thirds of their value, the comjien-
sation being hmited, however, to £30 for each
animal. Killed before febrile symptoms show
themselves, the meat of pleupo subjects has been
eaten without harm.
Black-leg, quarfer-evil, or congestive fever, is a
serious plague on many breeding farms, suddenly
attaekiiig and almost invariably killing calves, year-
lings, and occasionally two-year-olds. It is a septic
or charbonous disease, depending upon the blood
getting charged with effete or deleterious matters,
and hence becoming dark-coloured, fluid, and liable
to pass from its vessels. This septic condition is
induced in young cattle by sudden changes from
poor to liberal dietary, by undue supplies of rich
albuminoids, such as decorticated cotton-cake,
given especially' to animals imused to them or
in poor condition, by drinking foul or sewage-
contaminated water, by exposure to cold or wet,
which retard skin secretion and excretion of
excrementitious matters. The disease is not con-
tagious, but is produced by inoculation ; the flesh
of animals dying from quarter-evil often causes
gastric and constitutional derangement in animals
eating it. Dulness, stiffness, indisposition to move,
febrile symptoms, and elevated temperature are
sometimes noticed a few hours before the extrava-
sations of serum and blood appear about the quarters,
loins, or chest. The animal dies exhausted some-
times in six, usually in twelve hours after it is first
observed to be amiss. Rapidly-thriving young
calves occasionally suffer fi-om an allied septic con-
dition, in consequence of which blood is outpoured
within the membranes and in the structure of the
brain. Sometimes the haemorrhage occurs from the
mucous membrane of the bowels. In adults, espe-
cially in good thriving mUk-cows living on rich
food, the spleen becomes engorged with dark
fluid blood, and sudden death occm-s from splenic
apoplexy. None of these septic disorders are
amenable to treatment : no known remedies can
sufficiently rapidly remove the fault}' state of system
on which they depend. In black-leg, bleeding,
salines, stimulants, scarifying of the tumors seldom
save or even considerably prolong life. Prevention
is, however, secured by careful management and
feeding, by keeping the young stock steadily
thriving, by avoiding too large amounts of de-
corticated cotton-cake or other albuminoids, by
inserting a seton in the dewlap, and when the
disease has sho^vn itself giving the other young-
cattle 1 oz. of sulphite of soda twice a week in
their mUk or mash.
Parasites of several sorts attack dairy-stock.
Ringworm, a cryjstogamic parasite called the
Tricojilij/ton, occurring in characteristic circular
patches, appears on the skin, chiefly of calves and
young cattle, is engendered by the use of damp
mouldy straw, especially of soft barley straw; and
is removed by washing the roughened skin daily
^\■ith soft soap, potashes, and warm water, and then
dressing with a lotion made by shaking together
one part each of iodine and common salt, which
secures solution of the iodine, and twelve to fifteen
parts of water. Solutions of corrosive sublimate,
chlorides of zinc and of iron, and nitrate of silver
also destroy the cryptogamic growth.
74
DAIRY FARMING.
Lice, or pedicuU, arc common amongst poor,
badly-nourished stock, kept dirty, or in the vicinity
of neglected fowl-honscs. Tobacco-juice, mercurial
ointment, and corrosive sublimate solutions are
frequently used to kill them, but, unless applied
with caution, sometimes injure the health of the
cattle, and even cause death. A safe and effectual
dressing is made with 1 oz. of powdered staves-
acre seeds builed for fil'lecii minutes iu a ])int nF
water.
Intestinal worms are not so common amongst
cattle as in horses and dogs.
Diseases akd Accidents of Calves.
The calf is sometimes born weak and feeble, and
it is needful that its head be raised and laid between
its outstretched limbs, its buttocks slapped to
favour inspiration, its mouth and nostrils cleared
of mucus and amnial fluid by the hand, and, if
need be, by suction. If these measures do not
establish breathing, artificial respiration should be
adopted, and a little ammonia held to fhe nostrils.
No milk or other fluid should be attempted to
be given until the calf shakes its head, breathes
regularly, and can swallow.
Bleeding occasionally occurs at birth, or within
a few hours after, from the rude tearing of the
umbilical cord, or from its being licked or bitten
by the cow. The cord, if sufficiently protruding,
should be enclosed in a ligature, care being taken
that no portion of the intestine is included. Or
the bleeding end may be wetted with some strong
styptic solution, such as of sulphate of iron or of
copper.
Urine sometimes trickles from the cord, but
after a few days generally takes its natural course.
If it persists, and the bladder and urethra are
found to be in a natural state, the end of the cord
may be ligatured, or, if too short to hold a ligature,
the foetal channel may be closed by suture.
Bruising and laceration, with consequent swell-
ing about the umbilicus, occasionally result from
cows violently licking the protruding portion of
the cord, or from other calves sucking at it. Male
calves sufPer more than female. Cleanliness and
soaj) and water are the first essentials ; if the jiarts
are hot and tender, fomentations are applied ; if
fulness is the only symptom, wash with some
astringent solution, such as one part of alum or
of sulphate of zinc to twenty of water.
}\avel-Ul, technically termed oiiqilialilk, begins
with inflammation of the cord, torn off close to the
abdomen or otherwise injured at birth or shortly
after. The severed raw surfaces are liable to ab-
sorb any exudation from adjacent injured parts, or
any putrefying germs that may be on the ground,
or even in the air of the cow-house. In his
admirable work on " Veterinary Obstetrics," ^Ir.
Fleming records cases of navel-ill produced by
exposure of the newly-dropped calf to filth and
over-crowding, to wet and cold, as well as to such
special infective materials as arise from putrefying
of the placenta and other organic matters. The
tediousness and danger of navel-ill depend, however,
not only on the external enlargement, the infiltra-
tion of serum or even of lilood into the connective
tissues, or the firm hard swelling of the protruded
portion of the cord, but on the fact that the in-
flammation early seizes on the interior of the open
umbilical blood-vessels, and travels along them,
reaching sometimes the liver and other internal
organs. The protruding end of the coixl, instead
of gradually drying and withering, is hard, swollen,
moist, and hot, the little patient is feverish and
arches his back. From the peritoneum becoming
inflamed there is sometimes colic. From inflam-
mation of the vein abscesses I'esult, sometimes
within the abdominal ring and difficult to get at,
causing hectic fever, pytemia, and death, or in
more chronic cases being complicated with inflam-
mation of the joints. Often the liver becomes
implicated, as indicated by yellowness of the mem-
branes during life, and after death by enlargement,
but sometimes by wasting and bloodlessness. A
fatal result sometimes occurs in three days; more
frequently the patient survives for a week.
The irritable swollen parts shotild be carefully
fomented and cleansed with tepid water, and
washed with a one to twenty solution of car-
bolic acid ; and this fomentation and disinfection
should be repeated two or three times daily. Any
abscesses within the abdominal ring should be
opened, and a diluted carbolic solution injected.
German veterinarians further recommend that a
diluted astringent solution be cautiously introduced
into the inflamed umbilical vein. When the in-
tense painful external inflammation does not yield
to fomentations and antiseptics, it is well to scarify,
and subsequently wash with carbolic solution. To
counteract pya;mia, sulphite of soda, wth other
antiseptics, and tincture of the chloride of iron,
arc prescribed. Cle.'inliness and disinfectants are
DISEASES OF CALVES.
75
enjoined about the premises, in ordei" to prevent
further absorption of septic materials and avoid
their transference to other animals. Strength
must be maintained by frequent supplies of milk
and linseed gruel; constipation is comliated by
castor oil.
Chronic swellings of the umbilicus are not
uncommon in young bulls ; when hard they are
difficult of dispersion, and sometimes interfere with
the animal's usefulness. Whilst hot and tender
they should be treated by hot fomentations or
continued cold applications ; when hard or non-
inflammatory they are painted with iodine or blis-
tering liniment ; and all risks of having the parts
rubbed or pulled are prevented by keejDing the bull
by himself.
Indigetifion is common amongst young calves,
owing to their being so generally brought up on
the bucket, subjected to long fasts and subsequent
rapid gorging, or compelled to drink sour, stale
milk, sometimes given at too high a temperature.
Occasionally the mischief results from the milk
containing noxious matters, owing to the cow being
over-driven, excited, or having access to foul,
sewage-contaminated water. The calf is dull and
uneasy, its appetite capricious, and it often lies
outstretched on its side; the belly is over-distended,
gas is passed by the mouth and anus ; the faeces are
curdy, yellow, acid, fetid, usually fluid, and passed
with straining. Amongst carelessly - managed
calves inflammation of the stomach and bowels
sometimes supervenes, proving fatal in three or
four days. The diarrhoea to which such indigestion
often leads is noticed below. A dose of castor oil,
with twenty drops of laudanum added to counteract
straining and pain, will gently remove the sour
curd lodged in the stomach and bowels, keeping
up the irritation. If the calf has remained with
its dam, her milk must be examined; it may, espe-
cially in old cows, contain too much curd, or it may
have been secreted so abundantly that a weakly calf,
unable to take it all, had it stale. At intervals
of three or four hours the little patient should
have 4 or 5 ozs. of good milk, freshly drawn
from a recently-calved cow, and diluted with half
its bulk of lime-water. A daily dose of three or
four drops of hydrochloric acid and a tea-spoonful
of whisky or gin in a wine-glass of water often bene-
fits such cases. The old-fashioned popular remedy
of a little rennet is also useful. Perfect cleanhness,
fresh air, and comfortable quarters hasten recovery
13
from these gastric attacks, and also go a long way
to prevent them.
Diarrhma, or white scour, carries off a large
number of newly-born and carelessly-managed
young calves. It spreads rapidly in crowded,
insanitary places ; it is contagious, and once occur-
ring in the pens, it continues to haunt them until
they are thoroughly cleansed and disinfected. But
although distinctly contagious, several experimen-
talists have failed to produce it by giving healthy
calves the intestinal excretions of those affected.
It is most common where cows and offspring are
housed, and amongst calves brought up artificially.
Its chief causes are those above noted as producing
indigestion. The first symptoms are : a dirty tail,
dulness, carelessness as to food, and abdominal ful-
ness. The fseces are fluid and charged with mucus,
are sour and bad-smelling, yellow or white from
the imperfect digestion of the milk rapidly hurried
through the digestive tube, and are discharged with
violence and pain. Weakness is early apparent,
the calf lies much, its eyes are sunk, from the re-
ducing discharges and consequent anaemia it is
sometimes blind and unconscious, dying without
a struggle. In foul, dark cow-houses, young calves
are frequently attacked and die wthin twenty-four
hours. The stomach and intestines are usually
empty, their lining membrane covered with mucus
of a dirty grey colour and studded with patches of
congestion and oedema. Cases that have survived
a few days exhibit spots of ulceration, esjjeeially of
the lower bowels, with deposits of purulent matter,
amidst which float crowds of minute organisms, by
different authorities regarded as microscopic entozoa
or cryptogamic parasites ; whilst adjacent lympha-
tic glands are reddened, swollen, and infiltrated.
The liver is small, pale, and bloodless. The mus-
cles and organs generally are pale and bloodless.
With the view of clearing the digestive canal of
irritating food and acrid discharges, a dose of castor
oil is given, excessive action being i^revented by the
addition of thirty or forty drops of laudanum. The
patient must be removed to a clean, airy, but warm
box. If in spite of the oil and laudanum j)ain and
flatulence continue, give three or four times daily
forty to sixty drops each of laudanum and sulphuric
ether in a little water. At intervals of three or
four hours sujsply from a bottle 4 or 5 ozs. of
new milk diluted with an equal bulk of lime-
water. If the milk, however, continue to disagree,
withhold it for several days, and sustain the calf
7C,
i)\ii!V rAiniixd.
with wcll-boilod starch gruel, of wliiili (i oi" 8
oy.ri. aru given every three or fuiir h mrs. White
of egg or beef tea stirred ainongst it renders it
more nutritive. Condensed milk and Liebig's fari-
naceous food are also useful in such cases when the
ordinary milk keeps up the wasteful diarrhoea. An
occasional clyster of 3 or 4 ozs. of tepid well-
boiled starch gruel, containing twenty drops of
laudanum, often relieves straining.
Professor James Law, of Utica, N.Y., writes
as follows on " Scouring in Calves": —
" When the young animal comes int<i the
world it is called upon to exercise new functions
of the most varied kind. Its lungs, hitherto
unused, are inflated with air, and the red blood,
drawn into a new channel, circulates in the
almost endless membrane which lines their cells
and cavities. The digestive organs, hitherto the
torpid and inactive receptacle of the excretions
from their own walls, from the liver and pan-
creas, must take in aliment, secrete the digestive
fluids, absorb the elaborated products, and expel
the effete matter, in order to sustain their own
integrity and that of the system at large.
"With the skin exposed to all the unwonted
vicissitudes of cold and heat, and too often of
dryness and wet, and the lungs compelled to
breathe air at all degrees of temperature, tension,
and aqueous saturation, and with all grades of
impurity, it is not to be wondered at that the
digestive process is sometimes retarded or rendered
imperfect, and that the foundation of serious and
fatal disorders is laid.
"Perhaps the most common cause of indiges-
tion and scouring during the first week of life
is the want of tone and activity in the bowels
These are clogged at birth with tough, yellowish-
brown biliary products that have been accumu-
lating for mouths, and that virtually glue the
walls of the intestines together, and prevent their
natural movements or the jiassage of anything
throigh them. To remove this, nature has pro-
vided a first milk — colostrum — rich in albumen
and salts, and actively laxative; and if from anj'
cause this is withheld, danger can only be obviated
by the substitution of some other purge, such as
2 ozs. of castor oil or magnesia. To make these
more effectual, and more like nature's laxative,
they should be given in one-half these doses for
several days in succession until the natural activity
of the bowels has been established.
" Apart from costiveness, other evils may
result from improper milk. If the dam is worked
or otherwise excited till fevered, the milk is altered
in (piality, and often proves jioisonous to the off-
spring ; and the same may result from diseases of
various kinds in the mother, or from supplying
her with unsuitable food, the hurtful elements of
which pass into the milk or lead to an altered
secretion. Another common cause is giving the
meals at too long intervals, so that the calf comes
with stomach empty, faint, and languid, and loads
it with an excess in the shortest possible time ; and
the simple distension for a time partially paralyses
it, not only in movement, but in secretion as well.
If to this is added that the milk has been altered
by too long retention in the udder, or soured or
otherwise decomposed by standing in vessels of
questionable purity, we have a combination of
evils that too often prove effectual for harm.
There is therefore always greater danger in
bringing up by hand on cold or on soured milk,
though the mere souring, apart from putrid
decomposition, may soon beget an accommodating
action on the part of the stomach, which will in
many cases render it proof against its evil effects.
Even this, however, it is well to avoid, and hence
the allowance of a couple of table-spoonfuls of
lime-water with each meal is a valuable precaution
when young animals are fed with milk from a
pail. This sulistitution of farinaceous gruels for
the natural milk is still more reprehensible, and its
eft'ects should be watched with the greatest care.
Another common cause of direct disoitler of the
stomach is the pressure of hair-balls that the
calves have swallowed while licking themselves
or sucking their fellows, and which, rolled into
firm masses in the fourth stomach, entangle a
quantit}^ of putrefying milk, and sjseedily set u])
noxious fermentation in whatever is introduced
into the stomach. As already suggested, foid
air, damp beds, and cold exi)osure are prolific
causes of digestive disorder in the young. Finally,
the constitution has much to do with the result.
Certain breeds of families, of strong constitution
and rounded forms, will in the main resist these
injurious influences and survive under the worst
treatment ; while others with narrow, shallow
chests, their necks hollow, lengthy flanks, and
light-coloured skins, will bear little, but sink
under slight exciting causes. Hence, to avoid
losses by scouring, we must begin at the beginning.
DISEA.SES OF CALVES.
77
and lay the fouudation of a sound constitution,
derived from a stron<i;, vigorous race, kept and
breil in tlio most licaltliy conditions.
" A very simple treatment will often be suc-
nessful, if adopted at the outset and accompanied
by a removal of all the removable causes of illness,
as noticed above. If the sick calf has been put on
the milk of a farrow cow, he must be put on that
of one more recently calved j if that disag'rees,
still another nurse must be sought ; and if from
any cause the health of the cow fails, or if her
bag cakes, let the calf have its supply from a
more wholesome source. When the calf is given
to rapid drinking, this may be partially remedied
by fixing an artificial teat in the pail for him to
suck while drinking.
" As a rule, the stomach should be cleared of
its morbid accumulations by a dose of 1 or 2 ozs.
of castor oil and a tea-spoonful of laudanum. If
the skin or membranes of the mouth, nose, or
eyes are of a yellowish tint, two grains of calomel
and twenty grains of chalk may be added, and
repeated daily for some time. In 'the absence of
the yellow tinge, give with each meal a table-
spoonl'ul from a bottle of sherry wine in which
one-eighth of the fourth stomach of a calf has
been steeped for twenty-four hours. A table-
spoonful of tincture of cinnamon, with twenty
grains each of chalk and gum-arabic, will be an
excellent adjunct. Finally, if the abdomen is
tense or tender to the touch, it should be rubbed
over with a thin pwlp made of the best ground
mustard and tepid water, and covered with a
bandage to prevent drying until it has taken
effect on the skin.''
Diarrhoea, or scouring, amongst older animals
is produced by much the same causes which induce
it in calves, notably by coarse, indigestible, innutri-
tive food, by bad water, by long fasts and subse-
quent greedy feeding. It is often a symptom of
anremia, reducing and carrying off many badly-
nourished cattle rising one or two years. Treat-
ment consists in judicious feeding, nutritive fare,
lestrieted water supply, laudanum and ether or
chlorodyne to abate spasm and pain ; iron, acids,
and bitters to promote the healthy tone of the
weakened membrane, and comfortable protection
from wind and weather.
Broiic/i'nil fliiria [SlrongijlM micrnrni), the
cause of liii.tk, or Iioose, in young cattle, are picked
up in their larval state from the muddy water or
pools, from rough herbage, or are swallowed in the
bodies of small slugs or minute insects. They
appear to be carried in the circulation to the
lungs, and there undergo full development into
thread-like worms, 1 to 'Z\ in. long. Hundreds
are sometimes found rolled into masses, blocking
the lesser bronchi, exciting a tickling loud cough,
which is so fre(pient that it interferes with feeding
and thriving, and the animal soon becomes thrift-
less, tucked up, and aua?mie, and the breathing
increasingly difficult. The parasites sometimes
multiply in the digestive canal, setting up diarrhoea.
Lambs are liable to the invasion of an allied
strongylus. In the autumn months, in woodland
districts, on flooded or rough old pastures, where
facilities occur for the propagation of the strongu-
lus, it is wisdom to have the young cattle housed
at night after the middle of September ; or, if this
is impracticable, give them daily a good meal of
dry food, and as a further preventive j)rovide them
rock-salt to lick. The most effectual method of
killing the intruders is to bring the husking cattle
into a house, and cause them to inhale suljjhur
anhydride, produced by burning sulphur on a shovel
of live cinders. Two or three inhalations effect a
cure. Chlorine gas is also used, but is more irri-
tating. A few doses of oil of turpentine, given in
milk or lime-water, are also effectual, and promptly
destroy any of the worms lodged in the bowels.
Concentrated, nutritive dry food and iron salts are
valuable in restoring the impaired appetite and
strength.
BMiographiJ. — "Text Book of Veterinary Ob-
stetrics, including the Diseases and Accidents inci-
dental to Pregnancy, Parturition, and Early Age
in the Domesticated Animals." By George Fleming,
F.R.C.V.S. Balliere, Tindall, and Co., King
William Street, Strand, London. 1877. 800 pp.
" The Principles and Practice of Veterinary Medi-
cine and Surgery." By Professor A\ illiams. New
Veterinary College, Edinburgh. Maclaehlan and
Stewart, Edinburgh. J.875. Two vols. "Dairy
Stock, its Selection, Diseases, and Produce." By
Professor John Gams-ee. Hamilton, Adams, and
Co., London. 1801.^ ;J10 pp. F. D.
CHAPTER YII.
Dairy Homesteads and Buildixgs.
Need of Good Farm-Buildings— Their Requirements— Advantages o! Iligli and Low Situation— Compactness— Ladders— Covered
Yards— Buildings at Tattenliall Hall Farm— Lord Tollemache's Buildings at Peekforton— Plans for a Dairy Homestead by
Ulr. Rouse-Boughton— An American Octagon Barn— Its Advantages and Construction- Difference in the
American and English Idea.
?MOXG the more important requi-
sites to successful dairy-farming
are a good and convenient farm-
house and a well-planned set of
farm-buildings. To farm either
profitably or pleasantly A\ath an
ill-adapted house and with ill-
arranged, ill -ventilated, scattered, and
otherwise defective buildings, is not to be
expected — that is, both pleasure and profit
are diminished under these conditions. Though
a great deal has been done in recent years to im-
prove the building and house accommodation on
dairy as well as on arable farms in the British
islands, no one who is well acquainted with our
dairying districts can have failed to be struck with
the great amount of improvement which still
requires to be made in many places. Noteworthy
examples of improvement in farm-homesteads on
their estates have been set by several large land-
owners, and the spirit of progress is gradually
spreading over the whole country. It is a her-
culean task to re-eonstruct the myriad farmsteads
of such a country as this, or even to sufficiently
improve the existing ones; and as the work of
improvement has not yet been active for a very
long period, we may not only regard with satis-
faction the progress so far attained, but also
look forward to its being continued, and in course
of time completed.
A modern farm-house on a dairy-farm consists,
first, of a good substantial portion for the accommo-
dation of the farmer's familj', including servants ;
and in the rear of this are usually situated the
various buildings, rooms, and offices which are
devoted to the speciality of the farm — cheese-
making. These last consist, first of all, of a good
and spacious room, in which the milk is jilaccd
during the longer or shorter time which passes before
it is made into cheese, and in which the various
operations belonging to cheese-making are per-
formed ; adjoining this is the press and salting
room ; and in the rear of or alongside these are the
scullery, where the butter is manipulated, and the
open shed, where the milk-pails, cheese- vats, and
various other utensils and implements are scalded,
cleaned, and laid aside until they are again wanted.
Various modifications and arrangements of
these rooms are adopted, and in many cases the
cheese-making is done in a part of the general
kitchen of the house, which is made large enough
for the double purpose ; but this plan is not to be
approved, and it is better in all cases that a room
be specially set apart for the actual cheese-making.
In 'other instances the cheese-making room and the
press-room are combined in one ; this, again, is
objectionable. In yet other instances these variotis
rooms are all combined in one, and all the work
appertaining to both cheese and butter is done in
it, even to the w^ashing and cleaning of the
utensils ; there may be economy of space in this
arrangement, but on every other consideration it is
to be disapproved of. It is not objectionable that
the milk should be kept overnight in the room
in which the cheese is made, and it is commonly
kept in the milk-vats, or tubs, or kettles in which
it is afterwards coagulated, and in which all the
processes up to " pressing " are usually performed ;
Imt the I'oom should always be kept perfectly sweet
and clean, or the milk will take injury through
T/)('AT1()N OF BUILDlXCiS.
79
absorbiug- siiielis and (nldur.-;. 'I'lu' " clii.'ese-roimi,"
or "drying-room," or " curiny-room," as it is
variously named, is commonly on the first floor,
over the general kitchen, where it is placed on
account of the warmth which it derives from the
kitchen beneath. This room is the most impor-
tant ore in the house, for here the cheese is " made
or marred" in the ripening. It is not enough to
make the cheese well, but it must ripen properly
too, for much cheese is ruined in the ripening ;
hence the importance of the " cheese-room.'' On
a few large dairy-farms the house is built apart
from the rooms which are devoted to cheese and
butter ; but this is a matter of no importance — it
is one of taste only, and needs no more than to
be mentioned. To the construction and heating
of cheese-rooms we shall refer at greater length
later on.
Where cheese-making is done at home it is
especially necessary to have the house, or other
building in which the milk is made up into cheese,
so situated that the buildings in which the cows
are kept in winter and milked in summer shall
be within easy access of it. Some farmers would
object to having their dwelling-house, even though
the cheese-making be done in it, at all near to the
cow-sheds; there is at least one well-founded ob-
jection to such an arrangement, but we consider that
one to be more than counterbalanced by certain
advantages. It may with truth be said that if
the farm-house is situated near to the cow-sheds,
unpleasant odours may at times obtrude themselves,
and that these would be objectionable not alone on
the score of a hygienic or sanitary nuisance, but
also because the milk, when once taken from the cow,
is better removed quite away from any odours which
it would absorb to its hurt. But it may be said,
in reply, that although the house and buildings are
within easy distance of each other, the latter may
be so constructed, and ought always to be kejjt
in such condition, that no odours worth speaking
of should reach the house from them. Then,
again, whoever has had a dairy-farm on hand will
without hesitation allow it to be a matter of
very considerable importance that the distance to
be traversed at milking-time should be as short
as can be conveniently arranged, for where the
milkers have far to carry their milk from the
shippons to the dairy, a great deal of valuable time
is continually wasted.
It is, of course, in all cases that admit of
it, an excellent thin:;' to liave both house and
buildings situated as nearly as may be in the
centre of the farm, and contiguous to a main road,
in order to economise labour as much as possible.
Time is money, and where much of it is occupied
in journeys to and from a distant part of the farm,
it is so much to the wrong side of the farmer's
balance-sheet ; it is, in fact, so much money
lost, though it may not at first sight be quite
so obvious as the loss of actual money. And it
is not only a loss in respect to the servants' and
masters' and horses' time in the general work of
the farm, but if the dairy-cows themselves have
to perform a double jouraey twice a day in going
to their pastures and in returning from them to bo
milked, the journey will tell on the milk-pail; this,
again, may not be very obvious to every one, but it
is there nevertheless. Dairy-cows as a rule are
not good pedestrians, especially when in the flush of
milk ; and if they have to do mnch walking, either
to or from their pastures, or in the pastures them-
selves in search of food when grass is scarce, there
is a loss of tissue and of rest, and a consumption
of fat, which are detrimental to the production
of milk. These are cogent reasons why farmsteads
should, in respect to the land, be conveniently
situated.
There are, however, other considerations not to
be lost sight of which cannot fail to influence the
location of the buildings. Generally speaking, it
is an advantage to have them, where the formation
of the land admits of it, on the more elevated
portion of the farm, with the bulk of the land
sloping downwards away from them all round ;
and this is important on sanitary grounds, and
in respect of an economical distribution over the
land of the farm-yard manure — the liquid portion
particularly, which in that case may be sent over
the meadows by means of sluices, without any
carting whatever. But as the natural supply of
water, especially in the case of streams, is commonly
found on the lower portion of the farm, it is a
matter which well merits consideration whether
the farmstead should or should not be placed
contiguous to it. It must be borne in mind that
if a high situation gives facilities for the removal
of manure, it is more or less awkward for the
harvesting of crops; but, again, as manure is
commonly carted out when the land is wet and
soft, and crops are carted in when it is dry and
hard, the lia lance of convenience rests on the
80
DAIRY FARMING.
mamire side of tlio question ; and to tliis position
wi'is>'lit is added by the fact that in low situa-
tions there is always a greater or lesser waste of
manure. The rain falling in the yards and on the
manure-heaps goes to largely increase what may l)e
properly called the liquid portion of the manure,
and this, being unable to be turned to good account
by being run directly over the land, escapes — at all
events, a good part of it — into the stream below.
We admit that in theory there is no necessity
for this waste, yet in practice it very commonly
hajipens ; and as the manure produced on a farm is
of great importance to the farmer, it follows that
any waste of it is a loss, and the question of
location of farm-buildings ought not to be decided
without reference to it.
It is, however, an advantage to have the shelter
■which a low situation affords, providing this cannot
be attained by the planting of trees on a higher
situation ; and if the low situation makes that
cheapest of all power — water-power — available for
the driving of farm machinery, this again is a
point which commands attention. All things else
considered, cleanliness and health f)articalarly, we
are inclined, in most cases, to favour a high rather
than a low situation, within reasonable limits. But
as the great bulk of English farm-homesteads are
already located somewhere or other on the farms
to which they belong, and as but in few cases are
they likely to be wholly removed to some other
jjlace, we pass on to consider the most convenient
arrangement to be aimed at in the erection of new
buildings, either on the site of the old ones, some-
where near to them, or, it may be, on some other
part of the farm.
It may be laid down as a first proposition that
buildings scattered here and there about a farm, as
was too commonly the custom in the olden times, is
anything rather than an economical arrangement.
To have them centrally situated and compactly
arranged, with a view to economy of time and
labour in tending the cattle, is a matter of j)rime
necessity in these days of high wages and sharp
competition. Every dairy-farmer is alive to the
importance of this now-a-days. It is thought
by some that scattered buildings form a sort of
desultory protection against the spread of infectious
diseases, on the ground of partial isolation ; but
we think there is no real safeguard in this, f(jr
e])izootics not uncrmmonly break out first in out-
l\ing buildhio's in a most unaccfiuntable manner.
and the gi'rins of infection are commonly carried
to all the buildings before the disease is known
to be on the farm at all.
Farm-buildings sIkjuUI always be constructed,
with a view to convenience and to saving of labour,
and not only for the comfortable accommodation of
the cattle which they are intended to contain. The
latter is, of course, a permanent consideration, but
not the only one. In these days of dear and scarce
labour it is highly important that no time be wasted
by the men who tend the wants of the animals in
going about from one part to another by indirect
or awkward paths. Where food is prepared for
the animals by steam or other machinery, it is
necessary that the mixing or preparation rooms be
so centrally and conveniently situated that easy
and direct access may be obtained from them to
the various food racks and troughs in front of the
animals, and to the sheds which contain them.
The loss of time — time, which is money — in
carrjing food to animals, and to sheds which have
been built in a hajihazard manner, remote from
the central preparation-sheds, is greater and more
serious than many imagine ; and in only too many
farmsteads we find the buildings arranged with
a total disregard of the principles of convenience.
Compactness and symmetry are features as valuable
in farm-buildings as in pedigree shorthorns, and
considerably more permanent. Three sides of a
square, or of more squares than one, commend
themselves to our notions as combining those
features with the important principle of handy
convenience, while they offer great advantages
for the economical erection of covered yards —
one of the most valuable characteristics of modern
farm-yard architecture. With such the convenient
location of the rick-yard is also not only possible,
but easy, and this is a matter of almost as great
importance as the other.
In many cases it is expedient to have ladders in
barns instead of steps or stairs, so as to have them
occupy as little room as possible. A flight of steps
or stairs takes up considerable space which cannot
always be conveniently spared for that purpose,
but a fixed perpendicular ladder may be placed
so as not to take u]) any ajipreciable room, and
yet answer the purpose snlllciently well. In
Fig. a are given tliree such ladders, any one of
which will be found both simple and useful. \
represents a post-ladder, consisting of an npriglit
post, through which pins either of iron or tough
COVERKD YAKDS.
81
wood
plank
plunk
are inserted at pmpcr intiTvals; b, a
•hukler, consistino- ol' an ordinary 9-iueh
tlu\uio-h wliicli a iiunilior of holes are cut,
Fig. 22.— Ladders.
A, post-ladder. B, plauk-ladder. c, frdme-ladder.
alternating first on one side and then on the other;
and c, a ladder in frame : it may be an ordinary
ladder in a fixed jjosition, or with one side only
added ; the staves or rungs may be inserted on the
other side into an upright piece of timber which
forms part of the building, the lower end of the
added side being fixed to the floor, and the ujiper
to a cross-beam, as shown in the figure.
The question of covered j'ards for young stock
is one that has been much debated. Those who
are in favour of them have at least two cogent
arguments to support their views — the additional
shelter afforded to the cattle, saving thereb\r a
given quantity of food ; and the economy of litter,
much of which is alwaj's trodden to waste, or
next to waste, in open yards. On the other hand,
some writers contend that open yards are con-
ducive to the health and hardiness of the animals ;
fresh air, and even exjsosure to the elements, being
necessary to give them the desired vigour of con-
stitution. It is true enough that young animals
may easily be injured by being kept under cover
too much, but we fail to see any advantage in
exposing them to the storms and blasts of winter.
Fresh air is necessary to them, and so is exercise,
but it is a simple matter enough to arrange that
they shall have plenty of both in connection with
covered vards. The mistake made b^■ those who
on these grounds condemn covered yaixls lies in
assuming that when once put in the yards the
cattle are not allowed out of them during the
winter. In this matter we may admit the teach-
ings of instinct in the animals. If. young stock
have a building, a shed, or a covered yard into
which they can i-etire when they choose, we find
they always do retire into it in bad weather, and
that they require little or no teaching to do so.
So with covered yards it is a simple matter, which
suggests itself to any one, to allow the animals to go
out in fine weather and to come in in foul; they
will do both these things of their own accord,
if they are allowed.
Covered yards, equally Avith open ones, are not
adapted for breeding cattle. Not on account of
the shelter question — for on this they are certainly
better than oi)en yards — but because breeding
cattle should never, at all events when in calf,
be allowed to run loose in a confined space,
and this for the reason that they wall frequently
be goring each other under such conditions, and
thus bring on abortions. They must either have
plenty of room to get out of each other's way, or
be tied up by the neck, and this last is the better
plan in most cases. For fatting beasts covered
yards are well adapted in districts where there is
no scarcity of litter; and for young stock they
are best of all adapted, even where litter is not
plentiful.
At least three prime factors enter into the
consideration of erecting covered yards, and these
are shelter, litter, and manure.
1. S/ielter. — In some localities there is no need
to provide any sort of shelter for young stock.
Down in the warm valleys which are out of the
reach of cold blasts, and in other places where
there are plenty of plantations or good hedgerows,
and in most districts that are within 300 feet of
the sea-level, and where the land is sound and dry,
young stock will as a rule be found to do quite as
well without as with the shelter that buildings
supply in winter-time. Dairy-cows, too, in such dis-
tricts require to be housed only for a comparatively
short period — say from the beginning of January
until the middle of April, according to the season.
While they are clearly doing well out of doors in
the late autumn it is unnecessary to tie them up,
but as soon as they show the least symptoms of
taking harm, or wlien the weather is such that
we have reason to expect they are taking harm.
DAIRY FARMING.
FARM BUILDINGS.
83
14
84
DAIRY FARMING.
whether they show symptoms or not, then they
must be tied uj) at once. If the laud is sopping
wet they should be tied up, no matter if the
weather be cold or not, for they do great harm to
the land at these times by trampling on it when it
is soft; and fatting beasts should always be under
cover as soon as the chilly nights warn us that
winter is upon us. Altitude will generally decide
these points, for the nearer we are to the sea-level,
the longer will winter be deferred. The turning out
to grass in the spring will in all cases be governed
by the grass itself — when there are good pastures
it is time to turn out. In high, cold, or exposed
districts anywhere it is generally expedient to
provide shelter for all stock, young and old alike ;
and though all in-calf stock should be tied up, it
is advisable on fairly dry land to allow the j'oung
stock to run in or out as they choose, but they
should alwaj's be fed under cover, in order not
only to economise food, but to train them to make
use of the shelter provided for them.
2. Lifter. — In districts where litter is scarce,
open yards are next to impossible, and it is best
for all kinds of stock to stand in stalls during
the winter, if the weather is such that it is
unfit for any of them to be out of doors. Tied
in properly constructed stalls, there is no need
whatever to give the cattle any litter at all j they
wiU do perfectly well without it. But where there
is a moderate quantity of litter to spare, covered
yards will be found the best for young stock, and
either stalls or boxes for fatting stock, while dairy-
cattle should in all cases stand in stalls. Where
litter is so abundant that it cannot all, or nearly
all, be consumed as food, there open yards may be
tolerated, because in them the greatest quantity of
litter can be trodden down into manure, the liquid
portion of M'hich needs to be soaked up by the
straw. But all kinds of straw are in these days
too valuable to be merely trodden down into
manure; and for this reason, if for no other,
covered yai-ds are preferable to open ones, simply
because they economise litter. Stalls are preferable
to covered yards for the same reason.
3. Mtniinx'. — We contend that it is next to
impossible so to construct open yards that rain-
water shall not carry away a large and valuable
poHion of the soluble constituents of mainire, and
it is in nearly all cases, in a wet climate such as
ours, a prodigal waste of straw to use it in oyon
yards to soak up rain-water that falls in them. It
is not so very difficult to make the manure of a
uniform quality, because the wetter the weather,
the more litter will be used, and vice i-crsd ; but if
we soak up all rain-water, in addition to the liquid
portion of the manure, we throw, all to no purpose,
an extra burden of labour on our men and horses,
and we have a large bulk of inferior manure.
The cost of making an open yard so that there
will be no waste of the soluble portions of the
manure will probably exceed that of a covered
j'ai-d; so that we are fain to believe the order of
the day in the future will be either covered
yards or no yards at all.
In many cases it has been the practice to
have the open yards made so that each of the
four sides slopes into the centre ; that is, the
yard is dished. Either a liquid-manure tank bus
been previously constructed under the yard, or
there is one at a distance. In the former case
the liquid manure drops directly into the tank,
and in the latter it is carried from the centre
by a drain. But the great objection against
trying to preserve liquid manure that is produced
in open yards lies in the fact that it always
gets too much diluted with rain-water, and so
is hardly worth carting out to the fields. Nor
is it possible to prevent one of two results : either
that the liquid manure is too much diluted, or
that the solid consists too much of litter which
has been used to absorb the rain. It may be,
however, that the farm-buildings are placed on
an elevated spot, so that the contents of the tank
can be distributed over the land below by means
of hose or sluices, and without any carting at
all, in which case it is a matter of but little
moment whether or not the tank be half filled
with rain-water each time; nay, it is almost better
it should be, because the liquid manure can then
bo distributed more evenly over a large area of
land. This, indeed, where the slope of the land
admits of it, is by far the best and cheapest
and most effective way of distributing liquid
maniu'e. Even were the rain-water kept wholly
out, it is still an cxjiensive and troublesome thing
to distribute the liquid manure by carting ; and
as it is better — much better — that it should be
put on the land in damp weather, the hose or
.sluice nu'thdd of distribution does away with the
injury v.hich the land would receive from the
wheels of the carts and the hoofs of the horses.
It will therefore appear that the question of
LITTER AND MANURE.
85
the location of a liquid-manure tank is an im-
portant one in connection with open yards; and,
indeed, it is a question well worth thinking out —
wliether or not there shall be a tank at all. As-
suming' that the buildings are situated on sloping
land, the liquid manure can be economically dis-
tributed over the meadows as it is produced,
without a tank ; or with a tank it can be dis-
tributed any time when the weather is suitable,
and this, indeed, is the chief, perhaps the only,
advantage which tanks afford. If, however, the
buildings are in a hollow, or on flat land, the
licjuid manure cannot be utilised without the aid
of a tank,, unless litter is used to absorb it, and
in either case it requires to be carted out or
pumped. But whether there be a tank or not,
or whether the yards be open or covered ones,
it is better that the latter should slope a little
toward the centre, and that they should be well
and firmly paved, so that loaded carts will not break
up the surface. This done, the manure question,
always an important one, is very much simplified.
The farmstead of TatteuhaU Hall, of which,
by permission of the author, we give an iso-
metrieal view and a ground-plan, C02:)ied from j\Ir.
Bailey Denton's " Farm Homesteads of England,"
is considered to be a favourable specimen of its
class. It is situated on the estate of Robert
Barbour, Esq., and is occupied by Mr. George
Jackson. Mr. Bailey Denton gives the following
description of the homestead : —
"The buildings were erected in the year 1860.
Exclusive of house and piggeries, the haulage of
materials, the formation of roads, and the making
of the necessary approaches, they cost £1,600.
This sum does not include a small portion of
old materials used in them. The arrangements
were designed by the tenant ; Mr. J. Harrison, of
Chester, acting as architect.
"The dairy-cows, eighty in number, occupy
the principal building (the cow-house), in close
proximity with which are the food-chambers,
machinery, and barn. The cows are placed on
each side a central feeding passage, along which
the cut food is carried by a truck to the troughs ;
while a constant stream of water passes along the
two lines of stalls, and furnishes each with an
ever-fresh supply. The central portion of this
large building is higher than the two ends, and
cojitains a hay-loft, into which hay is brought
direct from the field and there stored. Ventilation
is gained by an air-shaft, in the shape of a centre
cupola, and by side openings. There is accommoda-
tion for fourteen calves and twelve store stock, in
atldition to the dairy- stock. Stabling is provided
for nine working horses, besides which there is a
nag stable with three stalls, a loose box, and a
hospital for cows. The piggeries, which are sup-
plied with whey by means of a pipe-drain direct
from the dairy, are fitted up for about fifty breed-
ing, store, and fatting pigs, and are very complete.
" The machinery consists of a portable steam-
engine, with a thrashing apparatus, and also a
6-in. cylinder fixed steam-engine, which drives a
chaff-cutter placed in the straw depot and a root-
cutter and cleaver in the room below. The latter
is supplied by the engine-boy from the adjacent
store, and the roots, when cut, are taken by
"elevators and mixed with the chaff ; the whole
being sprinkled with hot water or oil-eake gruel
as it descends to a chamber, the floor of which is
perforated, in order to allow the waste steam from
the engine to ascend and sweeten the whole. The
cows are kept on this steamed food throughout the
winter; as spring approaches an addition of oil-
cake, bean-meal, and a little ehop2)ed seeds and
clover is made to it.
" The milk when brought from the cow-house
is collected into two cheese-tubs, or vats, placed on
the kitchen floor, and capable of containing 240
gallons. Each tub is provided with a |-in. plug,
and a strainer guards the opening through which
the whey, when sej)arated from the curd, passes
into one of four slate cisterns. When all the cream
has been removed from the whey, a valve is raised,
which allows of the escape of the refuse whey
into any or all of the pig-troughs, a little meal
from the corn-flour bin being added to it. The
curd, when separated, is passed through the curd-
mill. It is then salted, vatted, pressed into the
proper cheese shapes, and elevated into the cheese-
drying room, and after four months' detention the
cheeses are lowered by the same contrivance, and
sent to the Loudon market.
" The buildings are drained into two large
liquid-manure tanks, the contents of which serve
to irrigate about 14r acres of meadow land. The
rain-water and the wash of the house is conducted
to suitable reservoirs, and is made to flow over
a small meadow at pleasure. The buildings are
supplied with water from a pond, which receives
the drainao-e water from about 15 acres of land.
86
DAIRY FARMING.
Fig. 23.— View of Lord Tollemache's Fabmstead.
Fig. 26.— Grol'nd-Plan op Lord Tollemache's
Fabmste.vd.
A, parlotir; B, house-room; c, passage; D, cellar;
E, pantry; F, scullery; G, kitchen; H, chum-
house ; I, milk-house ; J, cleaning-shed ^covered) ;
K, press-house ; L, coal-house. Piggeries. — n, open yard ;
o, shed to do. ; p, w.c ; Q, cisterns for whey ; B, coal and
engine house ; s, oven ; T, meal-house. Buildin'js. — u, root^
house ; V, chop-house ; w, tank, with room above for chaff-
cutting, grinding, &c. : x, bull-house ; y, cow-byres ; z, bins ;
A*, drift-house ; A*, house for calves; A^, barn; A*, gig-bouse;
A^, cart-house ; a*, cart-stable ; a", cart-stable.
The c'(irn crops are well housed in skeleton barns haviiip;' elny floors, the crops
being preserved from contact with the clay by means of an intervening layer of
brushwood.
" In addition to this homestead, which has the disadvantage of not being
at the centre of the holding, twenty-four cow-stalls, a food-house, and labourer'.s
cottage have been erected at a distant part of the farm. At this steading
the barren cows are fatted and the calves are kept, the latter being supjilicd
with roots and fodder. By this means much cartage is saved, and manure is
made where it is wanted. The farm consists of abf.ut 320 acres, of which about
lot* arc arable, the rest being jiasture and nicadow. The land consists mostly
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AN AMERICAN OCTAGON BARN.
87
of clay, restinj^ on a sulistiatum of New Red
Sandstone."
Ou his Cheshire estates, at Peekforton, Lord
Tollomache, of ITehnins-ham, has erected or re-
built many substantial, handsome, and well-
ajipointed farmsteads. With a personal industry
and a care for the comfort of his tenantry which
are as rare as they are estimable among landlords.
Lord Tollemache has provided farm-houses, dairy-
offices, and farm-buildings which are wonders of
substantial neatness and of complete and con-
venient arrangement. We are enabled, through
liis loitlship's kindness, to give in Fig. 35 a view
of one of the farmsteads, and in Fig. 26 the
ground-plun.
The outlay incurred in the erection of these
complete farm-offices amounts, on the average, to
about £3, .500 per set. In an agricultural journal
of May 13, 1878, was given a summary of this
outlay, and we reproduce it : —
Entire Cost of the Ekection of a Farm-
AND Buildings.
Farm-house,
Bricklayers' and masons' work, mcluding liricks,
tiles, lime, &c. ...
Carpenters' work, including timber, iron work,
door frames, latches, &c.
Plumber, including spouting, glazing, painting,
and papering
£ s. d.
5120 0 0
380 0 0
112 0 0
1,012 0 0
Piggeries.
Bricklayers' and masons' work, including all ma-
terials ...
Carpenters' work, &c.
Pump ...
OuthiiiUVnigs,
Bricklayers' and masons' work, including bricks,
lime, and all materials ...
Carpenters' work, including timber and iron work,
and all materials
Plumber, including glazing, painting, (Sec.
170 0 0
36 0 0
16 0 0
43.5
0
0
43
0
0
1,218
0
0
Summary.
£, s.
d.
Farm-bouse
... 1,012 0
0
Piggeries and pump
Outbuildings
222 0
... 1,218 0
0
0
Paving yards, roads, gates and posts
60 0
0
2,512 0 0
We also give coloured plates of a set of
buildings suitable for a dairy-farm of 100 acres.
In this set it will be seen that ample covered-
shed accommodation for young stock is provided,
in addition to the stalls for dairy-cows, and boxes
for fatting beasts. The original drawings, of which
the plates are fac-similes, were courteously made,
at our request, by W. St. A. Rouse-Boughton,
Esq., of Downton Hall, near Ludlow. The ground-
plan is so fully detailed as to explain itself without
further description.
An American Barn.
For reasons that will appear on perusal, we
take the following description and drawings of an
American octagon barn from the National Live
Stock Journal, in which they were published.
They present several novel and interesting
features : —
" This form is most admirably adapted for cheajily
enclosing the greatest space within the shortest line
of outside wall. The circle is still more economical
of outside wall, but would be more expensive to
build, while the octangle is as easily and cheaply
built as the rectangle. The barn given in Fig. 28
was designed to replace four barns which were
destroyed by fire ; the four barns had a basement
area of about 7,000 sqirare feet, while the octagon
covers only 5,350 square feet; yet the internal
capacity of the latter is greater than that of the
former, because it has outside posts 28 feet
high, while the others had outside posts 16 to
20 feet high. The octagon has an outside wall
of 2G5 feet, while the four barns had an aggre-
gate of 716 feet of outside wall, showing the
great economy of this form in expense of wall
and siding. If we compare it with a single
bam 108 by 50, the latter will enclose the same
number of square feet and have the same capacity
at the same height, but requires 51 feet more
of outside wall. The rectangular barn will also
require many more interior cross-beams and posts,
which besides adding to the expense are always
in the way. The long rectangle requires, for
convenience, two cross floors, which take ujj more
room, and, being separated, are less convenient
than the single floor through the centre of the
octagon. The long bam re uires posts and p)urlins
to support the roof, wh ch are obstructions in
filling with hay and grain, while the octagonal
roof of one-third pitch is self-supporting, resting
only on the outside plates, and may be safely
stretched over a diameter large enouoh to accom-
88
DAIKY FARMIXCr.
modate a farm nf 1,000 acres, or say 150 feet in
diameter. The plates jxirform the office of the
bottom choixl, and the liip rafters of the top choi-d,
in a truss. The strain on the plates is an endwise
pull, and if they are strong enough to stand the
strain of the push at the foot of the rafters, the
bottom of the roof cannot spread, and the rafters,
being properly bridged from the middle to the
top, cannot crash, and the whole roof must
remain rigldlij in place. Its external form being
that of an octagonal
cone, each side bears
equally upon every
other side, and it
has great strength
without any cross
ties or beams, re-
quiring no more
material or labour
than the ordinary
roof.
" It will be seen
by Fig. iJS that there
is a drive-way 1 5 feet
wide through the
centre of the prin-
cipal storey from
north to south.
There is a line of
' big beams ' on
either side of this
drive-way, 13 feet
high, across which
a scaffold may be
thrown to enable us
to occupy the high
space over this floor.
The posts being 28
feet high and roof rising ll\ feet, the cupola
floor is 50 feet above the drive-way floor below.
The space above these ' big beams ' is quite clear
of any obstruction, and a horse pitching-fork may
be run at pleasure to any part. The bay for hay
on the left side of this floor is SO feet long and has
an area of 2,0.'50 square feet, and is capable of hold-
ing, when filled to the roof, 160 tons of hay. This
bay, extending along the floor 80 feet, may Ite
divided into as many parts as required for different
qualities of hay, and each part may be quite con-
venient for filling and taking out.
" On the viiiht-haiid side of the floor is a
betn
there should be no separati
ft, h, an open grated platform for
iipDu a concrete floor below.
scaffold, 8 feet high, having the same area below
(2,0:30 square feet) for carriages, farm-tools, and
machines; above this scaffold is — a height of \S\
feet to the plates — a large space for grain, affording
ample room for the separate storage of each kind
to the aggregate storage of 2,000 bushels or more.
It will be seen that the large space in this barn is
all reached and fllled from one floor, saving much
labour in changing from one floor to another. In
our other buildings \ve had six places for hay,
holding less than
this one bay, re-
quiring the moving
of the horse fork
and tackle to six
different bays, while
in this bay the hay-
ing w-ill begin and
end, with room to
spare. Fig- 27
shows the basement
as we intend to use
it, yet there are
many different ways
in which it may be
divided for stock
and other purj)oses.
" The dri\e-way
through the base-
ment is from west
to east, being the
feeding - floor be-
tween two rows of
cattle, whose heads
are toward the floor.
The floor is 14i feet
wide, out of which
come two rows of
mangers 2| feet wide, leaving a space of 10 feet
wide for driving a waggon through, or running
a oar carrying food for the animals. There are
places for twenty cows or other cattle on each
side, leaving a space of 18 feet at the west end
to drive a cart around behind the cattle on either
side to carry away the manure and pass out at a
side stable-door, 8 feet wide. The hoi-se-stalls are
an-anged on the south side, but may be placed
on either of several other sides, or on all. By
placing tails to w'all and heads on an inner
circle, drawn 12 feet from the wall, with feed-
box room 3 feet wide for each horse, with ainiilc
Octagon B.vsement (North Side).
, h, c. d, doors of basement \ e, drive-way throuph the centre ; n, c, south drive-
way for catt to carry out manure; o, d, north drive-way ; m, spare room for
root-cellar or any other purpose; I, I, lying-in stalls for cows ; fc, k, fc, fc, fc, fc,
horse-mangers ; j, j, i^j, j. j, horse-stalls ; /./, fqrty cow-stalls or stanchions —
n these spaces and h ; g, <7, cow-mangers ;
i to stand on, the manure falling through
AN AMERICAN OCTAGON BARN.
room at the roar, sixteen horse-stalls may he ar-
rann-ed ou south-west, south, and south-east sides.
But for 200-aere farms, generally, no more than
forty head of cattle and six horses would be kept,
and for such our g-round-plan would he most con-
venient, because it furnishes easy access with a
cart, both for supplying fodder and carrying away
the manure. Ou our plan we have much space on
the north, north-west and north-east sides, which
may be used for various purposes, such as root-
cellar, sheepfold for fifty sheep, or for stowing
away tools, working waggons, and implements.
"The basement
is not sunk in the
earth, but on the
north and south
sides it is graded
up to the floor of
the second storey,
so as to make an
easy drive - way
into the barn. The
base line, as re-
presented on the
drawing, is 4- feet
below the general
level of the land
on the north side,
but there is an
open channel of
water, into which
every part is
drained, on the
south side. The
earth on the east
and west sides is
scraped upon the north and south sides to grade
up the drive-ways into second storey. This base-
ment is lighted by six windows of twenty lights,
8 by 12 glass, and six of ten lights each.
"A little examination of this form of barn
will not only show its adaptation to large farms^
but to all sizes — from the smallest to the largest.
A farmer has but to calculate how much room
he wants for cattle, how much for horses, how
much for sheep, how much for hay and grain, how
much for carriages, waggons, tools, or any other pur-
pose, and he can enclose just the number of square
feet needed, and with the shortest outside wall.
He may be liberal in his allowance of room, for it
costs less, in proportion, as the size is increased.
Fig.
tie-rod
Suppose he requires for a 50-acre farm 2,090
square feet of room ; this would require a 50-i'oot
octagon or a 40 by 52 rectangle. Now he would
require timber 40 feet long for the latter, while
he could build the octagon with timber for the
sills and plates only 22 feet long, and this would
be the longest timber, unless he wished his posts
higher. Each side would be only 20§ feet, and
the wall for the basement 105 feet long, Avhilst
the other would be 184 feet long, saving 19
feet of wall and siding by the octagon, requiring
but eight corner posts, and no intermediates, as the
girts would be less
than 20 feet long.
He would require
no interior posts
or beams, except
those for scaffolds.
All the ordinary
purlin posts and
beams would be
saved, and the
labour ou them.
It is easy, also, to
see that a few
feet added to each
side would furnish
room for another
50 acres, and so on
to any size desired.
This form of build-
ing, properly un-
derstood, would
lead farmers to
(, Lip rafters. abandon the build-
ing of a separate
barh for each specific purpose, and to providing
for all their necessities under one roof. If several
barns are placed so as to be convenient, the
danger, in ease of a fire, is about the same as in
one barn, for all would burn in either case. The
economy of roofage is exhibited strongly by a
comparison of my four barns with the octagon
that takes their place. One hundred thousand
shingles were required to roof the former, while
sixty thousand covers the octagon.
"We have made these general points in expla-
nation of the outline drawing, but there are many
other considerations which will occur to our readers
that they may study for themselves.
" At the suggestion of a gentleman of Buffalo,
:S.— Octagon Barn (Nokth Elevation)
nd brid^ng between rafters ; s, piu-lin rim ;
90
DAIRY FARMING.
greatly interestod in improved methods of build-
ing, Mr. L. Brush, we give a representation of an
octagon basement, laid out, in the interior, on a
circle, containing fifty-two stalls for cows or cattle,
with heads towards the interior. For a fancy
breeding establishment, these stalls might be made
some 3 feet high, showing all the animals at one
view, and with the feeding-car on track (c), and
the car for running out manure on track (<•/),
the labour would be made convenient. This
leaves a 52-foot in-
terior circle which
may be put to any
purpose required.
The track (c) takes
out 6 feet, still leav-
ing a circle of 4.S feet
diameter. The horse-
stalls [d) are laid out
on a circle, but would
be better placed at
right angles with
the drive-way. One
strong point to be
made in favour of
the circular plan is,
that by means of the
cars running across
the drive-way, food
dropped through the
floor above ujjon the
car can be run to
every animal in the
basement. The horse-
stalls would also be
very convenient of
access from the drive-
way. One side of the
drive-way might be fitted up with box-stalls for
brood mares or colts, or calf-pens. We give tliis
j)lan merely as suggestive, and not as the best
arrangement. Every one may divide the space
as he sees fit. Of course, it will be moi-e ex-
pensive to fit up on a circle, but to one who
fancied it, a few dollars would be, perhaps, no
objection.
"The plan of basement given in Fig. 27 would
generally be preferred, and if wanted for a large
dairy-barn there is room for two parallel floors
with two rows of cows to each floor, giving one
long and one j^hort row of cows to each floor,
Fig. 29.— Octagon Baseifent (Scale 16 feet to the inch).
This represents an 80-foot octagon basement laid out on a circle ; h, h repre-
sents fifty-two cow or cattle stalls, heads toward inner circle ; c represents
a circular track for a feeding-car to run round in front of the cows or cattle ;
a, circular track for a manure-car to carry off offal ; d represents one
method of plaeing horse-stalls convenient to ilrive-way j e, vacant space to
be used for any purpose ; /, /, drive-way.
affording ample room to drive a cart behind each
row of cows to take away the manure. One drive-
way would answer for both inside rows of cows ;
also leaving r(X)m for a narrow calf-pen on the out-
side wall behind each outside row of cows. This
would be occupying the basement to its full
capacity, but, usually on a 250-acre farm, which
this size of octagon would accommodate, not more
than fifty head of cattle and horses are kept, and
our first plan of basement would be the most
convenient, leaving
ample space for a
great variety of
uses."
The octagon barn
will probably not —
at all events at pre-
sent — recommend
itself to English
notions, because it is
so totally different
from anything we
are accustomed to in
the way of farm-
buildings ; but that
it possesses certain
valuable features will,
we think, be gene-
ral ly admitted, and
we may venture to
hope that .some one
will try it in this '
country, so that its
merits and demerits
may be made known
to English dairy-
farmei-s, for whom
alone it is adapted.
It will be noticed that there is neither manure-
cellar under this barn, nor inclined plane to the
second floor; and the manure-cellar is regarded,
by many American farmers, as a .??'«e qua
non to a dairy-bani. A manure-shed outside
will, however, answer the purpose of a cellar,
and could probably be constructed at a less
expense ; the chief advantage of a cellar is the
facility which it affords for a hand}' disposal and
preservation of the manure, with very little labour,
until it is wanted for the land. Unless the
building is on sloping land, the manure-cellar
makes necessaiy a considerable inclined plane if
AN AMERICAN OCTAGON BARN.
91
vehicles are to have access to the second fl(.)or,
and a smaller oue would be required to eualile
the cows to get to their stalls ; built on a hill-
side, however, these objectionable features may,
the one in part and the other wholly, be dispensed
with.
To English notions, which do not favour more
than two-storey farm-buildings, it seems somewhat
odd that in America, where at all events land is
cheap enongh, the practice should be to make dairy-
barns three storeys in height ; and especially odd
does it seem that carts and waggons, loaded with
hay or straw at harvest-time, should be taken up a
plane to the third storey; but we have seen several
of these three-storey barns in the United States,
and can testify to their compactness and general
practicability. The American idea is to have the
forage, cattle, and manure all under one roof, and
tliis arrangement, once completed, is decidedly a
labour-saving arrangement, and is less ponderous
than might have been thought. In England, on
the contrary, even two-storey buildings are going
out of fashion, and it is considered better to have
cattle in buildings which are open to the roof, on
account of the superior ventilation which is thereby
secured, and to store the hay in " hay-barns "
siJeeially constructed for the purpose, while the
straw is in the rick-yard adjoining, and that part
of the buildings which is devoted to chaffing,
pulping, mixing, &c., of food, is so situated as to be
contiguous on the one hand to the cattle-sheds,
and on the other to the rick-yard. But fashions
change, and in course of time it may happen that
we shall construct our dairy-barns on the American
plan. Tliere are points in both systems that will
repay attentive study, and possibly the advantages
of each may yet be combined in greater degree
than in any plan which has yet come under our
notice.
It may be atlded that the whole of the build-
ings should, if possible, be so arranged that they
can without much difficulty be seen from tlie
farm-house. The house itself will usually be in
front of the buildings, facing south, so that the
kitchen, dairy, and back offices belonging to the
house will be next to the buildings, and the latter
should be so arranged that the highest portion of
them form a good shelter to the rest from the
north and west winds, providing they need it.
The doors shcjuld all, or nearly all, open where
they can be seen from the house, or from the south
front of the buildings, so that idlers and vagabonds
cannot obtain ingress to the buildings, or egress
from them, without affording a good chance of
being seen. This is of more importance than it
might seem to be at first sight.
As a rule it is better, for the sake of giving
the cattle as much as possible of sun and light,
that the buildings should have a southern aspect ;
yet if the buildings are naturally well sheltered on
the west and north, and are liable to cold winds
and rain from the east and south, then the highest
buildings should be placed where they will form
the best shelter to the rest. Generally we think it
best not to store forage in lofts over cattle, unless
on a well- boarded floor that will keep down the
smell of the cattle ; yet the system answers well
in properly constructed buildings, and there is a
saving of roof-space. The materials should always
be good of their kind, and not scanty. None of
the roof -timber should be exposed at the eaves or
gables, and the workmanship should be substantial.
Building that is worth doing at all is woi-th
doino: well.
niAPTKR YIII.
The Ok Hi IX ov Sori.s.
Soils -Cooling of the Globe— Action of Water— Formative as well as Destrnctive-Igneous, Aqueous, and Mctamorphic Rocks—
Formation of S^-o<a— Composition and Properties of Sand, Clay, and Liniestonc-AII Soils more or less Mixed- Humus, or
Organic Matter-Essential Conditions of a Fertile Soil-Characteristics and Names of Various Soils— Processes by which
Soils are Formed— Geological Formations as found in the British Isles, with their Corresponding Soils and
Resulting Systems of Agriculture.
,'ERY long ago— so far back,
indeed, that the time which
has since elapsed, even were
it capable of being expressed
in a definite number of years,
would be quite incomprehen-
sible by us — the globe on
which we live, and which we call the
Earth, was in a highly heated condi-
tion, the intensity of the heat being so
great that the materials composing the
rocks which we now see around us
were in a molten condition. In the course of
ages much of the earth's heat was radiated into
space ; and this went on till at length the earth
became sufficiently cooled for some portion of it
to assume a solid state. It was probably in this
manner that the first hard rock-masses made their
appearance on the earth's surface. As the cooling
continued, the water-vapour, or steam, which must
have been present in the hot atmosphere, became
condensed into the liquid state ; the water itself
was then subjected to the cooling influence of
radiation, and in course of time the earth's surface
became inhabited by low forms of life. The effect
of the sun's heat in those far-distant ages would
be then, as now, to cause the water on the earth's
surface to rise up in the form of vajmur, and so
to form clouds. These clouds, floating about
in the higher regions of the atmosphere, would
become sufliciontly cooled for their water-vapour
to be condensed and fall in the form of drops —
rain-drops — on the earth. The rain-water would
flow over the surface, and percolate through the
rock-masses, and the residue would at length
find its way into little channels, whence the water
would emerge in rills, and l)y the confluence of
a number of rills a larger stream would be formed,
the waters of which would in the end empty
themselves into some large reservoir, as a lake or
sea. Now, what is the effect of falling rain and
running water on the land surface of the globe ?
To answer this question it is only necessary to
observe the results produced by a shower of rain.
Every one knows that the rain as it drains off
the land is by no means clear water, but that it
is turbid or muddy, owing to the fact that the
running water takes uji in its course and carries
along with it small particles of earth. Water
may either flow off the surface of the land into
some small stream, and thence to a river, or it
may first trickle through the earth's " crust," and
so find its way by a different course into a large
stream. All rivers contain a lot of fine mud or
sediment in their water, some, indeed, being
always j^lainly muddy, and even those whose
waters appear to be bright, clear, and sparkling
are only apparently clear, for if a glass of the
clearest river water be set aside for an hour, a
fine layer of sandy particles will be seen to have
settled down on the bottom of the vessel. It
is evident, then, that the effect of running water
is fo wear away the surface of the land; and so
water is called a denuding agent because, when
in motion, it lays bare the rock-masses on the
face of the earth. And this denuding action
of water, be it remembered, has been going
on in various parts of the earth ever since the
time when water first appeared, as such, on the
globe.
DENUDING AGENTS.
do
The work of ileinnjiition implies also that oi^
ilisiiifi'gration, by which is meaut the breakiupj up
of the rock-masses into small pai'ticles, capal)le of
being easily transjwrted from place to place. This
process of disintegration having happened, the
denuding action of running water easily follows.
A moment's consideration will show that, besides
running water, there are several other important
agents of disintegration. Thus, the great reser-
voir of water, the ocean, is everlastingly beating
■with its restless waves upon the rock-bound shore,
angular fragments of rock being thereby broken
off the parent mass. These, by being continually
rolled about, become rounded into pebbles, and the
smaller fragments at length form those very small
pebbles called sand. And this marine denudation,
as it is called, is always going on to a greater
or less degree — the huge, angry breakers urged
on in their resistless course by the fiercest hur-
ricane, and the gentlest ripple of the ocean wave
on a calm summer day, both alike perform slowly
but surely their work of destruction. Other
causes are not less potent : frozen water in the
form of snow and ice, for example, exerts a
destructive effect on the land ; glaciers grind away
the rock surface over which they flow, scratching
and polishing the rock itself, and bearing away
to the place where the glacier melts the dis-
integrated particles, which are then fvirther
transported by the streams fed by the melting
glacier. The river Rhone is fed in this way by
the streams from the Alpine glaciers, and before
entering the Lake of Geneva is a very muddy
river.
The destructive effects of water, then, are
produced by both its liquid and solid forms ;
and not only is this so, but in the very act
of passing from the liquid to the solid state —
that is, in freezing — this substance exerts an
influence which is not less effective. For water,
unlike most other substances in nature, instead
of contracting, expands when it is being frozen
into ice, and the power of this expansion is well-
nigh irresistible ; consequently, if a rock soaked
with water becomes frozen, the water between the
particles of rock will, in expanding into ice, force
these particles further apart. As long as the
ice remains solid it will act as a cement between
the disrupted particles, but as soon as a thaw
sets in, the crumbling effect will at once make
itself apparent, and the particles will be easily
carried away in the water that trickles out of
the rock. It is in the same way that the bursting
of a water-pipe by frost, though it occurs at the
time of freezing, yet is only found out when the
thaw sets in. The effect of a frost on a soil is
to make it lighter, for the freezing water pushes
apart the constituent particles. Lastly, the
moving currents of air, which produce wind,
may be referred to, as transporting agents which
caiTy clouds of fine sand and dust, resulting
in marked effects on sandy beaches and loose
soils.
It should now be evident that, by means of
the various agents indicated, the earth's surface
is being slowly wasted away, and the question
naturally arises, How is it that, notwithstanding
the waste and denudation which have for so long
been going on, the whole of the land has not been
reduced to one dead level beneath the sea ", Clearly
there must be some ojjposing force, some counter-
acting influence, at work ; and, as a matter of fact,
this opposing force has its origin in that residuum
of the earth's primeval heat which is still stored
up in its interior. Geologists have shown that
the effect of this internal heat is to cause oscilla-
tions in the earth's surface, so that while it is
slowly rising in one place it is slowly sinking in
another. Thus, the north of Scandinavia is at
present being upheaved, while the west of Green-
land is as certainly undergoing depression. These
processes are of extreme slowness, but occasionally
the earth's internal heat manifests its existence
in a very violent and decisive manner, as in a
volcanic eruption, when vast quantities of molten
matter, ashes, and gases are ejected from the
earth's interior, or in an earthquake, when the
very "foundations of the earth" aj)pear to be
shaken, and the surface appears as unstable as that
of the ocean.
Though the process of disintegration may
appear at first to be solely destructive, it is not
really so, for it must be borne in mind that the
mud-laden waters of rivers and other streams
are, in the end, poured into lakes or seas, and
there the same thing occurs as happens when a
glass of water is taken from a river — the sediment
becomes in time deposited, on account of the
velocity of the water being checked. The coarsest,
and therefore the heaviest, materials, such as the
larger pieces of gravel and the stones rolled along
the bottom of the river, are deposited nearest
94
DAI II V FARMING.
tlie mouth, while the lia^hter particles are carried
farther out, and the finest sediment farthest (jf
all. It is because of this deposition of sediment
that the Rhone, which, as has already been stated,
enters the Lake of Geneva as a muddy stream
fed by glaciers, emerges therefrom as a river
of clear, ))ellucid water. Deltas, such as those
of the Nile and Ganges, and the delta of the
Rhine which forms most of the flat Dutch country,
are formed in this way. If, however, the river-
current be very swift, as is the case with the
Amazon, for example, a delta is not formed,
nor again when the scouring action of oceanic
currents disturbs the water at a river's mouth.
The sediment, as it is deposited on the ocean-
floor, is at first loose and incoherent — shifting
sand or mud — but gradually, owing to the pressure
of other .sediment deposited on it, and to the
])ercolatiou through the mass of certain cementing
materials, it will in time become a firm, coherent
rock-substance, as sandstone or clay. Rocks formed
thus by the agency of water are called aqneous
rocks, while those produced by the action of
the earth's heat are termed iijneous. There is
an intermediate class, in which are j^laced rocks
which were formed as aqueous rocks, but which
by the deposition of other rocks upon them, accom-
panied by the slow sinking of the ocean-floor, have
gradually come to occupy deep positions in the
earth's crust, and there under the influence of great
heat, pressure, and perhaps steam, have been
melted, and subsecpiently solidifying, have as-
sumed more or less the character of tnie igneous
rocks without really being so; such rocks ai'e
said to be metamorphosed or altered, and they
are called metamorphic rocks. Gneiss, serpen-
tine, marble, and schists may be mentioned as
examples.
Usuall}^, it is not difficult to determine
whether a rock is of aqueous or of igneous origin.
Aqueous rocks are (1) granular in texture, {;!)
exhibit planes of bedding — lamination or strati-
fication— due to deposition in layers, and (-'J)
fi'e(|uently enclose mineralised remains of animals
and ])lants (fossils). Igneous rocks, on the other
band, are (1) crystalline in texture, (:i) do not
show lamination, and (•'!) never enclose fossils.
Familiar examjiles of atpieous rocks are sand,
sandstone, clay, marl, limestone, coal, rock-salt;
common igneous rocks are granite, basalt, and
pumice. Aqueous rocks, as they occur in the
earth's crust, are usually itrafified — that is,
arranged in layers ; igneous rocks are vnniraliJU-d.
All the rocks which at any one period ajipcar
as dry land are alike subject to the influence of
disintegrating agents. Hence, by the continued
denudation of the land accompanied by slow
uj)heaval, it would be possible for igneous rocks,
which had been buried deep down in the earth's
crust, to appear at the surface. Further, although
atpieous rocks may, at first, have been dejiosited
horizontally, yet, owing to movements of the
earth's crust, caused by its endeavour to accommo-
date itself to the contracted interior resulting
from the radiation of the earth's heat into space
(a process which is still going on), the horizontal
layers become first tilted, and then thrown into
curves, these movements being necessarily ac-
companied by great straining, tearing, crushing,
and contortion of the rocks. The tops of the
curves then get planed off by denudation, and
so the surface of the land may really consist
of the vptiirned edges or outcrops of the beds.
This is to a great extent the case in England,
where a rapid succession of beds or si rata is
passed over in travelling from the west coast
of the country to the east (see map and
Fig. 31), and these strata are known to diji down
into the earth with a gentle ineliualiou to the
east.
The section. Fig. 30, represents a series of
beds thrown into curves in this way, the upper
parts, represented by dotted lines, having been
swept away liy deniulatinn, the jirosonf land
surface being denoted by the letters a, a, a. The
]iortion of the curve shown at s, where the strata
appear to form a basin <ir hullow, is IcrTiied
sipicliiiiil , wliilc at A, where the strata rise
up into a ridge, an unlirliiiiil curve results.
A lx)SS of igneous rock, u, which was forced
up amongst the aqueous strata, is partly cx]iosed
at the surface, owing to the denudation ot' tlie
overlying beds which once covered it up. The
ROCKY STRATA.
95
other section, Fig. 31, is a general view o£ the
succession of British strata from the north-west
to the south-east of England, and the reader
should study it in connection both with the
map and with the table on page 97.
As a result of their investigations, geologists
have succeeded in making a list of strata in the
order in which they were formed. Such a list, as it
refers to the British Isles, is now placed before the
reader, the youngest rocks being placed at the top,
and the oldest at the bottom ; beneath all these
stratified formations, and usually deep down in the
earth's crust, there are, of course, igneous rocks.
The thicknesses which are given must only be
considered as apjiroximate, all strata varying con-
siderably in this respect j and further, the thickness
can afford no indication of the extent of rock
exjiosed at the surface, as this will depend rather
on the nature of the outcrop and the angle of dip.
varied forms of scenery which, associated with a
mantle of verdure, make the face of the earth
lovely and beautiful, have been produced by the
unceasing action of rain and frost, of rivers and
the sea, by nature's two great sculptors, water
and ice.
It is necessary now to give some details re-
specting the composition and properties of those
substances which usually occur in soils, notably
sand, clay, and limestone.
Sand consists essentially of a substance called
silica, which is composed of the element silicon
united with the gas oxygen. A very pure sand
will contain little besides silica ; such is the white
or grey sand found on some sea-beaches. Other
sands will contain varying amounts of impurities,
notably of oxide of iron, to which many kinds of
sand owe their red, yellow, or variegated colour.
The purest form of silica is called rock-crystal or
Fig. 31. — General View of the Si'ccession of British Strata, the Line SS denoting the Sea-level.
G, a, h, Highly Metamorphosed and Igneous Rocks (G, Granite; a. Gneiss: b, Mica-schist);
g. Old Ked Sandstone; h, Carboniferous Limestone; i. Millstone Grit; k, Coal-Measures; I, Magu
n, Lias ; o, Oolite ; p, Greensand ; q, Chalk ; r, Tertiary Strata.
[, e, /, Cambrian and Silurian Rocks ;
. Limestone ; m. New Red Sandstone ;
In the last column are mentioned some of the
useful mineral products derived from the several
formations. The names of the various groups are
sometimes intended to be deserii:)tive of the rocks
themselves (as Cretaceous, Oolite), or they may be
of geographical origin (as Permian, Silurian) ; the
former are objectionable, because the same forma-
tion may vary considerably in the nature of its
rocks in different localities.
The earth's surface is mostly occupied by
aqueous rocks, those of igneous origin being more
or less covered by these. So long as the aqueous
rocks rested beneath the protecting covering of
the ocean they were preserved from denudation, but
directly they emerged above the sea their destruc-
tion was commenced, and is still going on, the result
being apparent to every one who is willing to look
for it. All the diversified forms that delight the
eye of the traveller or the tourist, crags, peaks,
and fells ; scarps, cliffs, and jirecipiees ; gorges and
ravines ; glens, dells, straths, and valleys ; hills and
dales; plains and table-lauds — in a wurd, all the
quartz ; it is found in colourless transparent six-
sided crystals, and is harder than steel ; other less
j)ure forms are quartzite. Hint, and chert, the latter
containing carbonate of lime. Sand, if examined
by means of a magnifying-glass, is seen to consist
of veiy small water-worn pebbles, not of sharp
angular fragments as is often supposed. It is an
aqueous rock, and originated in the mechanical
disintegration of some pre-existing rock — either a
sandstone itself, or an igneous rock containing
much silica — and the transport of the broken
material to some lake or sea where, after having
been water-worn, it was deposited. Beds of sand
may become consolidated into sandstone, which
is a rock with a firm granular uniform texture,
j-ielding one of the most useful and lasting
building stones. Gravel is a coarse sand. If
sand contains a considerable amount of carbonate
of lime it is called a calcareous sand.
As a soil, pure sand alone would be useless, both
physically and chemically. Consisting as it does of
hard minute granules, it is necessarily very j)orous,
oc
DAIRY FARMING.
and is therefore not retentive of moisture, so that
a few days' sunshine would render it dry and arid.
Tlien, again, as the particles have no mutual
cohesion, they would e:isily become the sport of
the wind, so that even supposing a plant to be
growing on pure sand, it would have no grip or
liold on the soil, unless it possessed very long
straggling roots like those of some of the sea-
shore grasses. From the chemical side the objec-
tions to a soil of sand are even more serious, for it
could offer the plant nothing in the shape of food,
as very few jjlants require silicon, and even those
that do take up this element, as the grasses and
cereals, can be grown quite healthily without it.
Yet, notwithstanding these drawbacks, sand, as
a consliluent of soils, confers on them two im-
portant properties : it renders them light, and
therefore permeable to air, moisture, and warmth;
and it also concentrates and stores up the solar
heat.
Clay, like sand, is a mechanically-formed
aqueous rock.* But, whereas saud is produced by
the disintegration of certain granites, of quartz-
rocks, and sandstones, clay results from the wearing
away of such rocks as gneiss, slate, and shale. Mud
carried down by streams becomes consolidated into
clay, and the clay may harden into shale, and under
certain conditions this maybe converted into slate.
Like sand, clay also contains silica, but it differs
from sand in possessing as essential constituents
two other substances, namely, alumina and water.
It is, therefore, said to be a hydrated silicate of
alumina. Certain impurities, notably oxide of iron
and magnesia, are usually present. The colour
varies much ; it is almost white in the kaolin or
china-clay, obtained from the weathering of the
felspar in certain granites, while in most of the
lias clay it is blue. From a ehemieal point of view,
pure clay would be a.s useless as j)ure sand as a
supplier of plant-food, but clays are always more
or less impure, and the impurities present usually
contain elements, such as potassium, iron, calcium,
and magnesium, which play an important part in
the nutrition of plants. The physical properties
of clay are, in many cases, the reverse of those of
sand. Sand is loose and incoherent, clay is firm,
l)lastic, and tenacious; sand rapidly loses moisture,
clay is very retentive of it; saud will easily
become hot and dr}', whereas clay remains cool,
• The geologist uses the word rock to denote any l;iige
mass of earthy matter, whether hard or soft.
and is well able to resist a drought. It appears,
then, that a soil consisting entirely of clay would
be very firm, cold, and damp, and if exposed to
much rain the surface would become muddy,
owing to the moisture not draining away. As one
of the constituents of a soil, however, clay is found
to possess many valuable properties. Thus, it
condenses the oxygen of the air; retains water,
thereby keeping the soil moist ; gives tenacity to
the soil, preserves the useful products of decompo-
sition of manures, and is rich in u.seful alkaline
salts adapted to supply plants with food.
LniKSTONE in its purest form is a compound of
lime and carbonic acid gas (carbon dioxide), con-
sisting therefore of the elements calcium, carbon,
and oxygen, and known to chemists as calcium
carbonate. When limestone is burnt in a lime-
kiln, the carbonic acid gas is driven off by the
heat, and the residue is lime, the well-known
causticity of which is due to the eagerness with
which it absorbs and combines with water,
thereby forming slaked lime. The purest kind of
calcium carbonate that occurs in nature is a beau-
tiful colourless transjaarent substance crystallising
in rhombs, and known by such names as caleite,
cale-spar, Iceland-spar. These crystals may fre-
quently be found in cavities in limestone rocks.
Limestones are always more or less impure, owing
to the presence of small though variable quantities
of magnesia, iron, and alumina, in the form of
silicates, phosphates, and sulphates, due frequently
to the intermixture of clay or sand in small pro-
portions.
It is a remarkable fact, and one of very
great importance in the process of disintegration,
that water containing carbonic acid gas in solution
has the power of dissolving calcium carbonate.
Now the air always contains a small quantity
of carbonic acid gas, and rain in falling through
the atmosphere dissolves some of it, so that the
water which drains off the land is able, owing
to the solvent power confeiTcd on it by the gas,
to dissolve the calcium carbonate, or carbonate
of lime, as it is more usually called, both out
of limestone rocks, and out of other rocks in
which it may occur as a cementing material.
fSujipose, for example, a soil contains carbonate
of lime, then rain-water with carbonic acid in
solution will act beneficially in two \vays : by
gradually removing the carbonate it will render
the soil lighter, more porous, and therefore more
Table ok the Biutisu Stratified Formations.
riiocene
Miocene
Post-
tertiary
r Newer
i Older
( AUuvnal deposits, estuarine )
( beds, and peat bogs ... )
j River alluvia, raised beaches ; \
■\ boulder clays, and other gla- >
( cial detritus. Chillesford Beds J
Norwich Crag )
(Red Crag V
i Coralline Crag j
I Bovey Tracey and Mull Beils, 1
i and Basalt of Antrim ... f
f Hempstead Beds \
) Bembridge ,, (^
Osborne ,, i'
Headou , , )
Barton, Bracklesham, 1
\ and Bagshot Beds f
London Clay
Woolwich and Reading Beds, )
and Thanet Sand )
( Upper ( 'halk with Flints \
Lower ( 'balk without Flints >
■i Chalk Marl J
Upper Greensand
LOault
j Lower Greensand )
t Atherfield Clay )
j Weald Clay )
< Hastings Wand i
(purbeckBeds
( Portland Beds 1
\ Kimeridge Clay j
j Coral Rag and C'alcareous Grit (
\ Oxford ClayandKelloway Rock )
fCornbrash ^
Forest Marble k Bradford Clay I
I Great (or Bath) Oolite .. |
■{ Stonestield Slate 1-
I FuUer's Earth
I Inferior Oolite |
l^JIidford Sands J
' Upper Lias Clay and Sand
Middle Lias Marlstone
Lower Lias Clay and Limestone
tRhsetic and Penarth Beds
) Keuper, or New Red Marl
K Bunter, or New Red Sandstone
J Magnesian Limestone
(. Rothliegende
I Coal-measures
Millstone Grit (Farewell Rock) "\
Yoredale Beds (LTpper Lime- >
stone Shale) J
Carboniferous Limestone
Upper
Middle
indtUe
Lower
Old Red Sandstone ]
and Devonian . . . i
Upper
f Lower Limestone Shale (Calci- ]
\ f erous Sandstone of Scotland) J
{Upper
Middle
Lower
^ Ludlow Beds
<. Wenlock Limestone and Shale
i Upper Llandovery Beds
TLower Llandovery Beds
Bala and Caradoc Beds
•' Llandeilo Flags
Tremadoc Slates
(.^Lingiila Flags
'eet. Useful Pboddcts, etc.
Peat, lignite.
River mud at mouth of Thames for Portland cement.
Loam, flint gravel.
1 no J Phosphatic nodules used as mineral fertilisers.
^"^ 1 Building stones.
Pottery clay and lignite of Bovey Tracey.
f Clay for bricks.
) Sand for glass-making.
^ Ironstone.
' .Se|)taria used for making hydraulic cement.
) White pure Bagshot sands at .Sandhurst and in
\ Isle of Wight used in glass-making.
{London clay used for brick and tile making.
Septaria dredged up off coasts of the London clay.
( Chalk, whiting, lime, building stones.
I FKnt for roads and glass-making.
Chalk and marl for manure.
Phosphatic nodules.
Gault clay for bricks and tiles.
( Phosphatic nodules near Pulborough and Godalming.
I Kentish rag building stone, clay, Fuller's earth,
j" Speeton clay of Yorkshire yields septaria for Roman
< cement, and fine, light-coloured clay for Portland
I cement.
1,270
480
270
1,700
150
300
900
1,500
950
900
1,250
200
600
700
1,400
600
2,000
10,000
600
4,000
1,000
Purbeck marble.
( Building stone,
t Clay.
( Building stone.
< Road stone.
\ Freestone.
iClay.
Roofing tiles.
Bath freestone. ,^^^ ^^^ j^^^ ^■^^^
Fuller's earth. * Northampton sands.
Coarse building stone. Coal in Sutherlandshire.
( Alum, Whitby jet, clay for bricks, tiles, and drain-
\ pipes.
Cleveland (Yorkshire) iron ore.
Clay for bricks and tiles. Nodules for cement.
Landscape-marble of Cotham.
GyiKum (sulphate of Ume) ; common sorts burnt for
plaster of Paris, very coarse kinds used as top-
dressing for soils. Rock-salt.
Bunter yields good supply of water.
( Good building stone, Houses of Parliament built of
\ it. Used in manufacture of Epsom salts.
Building, paving, and road stone.
( Coal. Iron ore. Clay for bricks, tiles, earthenware,
\ and pottery.
( Stourbridge clay for fire-bricks. Grindstones.
I Iron pyrites. Lead ore.
( Barytes. Fluor sx)ar. Ores of zinc and lead.
< Good road metal.
( Coal and black-band ironstone in Scotland.
2,000
1,700
1,.500
1,000
6,000
5,000
1,000
5,000
{Flag-stones, paving, and building stones.
Clay slate in Devon and Cornwall, containing ores of
tin, copper, lead, iron, and silver. Madrepore marble.
Building stones.
Lime and flux for iron smelting.
Green slates of Cumberland.
[Jasper.
Limestone burnt for manure. Phosphate of Ume.
30,000
Slates, paving-stones, flagstones.
(■Roofing slates, slabs for cisterns, and hones for
< cutlery. Largest slate quarries in the world at
( Penrhyn.
Plumbago. Building materials.
Note on Watek Supply.— The Chnlk, Oolite, Lias, and Carboniferous L'mestone yield haid water. Tlie water of the Mag
Limestone is unusually hard, and that yielded by the Trias generally contains gypsum, and is therefore permanently hard. The softest
waters spring mostly from sands and clay^, and are derived from the Bagshot Beds, London clay, Wealden Beds, and Upper Carboniferous;
the exits and slates of the Cambrian and Silurian series, and the igneous and metimorphic rocks, also furnish soft water.
9S
DAIRY FAKMIXG.
easily erumljlwl; and I'lirtluT, Iiy huldiny tlio
carbonate of lime iu solution, it will present
calcium iu the water around the rootlets of the
plants in sueh a way that the element can be
taken uj) l)y the plants, for vegetable food must
be either liquid or gaseous.
If water containing carbonate of lime and
carbonic acid in solution be so exposed tliat the
carbonic acid can disengage itself and pass off
again into the air as a gas, then of course the
carbonate of lime becomes deposited. It is in
"this way that deposits of carbonate of lime are
formed in petrifying springs; stalactites, stalag-
mites, and deposits in boilers and kettles are
produced similarly. All the great limestone
formations, seen on the earth^s surface, have,
however, been built up 1)}' the agency of marine
animals on the floors of seas or oceans, and
by the subsecpient u])heaval of the latter have
become dry land. All river-waters contain,
amongst other things, carbonate of lime in solution,
which the water obtains in the manner already
indicated ; this carbonate is sejiarated from the
sea-water by shell-bearing animals to afford
material for their shells, and when the animals
die, these shells fall to the bottom of the ocean,
and there in time they may accumulate in sufficient
quantity to form subsequently a thick bed of
limestone, consisting chiefly of carbonate of lime.
In this manner the chalk, which now forms so
large a portion of the south-east of England,
was deposited as a deep-sea formation ; at the
present day sueh a deposit is in course of forma-
tion over the floor of the Atlantic Ocean between
lilurope and America. Coral reefs, again, consist
of carbonate of lime.
As a soil constituent, it is only in the jKilverised
state that limestone plays an important part ;
when in the form of gravel it behaves like other
granular pieces of rock. Pulverised limestone
has two useful agricultural properties : it furnishes
plants with mineral manures in the phosphates
and sulphates of lime and potash which are
usually present as impurities, and it aids the
decomposition of organic manures, such as farm-
yard and green manure.
Soils consisting entirely of puiv sand, or clay,
or limestone are never met with iu nature. Some
soils may consist to a very great extent of one of
these, but there will always be certain impurities
present, and most likely some admixture of one.
and perhaps both, of the other two. If a portion
of powdered soil be taken and stirred up iu a
vessel of water, and the vessel then set aside
for a few minutes, a number of clean-looking
particles will be found to have settled down on
the bottom of the vessel — these are due to the
sand in the soil. If the turbid water be then
poured off the sand into another vessel, and set
aside for a much longer time, a very fine im-
])alpable deposit will at length take place — this
is due to the clay. The clay and sand may
thus be separated, and if some weak hydro-
chloric acid be then j)ourcd \\\w\\ each, tlirro
will probably be an effervescence due to the
escape of carbonic acid gas, and the lime con-
tained in any limestone that may be present
will be dissolved.
Besides one or more of the three constituents,
clay, sand, and pulverised limestone, and iu
addition to certain saline substances which are
frequently present, all cultivated soils contain
aceumidatious of organic matter which arise from
the growth and decay of j^lants, and from de-
composing leaves, twigs, &e., drawn into the
soil by earth-worms. This decaying organic
matter is variously known as vegetable-mould,
leaf-mould, and humus; to its presence is due
the dark colour of good garden mould and rich
fertile soils. If a portion of soil be heated to
redness, the organic matter, which is composed
of carbon, h}'drogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, passes
off in gaseous combinations. The interstitial air
of soils always contains more carbonic acid gas
than ordinary air ; it arises from the oxidation
of the carbon of the organic matter, and is, of
course, dissolved by water, the effects of which
the reatler already knows.
A soil cannot be considered })erfect for agri-
cultural purposes unless it contains a suitable
admixture of the four constituents — sand, clay,
limestone, and humus. If there be not enough
sand, the soil will not be sufficiently permeable
by water, and it will be too cold ; if insufficient
clay, the soil will be too dry, not tenacious enough,
and will allow manures to become too much scat-
tered or dift"used ; with a deficiency of limestone
the decomposition of manures will not go on
ivgularly, and putrefaction will invade the soil j
and finally, if the soil be poor in humus, the
plants will suffer hunger.
Kxperience has shown that a soil is best
COMPOSITION AND FORMATION OF SOILS.
99
QLlapteil for general agricultural purposes when it
contains of
Sand (siliucous and calcareous) from oO to "0 per cent.
Clay , 20 „ 30
Pulverised limestone ... ,, 5 „ 10 ,,
Humus ,, •') .. 10 „
It thus contains enough sand to make it warm
and pervious to air and moisture; enough clay
to render it moist, tenacious, and conservative of
manures; enough limestone to furnish calcareous
manure, and to decompose organic manures ; and
lastly, sufficient humus* to supply the alimentary
needs of the plant. A soil of this kind possesses all
useful agricultural qualities, and it is only neces-
sary to keep up its fertility by a proper system
of culture, and Ly the judicious employment of
manures. — Dr. Meunier.
Such a soil as that just indicated is, however,
the exception rather than the rule in nature,
most soils being characterised by an excess of
one or more of the ingredients. Thus, many
soils consist chiefly of sand and clay, and they
have been classified according to the proportions
of these substances present. When in a soil
of sand and clay the latter forms not more
than 10 per cent, of the weight, a snndi/ soil'
results ; with 10 to 40 per cent, of clay, a sandj/
loam; with 40 to 70 per cent, of clay, a loamij
soil; 70 to 83, a cla^ loam; So to 95, a s/wiii/
clay. With a still higher percentage of clay
the soil approaches a pure agricultural clay. A
mixture of clay and pulverised limestone — that is,
a calcareous clay — constitutes a marl when the
limestone is from 5 to 20 per cent, of the total
Weight ; should the limestone exceed 20 per
cent., a calcareous soil is the result. A mixture
of sand and pulverised limestone produces a soil
. which may be tenned, for want of any other
word, a calca/e/ief (Latin, cal.r, lime, and arena,
sand).
As most soils have a deficiency of some one or
more necessary constituents, and a redundancy of
others, it follows that a mixing of two different
soils W'ill generally effect an improvement. Many
instances will be mentioned in the sequel in
which this occurs naturally along the common
* The humus itself is not taken up by plants, hut it plays
an important part in those chemical changes in the soU -which
result in the formation of plant-food.
+ An expressive and appropriate term, for the suggestion
of which the writer is indebted to his colleague, Professor
A. n. Chunh.
16
line of outcrop of two formations dissimilar in
their mineral composition ; each formation may
j)roduce only average crops excepting where the
two strata merge into each other, and there the
yield will be much enhanced.
Referring to the igneous or crystalline rocks
generally, it seems probable that the carbonic
acid gas of the atmosjjhere is the most active
agent in the decomposition of their silicates.
The potash, soda, lime, magnesia, and iron pass
into the state of carbonates, and the silica which
was combined with these bases is set free.
Now silica in a fine state of division is somewhat
soluble in water containing carbonic acid, and
thus some of the liberated silica may be removed
in solution. The carbonates formed are also
soluble in such water, so that the residue will
in the end consist of little besides silicate of
alumina, capable of assuming the plastic state,
but absolutely insoluble, and therefore approaching
more and more to the nature of clay. In the
ease of granite this clay is derived almost entirely
from the felspar.
As regards their immediate origin, soils are
either formed by the disintegration or loeathering
of the underlying rock, in which case they are
distinguished as sedentary, indigenous, <x local;
or they are brought from a distance, as in the
case of glacial detritus, or the alluvium deposited
by a river near its mouth, and are then called
transported soils.
The origin of local soils has already been
touched upon, and the mode of formation of the
soil on the imjjure oolitic limestone of the Cottes-
wold Hills may further simplify the matter. Fig.
32 represents the face of a quarry; the soil at
the toj) is merely a superficial bed, between it (a)
and the virgin rock (d) are two beds more or
less distinct, which manifestly represent different
stages in the transformation of the hard solid
rock into loose soil. The upper (b) of these
two, generally termed the subsoil, differs from
the overlying soil in containing more carbonate
of lime, being greatly deficient in humus, and
abounding in stones the size of which increases
with the depth. The other (c) consists exclusively
of these stones, which, becoming progressively
larger and larger, pass gradually into the
continuous rocks below. To account for these
appearances, it is only necessary to bear in mind
the solvent power of water containing carbonic
100
DAIRY FARMIXG.
:iriil, iiiul to ivnu'mhcr that the deeper sucli water
percolates ilowuwanls, the more saturated with
dissolved carhouates will it Ijecome, and therefore
".' -^ ■ ."-"z ■ " - . ■. '.'■>'.'■ ■'■ ~/o; ■..;■ ■. :■ '.
B- '.■■^', "■.. '-'SUBSOI L ■-'•";■; .V-'^-
the less eapaLlo of effecting' further solution of
rock-substance. The surface soil will contain
the silica and alumina which were present in
the imjiure limestone, some undissolved carbonate
of hme, and humus.
Very low forms of vegetable life, such as
lichens, and then mosses, first appear on a young
soil, and these disturb its chemical composition ;
thus, lichens which grow on limestone yield on
analysis oxalate of lime. The decay of such
low plants gradually confers on the soil a small
amount of humus, and so it is slowly prepared
for the growth and nutrition of other plants
higher in the scale.
It now only remains to indicate briefly the
characters of the soils derived from the various
formations, and these will be taken in the chrono-
logical order in which they are tabulated on
page 97, commencing with the oldest, the
igneous rocks being first dealt with. The reader
should keep constantly before him the accom-
panying geological map of the British Isles,
which we have endeavoured to make as accurate
as possible. !Many geographical details have been
given, but as the map had to be constructed
on a sufficiently small scale to be uniform with
the rest of the work, such particulars as rivers,
railways, and divisions into counties have, to
avoid comijlication, been omitted. As these,
however, may be seen on any ordinary map.
tlieir position on tjie geological map may be
determined without much difticulty.
Igseoi's Rocks. — Granite soils owe wliat
fertility they may possess to the decomposal)le
nature of the felspar, and (if present) of the
hornblende, the iron and magnesia of the latter
Contributing especially to make the soil productive,
though even these will not avail much if, as is
often the case, the soil is at any considerable
elevation above the sea-level. In Cornwall and
Devon the weathered blocks of granite have been
removed from the surface and employed in
making walls, and the enclosed fields have been
brought into a fair degree of pHnluctiveness.
Granite (colour 21) will be seen by the map to occur
in many isolated tracts in mountainous regions.
Trap-rocks, on account of their more varied
mineral composition, are more easily crumbled
and }ield more fertile soils than granitic rocks ;
their decay producing soils consisting of clay,
and containing pota.^ih, lime, magnesia, and iron.
Decomposing trap is used as a mineral fertiliser
on other soils. Trap-rocks (colour 20) occur in a
few localities in Wales, in various parts of Central
and "Western Scotland, and in the south-east of
Ireland in the counties of Wicklow, Waterford,
and Wexford, besides the Miocene basalt of
Co. Antrim in the north.
Cambrian. — Of the districts indicated on the
map as Cambrian and Laurentian (colour 10), only
a portion — namely, the extreme north-west of
Scotland and the islands of the outer Hebrides
— contains Laurentian rocks. The southern part
of the north-west coast of Scotland, the Welsh
localities, the Charnwood Forest district in Lei-
cestershire, and the two patches on the south-east
coast of Ireland are Cambrian. As the Cambrian
consists chiefly of hard slaty rocks, it j-ields either
poor thin soils, or cold clays difficult to work and
only amenable to high-farming.
Silurian. — Nearly the whole of the Scotch
Highlands, a great part of the Lowlands, most
of Wales, Cimiberlaud, and large patches on
the east, west, and north coasts of Ireland are
occupied by Silurian strata, which are frequently
highly contorted and metamorjihosed. Hard grits
and slates are prevalent, and these being diflicult
of decomposition, little soil is formed, especially
on the more elevated lands, w-hich are therefore
entirely devoted to pasture. At the feet of hills,
however, and on slopes where glacial detritus
CLASSIFICATION OF SOILS.
101
has Loon mixed up with the decaying roets, as
iu the Scotch Lowhuids, the soil is fertile under
good cultivation. In Wales the Upper Silurian
(colour 17) forms cold muddy clays, difficult to
work; but in Shropshire the Ludlow beds, around
the town of that name, crumble down into a fertile
soil. Arable soils derived from the Silurian are
also seen in the counties of Cacrmarthen, Radnor,
Shropshire, and West Herefordshire. IMost of the
remaining A^'elsh Silurians are under pasture.
Old Red Sandstone and Devonian (colour IG).
—Under this head are grouped two very different
kinds of rock, the Old Red Sandstone embracing
rocks consisting chiefly of reddish and greyish sand-
stones, and the Devonian comprising strata which
differ but little from the succeeding Carboniferous
Limestone. In the British Isles the beds of the
Devonian type occur only in the district indicated
on the map in Cornwall, Devon, and Somerset.
The Old Red is met with in all the other localities
—namely, Herefordshire and parts of the adjacent
counties in England and Wales, tracts in the Scotch
Lowlands, on the southern flanks of the Gram-
pians, and on the north-east coast of Scotland,
also in the south-west of Ireland,* and at various
outcrops in the central 2ilaiQ- Iu no county is
the Old Red Sandstone seen to better advantage
as a soil than in Herefordshire ; there the lower
divisions of the Old Red contain a great numljer
of roimded jjieces of impure limestone, called
"cornstones," often embedded in marl, and the
whole decomposes into a soil of great fertility,
its reddish colour being due to the presence of a
considerable percentage of oxide of iron. As the
cornstones do not allow water to pass through
them without difficulty, it sometimes happens
that when these form the subsoil the overlying
soil is injured by the throwing up and retention
of water. The Old Red yields one of the best
natural pastures, and is the home of the far-famed
breed of Herefordshire cattle ; when cultivated
the soil gives fine crops of wheat and barley,
and in some localities of hops, while its apple
and pear trees have obtained for Herefordshire
cider and perry a wide celebrity. The superiority
of the Old Red soils over those of the adjacent
older rocks is very apparent to the traveller jour-
neying from Herefordshire westward into Wales.
* The geological position of these Irish rocks is not settled ;
very probably the lower ones are of Silurian, the upper of
Carboniferous age.
Carboniferous Limestone. — This formation,
w-hcro it occurs in greatest purity, is a hard
bluish limestone, and from the fact that it often
rises into bold hills, as in the Peak of Derbyshire,
and lends itself to the formation of fine cliffs,
scarps, and gorges, as in the Monmouthshire
\^'ye and the Bristol Avon, it was once termed
the IMountain Limestone. It usually occurs in
Great Britain skirting the ]\Iillstone Grit that
surrounds most of the coal-fields (see map,
colour 15), and is seen in South Devon, parts
of Somerset and Monmouthshire, and in Derby-
shire, where it is several thousand feet thick.
When traced northwards into Northumberland
and to the vale of the Forth and Clyde, it
is found to have greatly deteriorated in quality,
being split uj) by intercalated beds of sedimen-
tary material. The Carboniferous Limestone
plays the same important part in Ireland as
that taken by the Lower Silurian in the Scotch
Highlands, for a glance at the map will show
that the whole of the great central plain of
Ireland is occujwed by it. All this area was
once covered by coal which has been removed
by denudation. Even now, however, the Car-
boniferous Limestone itself is not generally
visible on the plain, as it is mostly covered up
by beds of limestone gravel, by boulder-clay,
by shallow lakes, or by extensive peat-mosses
which occupy the positions of lakes that once
existed. The Carboniferous Limestone is dry at
the surface, and sends out sj)rings at the base ;
its local soil is usually thin, and consists of a
fine vegetable mould mixed with broken fragments
of limestone. The natural herbage, amongst
which the sheeij's fescue-grass {Festiica ovi/ia)
is prominent, is very good, sheep showing a
marked 2'i'eference for it, and nibbling it close
to the ground. For this reason, and because
of its great elevation in some districts, as in
Derbyshire, it is mostly left in natural pasture.
As it is favourable to the growth of timber, it is
frequently well wooded. It is largely cultivated
in the Mendip Hills, where it yields good crops
of oats, barley, clover, and roots, the situation
being too high for the profitable growth of
wheat. Lower down, however, where the lime-
stone and the underlying shales crop out together,
the mixed soil produces good crops of oats and
wheat.
Millstone Grit. — This deposit fringes most of
102
DAIRY FARMING.
the coal-fields, as may be well seen on the map iu
the case of the South Wales coal-field. It oeeui-s
also iu Devonshire (colour 11), aud in the district
occupied by the Pennine Chain, separating the
coal-fields of Lancashire and Yorkshire, likewise
in a few localities amongst the Scotch coal-
measures. It occupies several large tracts around
the Carboniferous Limestone of Ireland, notably
in the south-west. The soil of the ^Millstone
Grit is of a poor gravelly character, and where
the subsoil is of clay the overlying gritty beds
become swampy. This formation is usually covered
by worthless heaths, the appearance of which con-
trasts anything but pleasingly with that of the
adjacent Carboniferous Limestone.
CoAi,-MEASUUES. — The shales, clays, and sand-
stones that crop out as the partings between
the. beds of coal form at the surface a wet
yellowi.sh clay, the natural i)roduce of which is
sedges aud heaths with but little grass. Where,
however, there is a large ])roportion of sand
the soil becomes fairly productive, and is better
employed as arable land than for pasture. These
soils, as well as those of the underlying ^lillstone
Grit, require, after draining and cultivating, the
application of lime, which assists to bring the
soil into sufficient condition • to yield fair crops
of wheat, oats, turnips, aud clover. A glance
at the map will indicate at once the localities
of the British coal-fields (colour 13). In the
immediate vicinity of coal-pits, the conditions
which exist are utterl}' inimical to vegetation, as
will be evident to anybody who has passed through,
for example, the" black country " around Wolver-
hampton.
RoTULiEOENDE. — To this group belongs a series
of marls and sandstones of Permian age seen in
the Vale of Eden (colour 12), in a few localities
in the south of Scotland, on the Cumberland
coast, in Shropshire, and in the vicinity of the
coal-fields of the English midlands. Their soils
are similar in most respects to those of the
Trias which are described below.
Magxesi.\n Limestone. — This, also of Permian
age, forms a narrow strip of land, on the east side
of the Coal-measures, extending from Notting-
hamshire nj) to the north side of the Tyne,
there being a break in the continuity in Yorkshire.
Magnesian differs from ordinary limestone in
containing, besides carbonate of lime, a variable
quantity, even as much as one-half, of carbonate
of magnesia. Excess of magnesia in a soil is
bad for plants. The ilagnesian Limestone soils
are thin, light, and easily crumbled, and are
mostly under the plough, gcxjd crops of wheat
and barley being the reward of high-farming.
An inspection of the map will show that
the Palasuzoic strata, a description of the soils
on which has now been given, are pi-actically
confined to certain parts of the British Isles.
Tluis, both Ireland and Scotland are almost
exclusively occupied by these old rocks, the
most notable exception, perhaps, being that of
the fertile basaltic plateau of Co. Antrim in
the former country. In England and Wales,
again, the counties of Devon and Cornwall, the
whole of Wales with jMonmouth, Herefordshire,
and Shropsliire, and that major portion of the
six northern counties which lies west and north of
the Pennine Chain, are likewise entirely occupied
by the outcrops of Pala30zoic strata, with bosses
of igneous rocks rising up here and there just
as they do in Scotland and Ireland. Now it is
a noteworthy fact that most of these Paleozoic
areas are under permanent pasture, aud this
is due not only to the nature of the soil, but
also to considerable elevation above the sea, as
in the natural pastures of Wales, Cumberland,
and Derbyshire, and likewise to the excessive
humidity of climate to which the Irish, Welsh,
aud Cumbrian grazing lands are subjected. The
nature of the soil and the prevalent moisture
combine to make Ireland, for example, essentially
a grazing, and therefore a stock-breeding, rather
than an ai'able country. The statement made
respecting the general character of the Paleozoic
strata must, however, not be received in too
wide a sense, as there are certain exceptions,
notablj- in the ease of the Old lied Sandstone,
and of the red and j-ellowish sandstones and
marls (Rothlicgende) of Permian age, as witness
the Old Red arable soils which attain their
highest perfection in the fertile county of
Ilerefoi-dshire, and the excellent soils which have
resulted from a commingling of boulder-clays
and Permian rocks in the beautiful "N'ale of Eden.
Again, in the central valley of Scotland, watered
by the Forth and Clyde, and extending from
the metamorphosed rocks of the Highlands on
the north down to the uprising Silurian Low-
lands on the touth, tht> commingling of Old Red
sandstones luid marls, Carboniferous shales aud
CLASSIFICATION OF SOILS.
103
limestones, fragments of igneous rocks, and glacial
detritus, have resulted in the fcrmation of au
arable soil which, under judicious cultivation, has
attained a remarkable degree of fertility.
In giving au account of the soils lying on
rocks of Mesozoic and Caiuozoic age, the descrip-
tion will, of course, ajiply almost exclusively to
England alone, and, roughly speaking, to that jiart
of it which lies to the east of a line that may be
drawn on the map from the mouth of the Tees to
that of the Severn, the only notable portion west
of this line being the Cheshire Plain. Beneath
these younger rocks the older PalsBozoic rocks of the
west dip away eastwards (see Fig. 31, page 95), so
that if a sufhciently deep boring were made in
one of the eastern counties it would jirobably
pierce, at last, the underlying Palajozoic beds.
The Carboniferous strata which contain the coal-
field of South Wales ajipear, in this way, to dip
down under the younger beds of the counties
between South Wales and Kent, and then on
the other side of the North Sea to rise again
in the Belgian coal-fields, thus forming a great
synclinal curve. The strata now under con-
sideration have not been violently contorted and
disturbed like the older ones of the west, nor
do they show indications of metamorphism.
Trias. — The Bunter Sandstone, or New Red
Sandstone, as it is also called, is seen in parts
of Yorkshii-o, Cheshire, Lancashire, and Central
England (colour 10). The reddish and variegated
sandstones often yield a deep, dry, sandy soil, the
fertility of which varies according to the nature
of the subsoil. When the latter is of clay, the
overlying soil becomes cold and wet, and requires
draining ; when the underlying subsoil consists
of marl or marly sandstone, it is worked in with
the soil to form a rich red loam productive of
luxuriant crops of every kind. The Keuper or
New Red marls (colour 9) form fine rich meadow
land. The Trias, taken as a whole, is the most
extensive formation seen on the surface in England;
it extends, with some interraption, from Devon-
shire, through Somerset, Gloucestershire, and
Worcestershire, to Warwickshire, where it divides
into two branches, one stretcliing away through
Staffordshire, across the fertile plain of Cheshire
into Lancashire, and the other ranging northwards
through the Trent Valley in Nottinghamshire,
and along a strip of land in Yorkshire, to dis-
appear beneath the sea at the mouth of the Tees.
At its widest part in the midlands the Trias is
eighty miles across from east to west. The sandy
soils on some parts of the formation are much
imjn-oved by the aj)plication of marl from other
parts, hence the number of old marl pits in the
Keuper. The general fertility of the Trias may
be estimated from the fact that the three highest
rented counties in England rest chiefly on it,
and it has the reputation of forming the best
arable land in the country. In some parts of the
New Red Sandstone, however, there are beds of
conglomerate (pebbles cemented together into
hard rock), and when these appear at the surface
they break uj) into barren, gravelly soils, which
are only brought under cultivation with extreme
difficulty, and even now in some localities form
waste land, as in Sherwood Forest. Other parts
of the fomiation, again, have been ovei's2)read
with glacial detritus, and in this ease also the
character of the soil has suffered ; in the Vale
of Cl^'j'd, in Denbighshire, however, where the
New Red Sandstone is so overlaid, the result is a
very fertile soil. As to the Old Red Sandstone, so
to the New, do orchard fruit-trees seem specially
addicted, and the cider produced by the Trias
of Devonshire and Gloucestershire rivals that
from the Old Red of Herefordshire.
Lias. — This formation consists of thick beds
of blue and yellow clay, Avith partings of sandy
limestones and shales. The clay and shales are
impervious to water; hence, near the outcrop
of the porous strata of the overlying Oolite, the
surface of the Lias is cold and wet, so that
rushes, sedges, and other water-plants are its
natural produce. Atmospheric influences cause
the clays, shales, and limestones to break up into
a soft but retentive clay soil, which resists the
plough, and therefore is frequently unsuited to
arable culture, even Avhen drained. Nevertheless,
though exjjensive to work, persevering industry
has brought much of the Lias under the plough,
and cereal crops may, in such cases, be raised to
advantage. In some localities, as in Somerset,
the flaggy limestones are so near the surface as
to impede the plough. From the very stiff
character of the soil, and its persistent retention
of moisture, however, much of the Lias is devoted
to grass land, and it supports some of the oldest
piastures in the country, which, producing as
they do fat sheep and oxen, rich cheese and
butter, may well be termed " cheesy " pastures.
104
DAIRY FARMING.
The Lower Lias soil is brashy, and fre(juently
of a rich brown colour. On it are raised wiieat,
barley, oats, cabbages, turnips, mangolds, beans,
and occasionally teasels. The ground is mostly
flat or gently undulating. Stilton cheese is
yielded by cows grazed on the Lias clays near
Melton Mowbray, in Leicestershire ; double
Gloucester cheese is the product of the Lias
clays in the Yale of Gloucester, where they form
the rich fertile meadows on the Severn side;
Cheddar cheese, again, is obtained from cows
fed on the pastures resting on the Lias clay.
New Red marl, and Alluvium of Somerset.
The Middle Lias yields a rich soil foi-mcd
by the decay of the JNIarlstoue, which is a
mixture of clay and sand with a considerable
quantity of limestone. It forms, therefore, a strip
of very fertile land overlooking the grazing lands
of the Lower Lias. Apple-trees thrive on the
Middle Lias of Somerset.
The Lias extends as a very irregular strip
from Lyme Regis, on the Dorset coast, to the
mouth of the Tees, on the North Yorkshire coast.
It extends, then, from Dorset, through Somerset,
to Gloucestershire, in which county it forms,
under the shadow of the Cotteswolds, the dairy
districts in the Vales of Berkeley, Gloucester,
and Evesham ; thence it stretches away through
AVorcestershire and Warwickshire into the counties
of Northampton, Leicester, Nottingham, Lincoln,
and York. Much of the milk ^^llieh arrives
daily in London is o£E the Lias.
Oolite. — This formation consisis of beds
of limestone, interstratilied with bands of clay,
which may become very thick, as is the ease
with the Oxford and Kimeridge clays, which
spread over considerable areas. The Lower Oolites
form the Cottcswold Hills, which were long in
a state of natural pasture, and chiefly grazed by
sheep ; much of this district is now under the
plough, roots, clover, and cereals being grown even
on the sunnnits of the llills, though the soil gene-
rally is thin, poor, and brashy. The prevailing
timber-tree on the Cotteswolds is the beech ; tjte
ash and the elm grow less freely, while the oak,
which luxuriates on the Lias clays, is scarce on
Oolites of the Cotteswolds. The Northampton
sand yields a fair soil. The ground occuj)ied by
the Inferior Oolite is hilly and occasionally barren,
but the brownish brashy soil is fertile where
it has sullicicnt depth. The Lincolnshiic lime-
stone, a section of the Inferior Oolite, yields a
light soil, not of much value. The Great or
Bath Oolite supports a thin stony soil, not difficult
to work, but too elevated and not deep enough
for productive cultivation. The Forest Marble
and Corubrash soils are of a clayey nature,
due to partings of clay between the flag-like
beds ; though jjoor, they may be greatly improved
by draining and cultivation, and then yield fair
crops of cereals, pulses, and roots. The clays of
the Oolite form close, sticky, sometimes calcareous
soils, scarcely adapted for arable land, but forming,
after thorough drainage, rich pastures not unknown
for the quality of their dairy produce. The Oxford
clay, Avhich in some localities is twenty miles
wide, joins the Kimeridge clay in Huntingdon-
shire. The Aylesbury dairy district rests chiefly
on the Kimeridge clay. The Upper Oolites are
mostly in old pasture, being too expensive to
work, good arable land only resulting w'hcre
clay and sandy limestone crop out together. The
Oolite (colour 7) occupies a strip of laud very
similar to the Lias, and lying on the east of the
latter ; commencing on the Dorset coast it extends
through parts of the counties of Somerset, Wilts,
Berks, Gloucester, Oxford, Bucks, Beds, Hunts,
Rutland, and Lincoln, and dies away on the
south side of the Humber, the clays re-appear-
ing in the North Riding of Yorkshire, west of
Scarborough. In Northanij)tonshire the nature
of the outcrop is such that the Lias and Oolites
ramify amongst each other very curiously, pro-
ducing the fertile districts around Rockingham
and Kettering. In the Oolitic strip, thus stretching
from Dorset to Yorkshire, the younger or upper
members of the series, notably the clays, are
on the east side; thus, Huntingdon is occupied
almost entirely by clay.
Weai.den and Pukbeck Beds. — The Purbccks
are merely local in the Isle of Purbeck. The
Hastings beds consist chiefly of fine sand,
intcrstratified with leaser beds of clay; they
produce a fine dry sandy loam, which in dry
\\cather becomes qviite a dust. Where the clay
and calcareous sandstone weather down together,
a light productive soil results. But where the
fiue siliceous sand contains nodules of iron ore,
a poor wet soil, producing naturally heath and
furze, prevails. The Hastings sand occupies
the middle of (he Weald district in Kent and
Sussex. The Weald clay forms a fringe round
CLASSIFICATION OF SOILS.
105
tho Hastings beds ou tlio north, west, and snutli ;
its width vai-ies from five to twenty miles, and
it is seen (colour 6) in Kent, Surrey, and Sussex.
The soil it supports is a damp, stiff, siliceous clay,
which is used in some localities for making bricks ;
indeed, so well is it adapted for this purpose,
that it sometimes dries in the sun as hard as
a brick, and therefore it requires a considerable
outlay to bring such a soil into good condition,
thorough drainage being the firet requisite.
Nevertheless, some parts form a very active arable
soil, yielding wheat, oats, beans, and roots, and
here and there deep loams support some of the
finest hop-gardens ; much of it, however, is in
pasture. Down to within i-ecent times most of
the area occupied by the Wealden and Hastings
beds was covered by forests, some of which still
remain. From this circumstance the disti'iet re-
ceived its name of A\ eald or Wold, meaning a
woodland. The district is noted for its oak-trees.
Greensand axd Gault (colour 5) . — The Lower
Greensand forms a very narrow fringe along the
north, west, and south of the "Weald clay, just
as the latter surrounds the Hastings sand; it
also extends as a narrow strip on the east of the
Oolite from Dorset up to Norfolk, and occnjiies
a similar position in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire.
Its soil is generally very siliceous, and frequently
mingled with silicate of iron ; it is therefore
often barren. Where it becomes calcareous, as
near Ilythe, it is dry and j)roduetive, hops
especially yielding good crops. The Gault and
Upper Greensand form yet another border round
the Wealden area, separating the chalk on the
outside from the Lower Greensand on the
inside ; these beds are also seen in Dorset,
in the southern half of the Isle of Wight, and
as a fringe on the east side of the strip of Lower
Greensand which, as already stated, extends fi-om
Dorset to Norfolk, and through parts of Lincoln-
shire and Yorkshire. The Gault is generally
a bluish, sometimes grej^ish, calcareous clay,
forming a strong, tenacious, stubborn soil, which
is best subdued by draining and applying some
of the overlying Greensand, when useful crops
of cereals and pulses may be obtained. ]\Iuch of
it is in pasture, and it is known in some locali-
ties as " blackland." The soil is driest where
it is covered by drift or alluvium ; in some places
it is so very imper\'ious that the water remains
on the surface, as in the Yale of "\Miite Horse,
Berks. The Upper Greensand consists of soft,
friable, calcareous sand of a dirty green colour,
and it yields a dry soil, excepting where the
underlying Gault clay throws up water. The
soil, especially where it is the joint product of
the Ujiper Greensand and the overlying Chalk
ISIarl, is one of the richest in the country, and
is easily cultivated. Where it becomes too light,
an addition of Gault clay is the natural remedy.
Its great fertility is due to the presence of phos-
phatic nodules, called " coprolites," which provide
a sujiply of phosphorus, for which most soils
are dependent on expensive manures, as super-
phosphate of lime, bone-dust, and guano. The
hoji-distriet of Farnham, in Surrey, is on this
soil. There is a rich tract in Beds, and others
in Bucks, Oxon, Wilts, and Somerset.
Chalk (colour 4). — The lowest member, the
Chalk Marl, especially where it approaches the
Upper Greensand, supports, like the latter, a most
excellent soil, which produces fine crops of roots,
jjulses, and cereals. To the Chalk itself less praise
can be given, as its soils at the best are only of
moderate fertility. The limestone of the Lower
Chalk is of a dingy white colour, owing to the
presence of iron and clay ; the Upper Chalk beds
are whiter, and are freely interspersed with flints,
which are usually of a black colour. The Chalk
produces naturally short, thick pastures, to which
sheep are addicted. In the north it forms the
Yorkshire and Lincolnshire Wolds ; in the south
it rises into the North and South Downs, the
soil being very thin, so that the Chalk itself is
within one or two inches of the grass. A good
illustration of the difference between transported
soils and indigenous or local ones is afforded by
a comparison of the Chalk of the Lincolnshire
Wolds with that of the North and South Downs.
In the former locality it is mostly covered with
superficial deposits ; in the latter this is not
the case, consequently the Chalk of Lincolnshire
has not the bare and arid appearance associated
with this formation in the southern districts,
and most of it has been converted into useful
arable laud. The Upper Chalk is more especially
the region of sheep-walks, the Lower member
yielding more arable land. In some localities
water has dissolved out much of the carbonate
of lime from the soil, and left on the LTpper
Chalk a loose, flinty soil, and on the Lower a
cold, stiff clay, such as may be seen in the counties
106
DAIRY FARMING.
of Kent, Surrey, ILM-lfonl, Burks, and "Wills.
The soil rc'sultin<? from a mixture of the Lower
\vith the Upper Chalk is said to yield good root
crops, especially of carrots, after deep forking'.
In Suffolk, West Essex, and East Hertfordshire,
as in Lincolnshire, to which reference has been
made, the agricultural qualities of the soil are
entirely altered, owing to the surface of the Chalk
being covered by glacial detritus. Besides the
counties already mentioned, the Chalk is seen
in those of Sussex, Hants, Dorset, Oxon, Bucks,
Cambridge, and Norfolk, the lowest rented
counties in England being on its soils. On
account of the porous character of the roc'k,
many of the ponds used to supply animals with
water in Chalk districts require to bo lined with
clay.
Eocene. — The metropolis stands on this for-
mation (cfilour 3), which stretches from the Essex
coast, far up the Thames valley, to the borders
of Wiltshire. Another tract on the south coast
occupies parts of Dorset, Hants, and Sussex, and
the northern portion of the Isle of Wight. The
lowest member of the Eocene series, comprising
the Woolwich and Reading beds and Tlianet sands,
was once known as the Plastic clay, and it forms
wide heaths in Hampshire and Berkshire. The
light sandy soil suffers from the presence of
alternating beds of elay, which throw up much
■water ; to bring the soil into condition requires
thorough draining, subsoil ploughing, and addition
of .some of the neighbouring chalk. The natural
produce is heather, furze, and a poor grass almost
valueless. The London clay has a bluish or
brownish tenacious soil, which splits iu dry
weather, and so assists drainage. Much of it
is in pasture, and it serves this purpose well,
but is too strong for roots, though it yields,
after marling or liming, fair crops of com and
beans. As the London clay is impervious to
water, the wells in and around London have to
be sunk into the basement beds; they are there-
fore deep, excepting where the water is derived
from superficial gravels lying on the London clay.
It forms the London basin, and stretches from
Windsor, in the west, to Harwich, on the Essex
coast, and to Reculver, on the coast of Kent;
and from north to south it extends fi-om Baruet,
in Hertfordshire, to Croydon, in Surrey, its greatest
width being about twenty miles.
Miocene. — This formation is so very slightly
represented in Cireat Britain as to ro([uire no
notice here. In Ireland the basaltic plateau of
Co. Antrim is of Pliocene age, and yields, as
trap-rocks generally do, good soils, which are
under thorough cultivation.
Pliocene. — The Pliocene crags and Bagshot
sands are represented under one colour (2) on the
map. As a matter of fact, the Bagshot s.iuds are
of Eocene age, and they ajipear next above the
London clay ; they occur to the south-west of
London, on the sterile Bagshot Heath, and on the
coast of Hampshire. Their soil is poor, light, and
sandy, and is Httle cultivated. The crags occur
in the extreme east of England, extending along
the coasts of Norfolk and Suffolk, and partly
into Essex. The soils are sometimes so loose that
after ploughing they become drifted by the wind,
and after hot dry weather the crops are light and
almost scorched. These crags form the repository
of phosphatic nodules similar to those of the
LTpper Greensand, and as much as £70 an
acre has been given for the right to dig over
a two-acre field in search of these valuable
mineral fertilisers, the land itself reaping much
benefit from the process. The eastern counties
are essentially the corn-j)roducing districts of
England.
Much of the surface of the counties of York,
Lincoln, Noi-folk, Suffolk, Essex, and Hertford
is covered by Boulder-clay, which was formed
during a comparatively recent geological period
when most of Britain was covered by ice, as
Greenland is at the present day. It partakes
partly, though not entirely, of the nature of the
subsoil ; thus, in Suffolk, it is decidedly chalky
in character, and when drained forms a very fair
soil. Further allusion is made to this subjoet
below.
Alluvium. — Alluvial deposits arc usually formed
on the banks, and at the mouths, or estuaries,
of rivers. They consist of the silt and mud,
gravel and sand, brought down by the waters
of the river, and being thus composed of the
well-mixed detritus worn from the various for-
mations which the river-system drains, they are
usually very fertile, forming rich meadows and
pastures. In Lincolnshire the process termed
warping consists in allowing the waters of the
rivers to flow over the land for the sake of the
fertilising deposit. In Egypt, again, the culti-
vation of the soil is entirely dependent on the
CLASSIFICATION OF SOILS.
107
periodic ovcrflnw of ilie Nile, for there is no
rain. In England alluvial soils occur on the
banks of the Ouse, Derwent, Trent, and Humbor,
in the York and Lincoln district; on the banks
of the Thames; and on those of the Bristol Avon,
]\Ionmouthshire Wye, Usk, and Severn, termi-
nating in the broad flats bordering the Bristol
Channel. Under this head mention must be made
of vegetable accumulations, such as peat-mosses,
bogs, and swamps. The flat, undiversified country
round about the Wash consists partly of peat
in the south towards the Fens, but chiefly of
silt. It extends from Flamborough Head south-
wards, through the district of Holderuess, to the
south of the Humber, and thence along the Wash
to the Norfolk coast, the total area being upwards
of 1,800 square miles. The drainage is pumped
up into the rivers, which are enclosed by stout
dykes, after the Dutch custom. On the west
coast of Lancashire, in the estuary of the Ribble,
the Fylde plains somewhat resemble those of the
Wash. One of the greatest difhculties exjierienccd
in reclaiming alluvial tracts is that of drainage,
as in the case of the unmanageable peaty soils of
Scotland and North-west Ireland. If, howevei-,
this has been successfully accomplished, a fertile
soil is the almost certain reward. Thus the flat
country known as the Bridgewater Levels, in
Somerset, consisted, at the beginning of this
century, of wet useless bogs ; by efHelent drainage,
and top-dressing with river-mud, it has been
gradually reclaimed, and now forms grazing-lands
of the richest description, clovers and pasture-
gi-asses thriving where once the bog-plants held
undisputed sway. When a peaty soil is drained,
the heaths disappear, and the soft grass, Ilolcits
lannfus, takes, at flrst, their place. Under alluvial
soils must also be classed the brick-earth, or wash,
consisting of the detritus worn from hill-sides,
down which it rolls to produce fertile accumu-
lations in the plains below.
Drift. — This term is used to denote, amongst
other things, the detritus which was scattered
broadcast over much of the British area during the
latest Glacial Period. The ice in its progress may
have eroded some of the rock on which the drift — ■
Boulder-cla}-, for example — rests, and a mixed
soil then results. And further, as the glaciers
ground up the surface of the land over which
they flowed, the detritus of one formation was
mingled with that of another, and the result
of this is usually beneficial. The drift necessarily
forms tranxporlcd soils; and, as the reader must
have noticed, the soil in such cases differs more
or less from the subsoil. In some, more especially
the southern, parts of Britain, the drift is absent,
and then there is a close and intimate connection
between the nature of the soil and that of the
rock below — the subsoil. But in nearly all cases,
even whei'e the formation in a given locality,
as represented on the map, is masked by super-
ficial accumulations, it must be evident that there
is a more or less intimate relation between soil and
subsoil, and hence the bearing of a knowledge of
scientific geology on practical agriculture. One
and the same formation may, it is true, vary much
in character in different localities ; owing then
to this cause, and to the existence of superficial
coverings, a geological map can only convey an
imjjcrfect idea of the nature of the soils borne
by the respective formations.
To obtain a trustworthy map o£ soils, a
much closer knowledge than is at present
possessed of the " surface - geology " of the
country is requisite. As the Geological Survey
of the United Kingdom becomes further ad-
vanced, this knowledge will doubtless be ac-
quired, but even then it is questionable whether
it will easily pass into the possession of those
who are most interested in the soil, for the price
at present charged for the published records of
the Survey is so excessive as to be jiractically
prohibitive. The officers of the Survey include
men of world-wide fame as geologists, and for
the very useful and interesting results of their
zealous and arduous labours to be withheld from
the mass of the people, on account of the exorbitant
price of the luiblications, is a condition of things
which urgently needs alteration. The system
adopted in the United States of America is very
different to ours, and there can be but little doubt
that if the memoirs of the British Geological
Survey were published in a cheap form, and sold
at a trifle over cost price, the larger number
of copies sold would provide against any possible
loss. W. F.
17
CHAPTER IX.
Soils axd Climatics Suitable von Dairying.
General Nature of Soils Most Suitable for Dairy Fnrming^Main Point tlie (Jiiality of I'aslure— Mixed Ilusbandry Suitable for
Medium Soils— Unsuitable Soils— IniiJortanto of (Uiinatic Conditions— Why Draining alone often
Deteriorates a Soil.
^%^^IIE practice iiiid cxpci-icncc <il'
ag'es have liitlicrto determined
the conditidiis of soil and
climate which are natxirally
best adapted to dairy-farming,
and under which it can be
conducted with the greatest
success ; and though modern science,
recent inventions, improved appliances,
draining, artificial shelter, and the
greatly improved systems of farming
which have become general in these later days
have had the effect of extending the range and
area of dairy-farming, the na"tural advantages
of soil and climate, which are found in a high
degree in certain districts, still remain in force,
and ever will. Whatever improvements modern
husbandry, aided by scientific research and experi-
ment, have effected already, or may effect in the
future, it will always remain true that the soils
best adapted to dair\ing are those included in the
terms " loamy," " marly," and " alluvial." The
last are found in valleys, plains, and low-lying
districts generally, and they are best adapted to
dairy-farming simply because the best natural
pastures are found on them. They are usually
formed of j)articles of various rocky and vegetable
substances, so blended that all the elements of
plant-food are present in them in well-balanced
proportion. All the mineral portions of soils ha\e
been derived from the decay and disintegration of
most commonly the richest ones, because in the
process of their formation and deposition, mainly
by river action, a great variety of mineral frag-
ments have been collected from the different strata
through which the rivers forming them have run
for ages.
Though tillage and dairy-farming districts ai'e
now less distinctly separated from each other than
they formerly were, it is none the less true that
where the finest natural pastures are there will
the most profitable dairying be found. Thus the
flats of Cheshire, the undulating plains of Leices-
tershire, the valleys and lowlands and plains of
Derbyshire, Gloucestershire, and Somersetshire are,
and ever will be, the natural homes of dairj-ing
in England. In these, and in portions of other
counties having similar advantages, dairying has
been carried on from the earliest, and will be to
the latest, days of our civilisation ; and it is to
them in the future, as it has been in the past, that
we naturally look for our best and largest sujiplies
of milk, cheese, and butter. Still, dairy-farming
is not by any means confined to these districts and
soils, but is practiscKl by many farmers in localities
where the soil and climate are not too obviously
adapted to tillage rather than to grass-land farm-
ing. It is, however, rnore or less disappointing
to attempt dairy-farming on soils which, thin and
light in their plwsical character, and situated in
a climate which is dry at all times and subject
to periodical droughts, are ill adapted to the
rocks — a process that has been going slowly on growth of grasses of any kind, except the most
through limitless ages, and is going on still ; and temporary ones, which, for one year only, are taken
as the value of a soil depends in a very large in rotations.
degree on these mineral constituents — their quality. But a mixed system of dairy and arable farming
kind, and variety — it follows that alluvial soils are — the latter made to be subsidiary to the former —
MIXED HUSBANDRY.
109
on mixL'J and medium soils, wliieli admit cif and
combine many of the good qualities of both
systems, has long been practised in many parts of
both England and Scotland ; and this mixed prac-
tice, \'iewcd in the light of its influence towards
an increased production of milk, can hardly fail
to continue spreading so long as the demand for
country milk in our cities and to\\'ns, which has
sprung up in so wonderful a manner in the past
few years, remains in its present active state, and
more especially so if the demand goes on increasing,
of which there seems to exist moi-e than a pro-
baliility. Nay, the mixed practice has penetrated
extensively into those districts, on the one hand,
where tillage was aforetime held to be almost a
sacrilegious encroachment on dairy-farming ; and,
on the other hand, it is already far from uncommon
m many localities which, for generations past,
have been almost wholly given up to the groui:h
of cereals.
There are, however, some soils — to wit, our
wettest and stiffest clays — on which a mixed sys-
tem of arable and dairy fanning cannot, with
our present knowledge of the laws of husbandry,
be easil}' or profitably carried out, and these are
necessarily left in permanent pasture, the quality
of which is always inferior, or are devoted wholly
to wheat, beans, and other tillage crops suitable to
stiff soils ; they do not, with either pleasure or
profit, admit of alternate tillage and semi-per-
manent pasture. And, on the other hand, there
are certain fine-qnality alluvial soils, so excellently
adapted to peiTnanent pasture and meadow, that
it is pretty certain the plough, if used on them,
would be one of the farmers' greatest enemies.
Fine old-turf land, wherever found, is well worth
preserving, and to reduce such land to arable cul-
tivation would be a piece of agricultural wanton-
ness which could not easily be too much condemned.
In the present day, when the area of permanent
grass land is rapidly increasing in this country,
and when tillage is decreasing in a corresponding
degree, a school of agricultural writers have sprung
np who ciy out loudly against the tendency of
the age in favour of grass, and who declare their
belief that land under tillage will produce more
food for the people than land under grass. This
is true as to some kinds of land, and untrue as to
others. The late Sir H. M. Thompson, of Kirby
Hall, York, than whom we had no better autho-
rity as to the relative productiveness of grass and
arable land, laid down the j^roposition : — " That
our grass lands, if projserly managed, would be
easily able to meet the demand made upon them
for an increased production of meat, even if the
supply required were greatly in excess of the jire-
sent rate of consumption." And, again : — " That
money judiciously laid out in improving grass
land makes a better return than money laid out
on arable land." The fact of the matter is,
there is truth in both these opposing opinions.
The question is one of climate and kind of land.
If the land is of a veiy light or of a verj- lieavy
character, and situated in a dry climate, it is best
kept under arable cultivation, because it is not
naturally adapted to be good grass land; but it
would be a great mistake to plough up the deep
loams and alluvial soils found in the valleys in so
many parts of England, and especially so if they
are in a moist climate, which is so essential to the
growth of grass.
The farms on which are found the mixed system
already mentioned are most commonly those which,
in hilly districts, stretch from the valleys to the
uplands, including a portion of both, the valleys
being left in permanent grass, and the uplands
being more or less devoted to tillage ; those which
are situated on loams varying from clayey to
sandy ; and those whose soils are on carboniferous
or magnesian limestone, or on sandstone founda-
tions, moderately deep, of good quality, and withal
sound and firm. For daiiy-fai-ming especially,
though also for other purposes, the best soils are
the deep alluvial loams and drifts which, though
situated in damp climates having a considerable
rainfall, need little or no artificial draining — soils
of considerable thickness, of an open texture,
though firm, and ^\'ithal sound and healthy. Very
light, thin, dry soils, of any character whatever,
are ill adapted to carry dairy-stock; of these the
light blowing sands are the worst for that pur-
pose, because, though sound enough and healthy,
they do not and cannot be made to contain within
themselves in sufficient quantity the nitrates and
phosphates which, on the one hand, are neeessarj-
to the production of milk in paying quantities,
and, on the other, to the production of bone and
flesh in young stock. These soils are best given up
wholly to tillage-farming and to sheep-husbandry.
There are, however, between the rich alluvial
soils of the one part, and the thin sedentary ones
of the other part, a great variety of soils which,
110
DAIRY FARMING.
as they vary in richness and in substance, and
as they are favourably or unfavourably situated
with res2)ect to climate and to water privileges,
are more or less adapted to dairy-farming ; and
it is on these soils, in varying degree, that a
mixed system of dairy and tillage farming will
be found to yield the best returns. On such soils
it may be accepted as a truism that the plough
and the milk-pail are by no means opposed to
each other, but rather that tliey are calculated
to supplement each other's efficiency and profit.
Cereals, inter.'^persed with clovers, rye-grasses, aiul
other forage crops, with roots and with otiier
green crops for "soiling'' purposes, iucludiug
a due area of permanent pasture and meadow,
are calculated to work so well hand in hand
together, that dairy-farming, by their united
aid, may be as profitably followed as it may
under, perhaps, any conditions whatever. And
in the present day, artificial manures and pur-
chased feeding-stuffs enter so largely into all farm
practice and economy that they greatly modify
some of the natural conditions which have afore-
time had paramount influence. But, in any case,
the soils which, either with assistance or with-
out it, will produce the largest and best crops of
green food of one kind or another are far better
adapted to dairying than are those whose speciality
is the growth of cereals. Grass, either natural or
artificial — that is, either permanent or temporary
— is naturally of the first importance in dairy-
farming; it is the foundation, in its capacity
of green food in summer and of dry food in
winter, on which the whole system of operations
must in a greater or lesser degree be built. The
question, then, to be asked and answered in
selecting a farm for daiiying is, " Are the soil
and climate well adapted for the growth of
grasses?" The one is almost as important as
the other, for, however well adapted the soil itself
may be, grasses will not flourish as they ought —
more particularly in pei-manent pastures — if the
climate is very hot and dry ; but if the soil and
climate both are well suited to the growtli of
pei-manent and rotation grasses, it follows that
they are also well suited to the growth of any cul-
tivated crops which may be regarded as valuable
accessories to dairy-farming — to wit, (•al)bages,
turnips, rajjc, clovers, oats, itc.
The climates best atlajiteil to dairying are
naturally and essentially those which best promote
the growth of grasses and of green crops gene-
rally. In the varying states of the weather they
are cool rather than cold, warm rather than
hot, and damp as opposed to dry — mild, humid
climates, in fact, of which there are many shades
and degrees in these islands, all of them more
or less suited to dairying ; and these variations
include the range of climate wherein dairy-farm-
ing can be jjractised to the greatest advantage.
A mild, humid climate, with a copious rainfall
supplying an abundance of water to pools and
running streams, not too bumingly hot in summer
nor too bitterly cold in winter, supplies, in con-
junction with suitable soils, the best conditions
for profitable dairying. Intense heat in summer,
and coiTcspoudingly intense cold in winter, are so
far detrimental that the yield of milk and, con-
sequently, of cheese and butter is considerably less
than it is under temperate climatic conditions;
and as man can only, by such means as the
draining of wet land and the planting of forest-
trees, modify within limits the climate of a given
district, it becomes necessary that he should
counteract it as far as possible by pro\-iding
adequate summer and winter shelter for dairy-
cattle. The latter is, of course, always the more
necessary of the two, but summer shelter, in the
months when the sun's rays are commonly very
powerful, is a more valuable tiling than we are
in the habit of thinking.
It is not cruel only, but it is unprofitable, to ex-
jjose milch-cows to extremes of heat in summer and
of cold in -winter. Shelter, especially against cold,
stands in place of a given quantity of food which
woidd otherwise be required. It is expedient to
remember that one kind of food, having a definite
composition, produces flesh and restores the waste
of it which is continually going on in the animal
system; the elements composing this kind are
known under the names of albumen, fibrin, casein,
gluten, &c., and are generally termed "albu-
minoids." Another kind, consisting of fats, oils,
starch, sugar, gum, &c., supplies the materials
by which the heat of the animal body is produced
and sustained ; and it follows that if animals are
overmuch exjiosed to cold there is a correspond-
ing waste of the latter class of food-elements.
The first limit is placed on daiiying by
climate, and the next by the character of the
soil, coupled with the supply of water. If the
cUmate is either too hot or too cold to keep cows
CAUSES WHICH AFFECT DAIRYING.
Ill
in a healthy, comfortable, and thriving condition,
dairying cannot be carried on with a full measure
of profit and success ; and if the character of the
soil is unsuitable, and there is a meagre supply
of water, even though the climate be suitable,
the objection of only partial success is sure to
come in. It is true that daiiying may be carried
on outside these natural limits, but additional ex-
pense both of shelter and food ■will be incurred,
and the profits mil be correspondingly diminished ;
yet are there but few natural disadvantages which
the ingenuity and energy of man cannot remove,
or at all events greatly modify ; the question of
profit in so doing is another, but not a separate
consideration.
The characteiisties of a naturally good dairy
district will generally be found to be a rolling,
undulating, somewhat hilly surface; a soil not
too heavy and damp, nor too light and dry,
but deep, loamy, and moderately retentive of
moisture ; a sweet and nutritious herbage of
natural gmsses, that springs up early, and con-
tinues to grow vigorously late on in the season
— a herbage whose vigorous and luxuriant growth
tends to shorten winter at both ends ; a rather
low average temperature, with frequent showers
rather than periodical droughts in summer; and
a never-failing supply of good water in springs
and nmning streams. There are many districts
in the British Islands which answer well to this
description.
Another limitation to dairying — but this
depends on the foregoing ones — is the supply of
food ; and it is not quantity alone, but quality
also, which must be taken into consideration.
The pastures may be veiy fuU of grass, but if
it is of a poor, sour, and inferior kind, daiiy-
cows will milk badly on it, the milk, cheese, and
butter will be inferior, and the whole business
will result in disapi^oiutment. But where the cha-
racteristics of a good dairy district are present,
where soil, water, and climate are all that need
be asked for, there is no deserii^tion of farming
that promises quite so good a prospect of
remuneration as the dairy. So long as the
production of milk continues to be one of the
most profitable objects to which the English
farmer can devote himself, the area of dairy-
fanning will continue to extend into districts
which have been hitherto deemed more or less
unsuitable to it, and the natural causes which
have so far confined it within certain limits will
be removed or diminished. Where it is a ques-
tion of climate, shelter will be provided; where
of water, artificial supj)lies will be prepared ; and
where of soil, a system of tillage husbandry
and extensive soiling with green croj)s will be
the method practised.
It must not here be assumed that we consider
notliing has been done already in this direction.
Though the land in these islands is undoubtedly
capable of producing very much more food for
the people than it does produce at present, it
is none the less tnie that many and great
improvements, some of them of a very com-
prehensive character, have been made in the past
half-centuiy. A very large amount of draining,
fencing, cultivation, reclaiming, planting, and
general improvement has been done; and some
districts have been completely changed in cha-
racter by the process, as the inevitable "oldest
inhabitant" can testify. But very much yet
remains to be done. In many cases land has
been not so much improved as prepared for im-
provement by such operations as draining, fenc-
ing, and planting. It is not enough to merely
drain land, or fence or j)lant it. These ojierations,
where necessary, are but the required foundations
for subsequent improvements. If wet land, for
instance, is merely drained, it will commonly do
worse for the farmer — at all events for some years
— than it did in its undrained state. By merely
draining wet land you change the natural conditions
under which the herbage has been for generations
subsisting, and you do not provide the new
conditions which the change has made necessaiy
to the new class of herbage which, sooner or
later, must take the place of the old. You have
removed the elements which have mainly sustained
the class of herbage you found there — herbage,
of course, of a wretched kind, but suited to the
then state of the land — and you have not provided
the new elements which the altered herbage
requires; hence there is, for the time, a falling
oiS in quantity, and also in quality, of production.
The grasses — coarse as they undoubtedly were and
unprofitable — which the wet land produced must
necessarily die out after the draining; but the
new order of things, the fresh and different
grasses which must take their place, require,
unless properly assisted, some time to establish
themselves. In land recently drained there is
Hi
DAIRY FAKMl.XC;.
commonly a larg'C amount of acidity, which comes
of decayed and decayinj^ vegetable matter, and
of the inert state in which the laud has for
so hing a time remained ; this acidity needs to
be immediately neutralised by lime, in order that
the better grasses may gain a root-hold, and
the land generally requires a supply of nitrogen,
phosphoric acid, and potash, that they may not
only obtain a root-hold, but flourish as well.
Thus the draining of wet land is but the
foundation of good husbandry, and such land
is commonly very grateful for further improve-
ments of a manurial character — improvements
which may be expedited by the sowing of the
seeds of such grasses as are calculated to fl(nirish
under the new conditions. In many cases it may
not be absolutely necessary to sow such seeds,
for the better gnisses will commonly spring up
spontaneously after a time, and the sooner if
they are encoui-aged by judicious manuring; but
you save time by sowing them, and time is
money to the farmer, as to any one else. To a
genuine lover of agriculture there is no plea-
santer occupation than to create the marvellous
transformation which comes to land of draining
and subsequently improving it; while there is
nothing appertaining to the farmer's calling which
is more productive of profit when judiciously
carried out.
But on all wet soils no improvements can bo
made to pay until the primary one of draining has
b.>en dine; and draining alone in many cases
effects greater changes for good than any other
single improvement that can be named. It com-
jjletely changes the mechanical state of the soil,
and greatly improves the climate. So long as
water cannot percolate through the subsoil and
pass away by subterranean ducts of one kind or
another, through a stratum of sand or gravel, or
through the crevices of rocks, the soil will be
dense and plastic, and the climate cold and damp;
and the water must needs pass away by one or
both of two other means : over the surface of the
land, or by evaporation, otherwise the district will
become and remain a swamp. Now, to evaporate
the 30 inches of rain which falls in a year in this
2)art of the world, it has been calculated that a
quantity of heat would be required equivalent to
what would be produced by the combustion of ten
times as many tons of coal per acre, so that an
amazing volume of the sun's heat is thus wasted
before any of it can be applied to the warming of
the soil and the growth of vegetation. It is of
course true that in very few cases does the whole
of the rain-water pass away by evaporation ; yet
such a large proportion of it does so pass away
from our Hat and low-lying undrained soils, that
the summer's sun is to a large extent thrown
away. This fact alone is enough to show up the
immense value and importance of draining, to
which subject accordingly oui- next chapter will
be devoted.
mm
H' ^.zf):
CHAPTER X.
Draining.
Draining—Business Arrangements— Ancient Systems of Draining— Plug-Draining— Drains of Broken Stone— Mole-Draining— Sheep
Drains— Bog-Draining— Draining Tools and Tiles— Stone Drains— Reasons for Draining— Wet and Dry Soils— Eflfccts of Draining
on Clay Soils— Aeration, or Disintegration— Planning a System of Drainage— Importance of a True Level in Drains— Examples
of Good Drainage— Preserving Plans of Drainage System— Discharge and Rainfall Compared— Tables — Rate of Inclination —
Outlet— Costs— Benefits from Draining— From Occasionally Stopping Drains— Enemies to Drains—
Capillarity- Why Wet Land is Cold Land— Good Drainage the Cheapest.
;ill 1:111(1 that is not naturally
dry and soitnd, artifieial drain-
ino- is the foundation of good
husbandry ; no other ira-
j)rovemeuts can be effective
without it, and no system
of cultivation satisfactory. Hence it
follows that all water-logged land,
and also other land which, though
perhaps not exactly water-logged, is still
too wet, must be drained as a first opera-
tion. As a rule, the landlord will do this, charging
the tenant a fair interest on the outlay ; or, if the
tenant does it, the landlord \vill charge a smaller
rent for a given term of years, in consideration
of his tenant's outlay. There are a variety of
arrangements entered into between landlord and
tenant as to the draining of land. In some
instances the landlord provides draining-tUes, and
the tenant lays them do\vn, no subsequent claim
for payment of either principal or interest being
afterwards advanced by either party. In cases where
a tenant has a lease for nineteen or twenty-one
years, he will commonly do the draining at his
own cost entirely, and will have been well rejjaid
long before the end of the lease. But, as a
rule, the most satisfactory system, the simplest,
fairest, and most straightforward, is for the
landlord to do the draining, charging the tenant
an increase of rent equivalent to a fair interest
on the outlay. It is always to tlie advantage
of a tenant to take a farm whose draining is
done, and pay a corresponding increase of rent,
rather than one which needs it — no matter on
what terms he will have it drained subsequently.
In the former case the land is all in a fit state
for work, and there is no time lost ; in the latter
there is a considerable delay, to say nothing
of a large expenditure of work and money,
before the land is fit for either cultivation or
manuring.
Many kinds or systems of draining have
been in vogue at different periods for hundreds
and even thousands of years, and some have
been peculiar to certain 'districts of this country.
The ancient Romans were well acquainted with
the art of draining, for their writers on agricul-
ture— Cato, Palladius, Columella, and Pliny— all
mention it, and some of them give very minute
directions for the formation of drains and the
direction in which they should be carried. The
materials of which they were formed were stones,
branches of trees, and even straw; and Palladius,
in his De Aquae Diictibus, mentions earthenware
tubes that were smaller at one end so that they
might fit into each other. It is probable, however,
that these tubes, though they appear to have
been in some respects similar to modern draining-
pipes, were used rather for the conveyance of
water than for draining land. So long ago as
1653, Caj)taiu Walter Bligh not only gave
directions for the systematic drainage of watered
meadows, bogs, and marshy ground, but founded
his rules on principles which modem science and
experience have shown to be eminently con-ect.
In the latter part of last century a system of
draining was introduced by Mr. Elkington, a
Warwickshire farmer, which, however, dealt only
with the water arising from springs, leaving iin-
touched the greater evils arising from an excess
of rain-water held in suspension by retentive soils ;
yet his system attracted so much attention that
1 1
DAIRY FAR^riXG.
the Government of the clay presented liim with
£1^000 as a reward for describing the principles
on wliich his practice was
founded.
In various parts o£ Eng-
land, particularly in Essex,
Fig. 33.— Plug-Dr.unixg.
a system of " land-ditching," as it was termed,
had long been practised^ Shallow drains were
formed at short intervals, and filled in to a
certain depth with brushw*od, straw, and even
weeds, over which the soil was replaced; this
system, however, could only be practised in stiff
soils, which would retain the form of the drain
after the materials had decayed away, and even
in these soils the drains were constantly liable
to Ijecome useless. A somewhat similar system
to this is "plug-draining" (Fig. 33), wliich is
also confined to clay soils. Wooden plugs, of
the size and shape required for the drain, and
joined together by links of iron, are placed in
the bottom of the newly-excavated drain ; the
clay is then pounded firmly over them, so as to
retain its position,
alter which the
])lugs are drawn
out, leaving a well-
formed passage for
the water; these
drains, though more
lasting than their
prototypes, are but
temporary. Many
centuries ago drains
were formed of bro-
ken stones (Fig. 34),
ind iseriminately
thrown in, to a
dei)th of some 6
to 1-2 inches, in tlie
and tlie upper portion
are sometimes still found in working order, but
a.s a rule tiiey are lialile to early stoppage, on
account of collections of sediment among the
stones. " Mole-draining " (Fig. 3.5) is performed
by a plough specially constructed for the purpose,
and pulled along either by steam or horse power,
or by a windlass. That ^wr-
tion of the plough which forms
the drain consists of an elon-
gated piece of iron, termed
a " mole," of circular form,
pointed at the end, and placed
at the bottom of a long and
_-?^ A ;;,,:^'*^ •>- powerfully - formed coulter,
which has a sharp cutting
edge ; on stiff
clay pastures this method of ' " ;~'
draining remains effective for a
long period, but on arable land
it is liable to derangement.
Open ditches of various kinds
are probably the oldest method
of draining, whilst pipe-drains
are the most recent and, at
the same time, the most lasting
and satisfactory.
In mountainous districts,
where a more expensive method
of draining would not yield an
adequate return on the outlay, and where the soil
is of such a retentive nature that it remains, after
rain, for some time saturated with water which
Fig. 34. — Dkain of
Broken Stones.
bottom
idled i,
of
soil ; these drains, some of the
the drain,
usual with
o-reat agre,
Fig. 35.— MoleDr.vining.
needs removal, it is a common practice to cut out a
system of open drains, called " .sheep-drains," by
means of which the surface-wator is conveyed
DRAINS AND DRAINING-TOOLS.
115
away f n
idea of
_)m tlie hill-sides. Fi
their arrangcmcnt-
X- '50 fjivcs a general
-the various draius
-i-
Fig. 3G. — Sheep UuAiNti.
at A leading into a main channel at b, and the
whole falling into the nearest water-course at c.
The cost of them is small. AVith a little scouring
out at times they may be regarded as a perma-
nent improvement, and they have the effect of
reducing the ravages of the " rot/' which is so
common to sheep on wet land.
In di-aining bog land, the subsoil of which
is too unstable and treacherous to carry .either
a tile or stone drain, it is the practice to cut
out, first of all, a spit of some 18 inches, which
is then left until the sides have become mode-
I'ately dry and firm ; then another spit ; and
so on until the drain is deep enough. During
the cutting out of the drain, and the drying
process which is the
result of it, the surface
of the bog sinks in pro-
portion to the quantity
of water that is with-
drawn, and due allow-
ance in depth of drain
has to be made for this.
Last of all, a spit, nar-
rower than the others,
leaving a shoulder on
each side, is taken out
of the bottom of the
drain, and on the
shoulders so left the first sod taken from the
drain is placed, leaving beneath the opening
represented in the annexed woodcut (Fig. 37).
18
When bogs are deep this is the best and, in
fact, only way of draining them successfully ;
but where they do not exceed 6 or 8 feet in
depth, the best plan is to cut right through
them to the firm subsoil on which they rest, and
in this pipes will lie securely.
Not many tools are required in draining
by a man who understands his work. Those
figured in the annexed woodcut (Fig. 38) are all
that are, as a rule, found necessary in ordinary
draining. The broad spade is necessary for
cutting off the first sod, and for clearing up the
Fig. 38.— DltAINING-TOOLS.
fragments left by the two narrower ones ; the
shorter of the two narrow ones is used next
for the intermediate spit ; and the long narrow
one (No. b) last of all. The two remaining imple-
ments are used for different purposes : No. 1
is for cleaning out the bottom of the drain after
the spades have done their work, and No. ii for
placing the pipes in their bed.
Draining-tiles of various shapes and patterns
have from time to time been introduced. Perhaps
the earliest shape was the "horse-shoe" pipe (fl);
having no bottom, this pipe must either be
placed on flat stones as a foundation, unless the
subsoil were of a very firm and hard character,
or its sides would gradually sink downwards
116
DAIRY FARMING.
and the drain be destrojeJ. Tliis form of tile
was afterwards improved by putting a sole or
bottom to it, thus, Q ; but the round tile (O)
is now in general use, and it is very much belter
in all respects than either of the others ; it is
effectual in excluding vermin, the wash of the
water through it constantly tends to carry all
sediment away, it is much easier to lay down
than they are, and it is always the "right side
up-"
The dej)th at which drain-pipes should be
placed is a matter on which a great difference
of opinion still exists. Whilst some advocate
shallow, others pin their faith to very deep
draining; thus drains vary, according to fancy,
from li to 5 and even 6 feet in depth. Much
depends on the kind of land, whether it be free
or retentive, the latter needing decider drains than
the former ; but it would appear that less than
2| feet is too shallow, whilst 4 or 4^ feet is
deep enough in any kind of soil. The reason
why drains must be deeper in clay soils than
in any other kind lies in the fact that water
percolates much more slowly and reluctantly
through them; hence the drains must be deeper,
in order that they may " draw '■' more effectually.
In these soils it is not an uncommon practice
to place a deep layer of bi'oken stones or of
friable soil next over the drain-pipes, thus
increasing the efficacy of the drain. In some
parts of the country, where stone is plentiful,
and where drain-pij^es are
costly, it has been, and still
is, the practice to make stone
drains (Fig. 39). In this
method the drains are cut out
in the bottom much wider
than in pipe-draining, so as
to lulmit of two side-walls of
stone, with a space between
them, being built; these side-
walls are built of narrow
stones, to a height of 4 or C
inches, and flat covering-stones,
occupying the whole width
of the drain, rest upon them. If well done,
this method of draining may - be taken to be
almost as permanent as pipe-draining ; its
chief objection is that it does not exclude
such vermin as rats and rabbits, and these mis-
chievous animals soon choke up the drains by
i*"^
Pig. 39.— Stone
Drain.
scratching soil into them. Pijie-draius, on the
contrary, are not liable to derangement from
such a cause, because vermin cannot get into
them ; and in the case of round pipes the wash
of the water running down them tends to clear
them of any sediment which may percolate into
them from the soil above. In porous, free soils,
a drain will lay dry fully 7 feet wide for each
foot it is in depth ; thus, drains 3 feet deep
may be placed 21 feet apart. In a partially
retentive soil it will drain 5 feet wide for each
foot in depth — that is, drains 4 feet deep may
be placed 20 feet apart. In a heavy clay soil,
4 feet drains should be placed about 1(5 feet
apart — that is, 4 feet wide will be drained for
each foot in depth.
The theory of under-draining may be consider«l
under four heads — viz., First, the removal of
sur^jlus water from the soil by giving motion
to it where it was previously stagnant ; second,
the mechanical or physical changes produced in
the soil ; third, the chemical influences brought
to bear on the soil ; and fourth, the improved
temperature resulting to the soil.
The wetness of soils may be considered to
be the result of one or other of three several
causes : — First, rain-water falling directly on
the surface surcharges the retentive soils by
virtue of their retentive character, and free soils
by virtue of their position, when thej^ happen
to rest on a substratum which does not admit
of a free passage away of the overplus of water ;
second, springs which rise from underground
channels to the surface, and, spreading over it,
ca\ise a considerable jjortion to be continually
surcharged with water; and third, that wetness
which, from higher lands near or distant, filters
through free soils of a lower level, and rises to
the surface some distance below, drowning more
or less of it. The first cause operates wherever
such soils are situated; the second generally on
limestone formations, in the rocky substrata of
which such subterranean channels are not un-
common, and the affluent stream may emerge
in almost any position, even on the top of a
hill, providing its source is on still higher lands ;
and the third in districts where the soils vary
in character, but the effect is usually produced
in valleys and lowlands with higher lands ad-
jacent.
And wet soils may be chissed in four divisions.
rRIXCIPLES OF DRAINING.
117
viz., First, free soils in peculiar situations ;
second, clay soils ; third, peaty soils ; and fourth,
mixed soils, consisting of different pi-oportions
of the other three.
Each kind of soil must have applied to it
the appropriate method of drainage, and eaeli
cause of wetness demands a special mode of
removal ; but the atmosphere plays so important
a part in bringing about the desired mechanical
changes in clay soils, which are naturally retentive
in character, that it is necessary to regard the
art of draining them as distinctly different from
that of draining free soils, which are not retentive.
The surcharged free and peaty soils, being naturally
free and jjercolative, are not wet, as clay soils
are, from any inherent tendency that way, but
simply so by accident of position, and they merely
require an outlet for the water pent uj) within
them to immediately change its character from
stagnation to motion ; to create, in fact, a kind
of sub-irrigation which will benefit the roots of
the plants, and a single drain in such soils will
not uncommonly lay dry an astonishingly large
area of surface ; they do not need, as clay
soils do, any modification of physical condi-
tion, because they are naturally free, open, and
friable enough in texture, except that they are
water-logged; nor does it always follow that
they are too wet, but rather that the wetness
they contain is stagnant where it needs to have
motion.
It is not, indeed, easy that such soils should
be too wet, providing only that the water in them
has enough of motion ; and the true art of draining
them is less to dejirive them of water than to
keep the water in motion, for it is an easy matter
to err on the side of over-draining them. When
once drained to the proper degree they possess
the same properties and characteristics as those
which are naturally dry, and they are equally
capable of absorption, the only difference being
that in the case of the naturally high-and-dry
soils the water in a dry time commonly sinks
beyond the reach of the laws of evaporation, while
in the case of the drained free soils the water,
though sunk by the operation of draining some
3 feet below what its level was before, still re-
mains within reach of the atmosphere, in which
case evaporation is not totally suspended in the
event of a dry summer; and it not uncommonly
follows that the drained soils suffer less from
drought than do some of the soils which are
naturally dry.
Some naturally dry soils, however, suffer less
than others during an unusually dry summer.
Among these may be mentioned the soils on
carboniferous or mountain-limestone formations.
In these cases, as it would seem, the substratum
of limestone, being of a damp and retentive
character, possesses the faculty of supplying the
soil above with some moisture from beneath,
through the influence of evaporation or capillary
attraction. But in the case of other naturally
dry soils, which are so by virtue of their rest-
ing on a sandy or gravelly drift of considerable
extent, the water finds no resting-place until it
is far beneath and away from the surface, and
utterly beyond the reach of evaporation. These
soils suffer early and most seriously in a dry
summer.
Clay soils, though made permeable by under-
drainage, still retain their peculiar properties of
retention, contraction, and expansion, which limit
their capacity of absorption of water, and cause
them to resist, in the absence of proper and
deep draining and cultivation, the admission of
falling rain. These soils hold in suspension the
moisture they absorb, and give it out gradually
to the drains, except in the case of heavy down-
pours of rain, when, after their own capacity
of absorption and retention has been satisfied,
they freely discharge the excess. They cannot
be over-drained, nor can they be aerated too
much ; they lay in a store of water sufficient
for their own use for a long time, and it is only
by aeration that their retentive nature can be
kept within bounds. All the draining in the
world will not radically change the constituents
of these soils — it merely modifies or alters their
condition. But the more perfectly the aerating
action of the drains influences the mass of soil
between them, the quicker and more uniform is
the percolation of the surplus water through
the soil. The true practical object of draining
these soils is not the mere removal of the surplus
water in the readiest way which is possible by an
artificial process, but embraces also the no less
important princijile of aeration of the soil which
is drained. By giving motion to the water in a
wet soil numberless vacuities are formed, and these
must be filled with air. Thus is aeration accom-
plished ; and by this agency soils are not only
118
DAIRY FARMING.
improved in temperature by the admission of
air into them, but they arc chemically acted
upon by it, to their great advantage. In free
soils, which are not subject to expansion and
contraction as clay soils are, and throuo-li which
water percolates most evenly and freely, providing
it has an outlet, it is easy to understand how
simple a matter artificial drainage is ; but even
to those who have minutely watched the effects
of drainage on clay soils it is not so easy to
comprehend that air as well as water permeates
them throughout. Their qualities of contraction
and exjjansion, always at work as water is with-
drawn and re-absorbed, are peculiarities which
make them wholly different from free soils. In
a free soil of even texture, rain-water is instantly
absorbed, and percolates quickly and evenly through
it ; but not so in clays ; and were it not a fact
that natural sand and gravel veins, more or less
minute, are intersj^ersed through most claj^s, and
that there are no clays that do not crack as
they contract, the theory of those who believe
in the impermeability of these soils would gain
popularity. This theory, indeed, would hold good
in respect of pure claijs, but these are seldom
found. But, in point of fact, no water can be
withdrawn from clay soils, by drainage or evapora-
tion, without causing contraction of the soils,
and there can be no contraction of soils in a
lateral direction without cracks and rents. The
space previously occupied by water is then occu|)icd
by air, and these cracks and rents multiply and
ramify in every direction to an extreme degree
of minuteness, and thus the disintegration of a
previously compact and plastic clay becomes year
by year more nearly complete, and the soil
throughout becomes more susceptible to the laws
of gravitation of water downwards to the drains,
and of capillary suction or attraction upwards to
the snrface. Some think that if clay soils are
thoroughly drained they become as ductile and
friable a.s free soils, but this is not the result,
for they always retain their peculiar properties ;
but the microscope reveals that both the texture
and colour of clay soils undergo a marked change
in course of time after draining, and this is
good evidence of the improvement which lias
taken place in their condition.
But the object of draining is Udl to create
large cracks and rents down which rain-water
may pass quickly to the drain-pijies, and if
this were the result the water would have com-
paratively little fertilising effect on the land;
but it is rather to cause the soil to become more
porous and minutely divided, in order that the
water passing through the soil shall wrap round
every atom of it, and not merely wash the cracks
and fissures in its journey downwards. In pa.ss-
ing through a soil, water carries air along with
it, and it is essential that the one as well as the
other should be made to permeate the entire mass
of soil, touching every particle of it. The striking
effect which rain has on land in warm weather,
and especially after a dry period, is by no means
attributable to the water alone, but in no small
degree to the warm air which is carried by the
rain into the soil, and to the fertilising properties
which the air contains. The increased or created
porosity of a clay soil, which is brought about
by draining, means the reducing of the soil to a
finely-divided state, through every part of which
the fine, tender, filamentary roots of j^lants may
sjjread themselves in search of new stores of food.
In commencing to drain a farm it is expedient,
first, to see that the water-courses are in good
form, because they must receive the drainage
water; and, next, that a plan be made which
will embrace the whole of it, and not to lay one
field after another dry, on plans jjossibly proper
to each individual field, but not conceived with
a view to the requirements of adjoining fields.
This refers more particularly to main drains and
outfalls. As a general rule, the drainage opera-
tions will commence in the lowest-situated field on
the farm — the one nearest to the streamlet or river
into which the outfalls of the main drains must
be conducted; and it follows that the direction
of these main drains, and their capacity, should
be so laid out and calculated that they may serve
for as many fields as come properlj^ within their
scope. It may happen in some cases — as where
springs come to the surface and saturate a
considerable area of land — that by draining an
upper you lay dry a lower field; in such a ease
as this the draining of the lower field would be
superfluous, and it would be advisable to try
Elkington's system of tapping the effluent waters
of the spring at its outlet, to see whether or
not it was necessary to drain the lower field at
all ; yet even in this case the main drain would
have to pass up the lower in order to get to
the upper field, and it would be advisable to
PRACTICAL DETAILS.
119
cany it in sndi ilii-cftion, and to make it of
such capacity, that, ii' afterwards found necessary,
it would serve to convey away the drainage water
of both lower and upper fields, as well as of any
others that lie within its reach. In other cases
it might be that the upper field is periodically
swampy and wet on account of false springs,
which only flow in winter or in a wet time at
another period, and that the lower field is per-
manently wet on account of the real spring to
which the upper one is only subject in a wet time.
In such a case as this the tapping of the real
spring in the lower field would lay the upper
field dry without a spade being put in it. The
deciding where to tap a spring ; the determining
which are the real and which are merely the
overflow springs ; the ascertaining whether the
swampy -wetness is owing to springs at all, or
to the accident of a basin-like, impervious sub-
soil, or to percolation through a free subsoil from
some higher level — these are matters which require
considerable skill and experience, skill which books
can only suggest, not give.
The direction of the main drains being decided
on, the next thing is to lay out the minor drains
in such a manner that undulations of surface may
be taken due advantage of in the way of securing
a free and easy descent of the water, and that,
if necessary, certain depressed portions of the
field may be laid dry by draining the higher
portions adjoining. It must always be borne in
mind that, in draining land whose surface is
undulating or unlevel, special care must be taken
that the bottom of each drain — the pipe-bed — has
a uniform and even descent, whatever the surface
may be, and that there are no depressions in
it where the water could lodge, eventually de-
composing the j)ii5es and filling up the drain with
sediment. No man ever wrote more wisely and
wittily on agriculture than the late Chandos Wren
Hoskyns, Esq., and we cannot here do better
than quote from his "Chronicles of a Clay Farm,"
where he speaks of " the unaccountable and ever
new difiiculty of getting proper attention paid
to the levelling of the bottom of a drain, and
the laying of the tiles in that continuous line,
where one single depression or irregularity, by
collecting the water at that spot year after year,
tends to the eventual stoppage of the whole drain,
through two distinct causes — the softening of
the foundation underneath, and the deposit of
soil inside the tile from the water collected at
the spot, and standing there after the rest has
run off. Every depression, however slight, is
constantly doing this mischief in every drain
where the fall is but trifling ; and if to the two
consequences above mentioned we may add the
■decomposition of the tile itself by the action of
the water long stagnant within it, we may deduce
that every tile-drain laid with these imperfections
in the finishing of the bottom has a tendency
towards obliteration, out of all reasonable pro-
portion with that of a well-burnt tile laid on a
perfectly even inclination, which, humanly speak-
ing, may be called a permanent thing. An open
ditch, cut by the most skilful workman in the
summer, affords the best illustration of tliis un-
derground mischief. Nothing can look smoother
and more even than the bottom, till that uncom-
promising test of accurate levels, the water, makes
its appearance. All on a sudden the whole scene
is changed, the eye-accredited level vanishes as
if some earthquake had taken place; here there
is a gravelly scour, along which the stream rushes
in a thousand little angry-looking ripples; there
it hangs, and looks as dull and heavy as if it
had given up running at all as a useless waste
of energy; in another place a few dead leaves
or sticks, or a morsel of soil broken from the
side, dams back the water for a considerable
distance, occasioning a deposit of soil along the
whole reach, greater in proportion to the quantity
and the muddiness of the water detained. All
this shows the paramount importance of perfect
evenness in the bed on which the tiles are laid.
The worst laid tile is the measure of the goodness
and permanence of the whole drain, just as the
weakest link of a chain is the measure of its
strength."
Mr. J. C. Morton \vi-ites : — " The frequency
of drains ought to depend not so much upon
the quantity of rain-water which they have to
remove (because that should be met rather by
increasing their capacity than their frequency),
but by the degree of facility given to its passage
by the porosity or the stiffness of the soil and
subsoil. On very stiff land they should be nearer
to one another than on lighter soil. In the
former the passage of the water is necessarily
slow, and it should not have far to travel to a
drain, or the land will remain sodden for an
injuriously long time ; and so, in case of wide
HO
DAIRY FARMING.
intervals, the niitUllc of those intervals remains
unbenetited.
" It appeare to me that the only reasonable
argument for the shallower draining of a stiff
clay soil arises out of its greater richness in
matters which the plant requires as food. There
is no doubt that plants will make use of a verj'
great depth of soil and subsoil if it be laid
open to them ; but, on the other hand, it is jilain
that a smaller depth of clay soil, with its larger
quantity of internal surface — owing to the sniall-
ness of its particles, and its richer comiKisition,
too — will contain as much available food for
plants as a much greater depth of sandy soil. It
thus amounts to this, that the maximum which
it is desirable, as a supply of food, to lay open to
plants I's smaller in clays than in sands ; while
the minimum depth — that at which the drains
must be laid, if the capillary attraction of the
soil for water is to be overcome at all — is greater
in clays than in sands. The capillary attraction
of the clayey soils is greatest; it is in them
that water will be lifted highest from the level
of the drains, and it is in them, therefore, that
the drains must be laid lowest before any drainage
at all is effected by them.
"On the arrangement of the drains upon
the land, it would seem plain that, as we have
already provided for the exit of spring-water,
and as our object now is mei-ely to remove from
below the soil the water which falls upon its
surface, the channels for that purjiose should be
placed as uniformly below as the water to be
removed is supplied above. And this, as a general
rule, does accordingly guide the practice of the
drainer. Nevertheless, the structure of the sub-
soil docs to some extent justify a departure from
that uniform arrangement of drains which would
at first sight seem to be justified by the uniform
abundance of rain-water supplied and by the
uniform luxuriance of vegetation desired. There
is a propriety in placing drains at varying intervals
within the soil, so as to meet those variations
in the quantity of water accumulatetl there which
have arisen from a varying structure, or even,
I may add, from a varying surface of the land,
notwithstanding the uniform supply of rain-water
on its surface. Take a single field, an<l you often
find that it is not altogether of uniform consistency
to any considerable depth. No doulit, the portion
acted on by tillage (the soil) is very different
in its consistency from the subsoil ; but this is
a uniform want of uniformity. Go deeper, and
you will find the subsoil, which also must be
drained, varying in its consistency. It may be
a sand or gravel of varying depth, lying on a
floor of clay, which has been water-worn and
furrowed before this gravelly subsoil was brought
upon it ; or it may be itself a clay, with porous
partings or rocky beds here and there within it.
All these things influence the passage of the
water downwards ; so that, while in a soil and
subsoil of perfect uniformity it is plain that
the absorbent points on which we dejiend for
ensuring the percolation of the rain-water down-
wards ought to be jJW'fectly equidistant, in an
unequally constructed soil these absorbent jjoints
(or the drains which represent them) should be
more frequent where the water naturally tends
than where, after a shower, less of it will be
found. Of course, as the object and the result
of perfect cultivation is to bring about a uniform
consistency to a greater depth than naturally
exists, we ought not to accommodate our practice
slavishly to the conditions which have arisen
out of, or have been effected by, imperfect
cultivation.
"In Fig. 40 there is the jilan of the drains
in one or two fields on an estate, a larger portion
of which is represented in Fig. 1 1 .
" Mere we have (1) parallel drains down the
fall of the land ; (2) drains for the removal of
water from springs and from flats, or lateral
slacks or furrows in the general slope ; and (3)
main drains, uniting at wells (i), and delivering
IMPORTANCE OP A DRAIN-MAP.
HI
their water at fiaal outfalls {<i). lu this figure
the regular drainage of a homogeneous clay upon
the gridiron system is h;irdly represented. In the
map, however,
(Fig. -il), in
which the posi-
tion of the drains
on an estate on
the Oolitic for-
mation, drained
under Mr. Bailey
Denton's direc-
tion, is given in
detail, the uni-
form parallel
drains on the
more level fields
upon the Oxford
clay are fully
represented at
the foot of the
map. The oc-
casional drains,
intended for
the removal of
spring -water,
and the lateral
drains, rendered
necessary by the
configuration of
the land, and
intended for the
removal of water
lodging in slacks
upon the surface,
are also recognis-
able in some of
the middle fields.
There, too, and
elsewhere, the
less frequent — •
generally pa-
rallel — drains
needed for the
tapping of the
more porous
water - bearing
strata are to be observed. Too great a stress
cannot be laid on the necessity of such a plan
of executed drainage — of course, on a lai-ger scale
than is adopted in Fig. 41 — being preserved.
There are many instances in proof of this, where
large sums of money have been lost entirely for
want of a record of the operation. The tenants
have changed,
and the outfalls
have been ruined
and have dis-
appeared."
DlSCHARGEOP
Drains, com-
pared WITH
THE Rainfall.
To ascertain
the law which
governs this
matter, Mr. J.
Bailey Denton,
in the year
1S56-7, caused
observations of
rainfall and dis-
charge from
drains to be
taken during the
months of Octo-
ber, November,
December, Jan-
uary, February,
March, April,
and May. The
area experi-
mented upon
consisted of two
kinds of soil —
first, soil of a
mixed nature,
consisting of
ela^', gravel, and
sand; and second,
a very stiff clay,
considered hard
and almost im-
penetrable. The
mixed soil was
drained by occa-
sional and wide parallel drains suSicient to dis-
charge the rainfall and deep enough to relieve
the pressure of subterranean water. The clay
soil was drained uniformly by a parallel system
12:J
DAIRY FARMING.
or drains, 4 fe^t iloep and 25 to 27 feet apart.
The total cost of draining- the 800 acres included
in the area experimented on was £3,357 10s.
The discharge from the open soils was more
regular and continuous than that from the clays,
probably because of the greater distance apart of
the drains.
The rainfall per acre was 227,210 gallons,
and the discharge per acre on the mixed soil
was 100,920 gallons, or about 71 per cent, of the
rainfall; on the clay soil it was 50,930 gallons,
or about 21 jjcr cent, of the rainfall. The reason
why clay discharges less than loam is doubtless
found in the fact that it has greater power of
retaining water by capillary attraction. Thus,
Professor Schiibler, of Tubingen, found that
100 lbs. of dry soil would retain the following
amount of water that would not flow off : —
Sand '2o lbs.
Loamy soil ... ... ... ... 40 „
Clay loam SO „
Pure clay 70 „
Observations conducted by Mr. John Dickinson
for eight years gave the following mean values
of the discharge as compared with the rainfall : —
October to ]\Iarch, 75'5 per cent. ; April to
September, 7"1 per cent. ; average 42'4' per cent.
Mv. Tracey, in 1849, made some experiments in
regard to the drainage of certain valleys near
Boston, and concludes that the discharge varies
from 45 to 44 per cent, of the rainfall.
Computation op Table foe Drainage.
Tables of rainfall tell us that showers exceed-
ing 1 inch are rare, but that about one-fourth of
our rain falls in heavy showers. From that it is
safe to conclude that if the drains are capable
of conveying away the water that reaches them
during the twenty-four hours next after a rain-
fall of 1 inch, little or no surface-water will
remain on the land during any jiortion of the
year.
The amount of discharge, as compared with
the rainfall, depends upon so many conditions
that it cannot be accurately stated ; but it jiro-
bably will, during the next twenty-four hours,
seldom or never exceed 50 per cent, of the rainfall,
under any conditions. In order to produce thorough
drainage — that is, to so drain land that surface-
water shall not exist on it on an average longer
than six or eight hours after the rainfall — it is
necessary to assume tliat the capacity of the
drains should be suflicient to carry off, during
twenty-four houi-s, one-half the water that fell
the ])revious twenty-four hours. The probability
of the rainfall in any day exceeding 1 inch is
so slight that we shall be safe in assuming the
greatest ordinary rainfall to be 1 inch in twenty-
four hours, and the necessary carrying capacity
of the drains J inch for the same time. One
inch of rainfall produces 3,G30 cubic feet per
acre ; consequently, our drains, to j)roduce imder
all conditions thorough drainage, should be able
to convey 1,815 cubic feet of water for each
acre drained.
For ordinary farm drainage, where the drains
are simply to run under the low places on the
surface of the fields, the water will be longer in
reaching the drains, and consequently the area
drained by a given-sized tile may be increased
with perfectly satisfactory results. Again, if
flooding is of little moment for a few days at
a time, it may receive another corresponding in-
crease. The areas in the following table should
be doubled for ordinary farm drainage, but they
must be changed with caution if thorough drain-
age, such as a gardener would need, is desired.
Table foe Size of Tile of Main Drain.
Rate of
Inclination.
1 foot in 20
1 „ 30
.50
CO
70
SO
90
100
l.iO
200
2.50
300
400
.500
600
800
1000
1500
2000
Acres Dhained (Thoeoooh Dkaikage).
3-incli 4-mch 6-iucli 8-inch 10-incli 12-inch
Tile. TUe. Tile. Pipe. Pipe. Pipe,
60-4
.510
1.50-0
l2S-n
47-7
ilNII
171)1
43-4
. '.10 u
IMO
39-9
83-0
144-4
37-2
770
135-0
330
72o
1270
33- 1
69-2
120-6
26-6
.56-0
97-3
22-8
48-0
83-9
20-4
42-4
74-4
18-4
38-2
65-5
IGS
32-6
60-3
14-8
301
54-0
13-3
280
48-6
11-4
24-0
41-9
10-2
21-2
37-2
8-0
16-8
30-8
7-4
15-0
250
346-0
■.".18-4
•J(i9-0
246-0
228-1
213-0
200-5
190-5
1.54-4
132-5
117-0
107-0
90-7
81-6
74-0
65-0
.560
47-0
40-8
To afford a simple rule for those who wish
to construct drains merely through the low places
of a farm, and who do not possess means of ascer-
taining the fall, the following will probably be
sufficiently accurate : — On the average, the fall
GRADIENT AND LOCATION OF DRAINS.
U:i
usually secured is about 1 in 200, and foi" ordi-
naiy farm drainage, doubling the results g^iven
in the table, we find that a drain of 2-iiKh
tile will drain •!• acres ; 3-iueh tile will drain 1 1
acres; 4-inch tile will drain 17 acres; 6-inch
tile will drain 45 acres ; 8-inch tile will drain
96 acres; which rule does not differ essentially
from the one given by Waring in his work on
" Farm Drainage." The above rule is for casual,
not thorough drainage.
Fall of the Drain.
From what has already been said in reference
to the capacity of a drain, it is seen that tlie
greater the fall, the greater is the amount of
water that will pass, through in a given time,
other things being equal. For this reason the
fall should be as great as possible, within certain
limits. It is possible to have drains so steep
that the water, instead of entering the drain
at the joint, will run along the outside of the
tile, and finally undermine and destroy the drain;
this danger is to be anticipated only for laig'e
drains, where there is a great deal of water, and
never for small drains, which serve only as feeders.
The limits of steejmess for main drains that
convey much water we may put at from 1
in 10 to 1 in 30, depending on the tenacity of
the soil. The least gradient admissible depends
entirely ujion the mechanical execution. Drains
cannot be laid like water-pipes, alternately de-
scending and ascending, but they must descend
continuously from their commencement to their
outlet. If laid with any portion ascending from
the commencement, even though that portion
may not rise above the head, the drains, not
being tight, will let out at their joints much of
the water from above them, the ground at that
point being constantly wet, and the objects for
which the drains were laid will entirely be
destroyed. It is not material that uniformity
of descent be preserved, but although it makes
little difference how much the grade changes,
it is absolutely necessary that it always changes
in the same manner. That is, as we leave
the outlet we must continually go up, though
we may ascend at times much faster than at
others. Now, the greater the ascent in a given
distance, the less danger is there of giving any
portion of the drain an inclination in the wrong
direction ; but if the ascent is small, any mistake
19
of this kind becomes exceedingly difficult to
detect. Probably any one could see that an
inclination of 1 in 50 was not a level line, but
an inclin-ation of 1 in 500 is quite a different
thing, and there are few persons that could detect
tlie difference from a level line, or even tell which
end was the highest. Great care is necessary
to keep a continual descent or ascent, whichever
the case m-ay be; and with a less inclination
than 1 in 500, the difficulty becomes so great
that, except in cases of extreme necessity, it should
not be resorted to.
The Location of Drains.
For the economical construction of drains
nothing is more important than their location,
compared with the land they are expected to
drain ; for a bad location can never be remedied.
No definite rules can be laid down for the location
of drains in all eases. Usually the outlet must
be at the lowest point in the area to lie drained,
and from this the main drain must be laid up
the depressions or valleys, and from the main,
at various points, branch drains or laterals are
to be laid. That is, the main drains usually
follow the lowest portions of the field, and receive
the feeders or laterals, which minor drains make
a right angle with the main drain, and inin
from it directly up the slopes to be drained.
This method of running the laterals is now
xmiversally conceded to give the best results,
though in the early days of drainage a considerable
number of agriculturists advocated and practised
the method of laying their minor drains obliquely
across the slopes. After the drain is constructed,
the outlet (F^ig.
42) should be
built so as to
be a permanent
record of the
existence of the
drain. It is best
to build,at right
angles to the
direction of the
drain, a stone
wall laid in masonry, and with foundations below
the reach of frost. Through this stone wall should
pass the last or outlet tile of the drain ; this tile
should have a diameter 1 inch greater than the
remainder of the drain, so that its end may be
124
DAIRY FAR:\rixa.
fjratctl to keep out vermin without olistrufting the
flow of water in the remainder of the drain.
The depth at wliich tlie f^enerahty of soils
can be most profitably and effectually drained
varies from 3 to 4 feet; the more clayey the
soil the deeper the drain, until 4 feet is reached.
The deeper the drain, and the more it "draws"
the water; hence free soils need shallower drainintr.
At the same time, 4- feet drains will as a rule be
found deep enoug-h for the stifPest clays, and it
is better to have them nearer together than to
deepen them.
The cost of diaininor, including pipes and
carriage thereon, will vary according to depth
of drain, diameter of pipe, and cost of labour
in the district. The following statements are
for actual draining done : —
l._Doi)Ui, 3 foot; width apart, 19 fict.
£ s. d.
93 roods, at 9d. per rood of 8 yards, )
cutting; out and filling in of drains 1
2,300 pipes, 2.J inch diameter, at 30s ) o , ^
per 1,000 i 3 J 0
Carriage on pipes ... ... ... ... 0 10 0
Total cost per acre
2.— Depth, 4 feet ; width apart, 24 feet,
82 roods, at Is. 2d. per rood of 8 j-ards
2,000 pipes, 3 inch, at 40s. per 1,000
Carriage on pipes ...
Total cost per acre
The foregoing statements of cost are for
work effectually done, in a district where wages
are higher than in most parts of England.
If the water-level in wet land be lowered by
draining to a depth at which the water may,
without injury to the land, be allowed to remain
stagnant — lowered, in the ease of free soils, by
as few drains as are necessary to simply give
motion to all water in the soil above the level
at which they are placed, and in the case of clay
soils by as many drains as are found necessary
not only to drain but to thoroughly aerate a
like mass of soil — then the mechanieal improve-
ments secured are ample for all agriciiltiiral
pui-poses. In the first place, the land beeonus
capable, if its form and slope admit of it, of
absorbing the rain that falls upon its surface;
in the second, the improvement of condition and
temperature, and the disintegration of the hitherto
dense and compact mass of the soil, are secured
by the infiltration of rain-water through it, and
£7
8
9
?t.
£
3.
rt.
4
IT)
8
4
0
0
0
10
0
£9
0
8
by the admission (f air which accompanies the
water; in the third, the passage of the rain-water
vertically and evenly through the soil, moistening
as it goes every particle of cai'th, is obtained ;
and, in the fourth, the rising to the surface of
the diffluent water, coming through free soils
from a higher level, is prevented, and the eflluent
water of springs is confined within safe limits.
Following in the wake of these mechanical
improvements in the .soil are chemical effects,
which produce an increased fertility, and a better
adaptation of the land not only to tillage opera-
tions, but also to the growth of all kinds of agri-
cultural plants.
Every one will have noticed how poorly, if
at all, cultivated plants and trees thrive where
stagnant water abounds in the soil, and how
the land, under such eircumstanees, is given up
to the growth of ill-conditioned aquatic plants,
which, in an agricultural sense, are wholly
worthless. To cultivate such land profitably is
out of the question until it is drained. Air
beneath the surface is as essential as air above
it to the growth of all kinds of vegetation which
are of value to the farmer, and we may therefore
understand how necessary it is to drain all wet
soils in order to make them permeable, free, and
open. This is necessary, not only because the
roots of plants will not penetrate into a soil
which is a constant quagmire on account of
stagnant water, but also because there are in
such soils both organic and inorganic substances
which require to be changed by the action of
atmospheric gases before they can become available
as food to vegetation. For every inch in depth
of such soil that we lay dry by draining, we
give to vegetation nearly 100 tons of additional
earth per acre to feed upon; we correct the
influence of the noxious constituents which are
always present in such soils; and we introduce
into the deepened staple of useful earth those
fertilising elements which are always associateil
with fresh air and moving water.
The draining of land that is wet because of
an impervious subsoil that will not admit of
the percolation dow-nwards of the rain-water that
falls on the surface is a simple matter enough;
but when it is wet on account of effluent or
diffluent water, either of which rises to the surface
from beneath, the task is one which involves
more nicety. Mr. Mechi, of Tiptree, to whom
THE ACTION OF DRAINS.
125
ngrieuUure is very g^reatly indebted, says: — "T
consider it most important that, for spring-water "
(effluent water) "rising from below, draining
should never be less than 4 feet from the
surface, in certain cases even deeper than that,
so that capillarity should not counterbalance
gravity. In pure, stiff clays, free from spring
water, I found that the land has become gradually
free from stagnant water by draining at 4 feet
deep, and I have always there had good crops.
I know a case near a river where a wet field
adjoining the river was drained 4 feet deep
to take off the 'winter water;' but in summer
the drains were occasionally stopped to cause
the under water to ' head back ' until the
surface soil was moistened, and then the drain-
mouth was opened again. The result was mar-
vellous in the increase of the grass crop. It
proved that while a constant wetness of the
soil was most injurious, an occasional supply
was most beneficial and profitable." The sur-
charging of the soil with water, by stopping the
mouths of the drains, had a twofold effect- —
the moistening of the too diy soil, and, as the
water sank again, the bringing by suction of
a volume of fresh warm air into the soil.
Forest and hedgerow trees frequently do great
mischief to drains; their roots, with unerring
instinct, find their way down to the drains, in
search of moisture, in a dry time, and they will
go long distances in search of it ; once arrived
there, the roots send out an innumerable quantity
of tendrils, whose object is to absorb as much
water as possible and transmit it upwards to
the tree. These rootlets or tendrils form a com-
plete mass in course of time, and stop up the
drain as effectually as if a fleece of wool had been
crammed into it. Tree-roots also find crevices
in rocks in the same manner, sometimes a
considerable distance from the surface ; and it
not uncommonly hajipens that they divert the
course of a small current of water which they
may find there, in some eases causing it to come
out at the surface — a thing it would never have
done Avithout their interference. In an instance
of this kind they make land wet which would
not otherwise have been so, and draining it then
becomes neeessaiy. In the case of drains which
are stopped up by the roots, the only thing to
be done is to open the drain, cut the offending
roots clear away, replace the drain, and make
it as secure as possible, with the aid of large
flat stones well mortared together, against a
second invasion. Anyway, trees are not an im-
mixed good on land that is drained.
In the draining of laud we are too commonly
in the habit of regarding the earth as a compact
mass of inert and unsj'mpathetic matter. But
this is a great mistake, for in some instances
the subsoil has shown extreme sensibility to the
action of the atmosjihere after draining, and
the extent to which air will penetrate a drained
free soil is not yet determined ; but the retentive
and expanding properties of clay soils do impose
a limit. A singular piheuomeuon has frequently
been noticed, which demonstrates in a striking
manner the fact that soil is not so inert and
unsympathetic as we have been in the habit
of considering it. Drains previously dry have
been known at times to re-commence discharging
a perceptible stream of water without any rain
falling on the surface of the land ; this occurs
sometimes in a dry season, when the barometer
is falling and the atmosphere is dense, and they
will cease again to run water if the barometer
begins to rise and the air to lighten. Facts of
tliis kind will help us to understand the effect
of aeration and the circulation of water in
disintegrating, comminuting, and warming a soil
which is either naturally or artificially drained ;
and we must bear in mind a common law of
hydrostatics, which rules that water in draining
can only be put in motion by forming a vacuum
beneath and by the admission of air to the
surface, and that no water can be withdrawn
from the soil without its place being taken up
either by air or by a fresh supply of water;
in any case, mofiott is giAcn to the water in the
soil, and all the other benefits quickly follow.
The withdrawal of water causes air to enter the
soil at all its numberless pores, and to permeate
it thoroughly to as g;eat a depth as circumstances
admit of; and, as air contains, besides oxygen,
which is essential to vegetable vitality, and
vaporised moisture, which serves to maintain that
Antality in diy seasons, a variety of fertilising
sulistances, to wit, ammonia and carbonic acid,
which have been exhaled from the sea and from
decomposing animals and vegetables, and such
as come from the breath of living creatures,
from combustion, and other causes, it must be
borne in mind that to introduce plenty of air
126
DAIRY FARMIXG.
into a soil from whieli it was previously excluded
is to perform one of the most important, as it
is one of the most beneficial, acts that can be
done in aid of agricultural progress. It will be
clearly perceived how true is the saying that
" draining is the foundation of agriculture."
The upward action of water from the
level of the drains, by capillary attraction, is
an important factor in considering the effects
of under-draining, for it is said to be of sufficient
force in some soils to almost counterbalance
gravitation. It is in clay soils that capillaiy
attraction is most powerful. Some thoroughly
practical men go so far as to say that draining
increases the volume of evaporation by which
moisture is exhaled from the soil ; but as an
increase of evaporation would inevitably have the
effect of making the land colder, and as this
is not the effect which is j)opularly understood
to follow draining, and is not by any means
the result which draining is intended to produce,
we may venture to doubt the correctness of the
inference. The power of soils to absorb and
retain water does not, however, in any way
interfere with the required action of drainage,
nor is the quantity of water which a soil has
the power to soak up necessarily the measure
of the height to which the water will rise by
capillary attraction from the level to which the
drains have reduced it. It is, however, true
that, among the other benefits W'hich draining
secures to land, the prevention of excessive
evaporation, by means of which wet land is
continually kept at a low temperature, is not
the smallest. And this evaporation is most
active in hot weather, so that the land is deprived
of the warmth which is indispensable to vegeta-
tion in the very time when that warmth would
be of the greatest service and when it is most
available. The only way by which stagnant
watf.T can escape from land is by evaporation,
or, in other words, by exhalation into vapour;
and, though perhaps not equally well known, it
is equally true that heat is dispersed or becomes
latent by the conversion of water into vapour.
It is in obedience to this law that human beings
catch cold when their clothes are wet through
and they expose themselves to the air ; evaporation
immediately commences, the system is chilled,
and a cold is the result ; and precisely the same
evils play on a wet soil which is exposed to sun
and wind. The cooling effect is well illustrated
by swathing a bottle of water in wet flannel
and placing it out in the sun : if the flannel is
kept moist, the more will be the eva])oration
and the colder will be the water inside the
bottle. To reduce the effect of evaporation to
tangible figures, it may be stated that in the
process of carrying off a gallon of water by
evaporation the soil is deprived of as much heat
— heat, remember, that is indispensable to vege-
tation— as would raise 5^ gallons of water from
freezing to boiling point ; it is not surprising,
therefore, that everywhere wet land is kno^\^l to
be cold land. Heat, again, will pass only a very
short distance downwards in water, because water
is a bad heat-conductor, and if a soil is saturated
w^ith water, the warmth of the atmos2^here cannot
penetrate it.
Rain is of immense benefit to land in summer,
but on retentive soils, or on soils which are
wet from other causes, the rainfall requires to
be kept under control by an efficient system of
under-draining, othenvise it will do more harm
than good. The part played by dew and atmos-
pheric moisture in underground circulation cannot
be precisely stated, but it may safely be taken
for granted that when air highly charged by
moisture is caused to pass through the soil, it
must give up to vegetation a large portion of
its moisture. In his work on " Farm Drainage,"
published in New York, Judge French says : —
" Dew is one of the most ordinary forms in
which moisture is deposited in and upon the
soil in its natural csnditions. The aljsorbent
power of artificiall}' dried soils seems to depend
much upon their chemical constitution. The soil
absorbs moisture from the air, when both are
of the same temperature, the amount absorbed
depending also upon the physical condition of
the soil and upon the comparative moisture of
the soil and atmosphere.
" The deposition of dew results from a dif-
ferent law. All bodies throw off, at all times,
heat by radiation, as it is termed. In the day-
time the sun's rays warm the earth and the
air is heated by it, and that nearest the surface
is heated most. l'2vaporation is constantly going
on from the earth and water, and loads the air
with vapour, and the warmer the air the more
vapour it will hold.
" When the sun goes down, the earth still
PRACTICAL HINTS ON DRAINING.
1:27
continues to throw off lioat by radintion, and
soon becomes cooler than the air, unless the
same amount of heat be returned from other
surfaces. Becoming cooler than the air, the soil
or plants cool the air which comes in contact
with them ; and thus cooled to a certain point,
the air cannot hold all the vapour which it
absorbed while warmer, and part of it is deposited
upon the soil, plant, or other cool surface. This
is dew ; and the temperature at which the air
is saturated with vapour is called the dew-point.
If saturated at a given temperature with vapour,
the air, when cooled below this point, must
part with a portion of the vapour in some way :
in the form of rain or mist if in the air ; in
the form of dew if on the surface of the earth.
" If, however, other surfaces at night radiate
as much heat back to the earth as it throws
off, the surface of the earth is not thus cooled,
and there is no dew. Clouds radiate heat to
the earth, and, therefore, there is less dew in
cloudy than in clear nights. If the temperature
of the earth sinks below the freezing-point, the
aqueous vapour is frozen, and is then called hoar-
frost. Dew, then, is an effect, not a cause, of
cold. It imparts warmth, because it can be
deposited only on objects cooler than itself."
Some practical men think it necessary to
give a direct admission of air to drains by con-
necting the upf)er ends of minor drains with
the surface of the land, and they do this by
putting two or three of the ordinary pipes in a
perpendicular or in a sloping position. It is true
that no, or very little, harm is done by this
method, but it is a suj^erfluous thing to do ;
for if the soil was not easily penneable by air
after draining, the draining itself could not
possibly do any good, and if soils were air-tight
they would also be water-tight. It is also
supposed (hat water enters the drain-])i])es only
at the joints ; but if this were true, the pipes
would not be nearly as effective as they are.
The fact is that the water soaks slowly through
the pipes over their entire siirface ; if this were
not the ease it would be unnecessary to glaze
sanitary earthenware pipes, and if these were
left unglazed they would leak water all along,
except at the glazed sockets.
All practical men agree in this — if draining
is worth doing at all it is worth doing well.
We have known people try to economise money
by placing the drains a yard or two farther
apart than they ought to be, with the result
of having aftenvards to put in additional drains
midway between the first, because the land was
found to be only partially drained ; and these
supplementary drains make the number greater
than there was at first any' necessity for, while
they have caused an extra outlay of money,
which, being unnecessary, might have been avoided
if at the onset the drains had been properly
and not parsimoniously laid out. Some err in
not putting drains deep enough, especially in
heavy clay soils ; and instances are on record
where shallow drains have had to be taken up
to be replaced by deeper ones. Thei-e are, however,
some clay subsoils so dense and impervious that
deep draining has little effect on them; and if
the excavated subsoil is rej^laced over the pipes
it settles down into a compact mass, through
which water passes very slowly or not at all.
These drains should be filled in over the pipes,
not with the dense subsoil that was taken
out, but with loose stones, or with free soil, to
within one foot of the surface. It is better to
drain ten acres perfectly than fifteen imperfectly,
and to leave the five until they can be properly
attended to.
CHAPTER XI.
M.VN-URIKG AND TREATMENT OF TIIK Sori, ON DaIRY-FaHMS.
The ExhaTistion of Soils— Its Causes— General Method of Prevcniion and Operation of Jlanurcs Explained -Table showing Con-
stituents of lianures and of Plants— Deticiencies of Farni-jard Manure— Special Requirements of a IJairj -Farm— Experiments
in \\'atcr-Culturc with Jlineral Mantires- Their Practical Lessons— Use of Lime— Improvement of Grass Land— Cake— Manure
— TiUi^je— A Good Top-dressing— Farm-yard Manure— Box-feeding— Manure Cellars— An American Kxaniple— I'sual Waste
of Farm-yard JIanure— Need of More Covered Yards— Manure Worth Care — Means of Preventing the
V ji^l''/^' " \ Vv'asle of Ammonia, and of Increasing the Bulk — Compost.
'Ci^
HE exhaustion of soils is a pro-
•eess ■«'ith whose effect eveiy
farmer is familiar, thoiio'h but
few farmers are familiar with
p." the details of the method hy
, \, ■ which the effect is produced.
It is e\4deut that, with an
exhaustive system of cropping, or from
A\ ant of that periodical assistance which
the bulk of land requires, soils gratlually
become poorer, until at length they
cease to yield a profitable return. It is not
only on arable laud or on meadow laud which
Composition of Fertile and of Barren Soils.
Barren
Land.
Barren
Peat.
Good
blacksaiidy
Loam.
Good
Loam.
Wafer
Orffanic matter . . .
Phosphoric acid ...
Sulphuric acid ...
Potash
Soda
Lime
JIagnesia
Alumina
Silica
Chlorine
Oxide of iron
2 0
1-80
■60
•80
92-50
2-84
4o.'>
89-14
a trace
11.5
-17
-.58
4-18
•23
3-42
9-30
-31
-u
2-23
1-98
1-34
-96
10-25
67-29
-68
213
2-47
911
•29
•14
2-73
1-39
2-27
1-05
17-69
68-14
•54
4-20
100-00
Totals
100o4
10000
100 00
is not adequately manured that this exhaustion
occurs, but the great bulk of pasture land,
especially that which is depastured by young
stock, also becomes inii)overished in course of
time, unless it is periodically restored to condition
liy manuring. The following tables, by 'Sir. J.
Jckyll, of Louth, show at a glance the composition
of fertile and of baiTen soils on the one hand,
and on the other the percentage of silica, lime,
and potash which are found in the ash of various
cultivated plants.
In respect of these, Mr. Jekyll remarks : —
" One kind of crop requires a heavy amount
of soluble silica, while some other crop requires
little or none of that compound. By taking
a crojj not requiring silica, time is given for
its accumulation in the soil. Some plants
rob the land of its nitrogen, others increase it.
Ash of Some Cultivated Plants.
Salts of
Salts ot
Put tail and
Lime aud
Silica.
Soda.
Ma^esia.
Silica plants : —
Oat-straw with com ...
34 00
4-00
62-00
Wheat-straw
22 00
7-20
61-05
Barlev-straw with corn
19-00
25-70
55-03
Eye-straw
18-05
16-52
63-89
Linio plants : --
Pea-straw
27-82
63-74
7-81
Bean-straw
34-00
64-51
6-78
Clover
39-20
56-00
4-90
Potato-haulm
4-20
69-40
36-40
Potash plants: —
Turnips
81-60
18-40
Beetroot
88-00
12-00
Potato-tuhers
85-81
14-19
—
Some gain their support from the surface soil,
while others strike deep into the subsoil, and
draw from it a rich store of mineral wealth,
which can be returned to the land as manure,
to supjily those which feed in surface soil only.
now SOILS ARE EXHAUSTED.
129
One class of agricultural plants requires for its
well-being au excess of silica ; a second an excess
of the salts of lime and magnesia ; while a third
will not flourish without au extra amount of
the salts of the alkalies. Every sack of corn,
pound of beef, mutton, or bone, truss of hay
or straw, carried off from the farm, reduces tlic
productive capabilities of that laud by exactly
the amount of nitrogen, phosphoi-us, potash, &c.,
which has been extracted from the soil by those
agricultural productions ; aud every load of mauu-
rial matter returned to the farm restores pro-
ductiveness in exact proportion to the amount
of these chemical substances which it contains.
It matters not from what source is the nitrogen,
lime, potash, or phosphorus, so long as these
substances are in an available form, or readily
become so in the soil ; but they must be returned
to the soil, or sterility -n-ill sooner or later overtake
the best land ever cropped."
Professor Anderson writes : — " In order that
we may have definite data to go upon, let us,
in the first instance, consider the cause of the
exhaustion of soil and the different modes in
which it may be brought about. It is to be
observed, then, that all plants require for their
growth an adequate supply of carbonic acid,
ammonia, nitric acid, sulphuric acid, chlorine,
and silicas, which are all indispensable, although
some of them are required in larger quantities
than others. They are divisible into two classes —
one including the first four substances, which,
being all either gaseous or volatile, are found
not only in the soil but in the atmosphere ; the
remainder are confined, at least in quantity, to
the soil. These two great classes are usually dis-
tinguished as the organic and inorganic elements
of the plaut-food, by which it is to be understood
that the foi-mer, though they are in a chemical
sense inorganic, are the source of the organic
or combustible part of the plant, while the latter
supply the constituents of the ash. They may
also, however, and with more advantage, be
described as the movable and the immovable
elements of the plant, because the former, existing
in the air, are conveyed backwards and forwards
by the wind; while the latter, being fixed in
the soil, cannot be removed and replaced by
ordinary natural causes. It is sufficiently ob\aous
that if a crop be grown for a succession of years,
and be systematically removed from the soil, the
quantity of these substances must be gra<lually
diminished, and if this course be persisted in,
the soil must eventually become incapable ol
supporting the life of plants. The period at
which this will occur must necessarily differ very
greatly in different soils, and dejjend on the
quantity of available plant-food; for the air,
constantly shifting, is always prepared to yield
a practically inexhaustible supply of the movable
elements, so that the exhaustion must in all
cases be due to the removal of the fixeil or mineral
substances ; and, consequently, when it is wished
to restore to the soQ its power of supporting
vegetation, it is not necessary to add to it all
the elements of the plant, but it will suffice to
give those which it cannot otherwise obtain —
that is, the fixed substances — and leave it entirely
to depend on the air for a supply of those which
can be derived from it. We do not mean here
to discuss whether this method would reproduce
the highest degree of fertility, but only to point
out that a soil thus treated would regain, more
or less completely, the power of supporting plant
life, of which it would have been dejnived by
the supposed system of management.
" In point of fact, then, the complete ex-
haustion of a soil in its natural state must always
be due to the want of mineral matters, because,
practically, no method of treatment can deprive
it of those which the air supplies. As far, also,
as these matters are eoucerned, it must be ob-
vious that they would rarely, if ever, be exhausted
simultaneously, but that in general, some one
substance being present in relatively small pro-
portion, the soil becomes incapable of supporting
the life of plants when it is entirely withdrawn,
although there may be still an abundant supply
of all the others. If, for example, a soil con-
tain a sufficient quantity of potash to }ield, say,
twenty full crops of wheat, and of the other con-
stituents of that plant enough to yield forty crops,
the excess of the latter would be unavailing, and
the soil would be exhausted by twenty crops.
If now we added to such a soil a supply of
potash, it would again become cajiable of produc-
ing a crop, and would go on doing so until some
other substance had been entirely consumed, when
it also would have to be added ; and so on, until
all being removed, the soil would at length end
in a complete infertility, which would only be
retarded, and not be prevented, by this mode
130
DAIRY FAU^rixa.
of operation. To maintain duriiiij: an unliniitwl
series of years a uniform amount of produce,
it would be necessary to add, year by year, a
quantity of the elements of plant-food equal to
that which the crop removes ; and the necessity
for doin<? this is so obvious that it cannot be
controverted, and it may safely be asserted that
it is a point on which all scientific and practical
men are entirely at one.
"This being the principle on wliicli the
exhaustion of the soil is to be avoided, we have
only to carry it out a little further to dra\v the
conclusion that if we add to it a larger quantity
of the elements of plant-food than is requisite
to replace what has been removed, its productive
capacity must be increasal, and it will become
capable of yielding a larger crop than it did
in its original state. This is, in fact, the foun-
dation of the use of manures ; aud if it were
possible to carry out these theoretical principles
in their integrity, the soil might be made to
produce, during an unlimited succession of years,
a crop greatly exceeding anytliing known in
actual practice. Practically, however, there is a
limit which cannot be exceeded, and this depends
upon several circumstances. In the first place,
the effect of a manure is not due to its composi-
tion alone, but is dependent, to no small extent,
upon the different constituents existing in it in
a state in which they are readily available to the
plant. And, in the second j)lace, the composition
of manures is not entirely under our control.
Although farm-yard manure, which is, and will
always continue to be, the foundation of agri-
cultural practice, is a mixture containing all the
elements of plant-food, and generally in propor-
tions not very far removed from those in which
the plant requires them, yet it is impossible not
to recognise the fact that differences occur in it,
and that part of its constituents are not directly
available to the plant, but only become so by
virtue of certain changes which occur in it after
it has been deposited in the soil, and do not
necessarily proceed exactly as we could desire.
It is a familiar fact that, owing to these de-
compositions proceeding in an imperfect manner,
manure may, and often does, accumulate in the
soil, and remains there in an inert and dormant
condition. If from this or any other circumstances
the supply of one or more of the substances
required by the plant is deficient in the manure,
then cither the crop is tlicrcby limitetl, or it is
forced to derive the requisite supj)ly of that
sul)stanec from the natural resources of the soil
itself. In fact, a manure which is deficient in
any one element of the crop does not improve
the soil ; and though it may produce a greatly
increased crop, its effect is merely temporary,
and eventually it only causes its more rapid
exhaustion. In the case of farm-yard manure,
which necessarily contains all the elements of
plants, this is, of course, less likely to occur than
in special manures, containing only one or two
of these substances. Thus, for example, the
opposite effect would be conspicuously seen in
the case of a soil manured during a series of
years with a salt of ammonia. In that case,
though the crop might be greatly increased in
any one year, the total amount of produce would
be no larger than it would have .'een without
that addition, but it would have been obtained
within a shorter period of time.
" The general conclusion to which all these
considerations lead is, that we can only maintain
the fertility of the soil by returning to it all
the substances which the crop removes, and that
we can increase it by applying these in larger
quantity ; but when the mixture supplied is
deficient in any one substance, it does not pre-
vent but hastens exhaustion.'''
The question has often been raised whether,
in the use of artificial manures, which in recent
years has become so extensive, we not only do
not restore all the elements of fertility, but only
those which enable the crop to draw more largely
than it would otherwise do on the natural pro-
ductiveness of the soil. It is a question which
can be satisfactorily answered by nothing less
than a series of carefully conducted experiments,
extending over a long period of time. The appli-
cation of partial manures, and the constant selling
off of the crops, would no doubt in course of
time so impoverish the soil of those constituents
which the manures did not contain, that it would
cease to yield good crops ; but where the crops
are consumed on the farm, and the farm-j'ard
manure, liquid and solid, is all returned to the
soil from wliich it was derived in the form of
a crop, no exhaustion, but a gradual, and in
some cases a rapid, improvement will ensue.
When used to supplement the manure produced
on a farm, artificial manures are of great benefit ;
1
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do. moderately rotted...
do. thoroughly rotted...
Dunghe.ap liquor
Fa:ces, fresh
Urine, human, fresh
Night-soil, fresh
COMMERCIAL FER-
TILISERS.
100 LBS. CONTAIN
Peruvian Guano
Dried Blood
PH0SPH.\TE3.
Bone-meal, average
Bone-meal, from solid parts
do. from porous parts
Bone-black, frci-h
Bone-black, spent
Bone-ash
Baker Guano
Jarvis Guano
Navassa Phosphates
8UPERPH0.SPHATES.
Rectified Peruvian Guano. . .
Baker Guano, superphos- 1
Navassa, ditto
Bone-black, ditto
Bone-meal, ditto
MISCELLANEOUS.
Sulphate of Ammonia . , .
Nitrate of Soda
Plaster, Gypsum
Gas-Lime
Sugar-house Scum
Ashes, Evergreen Trees . . .
Ashes, Deciduous Trees ...
Leached Ashes
Peat Ashes
Anthracite Coal Ashes ...
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Wheat, grain
Wheat, straw
Rye, grain
Rye, straw
Oats, grain
Oats, straw. ...
Indian Corn, gi-ain
do. stalks and leaves...
Buckwheat, grain
Buckwheat, straw
Beans
Bean straw
Peas
Pea straw
HAY.
Average Meadow Hay ...
Timothy Hay
Red Clover Hay
Swedish Clover Hay ...
Lucerne (Alfalfa)
GREEN CROPS.
Young Grass
Timothy Grass
Fodiler Rye
Fodder Corn
Red Clover in blossom . . .
HOOTS (tubers) & TOPS.
Potatoes, tubers
do. vines, nearly ripe
Turnips, roots
Turnips, tops
Sugar lieets, roots
Sugar 33eets, tops
Carrots, roots
Carrots, toi^a
Hops, entire plant
Hops, the conea
Tobacco, leaves
132
DAIRY FARMINC}.
but it is open to grave doubt if they can Ije
successfully made to take the place of farm-yard
maiuu-e wholly throu<4'h a loiif^ series of years.
Properly compounded and genuine artificial ma-
nures, when usal alternately with farm-yard
manure on meadow land, give to the grasses a
fillip which is very beneficial ; and when used
as an occasional top-dressing to pasture land,
supplementing thereon the excreta of cattle, the
result is equally satisf;ictory. The question of
the exhaustion of soils, however, resolves itself
into ascertaining whether, throughout the country,
there is a proper balance maintained between
the crops removed from the soil and the manure
returned to it. This can only be decidwl by
carofully comparing the amount of fertilising
matter removed by various crops with that
contained in the manure which is returned to
the soil. Though not an impossible, it certainly
would not be an easy task for a practical farmer
to accurately determine this point, but he may,
sufficient for all practical puqioses, af)proximately
ascertain it by the aid of the foregoing tables.
By comparing the composition of the manures
with that of the crops, an idea may be formed
how nearly the former restore what the latter
take away from the soil, and how much of
different fertilising materials will be needed for
the production of a given crop.
In a six:-course rotation, consisting of turnips,
wheat, clover, hay, oats, potatoes, and wheat,
average crops of each, the quantity of fertilising
elements removed from an acre of land has been
calculated to be as follows : —
Potash
Soda
Lime
Magnesia ...
Chlorine
Sulphuric acid
Phosphoric acid
Silica
Nitrogen ...
lbs.
319-4
G(i-G
lOO-O
39-9
5S-9
78-7
122-3
3G1-4
274-0
The quantity of the ingredients in the fore-
going table, when compared with what exi.sts
in most soils, is so small that the exhaustion
of the soil does not appear, under fairly good
conditions of farming, to be a result at all
likely to occur. But the other point in tl;e
solution of the question — the estimating of the
elements of fertility restored to the soil by the
application of fami-yaixl manure — is not so easily
determined, because it is difficult to alwaj's tell
the exact quantity of manure which is ordinarily
apjtlied to crops, and especially so because it varies
nuieh in composition. The following quantities,
however, may be taken as the average amounts
of fertilising materials contained in a dressing
of 1;J tons of farm-yard manure per acre : — •
Potash
Soda
l.ime
Jlairnt'sia
Cliloi-ine
Sulphuric acid
Phosphoric acid
Siliai (soluble)
Nitrotrou
201
67
337
84
108
269
163
The elements of fertility which, if any,
farm-yard manure wquld fail to return to the
land in sufficient quantity, as compared with
the remainder, are nitrogen, phosphoric acid,
pf)tash, and chlorine ; and it would appear to be
expedient — in practice we know it to be beneficial
in a high degree — to occasionally supplement
farm-yard by an application of artificial manure
which is specially comiiounded in reference tr
those elements in wliich farm -yard manure i:
more or less deficient. The nitrogen is specially
contained, in a most readily available form, in
nitrate of soda ; the phosphoric acid in super-
phosphate of lime or bones ; the potash in kaiiiite ;
and the chlorine in common salt. The first three
are the elements on which plants chiefly subsist,
and the soil is naturally very grateful for an
artificial supply of them, over and above what
farm-yard manure contains. But farm-yard
manure, if produced in part by the consumption
by animals of various kiuds of cake and corn —
of which decorticated cotton-cake is the richest
in manurial residue — may be so much improved
that it will contain sufficient of every element
that the land requires for its fertility.
There is a steady exhaustion of the .soil
going on upon a dairy as well as upon an arable
farm, but it is much less rapid. It consists chiefly
of ])hosphates, but also of nitrogen and potash,
which are carried away in the milk, and these may
be restoi-ed by an application of ground bones,
superphosphate or lime, nitrate of soda, and
THE EXHAUSTION OK SOILS.
l.-i;3
kainitc. Prof. J. F. W. Johnston says: — "Every
40 gallons of milk contain 1 lb. of bone earthy be-
sides other phosphates. Estimating a cow to yield
750 gallons per year, it will require 19 lbs. of
phosphate — equivalent to 30 lbs. of bone dust. If
the calf is sold off we may assume there is a loss
of 20 lbs. of bone, and the waste of phosphates in
the urine equals 4 lbs. And thus, for every cow a
dairy-farm maintains, it will lose of earthy phos-
phates as much as is contained in 56 lbs. of bone
dust." Dr. Voelcker saj's : — " In the cultivation
of remote districts, in the reclamation of wastes,
and in the restoration of fertility to the worn-out
pasture lands, which had been exhausted hy the
constant removal of milk, Intter, Sec, from their
surface, bone manure has been scarcely less bene-
ficial than in turnip husbandry."
Where much young stock is reared the phos-
phates in the soil diminish more rapidly than
where the pastures are kej)t for the production of
milk only J they serve to build up the bony and
muscular stnieture of the young animals, and a
smaller proportion of them is returned to the soil,
in the form of animal excreta, than is the case
with atlult animals which are in milk or are
being fattened for the butcher; hence it follows
that to young-stock pastures the pihosphatic
elements require to be more frequently restored
than to milking pastures, and more frequently
to the latter than to fattening pastures. There
are, however, some pastures that are so rich in
all the elements of plant and of animal nutrition,
that for generations no, or very little, exhaustion
has become perceptiljle, and they are as rich
now as any one woidd wish them to be. The
excreta of the animals grazing on them, together
with the genial climate in which they are usually
situated, are to all appearance amj^ly sufficient
to maintain them in a veiy high state of fertility.
On these soils farming is always a simple, pleasant,
and profitable occujjation, so far, at all events,
as the laud itself is concerned. But the quantity
of such land is very limited.
Professor S. W. Johnson, of Yale College,
Connecticut, U.S.A., author of " How Crojjs
Grow " and " How Crops Feed," two excellent
works, writes on " Guiding Ideas in the Use
of Fertilisers": — "We do not know jyositively,
as yet, all the processes or arrangements by
w'liich nitrogen is made accessible to our crojis.
We have got a great deal of valuable knowledge.
but there is still much to be learned. The at-
mosphere contains au immense store of nitrogen
gas — four-fifths of its bulk and weight — but
this free nitrogen is, so far as our present in-
formation enables us to decide, of no use as
food to vegetation directly. It is only capable
of feeding plants after it has been brought into
combination with other elements, as ammonia, or
as a nitrate. (It will be remembered that am-
monia and nitric acid are compounds of nitrogen,
and that compounds of nitric acid with bases, as
ammonia, lime, &c., are called nitrates.) The
atmosphere will furnish a limited but variable
supjjly of these comijounds, enough to be of
essential service to well-developed vegetation,
having great absorbent surface of leaf and root,
but not enough to bring annual plants to great
development, so that agricultural plants, if planted
in a soil destitute of available nitrogen comjiounds,
can never make a crop without the help of manure
containing suitable nitrogen compounds.
" Nitrogen is the most costly element of our
ordinaiy fertilisers, because it is the most gene-
rally and strikingly useful, and because it is
the most difficult to obtain ; or, in other words,
the demand is great and the supply small.
"The soil, if it contains little nitrogen, must
be enriched by that element; if it contains
abundance, it is obviously not needful to add
more. By natural processes the soil is constantly
losing and gaining nitrogen, or is liable to such
loss and gain, and these changes are intensified
under the artificial conditions of agricultural
practice. Nitrogen enters the soil from the
atmosphere, by direct absorption of ammonia,
especially when moisture condenses in it, as hap-
pens in the night-time, and loses ammonia again,
or may lose it, as the water exhales. The rain
that falls upon the earth brings both ammonia
and nitrates in vaiying quantity, equivalent to
from two to twenty-one pounds of nitrogen to
the acre j)er annum in the dozen instances where
chemists have taken the immense trouble necessary
to ascertain its quantity for an entire year. On
the other hand, the nitrates, and ammonia after
being oxidised to nitrates, wash from the soil
in the outflowing water, and are lost in the
streams. Again, the soil itself is not passive to
nitrogen, but on the one hand appears to be able
to render a portion of the available nitrogen
inert, and on the other, to assimilate nitrogen
134
DAIRY FARMING.
from the air, and make it available to plants.
But with regard to these processes we are very
much in the dark. Another source of loss of
nitrogen is when its compounds, which are so
precious as plant-food, are to a greater or less
extent broken up in the soil by cultivation, and
the nitrogen let loose as free nitrogen, which is
not directly useful as plant-food.
" Nitrogen, then, is somewhat exceptional
among the elements of fertilisers. It comes to our
soil in an unseen atmospheric stream, sometimes
larger and sometimes smaller, but alwa\'s so small
that the current quantity is not adequate for the
cuiTcnt crop. It is always wasting, or liable to
waste, and it wastes the more the greater the
volume of rain-water which our soil is unable
to retain in its pores, but permits to leach through
and away. The natural accessions of nitrogen
to the land, though not enough for a grain or a
green crop while that crop is growing, are yet
enough to help it essentially when its absorbent
surface of leaf and root has become large. And
by judicious alternations of the large-surfaced
and deep-rooted plants of the perennial class, or
of perennial habit, like clover, we can save and
store up in the soil nitrogen of atmospheric
manurings, to use for those crops which are active
consumers of this element, either of themselves
or by the culture they require.
" In brief, nitrogen is the most valuable
because the most scarce of all the ingredients of
plant-food ; the immense stores of free nitrogen
in the air are not available to plants because
they can use it only when combined with other
substances. But plants do seem to have the
power to take some nitrogen compounds from
the air by their leaves; clover and like largo-
leaved plants seem to absorb more in tliis way
than grain crops. The main sujiply of niti'ogeu
to plants must come from the soil, and to be
useful to the plants this nitrogen must be in
available forms. In vegetable remains and
manures it is in more or loss available forms,
and is gradually made more available. This
change is facilitated by right manuring and
tillage. At the same time, the soil is continually
gaining more or less nitrogen from the atmosphere,
and is losing more or less by escape in a free
state, entering into unavailable combinations, or,
especially, by leaking off in drainage water.
" As to the other elements of plant-food —
lime, magnesia, potash, iron, sulphuric acid,
phosphoric acid, and chlorine — we know that they
belong to the soil, and while they may be rcmovcxl
from our fields in the crops, or may some of
them wash out of the land in the drain water,
they cannot return of themselves, but must be
returned in the manure we apply, unless the
overflow of some water-course may chance to
bring them back. Of the elements just named,
there are some which are especially liable to waste
in drainage waters, or waste easily and rapidly,
while others are practically fixed. Lime and
suljilniric acid, next to nitrates, are the suljstanccs
which water dissolves and removes most copiously
from our fields. Phosphoric acid and potash, it is
noticed, are found in but the minutest quantities
in these drain waters. We need not fear, then,
that these suljstances are wasting from our lands,
unless, indeed, they are over-manured and under-
retentive. But lime and sulphuric acid wash out
more freely, and hence, probabh'', one reason of
the wide-spread advantage of gypsum as a fer-
tiliser; it must be constantly applied to make
up the constant loss of its elements."
Experiments in "Water-Culture.
The two following engravings, with the ex-
planations belonging to them, relate to the results
of an experiment in water-culture made by Dr.
Nobbe, at the Agricultural Experiment Station
in Tharandt, Saxony, and to one in sand-culture
made by Professor AV. O. Atwater, Director of
the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station,
U.S.A. The exj)criments were made with buck-
wheat and oats, and were undertaken to demon-
strate the effect of withholding certain elements
of plant-food separately, noting the difference in
effect, and comparing each case with an example
in which the plant was supplied with eveiy in-
gredient necessary to its development. It is to
these and similar researches that the discovery
of what constitutes the food of plants is due.
The number of these researches is veiy large,
and years of patient work, by many investigators,
have been expended in the chemical analysis of
plants, soils, and maniu'cs, in the culture of plants
in the greenhouse and of crops in the field, in
order to demonstrate the different materials that
arc required in perfect ]ilant-nutrition. These
labours have thrown a tlood of light on problems
the solution of which had previously been made
THE NUTRITION OF PLANTS,
13J
liy conjecture only, and tliey liave demonstrated
the incorrectness of some of the old theories on
this subject. The researches have been made prin-
cipally in the Agricultural Experiment Stations of
Germany and America, and they have given to
the world a large amount of definite knowledge,
which, if properly put into practice, is of incal-
culable value. In order to the better understand-
ing of the significance of these results, it will
be necessary to mention, in connection with this
subject, a few important facts in chemistry, for
the terse description of which we have to thank
Professor Atwater, who is a well-known American
specialist.
" Phosphoric acid combined with lime, as
phosphate of lime, makes up most of the mineral
matter of all bones. Sulphuric acid (oil of
vitriol), with lime, forms suljjhate of lime, other-
wise known as ' j)laster,' or gypsum. Silica is
the chief ingredient of ordinary sand. It occurs
nearly pure in flint and quartz, and, combined
with other substances, in many minerals. Nitrogen
constitutes foiir-fifths of the air, the other fifth
being oxygen ; and nitrogen also makes up about
seven-eighths of ammonia, the rest being hydrogen.
Charcoal and lampblack are nearly pure carbon.
By potash is to be understood the compound of
potassium and oxygen, and by soda, sodium and
oxygen.^'
Bearing these facts in mind, we quote the fol-
lowing tersely expressed statement, by Prof. S. W.
Johnson, of some of the substantial results referred
to : — " In respect to the food of plants, it has been
settled that potash, lime, magnesia, iron, phos-
phoric acid, and sulphuric acid mu>it be furnished
to all agricultural plants through their roots and
by the soil, in order to their growth. It has
also been shown that soda, silica, and chlorine
are not needful for the early growiih of grain
crops, but that chlorine is essential for the per-
fection of the seed, and that silica is probably
necessary to uniform blossoming and lipening.
It is further proved that water must enter crops
through their roots ; that carbon, which constitutes
more than half their weight, is superabundantly
furnished by the air ; that air and water together
yield the materials out of which fully 90 to
9S per cent, of croj)s is built up; and that the
soil has to give for their nourishment only the
two to eight per cent, of mineral matters which
remain as ashes when they are burned, and the one
and a half to two per cent, of nitrogen which
they also contain."
In order, then, that any agricultural plant
may grow, it must have at its disposal, in the
soil, besides water, a certain list of substances,
viz., potash, lime, magnesia, iron, phosphoric acid,
sulphuric acid, and some compound of nitrogen.
Besides these, chlorine, certainly, and silica,
probably, are necessary in many, if not in all
cases, for the perfection of the plant. If any
one of these substances be lacking, the plant
will not thrive. With an abundant supply of
all, and other conditions favourable, its growth
will be luxuriant. How has all this been learned ?
In the first place, in every analysis that chemists
make of any plants, be it corn, or grass, or turnips
— and thousands of these analyses have been made
— each one of these substances has always been
found. It is fair to suppose, then, that, being
always present, they have each a work to do in
the plant. Still, this is not positive proof. As
every ordinaiy soil contains all of these substances,
is it not possible that the plant may take up
some of them in the water it absorbs from the
soil, just as a towel, one end of which has fallen
into a dish of water, will absorb the water and
whatever it holds in solution ? This question
might be tested by growing plants in soils with
one of these substances absent from it, potash
for example. But it is difficult to find a soil
entirely free from potash. It is easy, however,
to dissolve in pm-e water any or all of these
substances in any desired proportion, and it is
well known that plants \y\\\ grow with their roots
in water.
"Experiments in 'water-culture' consist in
raising plants without any soil at all, but with
their roots immersed in water, in which are
dissolved the soil-ingredients of plant-food. The
seeds are germinated, or ' sprouted,' in pure sand
or moist cotton. At the same time, the ingredients
of plant-food which are to be supplied to the
plants are dissolved in water in the desired
proportions, and these solutions put into glass
jars. At the tops of these the just gei-minated
plants are placed, projjerly supported, with their
roots dij^ping into the solutions, and thus allowed
to grow. Solutions containing all the soil-
ingredients or plant-food are called normal solu-
tions. In these, plants are raised as large, as
healthy, and in every way as perfect as those
136
DAIRY FARMING.
grown in the soil. Dr. Wolff raised in such a
solution four perfect oat plants, with 40 stems
and 1,.j35 well-developed seeds. Dr. Nobbe ob-
tained a Japanese buckwheat plant, 9 feet high,
its roots ha<l been immersed only in watery
solutions. The above were obtained in the
' noi-mal solutions.' ^ATiat would result if one
of the necessary food ingredients were omitted ?
Fig. 43.— ExPEatrMENTS in ■Water-Cultuke.
(By Dr. N^ihhe, at the ExpcriTtiental Station in Tluirandt, Saa-ony.)
The above en£rravin<7 is copied from pliotosrr.ipbs of buckwheat plants, jTrown with the roots immersed in jars containing various solations
of the infrredieuts of pbiut-food in water. Tlie jilants were supported by perforated corks reiting on the covers of the jars, and by upright
sticks. In jars I, and I. a w-s a nonnnl notniion, that is, a solution containiu'^ nil the essential ingredients of plant-food, incluiliug potassium
ns chloride. The plnnt in I.a was nearly 3J feet high. The solution in II. was the same as normal solution in I. and La, except that
l)Otassium was omitted in the jar II. The plant was scarcely 3 inches hi^b. The jar II.3 commenced as II., that is, without potassium,
but potassium chloride was afterwards added. VI. contained the normal solution, except that sodium was substituted for potassium. IX., X., XI.,
and III., same as I., except that IX. contained no lime, X. no chlorine, and XI. no nitrogen, and III. had nitrate instead of chloride of potassium.
weighing, air-dry, 4,786-fold the weight of the
seed, and bearing 7'J6 ripe and 108 imperfect
seeds. And Dr. Knop used to delight in showing
his friends a young oak-tree, very small indeed,
but the growth of which had been norma!, though
Tliis is answered in Dr. Nobbe's experiments.
The engraving (Fig. 4.'5), with the explanations,
shows that in the normal solution the buckwheat
was vigorous and healthy, and grew to be nearly
8.^ feet higli. Another i)lant (11.), grown under
SAND (CULTURE.
137
precisely the same circumstances, except that no
potash was sujiplied, led a starvino; and sickly
life, and attained a height of scarcely 3 inches.
Without potash no full development was possible.
When tins was added later (in II.3), the plant
revived, pushed out with some vigour, but was
unable to overtake its better-fed neighbours. Nor
did the plants grow well in lack of either lime
(IX.), or chlorine (X.), or nitrogen (XI.). . . .
These are the results, not of single, but of many
repeated trials. Dr. Nobbe made, in this case,
a number of different series of experiments, each
acid, and some compound of nitrogen. Besides
these, chlorine, and perhaps silica, are sometimes,
if not always, indispensable to complete develop-
ment. If any one of these essential ingredient i
be lacking, the plant will suffer in growth and
development."
The results of these experiments, wliich should
be clearly stated, and wliich should be especially
remembered, are that — 1st. No agricultural plant
can grow without an abundant supply, in an
available and appropriate form, of each of the
essential ingredients of plant-food. 2nd. Of thesej
Fig. 44. — ExPEBiMEirr with Buckwheat and Oats grown in Barren Sand, and supplied with
DIFFERENT FERTILISING INGREDIENTS.
corresponding to the numbers I., II., &c. There
were, for instance, several of series I., some larger,
and others smaller. From these, I. and I.« were
selected as of average size and development. So
II., III., &c., were each selected as fair average
samples of the plants of those series. The selected
plants were photographed, and the result is shown
in the picture.
"IMany such series of experiments have been
carried on with various plants by Nobbe and
numerous other investigators, and they all agree
in this one general conclusion. No agricultural
plant can attain full growth without a sufficient
supply through its roots from the soil of potash,
lime, magnesia, iron, phosphoric acid, sulphuric
potassium is necessary to the formation of starch
in the chlorophyll grains of the leaf. 3rd. No
other ingredient can fulfil the office of potassium
in the plant. The same is also known to be true
of nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and each of the
other essential ingi-edients. Each has its o^vn
work, which no other can perform.
The practical application of these principles
as to the chief office of fertilisers may be stated
as follows : — Crops can no better grow wthout
a sufficient supply of each of these essential
elements in the soil than could the plants in the
solution. In removing crops from our land we
cany away great quantities of plant-food. By
continued cropping the available supply of one
138
DAIRY FARMING.
or more of the essential inf]fre(lients becomes too
small for profitable production, unless by some
means they are replaced. The ones most generally
deficient are nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash.
The chief use of manure is to supply these lacking
materials. Stable manure is a complete fertiliser,
as it furnishes all the ingredients of plant-food,
and improves the land besides. Superphosphates,
bone manure, guanos, potash salts, and other like
artificial fertilisers are valuable chiefly for their
nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash. In their
use we should first learn what materials the plant
needs, and then select the fertilisers which furnish
these in the largest quantity, best form, and at the
lowest cost. The needs of a given soil can be best
learned by experience and experiment. The only
as Professor Atwater saj's, " several solutions
were prepared by dissolving the proper chemical
salts in water. One of these contained all the
materials which plants require for their food from
the soil. This ' normal solution ' was the same
as was used in the experiments in ' water-culture,*
previously described, and was applied to No. V.
of each series. Another solution, containing the
same ingredients, except that nitrogen was
omitted, was used to water the plants in No.
IV. A solution, with everything but phosphoric
acid, was applied to No. III. of each series.
Potash was in like manner omitted from No.
II. Finally, each No. I. received only rain-water.
The plants came up and grew. Those supplied
with the complete fertiliser, No. V., were healthy.
Dry Weight of Plants Grown in Barken Sand, Fertilised with Different Solutions.
BucrwiiEAT.
I.
n.
n..
IT.
V.
Il
1
Number of plants ... 25
Average height. Cen- '^ ' „.
timeters* > ■^"
Weight of seed. Gramst 1 -2
Weight of straw „ 4-9
Weight of roots „ 4-6
2.5
CO
13
14-1
6-6
24
GO
4-4
8-7
2-4
24
30
0 9
2-9
4-6
24
Gl
20-4
2.5-4
5-4
Oats.
I.
1
1
IL
m.
IV.
V.
II
|i2
II
11
o "
i=5 ■■
Number of plants
Average height. Cen- ]
timeters* J
AVcight of seed. Gramsf
"Weight of straw „
Weight of roots „
20
0-3
1-8
2-3
2.3
55
4-5
14-9
77
24
50
1-3
11-4
4-6
27
39
1 3
5-5
3-9
27
61
4-2
34 '5
17-3
2^ Centimeters = abuut 1 incli. t 1 Gr.
safe guarantee for the composition of commercial
fertilisers is in chemical analysis.
In applying artificial manures to grass land
some discrimination is necessary to avoid loss.
On heavy land, the soil of which is close and
retentive, they should be applied before or soon
after Christmas, if the weather is suiLable, because
such soil is longer in absorbing them ; but on light,
naturally dry land they should be applied in the
early spring, and in all cases in damp weather;
this la.st consideration applies in a special manner
to guanos.
The second experiment (Fig. 41) was made in
barren sand, and with buckwheat as before. Ten
wooden boxes, each one foot square, were filled
with the sand, and arranged in two rows of five
each, the boxes in each row being numbered I.,
II., III., IV., V. In the first row buckwheat was
sown, and in the second oats. " To fertilise these,"
did well, and gave a fair crop. Where potash was
omitted. No. II. , the plants were about as tall,
but thinner, and the yield of seed was only about
half as large. Without phosphoric acid. No. III.,
the plants looked about as well, but the amount
of seed was extremely small. AVhere nitrogen
was left out, everything else being supplied, the
plants were stunted, spindling, and sickly. They
yielded almost no seed, and were in fact no
better than those which had nothing but rain-
water.
" When the plants were ripe they were har-
vested, the roots being freed from sand by careful
washing, and the different parts measured and
weighed. The picture represents buckwheat plants
of average size from each lot. The table above
gives the measurements and air-dry weights of
both buckwheat and oats.
" Tills sand evidently needed a com2)lete fcr-
THE APPLICATION OF IMANFKES.
139
tiliser. The omission of o.irli one of tlie move im-
])(n-taiit int^redieuts of plant-food brought the yield
down, but in very unequal proportions. In lack of
potash, everything else being supplied, the crop
suffered badly. Leaving out phosphoric acid
injured it still more; while without nitrogen,
even though everything else was furnished, the
growth was no better than with rain-water. This
soil could supply considerable potash and some
phosphoric acid, but its stock of available nitrogen
was extremely low.
" It is, we believe, a principle of military
science that a fortification is no stronger than its
weakest point. The crop cannot rise above the
level of the lowest element in the food-supply. If
all come up to the required standaixl, and other
conditions are favourable, a good yield is certain ;
but if any one falls below this standard, the
crop must fall with it. Now this food-supply
varies in different soils. It varies not only as
a whole, but in its different parts. Sometimes
one element, sometimes several, may be lacking.
A soil may have a proper texture, amount of
moisture, and a full supply of everything the
crop needs, except phosphoric acid, for examj)le.
Add phosphate in available forms, and the yield
will be bountiful.
"If we have made our meaning clear, it will
be seen that the main point in economical manuring
must be to economise what the soil can supply,
and to add what it cannot. The proper use of
special fertilisers is to fill up these deficiencies,
to bring the food-supply into equilibrium. As
Mr. Lawes says, ' soils were meant to be
exhausted ; ' that is, the material they furnish
was meant to be used. The point is to utilise
it most economically, and add what is needed
to bring the most largely and permanently pro-
fitable results."
There are several valualile facts brought out
in these experiments, the chief of which is that
highly satisfactory results were obtained by the
ajiplication of a fertiliser which contained all the
elements necessary to the growth of the plant.
The next fact is that a soil which lacks nitrogen,
or the means of obtaining it, as supplied by de-
caying organic matter, must have it supplied by
artificial means, if a full crop is to be obtained.
They prove, further, that if all the elements except
one be supplied, the lack of that one will imperil
the crop. It is therefore necessary to ascertain,
21
by analysis of the suit, or by carefully conducted
experiments with manures, in what element or
elements the soil is most deficient, and then to
supply these more abundantly than those in which
the soil is already rich enough for all practical pur-
poses. There can be no doubt that many farmers
waste money in one or both of two ways — either in
supplying elements of plant-food in which the soil
abounds, or in not supplying in sufficient quantity
those in which it is deficient. And it must be
borne in mind that in an over-supply of manure,
not only is the surplus more or less thrown away,
but the crop will be smaller than if a proper
quantity be supplied to it. Crof)s cannot be in-
definitely increased in quantity — there is a limit
beyond wliich nature cannot be induced to go.
Use op Lime.
Mr. Falconer King writes as follows on the
use and abuse of lime in agriculture : — " It is
an old, and to a certain extent a true saying, that
' Jluc-h lime and no manure
Will make both farm and farmer poor.'
The converse, however, is also true, and is worthy
of remembrance by those who are desirous of
making the most of their farms. If much lime
and no manure make poor farmers, it is no less
true that much manure and no lime will have
precisely the same effect. It appears to me,
however, that the majority of Scotch farmers err
in this matter neither by liming their land too
liberally nor yet too scantily, but if they err at
all in the operation of applying lime it is by
doing so at an unseasonable time, or by relying
too much upon lime to the exclusion of othe.-
manure. This last-named error, however, if it
ever is committed in the present day, is by no
means a common one, at all events with the better
class of farmers.
" In considering the part played by lime in
agricultural operations it should always be re-
membered that that substance acts in the soil in
two perfectly distinct and separate ways. First,
lime acts as a manure by supplying necessary
calcareous food directly to the plant ; and second,
it acts by supplying food indirectly to the plant,
either by unlocking the storehouses of plant-food
already existing in the soil, or by converting
useless or even deleterious ingredients thereof
into substances useful, or at all events harmless,
to vegetation.
140
DAIRY FARMING.
" Lime, as is well known, is required directly
by all cultivated plants as food, and tlierefure
a soil which is totally devoid of lime is simply
ban-en, and the obvious remedy by which to ren-
der such a soil fertile would be, of couvse, a dose
of lime. Such a case as this, however, is extremely
rare. Of all the suspicious soils which I have
analysed, I cannot recall one to mind which was
proved to owe its barrenness to being completely
devoid of lime.
" In most cases, therefore, in which lime acts
beneficially when applied to the soil, it does so
either by supplying food to the crop indirectly,
or by destroying some noxious constituent already
existing in the soil.
" The plant-food which lime supplies indirectly
may be divided into two classes — first, mineral or
inorganic, and secondly, vegetable or organic.
" The principal members of the first class seem
to be silica and potash. These substances, how-
ever, it should be borne in mind, are not in any
way contributed to the soil by the lime — they
are merely changed by its action from their hard,
stony, insoluble nature into a condition in which
they are available to plants as food. These two
substances, silica and potash, are found in greater
or less proportion in almost all fertile soils, but
in some roils they exist princijially in an insoluble
or locked-up condition, if I may use the expression,
and are therefore of no use as plant-food until
they have been set free, either by the action of
lime or by some other suitable agent.
"The principal member of the second or
vegetable class of food materials which lime
prejMrcs for the use of plants is nitrogen. Now
this substance nitrogen, as is well known, is an
indispensable and most valuable ingredient of
plant-food, and therefore any substance which
can apply it to plants in a readily available form
is an agent of very great utility. This office is
performed, and performed very satisfactorily, liy
lime. The lime does not, indeed, add or contri-
bute nitrogen any more than it adds potash to
soils, but it converts the nitrogen, which, though
it already exists in the soils, is present in a
comparatively inert state, into a form in which
it is easily assimilated by plants. In these
dilTcrcnt ways, therefore, may lime be used with
great benefit, viz., on soils which contain a large
quantity of undccomposcd mineral matter, and on
soils which contain an excess of vcsetable matter.
" Lime, however, is useful in another way, and
that is l)y destroying substances hurtful to vegeta-
tion, such as, for example, certain compounds of
iron and certain acids, which are alleged to be
the cause of the peculiar evil known as sourness.
A soil, it is well known, may contain all the in-
gredients necessary for supporting plant life, and
yet be infertile, in consequence of containing some
deleterious or poisonous ingredient. Lime may
act, therefore, very beneficially on some soils, not
by providing an increased supply of plant-food,
but merely by neutralising or destroying some
such hurtful substance which may be present.
" In all the instances I have mentioned, lime,
we have seen, acts beneficially ; and it now remains
for me, before concluding this short note, to
point out, in a very few words, how lime may
act prejudicially — so act, indeed, that its con-
tinued ai)plication may not only be useless, but
actually be hurtful. It is an old idea that lime
is a very exhausting substance, and that its
continued and extensive use must sooner or later
greatly impoverish a soil, or even reduce it to
perfect sterility. This idea is not altogether
erroneous, but it is only true in a certain sense.
" I don't mean, of coui'se, to assert that a soil
may not be over-limed. Such an occurrence,
although not, I should think, by any means a
common one, is not impossible. It can be done;
and the immediate effect of over-liming is to cause
a great diminution in the amount of the organic
constituents of the soil, thereby rendering grain
crops grown on it uncertain. When I say,
however, that there need not be much fear of
rendering a soil sterile by means of lime, I refer
to the impossibility of destroying the natural or
mineral constituents of a soil, sucli as potash,
silica, phosphoric acid, sulphuric acid, &c. When
lime is added to the soil, it does not eliminate or
destroy these substances ; it merely effects certain
changes by bringing some of them into a more
valuable condition; so that as long as we do
not remove, by injudicious cropping or by some
similar method, these valuable constituents of
plant-food from our soils, we may apply lime as
freely as is deemed necessary without incurring
any danger of thereby rendering them sterile —
at least, of doing so by exhausting the mineral
food elements. The principal evil to be appre-
hended from over-liming is too great a destmction
of organic matter, which, as I have already
THE USE AND ABUSE OF LIME.
Ml
pointed out^ unsuits the soil for the growth of
g;rain crops. It should also be borne in mind
that lime almost always produces the most pro-
fitable and marked effect on new land, or on land
^vhich has not been fully exposed to the air, or
on such land as is rich in organic remains, as,
for example, on peaty or boggy land, and that
it may be of very little use if applied alone to
arable land which has just been cropped. The
greatest mistake, though, which I have ever seen
committed in connection with the employment
of lime is that of mixing it with manure before
application. In these days of enlightenment it is
almost incredible that such an egregious error as
this should be committed, and yet I myself have
actually seen the perpetration of this species of
absolutely inexcusable wastry. When farm-yard
manure, at least after it has been kept for some
time, is so treated with lime it is almost entirely
destroyed, and the value of many other manures,
by similar treatment, would be very mucli lessened.
Lime should never be allowed to come in contact
with the manure at all ; and if it could be arranged
conveniently, these two substances should be
applied to the land at different times.
" As I have been frequently asked to give
an opinion as to the value of waste products
containing lime, such as the so-called gas lime
and the refuse lime from . paper-works, it may
be of some use if I state here that none of these
substances are of any great value, except for the
lime which they contain; and I should say, fui-ther,
that neither of these substances should on any
account be used for agricultural purposes in their
fresh state. Gas lime, when it is newly made,
contains certain compounds of suljjhur which are
positively inimical to plant life ; and much the
same may be said of the waste lime from paper-
mills, which, when it is new, is apt to contain
some caustic soda, a substance which may seriously
injure a plant, and even destroy entirely the
vitality of seeds. By sufficient weathering, how-
ever, the noxious constituents of both of these
substances may be rendered quite harmless, and
either or both of them may then be safely used
as a means of applying lime to the soil.'"
In many old pastures mosses are formidable
enemies to the farmer. They are to be found
thriving more or less in almost all situations
and in every description of soil, but more par-
ticularly are they to be found in all their luxuriance
on moist, inferior soils. Where it is inconveninet
or undesirable to plough up and crop land thus
overrun with coarse grass and moss, something
may be done to eradicate them by going over
the surface with sharp, close-teethed harrows,
crossing and re-crossing till the moss is thoroughly
scratched up ; clean off the rubbish, and thereafter
apply a good top-dressing of lime or lime compost.
Unquestionably, pure lime is preferable, and put
on as hot as it can be conveniently applied, at
the rate of from five to six tons per imperial
acre. The month of February and up to the
middle of ]\Iareh would seem to be the best
time for this operation. After the lime has got
a good shower of rain, brush or chain harrow it
well into the ground, removing all rubbish gathered
up by the harrows, refuse of the lime, &c. In
about a month afterwards, and not later than
the middle of April, sow a mixture of the best
permanent grass seeds, at the rate of from twenty
to thirty pounds per acre, which can be obtained
mixed and ready, and suitable to the nature of
the soil, from the seedsman with whom you are
in the habit of dealing. If there be any tufts
or tussocks of coarse grass, it would be well to
root them out. Brush harrow again, and finish
up by rolling with a heavy roller.
Improvement of Grass Land.
The improvement of grass land — not alone
of land that has been drained, but also of other
land that has not required it — is a subject of
deep interest and importance. While arable land
is, as a rale, fairly well attended to A^-ith periodical
dressings of manure of one kind or another,
and is commonly cleared from weeds more or
less thoroughly once at all events in the course
of the rotation, grass land is too generally left
to take care of itself; and tliis wide-spread
neglect, being the rule rather than the excep-
tion, is a matter which causes but little surprise.
Though it is, no doubt, true that there is
some grass land in our best districts which, so
far as manuring with anything beyond what the
cattle leave upon it in grazing, may safely be left
to take care of itself — land which is naturally
so rich in all the elements of plant nutrition that
to manure it at all in an artificial manner would
do more harm than good, so long as it is kept
for grazing puii")oses — such land is very scarce,
and is found only in the most favoured localities.
112
DAIRY FARMING.
It may be laid down as a traism that the great
bulk of our frrass laud not ouly needs improv-
ing, but would pay well for it; and in \-iew
of the prices which the jiroducts of arable and
of grass land relatively bear to each other, and
which they are likely to bear for a long time
to come, it may be said that the neglect of our
grass land cannot with impuuity be suffered to
go on much longer. Dairy-farming, in conjunction
with the rearing of young stock and the fattening
of cattle and sheep for the butcher, is, beyond a
probability, the most profitable occupation which
the English farmer can follow, wherever the land
is adapted to it.
The finest dairy land is undoubtedly, for the
most part, confined to the alluvial deposits, form-
ing rich, slightly undulating flats, which have in
the course of ages accumulated in the neighbour-
hood of the existing or former outlets of our tidal
rivers, formed in some instances by rivers which
have long ago dried up or have been diverted
into some different direction. The slow upheaval
or subsidence of the earth's cnist in some localities
has caused, and is still causing, these diversions
in the flow of rivers. Next to the alluvial soils,
the best natural pastures are found on the
carboniferous or mountain limestone formations,
and especially in the adjacent valleys where beds
of drift-gravel, jiartly composed of the debris
of these formations, are commonly found. These
last, however, may almost be regarded in the
light of alluvial soils, the chief difference being
that, instead of by river action extending for a
long distance, they have been formed by rills and
streamlets, in the periods of heavy rain, ninning
down the hill and mountain sides, carrying with
them to the valley below the particles of rock
which are continually becoming detached by
atmosj)hcric agency, by dews and rains, by frosts
and snows. The Valley of the Dove, which for a
long distance separates Deibyshire from Stafford-
shire, is a well-known instance of this nature,
and it has long been famous for its dairy
productions.
In the Valley of the Dcnvcnt, in Derbyshire,
and those of the Wharfe and Ribble, in Yorkshire,
and in other parts of England, mainly in the
northern counties, the same sort of thing is found.
In Ireland, also, a considerable portion of the
flat countiy is overlaid by these drifts, on which
grow an abundance of sweet, nutritious, wholesome
grasses, well .suited to stock of all kinds, to pasture
and to meadow alike, to dairy purjxises and to
fattening, as well as to the growth of oats and
tumips. Better districts than these need not be
desired for the pui-poscs of dairy-farming. A cool
and humid climate; soil of excellent quality, sound
and healthy, and seldom in want of artificial
draining; grasses of the best description, tender,
succulent, nourishing — these qualities stamp any
district where they are found with a high order
of merit in the domain of dairy-farming.
The late Sir H. M. Thompson, from whom \\e
have previously quoted, wrote so well and wisely
" On the Management of Grass Land," that we
cannot do better than quote verbatim from the
able paper which he contributed in 187:i to the
Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society : — " It
may seem a work of supererogation to make sug-
gestions for the improvement of pastures which
already produce great results, but the holders
of first-class land may learn something by ob-
serving the practice of those skilful and ex-
perienced graziers who find it worth their while
to give extreme prices for the occupation of land.
In order to reimburse themselves it is necessary
that every yard of land should be productive,
and the greatest care is taken to mow the thistles
whilst still young and succulent, in which state
they are (when mown) readily eaten by all kinds
of stock. Coarse patches of grass, too, are
occasionally switched over with the scythe, or,
if necessaiy, an old horse is tethered in the worst
places, until they are cropped down sufficiently
to be again grazed regularly by the feeding stock.
The loss of grass caused by neglecting to mow
thistles and other large weeds would never be
permitted if farmers would oxAj consider how
largely the fertility of the soil is taxed to nourish
these intniders, and how cheaply they may be
kept down. An old man and a hard-worn scythe,
neither of them fit for regidar work, will keep a
large acreage of grass free from this constant
source of loss.*
* Jlr. Thompson, of Barnane, Tipperary, whose pxporicnce
■with the thistle-pest is a long one, and whose habits of
observation and reasoning are singularly close and accurate,
never commences his " thistle-har\'est," as he terms it, before
the month of August. He has found cutting thistles thus
late in the season the most promising way of eradicating
tliem. By this period many of them liave already come to
seed, and others will perfect it after they are cut, but he does
not mind the seeding; he says thistles, at all events on
THE mrROVElMENT OF GRASS LAND.
143
"In addition to these presevvative measures,
something- may he done to increase the produce
on even the best land. I£ the question be asked
why such and such a field is wortli more to the
occupier than the adjoining ones, the reply will
frequently be that the field in question grows early
and late, and even the most unobservant are
occasionally struck with the brilUant green o£
some favoured fields, or portions of fields, when
the rest are all brown. But a closer inspection
will show that even the brown pastures have
green patches in them. Wherever the droppings
of cattle have fallen in spring the grass is green
in autumn, even after a moderate amount of
frost and biting winds ; showing that it is not
the fault of the soil or climate that the grass is
not still fresh and succulent, but that want of
couchtion produces a feeble vitality, easily affected
by cold, which stops the gro\\i;h of the herbage
much earlier in the winter than is at all necessary.
There are also patches of land in most pastures
where the stock do not like the grass, the
deficiency in this case not being in bulk but in
quality of herbage. Unless this is caused by
defective drainage, a dressing of the mixture to
be subsequently described will generally restore
the quality and cause those neglected jiarts to be
as well eaten as the rest.
" I have ventured to define first-class grass
land as that which will produce twenty imperial
stone of meat per acre without artificial assistance.
Next in order must be placed the land which will
produce about the same quantity of beef and
mutton, with the aid of a moderate allowance of
cake or com. This quality of land may be found,
to a greater or less extent, in almost all parts
of the country, with the exception of the cJialk,
grass land, are. if at all, propagated to a much smaller extent
by means of seed than most people think. This ma}' sound
strange to some, hut it is none the less true that on his farm
of 4,000 acres the number of thistles is diminishing year
by year. . Pulling them up by the roots is probably the
surest way of destroying them, if persevered in ; but as this
method involves a considerable outlay of both time and
money, it is seldom followed. A third method, strongly
believed in by some farmers, is to mow the thistles twice
a year, say early in June and again in August or September.
One advantage of this system is that the young thistles, when
sun-killed a little after being cut, are readily eaten by cattle
and sheep ; the}' spring up again after the first cutting, and
are again cut whilst young and tender, and again eaten
by stock as before, so that nothing is wasted. The young
farmer may try one or all of those methods, as he thinks
proper. [Ed.]
the light sands, and the strong clays. The
practice of giving artificial food to cattle at grass
is rapidly gaining ground. It is already apparent
that 9d. a lb. for beef and mutton will produce
a perfect revolution in the management both of
live stock and of grazing land, and the advan-
tages of the improved system are such that it
may be safely expected to outlive any reasonable
decline in the price of meat. The easiest kind
of food to give in the field is linseed or cotton-
cake. The mixture I prefer to any other is linseed
and decorticated cotton-cake in equal quantities.
Bean-meal, too, moistened and rolled into balls,
is easily given and very effective. Many other
kinds of feeding-stuffs, either singly or in com-
bination, will recommend themselves, according to
their relative prices in the market. Where mixed
linseed and cotton-cake are given, the cost of the
mixture, at present jiriees, would be about Is. 4d.
per stone ; and su])posing it to be unnecessaiy to
commence its use during the first ten weeks of
the grazing season, whilst the grass is at its best,
if 5 lbs. be given daily to each fattening bullock
at the commencement of the last ten weeks,
increasing the allowance to 6 lbs., and for the
last few weeks to 7 lbs. per day, averaging 6 lbs.
for the whole ten weeks, the cost of the artificial
food would be 40s. per head. If the land will
eaiTy a beast per acre, this will add 40s. to the
farmer's expenses, and reduce correspondingly the
value of the land when compared with that which
will fatten the same number of beasts without
artificial aid. Hence, if the very best grass land
be supposed to be worth a rent of £5 per acre,
the land which requires cake for finishing the
beasts ought not to be rented at more than £3
per acre. These general figures will, of course,
require adapting to each individual case to suit
the great variety of qualities of land and other
modifying circumstances..
"One of the advantages of giving cake to finish
beasts which, on the unassisted grass, would
come out in October only half beef, is that the
grazier is thus enabled to send his beasts to the
butcher at full prices instead of fattening them
in the yards at great cost, or of selling them
as store beasts when many others are doing the
same, and the markets are crowded and depressed.
In cases where farmers occupy land not well
suited for the growth of roots, and do not attempt
to fatten beasts in the winter, but give cake in
114
DAIRY FARMING.
the straw-yards to improve the manure, and hring
out their beasts in sjjring in a forward state,
it often answers well to give cake in the early
part of the grazing season, and so push on their
cattle as to get them to market in June and
July, when beef is the dearest, to be followed
by younger beasts to eat up the rough grass in
the autumn and early winter. This is excellent
practice, as there is no time when cattle make
such rapid improvement, and when the expense
of attending them is so light, as when they are
having cake or com on a good pasture. The
grazier, too, who has fat cattle in June has the
command of the market, and is to a great extent
independent of the season, as, should the weather
be droughty and his stock heavy, he can at any
time lighten his pastures by draughting a few
forward beasts for sale.
"Another advantage which arises from giving
artificial food to grazing cattle is that the pastures
themselves are gradually improved, until land that
is only fit for rearing store cattle becomes capable
of fattening stock with a moderate amount of
help toward the end of the season.
" Hitherto I have spoken of good land only,
but, unfortunately, the larger portion of the
pasture land of the United Kingdom may be
classed either as moderate or inferior. I will not
attempt to describe the various gradations by
which land descends from the highest quality to
that which requires some acres to keep a j-carling
steer, and which was once described by a dis-
heartened occupier as of that kind on which the
grass only began to grow on Midsummer Eve
and gave up growing on ]\Iidsummer Day. The
various shades of land worth from 40s. per acre
downwards require vciy similar measures for their
improvement, and, before making any special
suggestions respecting them, it is necessary to
declare open war against the time-honoured fal-
lacies that pasture land can be profitably occupied
by leaving it to itself, and that a farmer consults
liis own interests by allowing the arable land
to rob the grass. Any one who mows his grass
•without return robs his land quickly, and he who
pastures it Avithout return robs it slowly ; but
the process is sure as well as slow, and, when
persevered in long enough, produces the splendid
variety of thistles, ragwort, scabious, and other
llowering weeds, very charming to a botanist in
July, but extremely disheartening to the hungry
cattle who are doomed to wander amongst them
seeking for grass.
" Since the days of Jethro Tull, there have
been two recognised methods of keeping up the
fertility of land, viz., either manuring at short
intervals, or thorough disintegration produced by
frequent stirrings of the soil. It cannot be too
strongly urged that as grass land is necessarily
deprived of the advantage received by arable land
from frequent exposure to the atmosphere,* it
ought to be furnished in some way with the
minerals required to produce good crops of nu-
tritive herbage. The use of artificial manures has
given the grass-land farmer complete command
over the supply of nitrogen, but a perfect re-
storation of the mineral ingredients removed by
grazing, and still more by mowing, cannot be
effected without an occasional application of farm-
yard manure, or of compost in which farm-yard
manure holds an important part; so that it would
really be better practice, so far as farm-yard dung
is concerned, to let the grass starve the arable
land than the arable land starve the grass, since
the arable land can receive its mineral supply from
other sources, viz., deep cultivation and thorough
aeration. The slovenly management of grass land
which a few years ago was general, and is still
too common, would never have been seen if the
quality of grass could be appraised as easily and
certainly as that of com. But it is notorious
that even the most experienced farmers and
graziers can only distinguish between good, mo-
derate, and bad ; no man living can distinguish
by the eye the sulitle difference in the quality
of the herbage which makes one veiy good field
worth £1 an acre more rent than another very
good field, or one bad field worth less than
another equally bad-looking field. So long as
a grass field grows about the usual quantity of
grass, and the cattle eat it, the occupier is too
apt to rest content with the good or bad reputation
earned by particular fields, without any attempt
to alter it for the better, or even to ascertain
whether it is not gradually getting woi-se.
" In early life I learnt a lesson on this point
which I have never forgotten. A neighliouring
• It is to te hoped that a stoam imph^mcnt will hcfore
loni» bo devised that will produce a thoroufjh disturhanco
of the eulisoil without material injury to the grass-sward
ahove. A\'e think such an implement would do great good
to many pastures. [En.]
THE TREATMENT OF GRASS LAND.
145
geutleman mowed about fifty acres of his park
annually, and, not being a farmer, he believed
that grass was grass, and made equally good hay
whether he went to the expense of manuring it
or not. He was also remarkably indifferent on
the subject of quantity, saying that he kept a
fixed number of horses and cows, and if in a
good season he had a large crop, they ate it all,
and in a bad season they made it do ; so that
he stuck to his system as long as he lived, and
the land got no manure but what the horses and
cows made. I was thoroughly acquainted with
this land, and much' interested in watching the
result. The produce grew gradually less — not year
by year, or the owner would have taken the alarm ;
but each droughty year that came produced a
worse crop than the preceding dry season, until
I have seen the produce of fifty acres carried
home in nineteen cart-loads ! The quality, too,
had fallen off quite as much as the quantity.
In one part of the park where the land was light,
one kind of grass {Arena Jlavesceiis) had taken
almost exclusive possession of the land, and
neither cattle nor sheep would graze on this
portion, except in the most desultory way ; a
mouthful here and another five yards further on,
picked up on the move, showed what they thought
of the system ; and even the hay was sorted over
rather than eaten by the cows, a large portion
being deliberately rejected and trodden under
foot. This is an instructive instance, showing
that the produce of grass land restored to it
annually, less the value abstracted from it by
the animals fed on it, will not, when continued
for a length of time, prevent ordinaiy grass land
from gradual but steady deterioration. It also
shows how much more rapidly light land de-
teriorates than that which is stronger. The park
in question, after being mown for many years,
was certainly not worth more to let than 20s.
per acre on the lighter, and 3 Us. on the stronger
land; but after ten years'" continuous pasturing,
with occasional manurings and top-dressings, it
became worth 50s. per acre all round.
" Having endeavoured to lay it down as an
established fact that no grass land will maintain
itself unimpaired without the farmer's aid, I will
venture to prescribe a mode of treatment which
aims higher than mere maintenance : —
" On first-rate grass land there is comparatively
little to be done. Deep alluvial soils contain
such store of the elements of plant growth, and
are for the most part so easily jienetrated by the
roots of the grasses, that many years'" successive
pasturing seems to produce but little change in
the quality of the herbage. But even here there
are gradations of goodness. If the occupier care-
fully scrutinises his fields in early sj^ring, he will
fiud backward patches, and in early autumn places
that turn brown before the rest. These evidently
want helping up ; and in midsummer he will
generally meet with places more or less avoided
by the cattle when making their regular grazing
rounds. In all these cases a slight dressing of
the mixture hereafter mentioned may be put on
at any time, being perfectly harmless to the
cattle if taken up with their food. No dressing,
however, should ever be apjilied in droughty
weather. Where a piece has grown coarse from
not being eaten, it should be switched over with
the scythe, in order that the tillage may quickly
reach the roots of the grass. In this way the
land may be kept up to its full producing power.
" There is in the country a large quantity of
grass land which is not considered feeding land,
but yet will fatten young heifers or small Irish
beasts if the occujpier is not in a hurry, and does
not put them too thick on the ground. This
kind of land is the most inviting to the improver ;
and if the occupier cannot screw up his courage
to face the whole at once, he should till ten
acres well rather than twenty in a half-and-half
way. Let him give a sufficient dressing to change
the character of the herbage at once, so that he
may have one field at least on which he can
finish off his forward beasts. Mr. Lawes, on
his experimental grass-plots at Rothamstead, first
taught the world that on a piece of old jjasture,
neither very good nor very bad, different kinds
of tillage, repeated on the same ground for a few
successive years, will produce as many different
kinds of crop as there are kinds of tillage used,
the character of the plants in the different plots
varying as much as the quantity and quality of
the produce. It is quite safe to assert that any
occupier may, if he pleases, convert his gi-ass
into feeding land ; and though it will not always
pay to do so, there are very many thousand acres
on which it will pay well at the present price
of meat. If any one wishes to satisfy himself
whether what he has done in the way of im-
provement is in the right direction, and whether
146
DAIRY FAR.MIXCf.
lie has can-iod it far enou;4h, let liim walcli his
cattle when they are g-razing. If tlioy take the
grass as it comes, heartily and contentedly, merely
rejecting piled portions, so that they are quickly
satisfied and lie down to rest, the occupier may
he sure he is on the right tack, and may leave
well alone; hut if they i)ick one bit and leave
another, take the top off one kind of plant and
nibble a few leaves off another, he may bo equally
sure that the pasture is unpalatable to the cattle, and
that wathout change they will not give a satisfactory
account of tliemselves at tlie end of the season.
" The three worst kinds of pastures are
generally sujjjwsed to be those on light saiulit,
on strong clcii/s, and on black peaty soils. The
light sands I give up to the plough, unless in
parks or ornamental grounds, where it is important
to preserve the turf; ammoniacal dressings will
produce a sudden appearance of improvement on
light sandy land, but the effect is not lasting, and
the dry benty grasses soon re-assume their sway.
A mixed toji-drcssing will, for a time, incvease the
clovers, but a heavy dressing of compost, contain-
ing road-scrapings or any other tolerably strong
soil,* is the most permanently useful. Improving
pasture on really light sand is, however, one of
the most thankless and ceaseless of agricultural
operations, and ought to be the next task for
Sisyphus, if ever his rolling stone should wear out.
" The strong clays are much more promising.
Most clay contains an abundant supply of the
minerals which make a soil fei'tile, but they are
in a crude state, and require air to make them fit
for plant-food. t The cracks caused by drought
» The chief fault of light sainly land is that it lacks
consistency, density, and power of retaining moisture in a
dry season. On such land, a heavy dressing of strong clay,
wherever possible, has a most beneficial effect; it improves
the texture of the sandy soil, gives it the power of retaining
moisture, and eontrihutes many valuable elements of plant-
food in which it was before deficient. By this means, sandy
may be made into good pastui-e land. It is, if well d(jne,
a permanent improvement. [Kd.]
t Clay soils are valuable for the alkalies they contain ;
these are present in them in an insoluble state, and only
become soluble, or fitted to be food for plants, when they
have been chemically acted upon by carbonic acid and oxygen
dissolved in water, and when they have been chemically and
mechanically disintegrated by draining, by the processes of
cultivation, by atmospheric influences, and by changes of
tompcratiiro. Their natural impervious density is their chief
fault; this may be greatly modified by draining, by cultivation,
and by burning a considerable portion of the surface and
mixing it with the remainder, [l^n.]
and worm-holes partially effjct tliis, but the
mineral supply from clay land that has long been
in pasture is not sufTicient to suppm-t heas'y crops,
and it should be a fundamental maxim with all
clay-land farmers that their grass should never
remain long without a dressing of farm-yard
manure. Even the poorest, worst made manure,
which is little better than straw, is of great value,
as it furnishes the requisite minerals, and, though
deficient in ammonia, that can be supplied in
soot, nitrate of soda, guano, &c. The grass grown
on clay is wholesome and nutritive, unless the
drainage is defective or the land has been robbed ;
and witli a little extra tillage clay pastures may
be made to get moderate-sized beasts fit for
market, especially if helped with cake or corn
in the latter end of summer. All tillage should
be applied to strong land pastures early in winter.
IMany weeks are required to wash in the variou ■
mineral salts, and, from the retentive character
of the soil, there is no fear of their wasliing out
again. All operations on clay land require more
time than on lighter soil ; soluble matters make
their way more slowly down, and plants extend
their roots with greater difficulty. It is, there-
fore, a great object to put on farm-yard manm-e,
compost, and even mineral applications, soon after
the grass is eaten bare in autumn, so as to have
the full benefit of the winter rains. The roots oi
grass are always growing when the thcrmometc.
is above freezing-point ; and if by means of tillage
applied in early winter the roots of the grass
strengthen and extend themselves before the
growing season arrives, a good foundation is
laid for the increased development above ground
whicli is sure to follow. If, on the other hand,
the application of tillage be delayed till March or
April, and a droughty spring follow, the api)li-
cation loses great part of its cffeet for that
season.
"Wheie grass on clay is very unproductive,
it sometimes becomes a question whether it would
be better to plough it out and relay it. In such a
case, much ought to de])end on whether the form
of the land can be much improv<'d by taking
it out, whether high ridges require levelling,
awkward water-courses filling up, old banks re-
moving, &c. This is landlord's work, and requires
both time and money to do it well. Those who
set about it deliberately, knowing the dilficulty
of restoring the fertility of the old ridges after
TOP-DRESSING.
147
ploughing clown, and prepared to go on paying
until the object is accomplished, will ultimately
reap their reward ; but tenant-farmers or landlords
who do not mean to do it thoroughly would be
wise to confine themselves to making the best of
the old turf. If properly drained, it will yield
an immediate return for all tillnge bestowed upon
it; and, on the whole, I incline to the opinion
that grass on clay, being let low, will generally
pay an improving farmer better than any other
kind of pasture land.
" The third kind of inferior jiiisture mentioned
above is that on black peaty soils. "Where the
depth of peat is considerable, or where it lies on
white or yellow sand, it is very unpromising ; but
even in these cases I have seen instances where
nitrate of soda or soot had a striking effect, and
made the cattle eat the rough herbage greedily.
The varieties of peaty soils are so numerous, and
the results of applying tillage differ so widely,
that it is generally advisable to try it experi-
mentally in the first instance, putting a heavy
dressing of the tillage intended to be used on a
small portion of land. Where the peat lies upon
clay it can always be made good land if the
situation is such as to admit of efficient drainage.
Should the thickness of peat be inconsiderable,
so that the roots of the grass can reach the clay,
a dressing of the tillage already mentioned will
almost always succeed in making black land very
useful for rearing young stock, with which it
seems to agree remarkably well. Should a few
acres be contiguous to a feeding pasture on higher
land, I have found it answer well to let even
fattening cattle have the run of the whole. They
highly relish the variety of herbage thus afforded
them, and in dry seasons the black land pasture
will often keep its colour and freshness when the
other burns. Should there be three or more feet
of peat upon the clay, it answers best to break
it up, and give the land a substantial dressing
of clay before laying it down again, either by
throwing it over the land from trenches, as
practised in some of the Eastern counties, or, if
too deep for spade-work, then by carting it from
pits. When this expense has been incurred, it
will probably become doubtful whether to lay it
down again to grass or to keep it under the
plough, for which, after claying, it is extremely
well suited.
" Frequent mention has been made of a mixed
top-dressing which has been found to be a valuable
application to grass land. It has been gradually
arrived at, after many trials and modifications, and
consists of nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash.
These substances may be supplied in the form in
which they can be most readily and cheaply
obtained at the time ar.d place required. The
nitrogen may be furnished in guano, soot, nitrate
of soda, or in the more specific form of muriate or
suljjhate of ammonia. The phosphoric acid may
be obtained from bones, mineral superphosphate,
or some of the poorer guanos. The potash simi-
larly may be applied in the form of kainite,
sulphate of potash, &e. The particular substances
I am employing this season (187^) are nitrate
of soda, mineral superphosphate, and kainite, in
the following proportions : — 1 cwt. of nitrate of
soda, li cwt. of mineral superphosphate, and 3 cwt.
of kainite per acre for pasture. At present prices
this costs about 42s. per acre. For mowing land,
where no manure is used, I should add to the
above quantities i cwt. of nitrate of soda, making
the whole outlay about 50s. per acre. Where land
is annually mown, a dressing of this manurial
value is required every year to prevent deteriora-
tion, except in exceptional eases, such as deep
alluvial laud, water-side meadows subject to flood-
ing, &e. The best practice is, no doubt, to manure
mowing land regularly with good farm -yard
manure; but in the numerous instances in which
this cannot be done, the meadow may be maintained
in full productiveness by a good manuring once
in three or four years, and a dressing of the above
mixture in the intermediate seasons. For pastures
it cannot be contended that a dressing of this
character is required year by year, but after lajang
do\vn a field to permanent grass, it is absolutely
necessary to till hard for three or four years, in
order to keep it steadily progressive; and when
glass land has been long neglected, and ia
thoroughly ovit of condition, one dressing will
not suffice. It requires following up for two or
three successive years before the traces of long
neglect will be completely obliterated."
The foregoing is written mainly from a
o-razier's pomt of view as to the manner of
treating grass land, but it applies equally to
dairy-farming. The land, in fact, which is well
adapted to fattening cattle is, as a rule, equally
suitable to the production of milk. Dairy-cows
will, of course, milk fairly well on land that will
148
DAIRY FARMING.
hardly fatten stock, and such land is commonly
used for dairy jmrposes ; but it is none the less
true, on that account, that the better the land, the
greater will be the production of milk. Still, it
must be admitted that of two kinds of pasture
land, equally strong', sound, healthy, and excel-
lent, the one is, for some reason or other not at
present well understood, peculiarly well adapted
for fattening, whilst the other's speciality is the
production of a maximum quantity of milk. This
singular difference between them is, however,
seldom a very marked one, though there can be
no doubt that it really exists in some eases. But
this cannot be interpreted into an argument
against the policy of imjiroving all grass .land
that needs improvement — rather the contrary ; for
most dairy-farmers fatten a few cattle, and it is
a simple matter to fatten on those fields which,
rightly or wrongly, are sujiposed to be better for
that purpose than for any other, and to devote the
remainder to dairying. Both these sorts of land
will commonly be found on the same farm, often
in adjoining fields ; and the practical issue of the
matter is that such land is interchangeable as to
either of these uses — that is, the land which is
found excellent for fattening will be found equally
so for dairying, and the better condition the land
is in, the better adapted it is for either purpose.
" Nothing is so cheap as land " is an argu-
ment used by some farmers against going to the
expense of improving pastures either for grazing
or dairying. Whether or not this is true as to
some kinds of land, or as to land which is held at a
low rent, the argument does not interfere with the
soundness of our position as to the improvement
of grass land. The root of the argument lies in
the fact that many farmers are afraid to improve
their land lest they be called on by the landlord,
after a time, to pay an increase of rent commen-
surate with those improvements. This has often
been done, and it has made tenant-farmers very
cautious how they imjirove their farms. But
where a man can repose confidence in his landlord
— and the majority of landlords merit this confi-
dence— where he feels conscious that he is secure
against being raised in rent on the basis of his
own improvements, there can be no doubt that
money judiciously laid out in the improvement
of grass land will pay the farmer well. Let us
admit that nothing is so cheap as land, and it
follows that, as land is limited in quantity, the
thing next in cheapness is to improve that land.
"VMien a man can feel sure of reaping the reward
of his improvements, he is more than merely
justified in making them ; for by those very
improvements he practically extends the area of
his farm, he increases its stock-carrying capacity,
he improves the quality as well as increases the
quantity of his productions, and he benefits not
hinif^clf only, but also the nation at large.
FAinr-YAUD Maxuiie.
Farm-yard manure, strictly sjieaking, is the
residue of various kinds of vegetable productions,
either as forage or as corn, which are used as
food and litter by the animals in the farm-yard.
The animal system uses up a portion of these,
and the remainder is ejected in the form of liquid
and solid excreta. The quantity and quality of
the manure will vary in obedience to the kinds
of food consumed, and the method of consuming
it. If much forage be used as food, and litter
as bedding, along with a large projiortion of roots
or other green food, and with little or no corn
or cake, the quantity of manure produced w-ill
be large, but it will be poor in quality, and its
actual worth will not as a rule exceed 5s. per ton.
But if a large quantity of com or cake, especially
decorticated cotton-cake, be consumed along with
the forage, instead of roots and other green
food, the manure will be less in quantity, but
very much better in quality; the more concen-
trated the food, the richer the manure and the less
of it. Again, the conditions under which the
fuod and litter are used will materially influence
the quality of the manure; thus, if they are given
to the cattle in open yards or courts, a large
quantity of rain-water falls on the manure, and
if this rain-water be not absorbed by an adequate
quantity of dry litter it must pass through and
away from it, and in passing it dissolves and
carries away a large portion of the soluble and
more valuable elements of the manure, thus re-
ducing the quality of it; and the bulk of this
liquid is only too commonly allowed to run
away to Waste. It is, however, in some cases
collected in tanks, to be afterwards carted out
on the land in barrels or liquid-manure carts ; but
it is commonly so much diluted with water that it
is scarcely worth the expense of carting out ; the
cheapest and simplest way of dealing with it is
to allow it to run over the hvnd by the aid of
TlIK TRODUCTION OF MANURE.
149
sluices cut in the surface and so arranged as to dis-
tribute it equally. The best system is to have
covered yards to protect the manure as well as the
cattle from rain and snow. Wiiere the cattle
are kept in boxes or stalls, they of course are
protected, but if the manure is taken out from
them and put in heaps in an open yard, and
there exposed to the inclemencies of the weather,
all the evils incidental to open yards are present, so
far as the manure is concerned; and under this
system it would always pay the farmer to have
his manure-heaps shedded over.
In box-feeding, the manure commonly remains
where it is made until it is wanted for use on
the land ; but in box-feeding there is a great waste
of space, and a large quantity of litter, of which a
better use ought to be made, is trodden under foot
by the cattle. The most modern method is that
practised by ilr. Mechi, of Tij)tree; all his
animals are fed under cover, on sparred floors,
and the excreta fall down between the spars
into chambers or cellars beneath, from which they
are removed whenever expedient. A similar
system is followed by American farmers, who place
dry earth, sawdust, leaves of trees, dried weeds,
refuse litter, or anything else that will answer
the purpose, on the floors of the cellars to absorb
the liquid portion of the excreta, and to augment
the quantity of solid manure. Yet on either of
these systems, the simplest plan is to conduct
the liquid manure over the surface of some con-
tiguous field of meadow land ; and the manure
cellars need to be so arranged that ready access
to them can be obtained by the carts which
w^ill convey the manure away. To this end
the buildings, wherever it is possible, are best
built on sloping land, in which case it is a simple
matter to cut out a roadway to the manure cellars.
But if no sloping land is available, incline planes
are constnicted, and up these not only do the cattle
go to their stalls on the first floor, but at harvest-
time the cart-loads of hay go up also and enter the
building by the large door seen in Fig. 45. This
figure represents the exterior view of a dairy-bam
belonging to ^Ir. Merriam, of Cherry Brook Farm,
Weston, Massachusetts ; and the diagrams given
in Figs. 4(3, 47, and 48 represent respectively
the basement and first and second floors of the
building.
The engravings mentioned represent what is
considered a favourable specimen of an improved
American dairy-barn. These American barns are
usually built of w'ood, with stone basements,
and, from personal inspection of barns similar
to that in the accompanying engraving, we can
speak to the comfort and convenience secured
in this arrangement. Another and still more
modern American barn is illustrated and described
in the section on Dairy Homesteads, page 87.
A knowledge of chemistry and physiology is
not needed to enable us to comprehend that the
quality and quantity of dung voided by any
description of fattening stock or milk-cows is
the balance between the food consumed and that
portion of it which is retained in their bodies
as flesh, fat, &e., or withdrawn in the form of
milk, perspiration, respiration, &e. The dung
is therefore inferior to the food, from a fertilising
point of view, just in proportion to the substances
extracted from the food by the animal economy ;
but it is improved in form as food for plants by
ha\ang been consumed by animals — they prepare
it for the plants, which in turn again prepare it for
the animals. A four-year-old beast extracts from
the food given him only those substances which go
to increase the soft portions of his body, and to
maintain the various processes of which his life
is made up ; but a young beast not only does
both these, but also extracts what is required
for developing the bone; hence the dung of a
mature animal is more valuable than that of
a young one, just in proportion to the amount
of matter which the young one keeps to build
up the bony and muscular structure of his
frame. It follows, consequently, that the quan-
tity of manure produced on a farm will depend
on the quantity of food growni and consumed on
it, and on the quantity of feeding-stufEs purchased
to supplement and improve the food produced
on the farm itself ; and that the quality of the
manure will in like manner depend on the kind
of stock kept, and on the kind of food purchased
in addition to that produced.
The management of farm-yard manure may
be said to be, next to the management of stock,
one of the most important departments of farm
practice, and it is unfortunately one in which
there is a disastrous amount of waste on the great
majority of farms. Science has striven for a
long time to impress this important fiiet on the
agricultural mind, but still the waste is permitted
to go on in too many places. It is, howevei'.
150
DAIRY FARMING.
true that of late years a great improvement has
taken place in the construction of farm-builil-
ings, the preservation of manure in these cases
having had the attention devoted to it that it
merits, but in most of the older farmsteads there
is still a deplorable want of such accommodation.
The bare fact that about 30 in. of rain fall
annually over Great Britain and Ireland ought
long ago to have suggested the necessity of jiro-
tccting the manure-heap from such deluges. The
first want of the present day, then, where they are
not already provided, we may take to be covered
yards. About this there is not the slightest room
to doubt, for a loss of manure is equivalent to a
diminished produce. The great reason why we
water, or it runs away to waste, unless there
liappens to be a field adjacent on which it can
be made to run at will. Covered yards remove to
a great extent the dilliculties connected with farm-
yanl manure, and the liquid portion of it becomes
a less didicult problem, because it is almost wholly
soaked up by the solid, and is not, as in the case
of open yards, increased in quantity and equally
decreased in quality by the adJition of unlimited
rain-water. Covered yards, however, on most
daiiy-farms can only be made available for young
stock — dairy-cows, unless ban'en, will be out of
place in them, because they gore each other, and
so bring on abortion.
Farm-yard manure, owing to its complex
1.^.1
^If^-''"'" "^
%r
m^^~^^^
Fig. 45. — AiiERiCAK D.\inT Ears (Extehioh View).
always find good crops in connection with box or
covered-yard feeding lies in the simple fact that the
manure produced is richer, and its strength is not
washed away by dripping rains into the drains and
streams, and the liquid manure is absorbed by the
litter in the boxes or yards, and does not flow into
the nearest horse-pond, as is only too commonly
the case in stall-feeding. In box-feeding, good
farmers not uncommonly consider that if they
have the manure as clear profit they have done
well, and this is no unsubstantial profit where
much cake and corn are used in the feeding. In
this method the manure has the great advantage
of remaining under cover all the time, but in
stall-feeding the solid manure has to be removed
daily, commonly to an uncovered manure-pit,
while the liquid manure is cither conducted to
a tank, where it becomes highly diluted with
nature, to the variety and quantity of valuable in-
gredients it contains, all necessary to plant-life,
and because its mechanical effects are valuable
along with its manurial properties, is justly taken
as the tyjie of a perfect general manure, and as
such no reasonable care and trouble should be
spared in its production first and in its manage-
ment afterwards. The farmer cannot always
be held responsible for the good or inferior quality
of the actual manure, as produced, since this is
influenced so much by the nature and age
of the stock that produces it and the kind of
food they have to eat, and by the nature of the
buildings he has at command ; but he can and
should take care that the straw and dung get
properly mixed, as well as the manure of different
kinds of stock, so as to secure a uniform descrip-
tion of manure. If he stall-feeds, and uses a
THE TREATMENT OP MANFRE.
151
quantity of litter as bedding, lie should talce
care that the litter from behind his cattle, and the
manure which is very imperfectly mixed with it
at the time, should be well trodden down and
thoroughly amalgamated iu the j'ard to which they
are taken. AVheu there are only open yards or
sheds, he should prevent all the water he can from
pouring down on the manure, washing out its
goodness only to waste it, and to this end the roofs
of the sheds should be properly spouted. No straw
should be spread in the yards beyond what is
required to keep the beasts moderately dry, and the
black liquid which oozes from the manure should be
thrown over it that it may be re-absorbed. The
manure from the stables should not be thrown in a
place by itself, but scattered over the other, for it
differs in such a way in its nature, from that pro-
duced by the cattle, as to materially affect the
crops to which it is applied. The manure-heap
must not be allowed to get too dry, especially
if a large part of it consists of horse-manure, or
a white mould will be found in parts of it when it
comes to be forked over ; this should be j^revented
by timely moistening with liquid manure.
Due regard must be jiaid to the time when
the manure will be required for use ; if it is
carted into a heap in the corner of a field, and
intended to remain there some months, precautious
must be taken to exclude the air and prevent
fermentation. In this case dig out a bed in the
soil, some 12 or 18 inches deep, at the bottom
of which put some kind of refuse which, by
soaking up any waste liquid, will in time become
valuable ; here build up the heap in an oblong
shape to the height of 5 feet or so — carting
while you can each successive new load over
those previously deposited, so as to compress
the mass. When up to the height, round the top
slightly so as to allow rain-water to run off,
trim the sides of long straws, and spread the
soil pireviously dug out for the bed over the top
of the heap in a layer of a few inches. This \\Till
prevent the escape of volatile gases. Gyjisum
so applied will also arrest these gases either on
the heap or scattered on the stable floors, and
will yield them up to the land afterwards. A
month before the heap will be required it should
be once, or perhaps twice, turned over, which
will cause, by admission of air, fermentation
and decay, so that it will cut with a spade.
When manure - heaps are requii-ed for almof-t
immediate use, they should not be so com-
pressed, but only well forked about and mixed,
TK
hr
G
J
Fig. 46.— American Daust Barn (Cell.ie).
A, 14 granite posts ; C, cistei-n ; E, bull-yard j H, shed ; P, P, P, P,
peus : R, K, R, R, root-bins ; W, watei'-trough ; F, entrauce to
cellar ; G, entrauce to manure cellar.
Fig. 47. — American Dairy Barn (First Floor).
A, A, A, stalls; P, P, P, pens; C, C, C, calf-pens; U,
O, osen tie-ups ; H, horje-stalls ; V, bins ; S, sheds ; M, milk-
room ; T, 7 traps ; U, stairs ; V, water-trough.
Fig. 48.— .American Dairy Barn (Second Floor).
V, ventiliitors : T, trap-doors ; N, water-tank ; S, scales ; B, beam ;
L, 4 bins.
for air should be admitted at once, to promote
decomposition.
Liquid manure is thought too little about,
and is often allowed to run to waste. Its effects
are often disappointing, because when applied it
152
DAIRY FARMING.
has Lcen in most cases so diluted with rain and
other water as to be rendered powerless for o^ood.
Tiie drains from all buildings should run into
one tank, which should be completely protected
from surface water, and from thence the liquid
manure can be carted, or conducted by ])ij)es or
other means, on to the pastures or wherever it
is required.
The custom of makins: large heaps of manure
cut in the fields is going out of fashion. IMauy
farmers have covered sheds for it, where it
commonly remains until it is wanted, and it is
afterwards generally spread on arable land in tlie
autumn and ploughed under at once ; on cIuvlm--
root, which is about to be broken up for wheat,
it is spread in August, and on grass land it
is spread at almost any period except summer;
on most kinds of meadow land it is generally,
and with truth, supposed that there is a better
crop of hay if the manure is applied in the
previous autumn rather than in the spring of
the year in which the crop is grown. Except on
a very light and open soil, it is always a good
plan, providing the weather is suitable, to get out
the manure on meadow land as soon as the hay-
crop is gathered in ; on very light, open soils this
is not to be recommended, but the heavier soils
possess the faculty of absorbing the manure, and
in their case the roots of the plants can make
use of it at any time that will best promote
their fertility. But where it is still the custom to
keep manure-heaps out in the fields or in open
yards, it should be remembered that there
will be a serious loss of the volatile elements of
the manure, unless something is done to prevent
their escape. Gypsum and oil of vitriol (sulphuric
acid), having a strong affinity for fugitive alka-
lies, are very useful chemieo-agricultural detectives,
and they may with great advantage be used to
arrest any such fugitives as are trying to escape.
Ammonia, or, rather, carbonate of ammonia — the
form in which ammonia escapes from a manure-
heap — has the projicrty of decomposing sulphate
of lime (gypsum) in a considerable degree. The
chemical action which takes place results in the
formation of carbonate of lime and su]j)hate of
ammonia, the ammonia being thus converted into a
fixed, whereas it was previously a volatile salt, ex-
tremely liable to evaporation. .But the chemical
action which takes place is very weak, and there is
a limit to the absorjjtion of ammonia by sulphate
of lime ; and if all the ammonia is to be absorbed,
a considerable quantity of sulphate of lime must
be used on the manure-heap. A more effective
plan is to sjirinkle the manure-heap occasional!}''
witli diluted oil of vitriol ; this will effectually fix
the ammonia, converting it into sulphate of ammo-
nia. As most sulphates, nitrates, and phosphates
are freely soluble in water, it is necessary to be
sparing rather than profuse in using the diluted
acid; it is expedient not to saturate the heap,
but simply to moisten the surface occasionally, and
it is equally necessary to keep, if possible, the
heap from being saturated with rain-water. It
is not difficult to ascertain when the heap wants
a fresh moistening — when the fumes of ammonia
are again escaping, that is. If a small piece of
red litmus paper, moistened, be held close to the
heap, it will almost immediately turn blue if any
ammoniacal vapours are being evolved ; but as
long as the surface of the heap is kept in an acid
state, by sprinkling diluted acid over it, no volatile
ammonia can jDossibly be given off and escape
in the form of vapour. It must, however, be
remembered that the very elements which you
have been trying to arrest at the top will escape at
the bottom, if the heap is exposed to deluges of
rain-water.
It is always true policy on a farmer's part as well
to augment the quantity as to conserve the quality
of the manure produced on his farm. Leaves of
trees, coarse grass, unripe thistles, nettles, charlock,
the roots of couch-grass, peat-soil, burnt clay, and
any products of the farm, all serve to increase
the bulk of the manure-heap, and if they are
well dried to start with they will absorb the
volatile and liquid portions of it; indeed, he
cannot easily attach too much importance to
this part of the farm economy. It must ever
be borne in mind that farm-yard manure and lime
should never be applied together on land, for
the lime has a destructive iulluence over the
valuable elements of the manure; thus, it drives
off all the ammonia, which is one of the most
precious constituents. If it is desired to apply
both lime and farm-yard manure to the growth
of any one crop, an interval of two or three
months should be allowed to occur between the
dressings.
It has been, and still is in some ]ilaces, the
custom to make largo compost-heaps of the scour-
ings of ponds and ditches, of road-scra2)ings, of the
COMPOST.
153
puvplus soil which is loft over in draining land, and
in levelling old banks and fences — of any kind
of refuse, in fact, that was capable of being
imjjroved by mixing with lime or dnng. These
are turned over one or more times at intervals of
a month or two, and are sometimes carted con-
siderable distances to the meadows, where they are
spread, chain harrowed, and the stones picked care-
fully in order that they may not interfere with
the knives of the mowing-machine. It is, however,
now beginning to be thought that these composts
are not worth the labour expended on them,
that it is more economical to apply a small
dressing of good artificial manures, and that any
coarse soil that has to be removed is better
applied with as little labour as possible upon the
nearest pasture land that it would be likely to
do any good to. But it cannot be denied that
a good large compost-heap, consisting of lime
and soil well amalgamated together, is a very
useful piece of supjjlemeutary manure, and a good
dressing of it has an excellent effect on meadow
land that has been long accustomed to no other
than farm-yard manure, or to pasture land that
has received no dressings of manure at all ; it is
a change of system which gives a fillip) to the
land, and the effect of it is commonly scon for
years in the greatly improved quality of the
herbage. The question of expense with regard
to it is a matter which must always be left to
the farmer's own judgment, and in this he will
bo governed by the price of labour in the
district.
Unlike farm-yard manure, compost is injured
by being put under cover. It has everything to
gain and little or nothing to lose by contact with
air and rain. Under cover it deteriorates ; exposed
to the atmosphere it improves. The more exposure
it receives, the better it is, for tw^o reasons : in
the first place, the stuff of which compost is
usually made has generally been excluded for a
long time from the air, and, jjartly in consequence
of this, it has great facilities for absorbing from
the air those valuable properties of which it stands
so much in need. And in order that it may the
more freely absorb these, it is expedient that it be
frequently turned over with a shovel, so that all
of it may in turn be well exposed to the air.
At the same time, it must be remembered that
even farm-yard manure may be injured by being
too long under cover, unless it is kept moist
enough. ^Manure that contains much litter is of
course the m.ost liable to become too dry under
cover ; and it needs to be well moistened now and
again with liquid manure, if any of it is at hand,
and with water if it is not, but only moistened —
not saturated through and through.
Anyway, compost-heajDs are very useful ;
whether or not they pay is another matter ; but
in any case it is unwise to reject, on grounds
which are merely conjectural, the use of any-
thing which may be available as a manure.
CHAPTER XII.
FouAGK Plants and "Weeds.
The Cabbage Tribe— Kohl-Rabl— Turnips— Swedes— Rape— Mustard— Leguminous Plants -CIOTers-Luccmc— Sainfoin— Vetches, or
Tares— Trefoils— Lupins— Furze, or Gorse-I'eas— Umbelliferous Plants— Carrots and Parsnips— Milfoil and Chicory- Comfrey -
Plantain— Mangold— Buckwheat— Grasses: Thoir Character and Usefulness— Cat's-tail— Me vdow Fox-tail— Floating Fox-tail -
Slender Fox-tail— Sweet-scented Vernal Grass— Bent Grass— Yellow Oat Grass— Downy Oat Grass— Wild Oat— False Oat Grass-
Meadow Soft Grass— Creeping or Bearded Soft Grass— Rough Cock'sfoot Grass— Meadow Grasses— Quaking Grass— Fescue
Grasses- Brome Grasses— Crested Dog's-tail Grass— Couch Grass— Rye Grasses— Poisonous Rye Grass— Other Weed Gra.'ises—
Mixtures— Analyses— Diseases— Smut— Bunt— Rust— Mildew— Ergot— Parasitic Grasses- Iceland Moss and
Irish Moss— Seeds and their Adulteration.
i^lf^
shall consiilcr the varimis
forao-e plants iindor tlie heads
of tlie natural orders to which
they respectively belong, as
t ";. J we believe this method will
s,' be found advantageous to the
reader acquainted with the outlines of
classification, while it will in no way
comi)lieate the subject for the non-
botanical reader. A natural order is
simply an assemblage of plants grouped
~'^ together on account of the many bo-
ta.nical characters they possess in common, and
the general characters of the natural order per-
tain in most cases to all the plants included in
it. The botanical name of a plant consists of
two words; the first is the generic name, and
refers to the sub-group, or genns of the order
to which the plant belongs; the second is the
specific name, and indicates, when there are more
plants than one in the genus, which particidar
plant or species is referred to. Thus, the prim-
rose. Primula vulgaris, and the cowslip. Primula
vfris, are both species of the genus Primula, and
Primula itself is one of a number of genera which
constitute the order Primulacea. An order then
is made up of genera, and a genus of species.
Occasionally a species is divided into several
varieties, and sometimes a genus only contains a
single species.
Passing midcr view a list of natural orders
systematically arranged, the first to attract our
attention, as being of agricultural importance,
is the one named Crucifer^. The fruit of this
onler may be either long, as in the mustard,
cal)l)age, and gillyfiower (Fig. 49), or short, as
in the common weed, shepherd's purse. In cither
case a thin membrane will be exposed to view
when the two valves of the fruit open, and it
is to the margins of this membrane that the
seeds on each side are attached. The arrange-
ment of the leaves in plants of this order is a Her-
niate, first one on one side of the stem, then another
at a different level on the other side. There are
no stipules and no bracts. Stipules are small
leaves at or near the base of the leaf-stalk, or
petiole, as Been in the rose-leaf
(Fig. 50, st) ; bracts are similar
small leaves on the flower-stalk.
The plants of this order are
distinguished by their pungent,
stimulating, arul sometimes acrid
properties, but none of them are
poisonous. They are anti-scorbutic,
hence the desire of people, such
as sailors, who have for a long
l)eriod subsisted on salt meat,
and rendered themselves liable
to scurvy, to obtain vegetables
yielded by this order. The Cruci-
FER.E contain notable quantities
of sulphur and nitrogen, and
these, in union with other ele-
ments present, foiin, amongst
other products, a peculiar volatile acrid oil, to
which the stimulating properties of the order are
due. The disgusting odour which arises from
decaying heaps of cabbages and tm-nips is due,
in great part, to the formation of sulphuretted
hydrogen and ammonia.
Fig. 49.— The Fritt
(Siliqua) of the
GiLLYFLOWEB.
Plate I.-LEGUMINOUS PLANTS.
l.—Trifo/imii. prateiise (Conunon Red or Broad-k':ived Clover). 5.—(Ji>'Ariii-fii!i mtini (Suiiifniii),
2. -TrifiiUiim iritens (Dutch Clover).
3 -Tri'foliiiiii iiirarniitinii (Crimson Clover).
Trifoliuiii hiihridum (Alsike Clover).
(>.—.M.:dk;i;io liipiitlmt (liUck Medick).
7. — Lupin 111 (tlhns (Lti|iin, blue variety).
I 8. — Vkia aiitiva (Vetch).
CRUCIFERS AND LEGUMINOUS PLANTS.
155
Among crucifers, the cabbage, Brassica ole-
racen, is used as a cattle-food, especially in autumn
and winter. Analysis No. 8 refers to this plant.
The inner and vouno^er leaves contain much more
'^' Fig. 50.— Leaf of Rose.
water than the older outside leaves, and on the whole
this vegetable may be considered more nutritious
than the turnip. Savoys, Brussels sprouts, Scotch
kale, and red cabbage are all varieties of the
common cabbage ; so are the eauliilower and broc-
coli, in both of which a large number of very
imperfect flowers are crowded together to form
the white heads so much relished at our tables.
The kohl-rabi is a variety in which the stem
is enlarged into a fleshy turnip-like knob above
ground.
The turnip, Brassica rapa, is a widely culti-
vated crucifer, and is a food mneh relished by
cattle and sheep. The peculiar flavour of the
root, which is especially noticeable in a "strong'"
turnip, is due to the presence of a pungent essen-
tial oil. As will be seen from the analysis (No. 1),
the root is very watery, and contains biit little
nourishment, so that if an animal tried to get
fat on turnips alone, it would have to pass a
large quantity of unnecessary water through its
stomach. The Swedish turnip, or swede, is speci-
fically distinct from the turnip, and is believed
to have sprung from Brassica campestris ; it is
rather more nutritious, and contains less water
than the common turnijj (Anal. No. 2). The
rape, Brassica napus, is valuable both as green
fodder and for ploughing in as a green manure ;
its seeds (rape and colza) are crushed for oil,
and the residue, consisting chiefly of the seed-
coats, is made up into cake, and used as cattle-
food, and as a fertiliser. An analysis (No. 5ii)
of rape-cake is given.
White mustard, Sinapis alba, the leaves of
which are used as a salad ; black mustard,
23
vO\.-i.
Sinapis tiigra, the ground seeds of which form a
condiment ; and the troublesome weed called char-
lock, Sinapis arvensis, are closely allied to the
foregoing plants of the genus Brassica. White
mustard is eaten off as a green crop, and ploughed
in as a green manure.
The radish, horse-radish, sea-kale, cress, water-
cress, Jack-by-the-hedge, shepherd's purse, wall-
flower, and stock are all familiar crucifers.
The natural order Leguminosjj; is the one
to which the pulses (peas, beans, &c.) and the
clovers belong. Its botanical
characters are very definite, so
that it is easy to determine
whether or not a given plant
belongs to this order. Thus,
the corolla consists of five
petals, which are of three dif-
ferent sizes; theirarrangement
will be understood bv reference ^'S- b1--I'apihonaceou3
, ,, » ,, Corolla of the Pea.
to the corolla or the pea, as re-
presented in Figs. 51 and b'l. At the top is seen
the largest petal, called the standard ; below and en-
closed by the standard are two side petals both alike,
termed the toings ; these latter jiartly overlap the
two smallest petals, which are joined together to
form the keel. Every British leguminous plant has
its corolla built up on this tyjie. After fertili-
sation, the pistil develops into the fruit, which
is a pod, or legume. In Fig. 53 is shown the
legume of the pea, with the flower-stalk and calyx
still remaining. The pod of the leguminous plants
"KiXS
Fig. 52.— Separate Parts of the Corolla of the Pea.
resembles that of the crucifers in opening by a
pair of valves, but the two differ in that the cruci-
ferous pod has a thin partition down the middle,
while the leguminous pod has not. The foliage
leaves are furnished with stipules, and are alter-
156
DAIRY FARMING.
h
:^ /
yA
nate. Tlie leaves, again, instead of being simjile,
are usually compound ; that is, each leaf consists
of several distinct pieces called leajlets, as is seen
in the tcrnate leaf of the clover, and
the pinnale leaf of the pea or la-
burnum. Frequently the leaves are
converted into tendrils, which enable
weak climbing stems to obtain
support from more substantial struc-
tures. In the representation of the
pea. Fig. 54, wc see a pinnate leaf
with the upper leaflets transformed
into tendrils, at the base of the leaf-
stalks are two large stipules which
meet round the slem, and the pe-
duncle bears a flower and a fruit.
The Leguminos^ yield more sub-
stances of general use than, perhaps,
any other order. The farinaceous
seeds are highly nutritious, and the
herbage affords a superior fodder.
The clovers, or trefoils, belong to
the genus Trifulium, which includes
some eighteen or twenty species, and
derives its name from the fact that
each leaf is divided into three leaf-
lets. The part commonly called the
blossom will be seen, on examination, to consist
really of a large number of small flowers crowded
together into one head on the receptacle. The fruit
is a short, unjointed, nearly straight pod containing
from one to four seeds. Not more than six or seven
species are under cultivation as forage plants.
White, Dutch, or Honeysuckle Clover, Tri-
foliuni repens (Plate 1, Fig. 2). The large globose
head of white, rarely pinkish flowers at once dis-
tinguishes this plant from its allies; the lower
flowers of the head are often to be seen brown
and withered, while the upper ones are still in
their prime. The longish pod contains four to
six small seeds. The green leaflets have usually
a horse-shoe mai'k near the base, and the crecj)iiig
stem sends down fibrous roots at the joints. The
plant should find a place in all pastures, as it
bears grazing well, and quickly springs up again.
Too much of it, however, is said to have a scouring
effect on cattle. Two analyses are given, one of
white clover in blossom (No. 9), the other of hay
made from white clover (No. 2S).
Common Red, Purple, or Broad-leaved Clover,
Trifolium prateme CPlate 1, Fig. 1), is one of the
Fig. r)3.— Fruit
OF THE Pea.
most valuable clovers. Its hai-d, somewhat woody
root suj)])orts a stem growing from 12 to 18
inches high, and the oval leaflets have a hoi-se-
shoe mark in the middle. The jiod contains
one seed, puqde in colour, and rather large for a
clover seed. This plant is chiefly used for alter-
nate husbandry. There are many varieties of it
peculiar to different countries, the plant appearing
to vary according to soil and climate. Two ana-
lyses of the green plant are given, and one of the
hay (Nos. 10, 11, 29). A variety called True Cow
Grass Clover, or Perennial Red Clover, Trifolium
pratense perenne, is much in favour just now ;
it only differs from the common red clover in
being, according to some growers, more lasting,
and therefore preferable in seeds for several years^
lay, and for permanent pasture.
Hybrid or Alsike Clover, Trifolium Jij/hridiim
(Plate 1, Fig. 4), is a smooth perennial plant with
hollow stems and filsrous roots. The flowers are
Fig. 54.— The Pea.
partly white and partly pinkish, and are arranged
in loose heads on long stalks, so that the plant has
an appearance intermediate between that of white
clover and common red clover. The pod is short,
and contains a couple of dark little seeds. Alsike
Plate 2. -LEGUMINOUS PLANTS AND WEEDS.
X.—Trif^Jiiim mi 'limn (Mejiilow (Jlover, or Zigzag Trefoil).
2.—Ti'i/otui„i proi-niiiheiis (Hon Trefoil).
3. — Mciliiiiijo sntiru (Lucerne).
4. — Lotus coriiicuhUim (]Jir(l's-foot Trefoil).
5. — AnthyHis vulnerariu, (Kidney Vetch).
r,.-Siini/iii.sorl>,i uffii'iniil'ix (Biiruet).
7. -Ackillia uiVhMUmi (Milfoil).
S.-P/07I ('/.;., I.,„.-~:'.ir, (Kill-grass).
'X—Rlmin, .. .//,' (Yellow Kiittle).
la.—Euph. Kyebright).
CLOVERS AND THEIR ALLIES.
157
possesses the useful property of yielding abundant
crops on " clover sick" soils. Two analyses of the
green plant and one of the hay are given (Nos. 12,
13, 30).
Crimson, Scarlet, Caraation, or Italian Clover,
Trifolium incarnatum (Plate 1, Fig. 3), is readily
known by its elongated, velvet-like, crimson head
of flowers. As it is particularly addicted to lime-
stone soils, it can be gro\vn to far greater ad-
vantage on such than on any other kind. Sown
in autumn, it is ready for cutting or eating down
in the following May. It may be either grown
alone or with Italian rye-grass. As a green
fodder, cattle and sheep eat it eagerly. (Ana-
lyses Nos. 14, 31.)
Other clovers occasionally grown are the Zig-
zag Trefoil, or Meadow Clover, Trifolium medium
(Plate 2, Fig. 1), with rather rigid leaflets, and
heads of flowers of a rose-purple colour ; and the
Lesser Yellow Trefoil, or Yellow Suckling Clover,
Trifolium minus, which much resembles Medicago
lujmlina (Plate 1, Fig. 6), differing from the latter,
however, in that its leaflets are heart-shaped with
the narrow parts joined to the leaf-stalk, and in
having the florets less densely crowded on the recep-
tacle. The Hop Clover, or Hop Trefoil, Trifolium
procumbens (Plate 2, Fig. 2), is sometimes included
in mixtures. Its flower-head is rather larger than
that of M. lupulina, and its colour is a pale yellow.
As the largest petal of each floret is bent back
at its free extremity, the whole head has a hop-
like appearance.
From a botanical point of view, only those
plants which belong to the genus Trifolium are
properly termed clovers, or trefoils. There are,
however, many other useful leguminous plants
which the farmer includes under the general
name of clover. The cliief of these we proceed
to notice : —
The genus Mcdicago resembles Trifolium in
that each of its leaves consists of three leaflets.
But the little flowers are arranged in short
racemes, that is, a number of short-stalked florets
is given off from each side of a common flower-
stalk, the resulting structure appearing not un-
like a small clover-head. Again, the unjointed
pod of Medicago is spiral, while the pod of Tri-
folium is nearly straight. Two important plants,
black medick and lucerne, belong to this genus.
Black Medick, or Nonsuch, Medicago lupulina
Plate 1, Fig. 6), is a pretty little plant, considered
by some writers to be identical with the shamrock
of Ireland. As a wild British plant it is common
in fields and waste places. The root is tapering
and fibrous, the stem much branched. Black
medick is so called from the black colour of
the seed-vessel, or pod, which is coiled into a
kidney-shaped spiral, and has a net-work on its
outer surface. The pod contains only one seed.
As the plant is an annual or biennial, it is not
suited to permanent pasture, and is always best
grown in connection with rye-grass or sainfoin.
Analyses of the hay and of the green plant are
quoted (Nos. 15, 32).
Lucerne, or Purple Medick, Medicago safica
(Plate 2, Fig. 3), has an erect stem, bluish-purple
flowers arranged in open racemes, and the pods
twisted two or three times. It is rather later
than most of the so-called clovers, as it does
not flower till June or July; it is a plant of
vigorous growth, and attains a height of 2 feet
or more. If not eaten down, it may be cut
several times during the season for green food.
The analyses (Nos. 16, 17, 33) indicate that it
may be used to better advantage as a green food
than in the form of hay, the amount of indi-
gestible fibre in the latter being one-third of
the entire weight. This plant deserves more
attention than it has hitherto received from
growers, for, in addition to the qualities already
mentioned, it is of long duration, and, being
very deep-rooted, is eminently suited to with-
stand long droughts. Partly on account of this
last-named property it is extensively cultivated
in India.
Sainfoin, Onohrychis sativa (Plate 1, Fig. 5),
has pinnate leaves, each leaf consisting of an odd
number of leaflets, there being a solitary leaflet
at the end. There are no tendrils. The beau-
tiful pink flowers are arranged in elegant racemes,
and the solitary seeds are contained in flat,
wrinkled, one-jointed pods. Sainfoin is a peren-
nial, it has an upright stem about 2 feet high,
and a rather woody root penetrating deeply into
the ground. It grows on all good soils, and
has the additional merit of producing excellent
crops on dry limestone soils, a property it owes
to its long roots. (Analyses 18 and 34.)
In connection with sainfoin, mention may be
made of the Burnet, Sanguisorba officinalis [Fote-
rium officinale), (Plate 2, Fig. 6), which is a plant
belonging to the rose-family, differing, however.
158
DAUIY FARMING.
frnm most plants in that order by possessing no
petals. Its height varies from 6 to IS inches,
and it was formerly recommended for growth
with sainfoin and lucerne, but as it has j)roved
to be a coarse and somewhat useless plant,
the practice is discontinued, and care should be
taken that neither its seeds nor those of its ally,
the Salad Burnet, Foterium sangiihorha, are in-
troduced with clover-seed.
The Vetch, or Tare, Ticia safiva (Plate 1,
Fig. 8), has pinnate leaves, which differ from
those of sainfoin in consisting of an even number
of leaflets, and in having the upper leaflets trans-
formed into tendrils. The plant is an annual,
it has pale pui-ple flowers which produce straight
unjointed hairy pods containing four to ten seeds,
the pods being not unlike those of the sweet pea,
but rather smaller. It has a stout trailing or
climbing stem. Vetches have long constituted
a favourite crop, and an American writer states
that " there is no green food of any variety so
well relished by horses as vetches, and none which
has such a purifying effect, lucerne being no ex-
ception.^' Analyses of the green plant and of the
hay are quoted below (Nos. 19 and 35). There
are ten or twelve species of wld vetch, one of
the most beautiful being Vicia Cracca, which bears
fine racemes of blue flowers.
The Kidney Vetch, or Ladies' Fingers, An-
tliyllis vulneraria (Plate 2, Fig. 5), has pinnate
leaves with unequal leaflets, a terminal leaflet
being present. Notwithstanding that it is much
relished by sheep and cattle, and that it succeeds
well on limestone soils, it is very rarely cultivated.
In the genus Lofus the yellow flowers are
arranged in an umbel, that is, several short-stalked
flowers all sjiring from one level, as in the cowslip.
Each leaf consists of three leaflets, as in Trifolian
and Medicago, and has large leaf-like stipules at
the base of the leaf-stalk. The pod is nearly
straight, and is many-seeded. The two follow-
ing species are perennials.
The Common Bird's-foot Trefoil, Lotus conncii-
latus (Plate 2, Fig. 4), is an elegant little plant,
in which the yellow flowers are crimson before
expanding. It may be seen in flower almost
any time between May and September on grassy
banks and in dry pastures. The smooth stem
lies on the ground, and the height of the plant
is from 6 to 12 inches. It is very nutritious,
is well liked by cattle, and admirably suited for
growing on elevated soils of too poor a character
to suit the ordinary clovers.
The Greater Bird's-foot Trefoil, Lotui major,
is very like the foregoing, differing from it chiefly
in its larger more numerous flowers of duller
hue, and in its erect stem. It thrives best on
somewhat peaty soils.
Tlie ^lelilot, McJilolua offw'uudh, is rarely
<;r(iwn as a forage crop ; it is odorifei'ous \vhcn
dry, and sweetens hay.
Tlie Lupins, belonging to the genus Lupinm
(Plate 1, Fig. 7), include several varieties with
difTerently coloured flowers. They are not much
cultivated in England, but the yellow lupin is ex-
tensively grown on the Continent, where it is used
both as a forage plant and as a green manure.
(Analysis No. 20.) It must be .stated with regard
to the lupin that, quite recently at Namslau,
and various other places in Germany, hundreds of
sheep have been poisoned by eating the plant.
The cause of these fatal effects has not yet been
fully determined, but two suspicious facts are
known : first, that the lupin contains an active
bitter poisonous principle closely allied to the
poisonous alkaloid of the water-hemlock; and,
secondly, that the plant is extremely liable to the
attacks of a fungus which produces a hard dark-
coloured structure somewhat like that which
accompanies ergot of rye, and which, like this
latter, may have injurious effects on animals
j)artaking of it.
The Furze, ^Miin, or Gorse, Vlex Europftim, is
a prickly shrub Avith deep yellow blossoms, and
it grows where little else will. It can be raised
from the seed on any waste land available, but
transplanting may prove fatal to the plant. Furze
is recommended on account of its yielding a
nutritious green food for horses and cattle in the
winter, forming at that season an agreeable change
in diet from hay, and from such roots as turnips
and carrots. On account of the prickles it is, of
course, necessary to bruise furze before supplying
it to cattle, and this may be done either in a
furze-breaking machine, or by hand with a mallet.
(Analysis No. 21.)
Besides those leguminous plants which ai-e
used either as green fodder or liay, there are others
which are grown chiefly for their valuable seeds.
The pea, P/.-siim sa/irnw, affords in its green unripe
seeds a fresh vegetable for the table, while from
the ripe seeds are obtained pea-meal and the
UMBELLIFEROUS PLANTS.
159
split peas used in soups and as cattle-food; it
is sometimes grown as a fodder crop, the pea-
straw, of which the composition is shown in
analysis No. 36, serving as a nutritious adjunct
in chaff. The lentil, which is the seed of Ervum
lens, is imported into Britain from southern Europe
and Egypt, and is used by millers in the com-
position of meals for cattle-food. " llevalenta,"
" Ervalenta," and other widely advertised pre-
parations contain lentil meal, generally mixed
with the flour of barley or some other grain ; they
are sold at many times their real value. A glance
at the analyses (Nos. 53, 54', 55) of these legu-
minous seeds will show their high value as
nutrients.
The seeds of the laburnum-tree, an ornamental
leguminous plant, are poisonous.
The natural order Umbellifer.?5 is charac-
terised by pi'oducing its flowers in umbels (Fig. 55),
and by the leaves being usually much divided ; the
leaf-stalk at its base sheaths the stem, which is
hollow. Harmless weeds belonging to the order
are the hedge-parsley, and cow-parsnip ; more
objectionable are such poisonous plants as the
hemlock, fool's parsley, and the water-dropwort.
The hemlock, Coniiim macidatum, is at once known
by its j^olished stem, covered with brownish-red
spots, and by the unpleasant odour of mice
emitted by the stem when bruised. It usually
grows in hedges and waste jjlaces, attaining a
height of from 3 to 4 feet. The fool's parsley,
JEtJinm Cynapiam, is another denizen of waste
places, and grows from 1 to 2 feet high. It is
very poisonous, and is known by its three narrow
bracts which grow towards one side at the base of
each little umbel and point downwards. The
water-dropwort, (Enanthe crocata, contains a
dangerous poison ; it grows in marshes and on
the banks of rivers and ditches, its height vary-
ing from 3 to 5 feet. Its flowers are white, as
are those of the hemlock and fool's parsley. The
well-known herb parsley, Petroseliiinm safivum, is
sometimes sparingly introduced into pastures, as it
is believed to produce a beneficial medicinal effect
on sheep. It is a biennial, and produces umbels
of light yellow flowers in July. Parsley is dis-
tinguished by its pleasant odour, and by the
extreme tips of its leaf-segments being white.
The most interesting umbellifers to the farmer,
however, are undoubtedly the carrot and parsnip,
both of which are cultivated for the sake of
their succulent tap-roots, which yield an accept-
able supply of juicy food in the winter. The
wild carrot, Bancns carol a, has a pungent odour
and disagreeable taste, but it has been much im-
proved by cultivation. Carrots, unlike parsnips,
contain no starch; analyses of two varieties are
given (Nos. 3, 4). The parsnip is a cultivated
form of the wild parsnip, Pasfi.iiaca sntiva ; its
root contains a good deal of starch and some sugar.
The composition of the parsnip is shown in
Fig. 55. — Compound Umbel of the Chervil.
analysis No. 5. The carrot has a white blossom,
the parsnip a yellow one.
The CoiiposiTjE, although it is the largest
natural order, including a greater number of plants
than any other, is yet of far less service to man
than such orders as Gramineee, Le/jnmiiiosa',, and
Crnciferae. The order is distinguished by the
extraordinary character of its infloresence, which is
easily examined in the daisy, where the so-called
flower will be seen to be made up of a large
number of very small florets. The order includes
many well-known plants, such as the lettuce, dan-
delion, tansy, sowthistle, hawkweed, nipplewort,
thistle, corn blue-bottle, groundsel, chamomile, and
160
DAIRY FARML\(i.
everlastings. Two cmly require notice here, tlie
milfoil and the cliieory.
Milfoil, or Yarrow, Achillea Millefolinni (Plate
2, Fig. 7), is a plant which occurs in most
pastures and on roadsides, especially on poor soils.
It has very much divided leaves, and the flowers,
though usually white, vary from that colour to pink
and red ; this frequently occurs on one and the
same plant. It possesses astringent properties,
and is eaten in moderate quantity by sheep, rather
perhaps as a condiment than for any direct nutritive
value it may possess. ^Milfoil is usually recom-
mended to be sown on light sandy soils, railway
cuttings and embankments, because of the creei)-
ing fibrous character of its roots, which serve
admirably to bind loose soils together. The
])lant is perennial, and grows to the height of
about 1 foot.
Wild Chicory, or Succory, Cichorium Intj/ljiis
(Fig. 50), has blue flowers, the heads being given
off from the stem in
l^airs. It is a deep-
rooted perennial, flower-
ing from June to
August. Chicory is
used on the Continent
both as a forage plant
and as a salad, but it
has found little favour
in Britain. Cattle are
fond of the foliage, but
it is said to give an
unpleasant flavour to
their milk. The root,
dried and ground, forms
the chicory which is
frequently mixed with
coffee.
The natural order
BoRAGiNACEJE requires
a passing note, as it includes the prickly comfrey,
Si/mj)lijftnm anperrimum. Common wild plants be-
longing to the order are the borage, forget-me-not,
hound's tongue, lungwort, and gromwell. There
are two native British species of comfrey, the
common comfrey, Sj/mpJij/him officinale (Fig. 57),
and the tuberous-rootedconifrey, S. inberosmii. The
common comfrey grows by river-sides, and its leaves
were formerly boiled for food by the poorer peoi)le.
The prickly comfrey, which attains a height of
5 feet, is rather larger than the common comfro\' :
it has much rougher leaves, and its flowers are
more variable in colour — dull white, reddish, or
Fig. 50.— Chicory.
Fig. 57.— The Common Comfrey.
l)lue ; their form is apparent from Fig. 58. A
native of the Caucasus, it was introduced into
Britain at the beginning of the present century as
an ornamental plant, and has only been grown as
a forage plant within recent years. It is raised
from the" roots in this country, as the seeds do
not appear to arrive at perfection. The plant is
of such rapid growth that it may be cut for green
fodder at least four times in the season. Il has
about the same feeding value as
green mustard, or mangold, or
turnip-tops, and is recommended
to dairy-farmers as a change of
food for their cattle. Being a very
deep-rooted plant, it is far less
liable than plants of more super-
ficial growth to be affected by
drought, and it is therefore Ijeiiig
cultivated in India. Another jioint
in its favour is its enormous
yield, which in the green state is said to be
upwards of SO tons jier acr.^j or from two to
Fig. 58 — Fi-OWER
OF Comfrey.
]\rANGOLD— BEET-ROOT— BUCKWHEAT.
161
tliroc times tli(? yield o£ lucerne. It comes in
earlier than other crops, and lasts loug-er, and its
cultivation requires hut little care after the root-
euttinj^s are once planted, as it is a perennial.
Cattle, sheep, and especially horses, although they
prefer other food, soon acquire a taste for it in the
green state; when dried it makes an excellent sub-
stitute for hay to mix with straw for chaff-cutting'.
Prickly comfrey is at present cultivated in parts
of England, Ireland, France, and India, and its
introduction into California for the poultry yards
has been suggested, as fowls are very fond of it.
The analysis No. 22 refers to a freshly-gathered
plant.
Common Plantain, or Rib-grass, Pliinlai/o liiii-
ceolata (Plate 2, Fig. 8), belongs to the natural
order Plantagine.e, and is not a true grass. It
has narrow leaves tapering at both ends, and with
prominent parallel veins. The flowers are small,
and without stalks, and are closely arranged on
an elongated axis. The fruit is a nutlet contain-
ing a seed, and the long clusters of these nutlets,
forming the " bobtails " of which canaries and
other birds are so fond, constitute familiar objects
in summer in meadows and cultivated fields. The
leaves are piroduced early in the season, and are
then eaten by horses and cattle ; but it is rather
for the binding action which this plant, like the
milfoil, exerts on loose soils, than as a forage plant,
that it is introduced into seed mixtures. Owing to
the low-lying and spreading habit of its leaves,
however, the jilant often takes up much more
room than it is worth ; this property manifests
itself especially on lawns, where the rib-grass is
nothing but a nuisance. The Greater Plantain,
Planfago major, has broader leaves than the rib-
grass, and its long spikes of nutlets are much
sought after by birds.
The Mangold, or jMangel Wurzel, Beta i-iil/jaris,
belongs to the Goose-foot order, CHEXOPODiACEiE,
which includes the beet, spinach, good King
Henry, and various common weeds to which the
name of goose-foot is applied. The root of the
mangold, of which an analysis (No. 6) is given,
affords a supply of winter food ; it wall be seen
from its composition that it contains less water
than the turnip. The garden-beet used in salads,
and the sugar-beet which is cultivated, especially
in France, for sugar-manufacture, are simply other
varieties of Beta vnlgaris, the mangold itself being
the field-beet. The beet-root (analysis No. 7) and
mangold owe their sweet taste to the large amount
of sugar they contain.
The order Polygoxace.e, known by its mem-
branous sheathing stipules and three-comerod
fruits (Fig. GO), includes, in addition to the
common weeds called docks (Fig. 59) and sorrels,
the rhubarb plant, of which the leaf-stalks are
eaten at the table, and the buckwheat. Polygonum
Fagopi/rnm (Fig. 61), which is an annual of quick
growth and easy cultivation. It is grown for
green fodder, and its starch}^ seeds
(analysis No. 56), which resemble
those of the cereals in composi-
tion, are used for feeding jioultry
and for making meal.
The flowers of Chenopodiacea
and Poljigonacea have no corolla, and therefore
easily escape notice.
The natural order Grajiixe^ is of much
greater importance to man than any other family
of plants. All our cereals — wheat, barley, oats,
ryC) maize, rice, millet, dari, and canary-seed — are
fiO— FitriT OF
Buckwheat.
1(13
DAIRY FARMING.
true pasture grasses ; the succulent sugar-eaue and
the lofty bamboo alike belong to this order. Rice
alone furnishes more food to the human race
than any other one species, and probably nine-
tenths of the plants in an (irdiiiary natural jiasturc
are true grasses.
Before giving a brief account of the most
important pasture grasses it will be necessary to
say a few words on the structure of the grass-jilant
and its flower, and to indicate the means of dis-
tinguishing between the true grasses and certain
far less valuable plants which bear a close resem-
blance to them.
All grasses have filirous roots, which are
frequently given off from cree]iiug underground
Fig. Gl. — Buckwheat.
stems. The parts above ground consist of ascend-
ing axes, or stems, called cnlins, and these produce
the leaves and flowers. The leaves are always
entire and usually strap-shaped, tapering, however,
towards the upper end. If the base of the leaf be
examined, it will l)e seen to form a sheath around
the culm, the sheath being not entire but split
down lengthwise in front. At the place where
the leaf springs from the stem, the latter will
be seen to be swollen, and this swollen part
is called a joint. By cutting across the stem
it will be found to be hollow, excepting at the
joint, where it is solid. Most of these details will
be best understood by examining a living speci-
men, nevertheless they are represented in Fig. G3,
which illustrates the culms of the rye-plant. If
the leaf be bent back from the culm, there will be
seen at the top of the leaf-sheath, and between the
leaf and the culm, a small membranous projection,
which is apparently a continuation of the lining
(if the sheath. This structure is called a Ihjnle,
and attention is drawn to it because, as it varies in
size and shape in difi'erent grasses, it will in some
eases be found of use in discriminating between
grasses which closely resemble each other. lu
Fig. G:5, / is the
ligule of the mil-
let-grass.
It is, however,
in the inflor-
escence that the
most striking
peculiarities of
grasses are ap-
parent, and they
may be illus-
trated by re-
ference to the
accompanying
woodeut(Fig.t)4).
An examination
of a wheat-ear in
flower will show
it to consist of
a number of dis-
tinct structures
arranged in rows
lengthwise on the
upper part of the
stem or axis (Fig.
66). The entire
ear is called a
gji'ike ; let the
spike be broken
through at the
middle, and let
one of the struc-
tures already re-
ferred to be taken
from the bottom
of the upper part.
This structure is
a single spikelef,
and it will be
noticed that it is
attached broadside to the axis, as is the ease
in most grasses — rye-grass, however, forming
an exception. This spikelet should be care-
fully taken to pieces, proceeding regularly from
the outer and lowest parts inwards. Two dry,
scaly leaves nearly opposite to each other are
first removed ; these are the oulcr ghtmes. Inside
Fig. 62.
Plate 3.— PASTURE GRASSES.
:lomt:ruta (Rough Cock's-foot).
'! f Amiiial Sleadow-grass).
-Mlootb Mi'.-1.1..M-|,T113.«).
lyh Me.iilow gniss).
nitloUuin (Darnel).
9. — /■ 'loop's Fescue).
10— ( /•! (Dog's-tail).
II. /,.',■./,« ;...•.„„.■ (Knglish Pvyt- l
' l.flium ilalicam (Italian Kye-,
STRICTURK OF GRASSES.
1G3
Fig. 63.— LiGULE OK Millet, /.
are three to five little Jlorets alternately arrau-'-ed
on opijosite sides of the axis of the spikelet. Let
one of these florets be taken from about the middle
and dissected just as the spikelet has been. The
outermost and
Lowest scaly
leaf which ap-
pears to en-
velop the inner
parts is called
the fioicerhig
^///'///p;opposite
to this, but at
a little higher
level, is an-
other scalylcaf
calledthey;r^/<V
notice that the
edg-es of the
flowering
i;lume overlaji
the pale to
some extent.
The flowering
glume in many grasses bears a bristle, or aim,
which springs from its back or summit. By laying
apart the flowering glume and pale, the contents
of the space between them are exposed to view.
At the very bottom of the cavity, and lying one
against the flowering glume and the other against
the pale, are two very small
scales, or lodicnles, rejire-
senting perhaj)S the calyx
and corolla of ordinary
flowers. Next are seen
the lower ends of the
filaments of t/iree stamens;
and lastly, nestling snugly
in the very middle of the
cavity is the ovary, sur-
mounted by two short
styles with feathery stig-
This is shown in
64, which, it must
be understood, is not a
dissection of the entire
spikelet, but represents below the outer glumes
of the spikelet, and shows above the details of
only one of the several florets which the outer
glumes enclose. After fertilisation the little ovary
develops into the (/rain of wheat, which is the true
24
fig. 64.— The Two Outer mas.
Glumes op a Spikelet p-
AND THE Parts op a e
Single Floret op Wheat.
(Oliver. )
friiii (if the ])laut, termed by botanists a cur/jop.sis.
In some cases, as in barley, the grain when riiie
remains firmly enclosed by
the scale-leaves ; this is not
the ease in wheat. In some
grasses, between the outer
glumes and the flowering
glume of the lowest floret,
one or more scale-leaves,
called emptji glumes, con-
sidered to represent barren
Jlorets, are inserted. Such
emjjty glumes may also
occur above the uppermost
jierfect floret. An example
of the former case is afforded
by sweet vernal grass (Fig.
06), in which the entire
spikelet consists of, first,
two outer glumes, then two
awned empty glumes repre-
senting two barren florets,
and lastly a perfect floret
with its flowering glume
and pale, but with no loJ'i-
enles, only tiro stamens, and
the pistil surmounted by two
feathery stigmas.
The foregoing descrip-
tions of the spikelets of ^^^- '^'^'■
wheat and vernal grass will
give the reader a general idea of the structure
of the flowers of grasses. The actual dissec-
tion of spikelets of various gi'asses by the aid
of a penknife, a mounted needle, and a mag-
nifying glass, is strongly re-
commended, when the minor
characters which enable
botanists to classify grasses
will be brought into view.
The manner in which
the anthers are attached to
the filaments will also be
seen from the woodcuts.
As the anthers can swing
freely about their point of
attachment they are said to
be versatile. The anthers ^'|
and feathery stigmas are
usually to bo seen protruding from the spikelets
at the time of flowering. ]\Iost grasses have t/tree
-Cn.MpouND Spike
op Wheat.
Dissected Spike-
let OP Vernal Grass.
104
D.VIEY PARMIXG.
stamens, but the rire-plant has si.r, :\m\ sweet envelope to h.-eome hrown ami memhranons ; a
vernal gras.«, as we have remarked, onl}- //^o. The good idea will then be obtained of the kind of
tloweriug o-lume and ])ale are nearly always present, flower met with in rushes, and it will be evident
but in fox-tail grass there is no pale. Lodieules that it is quite unlike a grass ilower.
again, of whieh the number is usually two, are The sedges (Fig. G7) belong to the order
absent in sweet vernal, fox-tail, and mat gra.'^s, Cypf.iuce.t:, and are generally found accompanying
while the feather-grass has three. rushes. They ai)parently have a close resemblance
The inflorescence of grasses may be despril)ed to grasses, but are easily distinguished from them
either as n/Acafe,
when the spikelets
are arranged close
against the axis
in the form of a
spike, as in fox -tail
(Plate 3, Fig. 2),
or it is a panicle,
in which case the
spikelets spread out
on little branches,
as in the smooth
meadow - grass
(Plate 3, Fig. 7).
There are various
intermediate
forms, as sweet
vernal grass (Plate
3, Fig. 3).
There are two
groups of plants
which may be, and
not unfrequently
are, mistaken for
grasses ; these are
the rushes and
sedges. The rushes
belong to the order
JUNCACE.J), and
grow in moist
meadows and by
the sides of streams and ponds; in the
Fig. 67.— The Sedge (Carex), with its Vnperground Stem akd Rootlets.
by the characters
contrasted in the
table below.* The
sedges, then, may
be distinguished
by their angular
solid stems, entire
leaf-sheaths, and
the absence of
ligules. Both
rushes and sedges
are worthless from
a nutritive point
of view ; indeed,
cattle seldom touch
them on account of
their brittle cha-
racter, which isdue
to the presence of
an unusually large
amount of silica.
If these jilants
make their ajipe.ir-
ance in a meadow,
a defective state
of drainage is pro-
bably the cause.
The t e r m
" grasses," as used
by the farmer, in-
cludes not only
uminous plants, so that
the gramineous but al
stem is solid and tapers to a point, and the clovers, vetches, sainfoin, lucerne, and even other
flowers are produced in heads on the side of green crops may be embraced by the term in an
the stem, and are quite different in their strni
ture from those of gras.ses. Tlio reader is, of
course, familiar with a tulip flower; its protective
envelope consists of three outer leaves and Ihrce
inner leaves all like petals, while inside are six
stamens and the pistil. Imagine such a flower
to be greatly reduced in size, so as to be not much
larger than a pin's head, and at the same time
suppose the six petal-like leaves of the ])rotective
agricultural sense, when reference is made to the
artificial grasses. In a botanical sense, the true
gras.ses belong exclusively to the order Gramineoe.
.
Ci,y>CYacf(r.
Graniincir,
stem ...
( .\nc:iilar
"(Solid
. Round.
. Tsually hoUov
Leaf-shciith ,
.. Entiro
,. Split. "
Anther
Entire at the ends .,
. Notched at tin
? ends.
Lisule ..
.. Absent
, . Present.
TIMOTHY GRASS AND FOX-TAIL.
1G5
In the following account of the true grasfies,
the object iu view has been to give a brief notice
of all those which are usually cultivated. In
addition to this, the reader's attention has been
directed to some of the more commonly occurring
" weed-g-rasses," grasses, that is, which, from an
agricultural point of view, must be looked upon as
worthless, and which the cultivator, when he is
able to recognise them, would find it advantageous
to exterminate, and replace by more valuable
species. No attempt at a botanical classification
of the grasses has been made, but those mentioned
are given in the order in which they occur in Sir
J. D. Hooker's "Flora of the British Islands."
Some grasses are unfortunately burdened with
a superfluity of common names, so that much
confusion results. We therefore recommend the
reader to familiarise himself with the botanical
names, as these more usually have a definite and
unvarving application, which is the same in all
countries. "Where not otherwise stated, it is to
be understood that the undermentioned grasses are
perennials.
Cat's-tail or Timothy Grass, Plilfinn pratense
(Plate 3, Fig. 1). Root fibrous, slightly creeping.
Stem 18 inches to 3 feet high in Britain, but
frequently 4 feet in America. Flowers from
June to August. The spikelets are one-flowered,
and arranged in a spicate manner. This grass,
although well known to the British grower, is
far more extensively cultivated in the United
States, where it was introduced from Britain,
nearly a century ago, by Mr. Timothy Hanson,
and for this reason it is called Timothy grass.
It thrives most luxuriantly on clay lands, peaty
soils, improved moors, alluvial flats, and estuarine
warp lands, but is not suited either to very stiff
clays or to chalk soils. If grown on light dry
soils its roots have a tendency to become bulbous.
As cat's-tail is a late species yielding comparatively
little aftermath, it is better adapted for grazing or
pasture land than for the meadow. If intended
for hay, however, it may be fed on till late in
spring without prejudice to the crop. Analyses
(Nos. 23, 37) are quoted of the grass and the hay,
in both of which forms it is eagerly eaten by all
kinds of stock.
Meadow Fox-tail Grass, Alojjecurns praienus
(Plate 3, Fig. 2). Root fibrous; height of stem,
J to 3 feet. Flowers from April to June,
ripening its seeds from June to August. The
one-flowered spikelets are arranged iu cylindrical
spike-like panicles tapering at each end. The
leaves springing from the lower part of the stem
are long, broad, soft, and of full green colour.
Fox-tail is one of our earliest grasses, and forms a
principal part of the herbage in many rich pastures,
yielding an abundant aftermath. It labours,
however, under the disadvantage of not attaining
its full productive power till the third or fourth
year after sowing, and it is, therefore, not suitable
for alternate husbandry. It flourishes best on
stiff soils, its produce on a clayey loam being
nearly double that on a sandy soil. No. 38 is an
analysis of the hay of fox-tail.
Fox-tail and cat's-tail are frequently confused
the one with the other. They differ botanically
thus : — Fox-tail has an awn projecting from the
middle or base of the flowering glume, but the
floret contains no pale ; cat's-tail has no awn from
the flowering glume, but a pale is present. But,
setting aside botanical characters, it must be
remembered that these two grasses flower at dif-
ferent periods; fox-tail has nearly done flowering
when the first inflorescences of cat's-tail appear.
The most useful distinction, however, for the
general observer is afforded by the appearance of
the cylindrical spike-like flower-heads. That of
fox-tail is slender, soft, and Bilkij , whereas in
cat's-tail it is usually longer, stouter, and bristly.
^ye have the two grasses lying before us as we
write, and feel sure that if the silky inflorescence
of fox-tail be once contrasted with the bristly one
of cat's-tail, the distinction will not be forgotten.
Two other grasses in the genus Alopecurns
are Floating Fox-tail, A. genicidatus, and Slender
or Field Fox-tail, A. agrestU, both of which are
bad grasses shunned by the farmer. Float-
ing fox-tail grows from 6 to 12 inches high,
and its stem is Lent at the joints, so that it is
easily distinguished from meadow fox-tail. Animals
dislike it, and fortunately its yield is small. It
grows chiefly in the vicinity of ponds and streams
on clay soils, and may sometimes be seen floating
on the surface of a pond ; on dry soils it becomes
stunted in growth. It flowers in June and July.
Slender fox-tail, or, as it is also called, black-bent,
is distinguished by having a more slender inflores-
cence than meadow fox-tail ; in blaek-bent, again,
the ligule is long, whereas it is short and obtuse
in meadow fox-tail. Black-bent is an inferior
grass growing naturally on poor soils ; in wheat
166
DAIRY FARMING.
fiolils it is a trouljlesome weed difllcult to eradicate,
and is known in some localities as " hunger-weed."
Partridges and jjheasants are said to be fond of
the seed, which ripens in August. Floating
fox-tail and black-bent ai'e best got rid of by
drainage and liberal api3lication of manure.
Sweet-scented Vernal Grass, Anthoxanthnm,
odoratum (Plate 3, Fig. 3). Root fibrous but
not creeping, stem 12 to 15 inches high. Panicle
oblong, consisting of a series of minor panicles
each with four or five spikelets. Florets
three in a spikelet, the two lower ones being
barren. Flowers in May, and ripens its seeds in
June. Each floret contains only two stamens,
instead of three as in other grasses. This is the
grass which imparts the pleasant fragrance to a
new-mown hay-field, the odour being due to the
presence of benzoic acid. Hence it is always
recommended in mixtures for parks and pleasure-
grounds, as the fragrance is very noticeable during
the time the seeds are ripening. It is hardly
adapted for close-cut lawr s, as its leaves are some-
what broad and spreading, and therefore unsightly.
If the lower end of the culm of this grass be
drawn through the closed teeth, a lavender-like
flavour identical with the odour of the grass will
at once be noticed. Cattle do not appear to be
particularly fond of sweet vernal, but its seeds
are introduced into all mixtures, if only with the
object of producing fragrant grass and sweet-
smelling hay. Nevertheless, it grows extensively
in the sheej)-grazing districts of the South Downs,
and as it is said to improve the flavour of mutton,
it is considered an essential ingredient in sheep-
pastures. Sweet vernal is less productive than
cock's-foot, fox-tail, and other useful grasses, but
it is ready for grazing very early, and the after-
math, though sj)arse, contains more nourishment
than the flowering crop. The leaves of this grass
are of a light green coloui', and somewhat hairy on
both sides, and the leaf-sheath is roughish when
felt from below upwards. Sweet vernal will grow
on most soils, but thrives best on deep moist land.
Analysis No. 39 shows the composition of the
hay.
Common or Creeping-rooted Bent-grass, Purj)le
Bent, Quick-grass, Fine Bent-grass, Agroslu
vulgaris (Plate 3, Fig. 4), has rather a tufted
growth, and grows everywhere, preferring dry
soils. Cattle and sheep will eat it, but it can
only be looked upon as a weed-grass.
Marsh Bent-grass, or Creeping Fiorin, Jgroslis
alba, variety stolonifera, has fibrous creeping
roots, and attains a height of about 2 feet. The
flowers appear in July, and the panicle is then
spreading, but afterwards compact. The florets
are awnless, and the leaves rough. The nutritious
qualities of this grass are inferior, and it is only
recommended for permanent pastures because its
herbage appears early in spring and lasts far
into autumn. It is best grown on peaty soils or
irrigated meadows ; on light dry soils its small
wiry underground stems make it as trouble-
some as couch-grass, and it is then called
" squiteh." It is similar in appearance to the fore-
going grass, but in Agrostis vulgaris the leaf-
sheaths are miooth, the ligules short and obtuse,
whereas A. alba has rough sheaths and long acute
ligules.
Tufted Hair-grass, Alra cwipifosa (Plate 4,
Fig. 1), is a not uncommon weed-grass, with strong,
fibrous, deej^ly penetrating roots, long flat leaves,
and stems often 4 feet high. It flowers in July
and August. It usually occurs in large tufts
or hassocks on damp and marshy soils. Being
coarse and wiry it is seldom eaten ; it affords cover
for game. Grey Hair-grass, Aira canescens,
has a denser panicle than A. ccespitosa, and is
only about 6 or 8 inches high. Silver Hair-
grass, Aira earyophyllea, has an elegant shining
spreading panicle with its branches dividing into
threes. It has very scanty herbage, and grows
on sandy fields and hill-sides, flowers in June,
and soon after withers up. The Hair-grasses
are useless to the farmer.
Yellow or Golden Oat-grass, Arena farescens
(Plate 4, Fig. 2), has fibrous slightly creeping
roots, smooth stems 1 to E feet high, with
sjireading, erect, much-branched panicles com-
posed of spikelets containing each two or three
florets, the individual florets being smaller than
those of any other oat-grass. It is a late species,
flowering in July and ripening its seed in August.
The yellow 'colour of the stem and the bright
golden cluster of flowers seem to distinguish it.
Yellow oat-grass, though it is a weak plant, is
recommended in mixtures for dry limestone soils,
and good light soils generally, on which it yields
a quantity of fine herbage, of which cattle are
fond. No. 40 is an analysis of the hay.
Hairy or Downy Oat-grass, Arena pubescens,
has somewhat creeping roots, stems 1 to 2 feet
1. .lira canpHom (Uau--grass).
%—Avena Jtaccscens (Yellow Oat-grass).
'A.—AiThnMhrriim armareum (False Oat-grass)
1. in.h-ns laiiatus (-Meadow Soft-grass).
Plate 4.-WEED GRASSES AND PARASITES.
5.— Brim media (Quaking-grass).
G.—Jirumus «.</)«• (Roiigli Brome-grass).
7.—£romus ercctus (I'liright Brome-gi-ass).
X.—Jirumut sUritis (Barren Brome-giass).
lS.—Cu3Quta minor (Dodder).
9.—Bromii.i mollit (Soft Brome-grass).
10. —Trilicujii reptns (Couch-grass).
U.—Clatnccps purpurea (Krgot, on grass).
1-i- — Orobanvlie minor (Broom-rai)e).
SOFT GRASS AiSID COCK'S-FOOT.
167
high, erect nearly simple panicles, and flowers
in June. This is a sweet hardy grass only em-
ployed on shallow limestone soils unsuited to the
superior kinds. It grows in solitary culms with
a scanty hairy herbage. On rich soils the hairs
practically disappear. To distinguish between this
and the foregoing — iuA-jjidescem the ligule is Ion//
and acute, in A. flax^escens very short and obtuse.
The Wild Oat, Arena fatua, is a common weed
in corn-fields, and attains a height of 2 to 3
feet. It is said to be the wild form of the
cultivated oat, which it much resembles. The
spikelets are three-flowered with very long awns,
and the awned fruits so closely resemble artificial
flies as to be successfully used by anglers as sub-
stitutes.
False Oat-grass, or Common Oat-like Grass,
Arrhenathernm avenaceum [Avena elatior), (Plate
4, Fig. 3), is a fibrous rooted weed-grass, common
in hedges, and on roadsides and dry soils, attain-
ing sometimes a height of 3 feet, and flowering
from May to July. It produces a quantity of
bitter-tasted herbage, not liked by cattle, and
containing only a small proportion of nutritive
matter. Its composition is shown in analysis No.
41. Another species, Arr/ienatherum bulbosum, is
distinguished by its tuberous roots, and the paler
colour of its foliage ; it is really a mere variety.
Soft-grass, also called Meadow Soft-grass, Woolly
Soft-grass, or Yorkshire Fog, Ifolcus lanatus
(Plate 4, Fig. 4), is a plant with fibrous roots
and downy leaves, and grows from 1 to 3 feet
high, flowering from ilay to July. It grows
naturally on poor light soils, and thrives on peaty
soils ; it is very productive and easy to cultivate,
but almost worthless, whether as hay or pasture ;
indeed, it has been recommended to sprinkle the
hay with salt to make it palatable.
Creeping or Bearded Soft-grass, Holcus mollis,
has fewer culms, broader leaves, looser panicles, and
longer awns, and is much less frequent than
H. lanatus, preferring hedges and copses. It
flowers in July. On account of its strong creeping
roots, it is useful on railway embankments and
sandy slopes. These soft grasses, especially //.
lanatus, sometimes occur to an alarming extent in
meadows and pastures ; when this is the case,
no pains should be spared to exterminate them
so as to make room for better ones.
Rough Cock's-foot Grass, Dacti/lis glomerata
(Plate 3, Fig. 5). Fibrous, somewhat spreading
roots, rough stems growing 2 to 3 feet high.
Flowers from June to August. A glance at the
coloured sketch will at once enable the reader to
recognise this grass whenever he sees it, as there
is no other grass so similar to it in general ap-
pearance as to be likely to be mistaken for it. As
it thrives well under the shade and drippings of
trees, it has in America received the name of
" Orchard grass." It will grow on all kinds of
soil, a damp soil with dry subsoil, allowing fret,
growth to its roots, appearing to suit it best.
Cock's-foot is really a most excellent grass, as will
be seen from the analysis (No 42) of its hay, the
only precaution required being not to let it grow
too old before cutting, as it then becomes wiry and
tough. It. is of rapid growth, forming unsightly
tufts, and should enter into all mixtures of seeds
for permanent pasture, where the regular cropping
of sheep and cattle will ensure its being constantly
consumed while young and juicy. The Secre-
tary of the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture
■writes : — " This is one of the most valuable and
widely known of all the pasture grasses. It is
common to every country in Europe, to the north
of Africa, and to Asia, as well as America. Its
-culture was introduced into England from Virginia
in 1764. It forms one of the most common
grasses of English natural pastures on rich, deep,
moist soils. It became, soon after its introduc-
tion into England, an object of special agricultural
interest among cattle-feeders, having been found
to be exceedingly palatable to stock of all kinds.
Its rapidity of growth, the luxuriance of its after-
math, and its power of enduring the cropping of
cattle, commend it highly to the farmer's care,
especially as a pasture grass. As it blossoms
earlier than timothy and about the time of red
clover, it makes an admirable mixture with
that plant to cut in the blossom and cure for
hay. As a pasture grass it should be fed close,
both to prevent its forming thick tufts and to
prevent its running to seed, when it loses a
large proportion of its nutritious matter and
becomes hard and wiry. All kinds of stock eat
it greedily when green." Cock's-foot grows wild
on most roadsides, and if the young stem is
drawn between the closed teeth, its sweet juicy
character will be perceived.
The genus Pod, includes the so-called meadow-
grasses, always noticeable in a hay-field at the
time of flowering by their elegant panicles.
168
DAIRY FARMING.
Their genoral luiiiit will Le ajiparriit on ivforrinji;'
to the sketches of the three species represented
in Plate 3. We shall briefly notice the more
important meadow-grasses, and then point out how
to distinguisli between them.
Annual Meadow-grass, Poa annua (Plate 3,
Fig. 6). This little grass only attains a height
of 6 to 10 inches. It grows almost everywhere,
and may be seen in flower any time between April
and September. It is about the only flowering
plant which grows naturally in the squalid courts
and lanes of crowded cities, springing up from
the earth between paving stones. Being an annual,
it is, of course, unsuited to permanent pasture,
and even for one year's lay it is never intentionally
included in seed mixtures, on account of its meagre
produce. Nevertheless, as the plant will spring
up, produce its flower, and ripen its seeds within
a period of six or eight weeks, the annual meadow-
grass is naturally widely disseminated, and may
be found in all pastures. An analysis of its hay
is given (No. 43).
Smooth-stalked Meadow-grass, Poa prafennis
(Plate 3, Fig. 7) . Root creeping, and forming
numerous horizontal offshoots; stem smooth, round,
1 to 2 feet high ; leaves broad, upper leaf shorter
than its sheath ; spikelets oblong, with four
or five florets in each. Flowers from end of
]\Iay to July. This grass occurs plentifully in
all dry meadows, and is of a bright green colour
in early spring. As a pasture grass it is considered
of medium quality, but as its patch-like mode of
growth enables it to overcome other grasses, it
is not in high favour with the farmer. It is
noted for early yield, and should be cut while in
flower if intended for hay, as if left till the seeds
are ripe, a considerable loss in feeding value
results. This grass is rather liable to attacks of
rust. No. 44' is an analysis of the hay. In the
United States of America, Poa pralcnsis is called
" Kentucky blue grass."
Flat-stalked Meadow-grass, Poa cowj^rcssa , also
has a creeping root, but its stem is somewhat
flattened, and the upper leaf is as long as its
sheath. It is called " June grass " in America,
and is of little importance.
Rough-stalked Meadow-grass, Poa frivialls
(Plate 3, Fig. 8). Fibrous root; rough stem,
IS inches to 2 feet high. Flowers in June,
and ripens its seeds during second half of
July. The ovale spikelets contain three florets.
It thrives best in low (Lunj) situations, such as
heavy clays, and the moist fertile loams of irrigatetl
mcadow.s, and constitutes a considerable part of
river-side grass. It prefers sheltered situations, as
it cannot withstand the sun's heat, and dies off dry
exposed soils in four or five years. It therefore
grows best in mixtures of upright grasses, as
fescues and rye-grasses. As it contains most
nutrient matter when the seeds are ripe, it should
not be cut till then ; a loss of about one-quarter
is sustained by cutting in flower. Cattle, horses,
and sheep are very partial to it, and it yields a fair
aftermath. It is quite unsuited to upland pastures.
Analysis No. 45 shows the composition of the hay.
Wood Aleadow-grass, Poa nemoralls, has
fibrous, somewhat creeping roots, and smooth
stems 18 inches to 3 feet high. Leaves long
and narrow. The panicle is loose and rather one-
sided, and the spikelets contain usually three
or four florets. It flowers in June and July, the
seeds being ripe early in August. This is a
common grass in woods; it lies thicker on the
ground than P. trlrlalin or P. jijra(f(?;(«/.>, and forms
a good close sward under trees, and is therefore suit-
able for lawns. The leaves, which are of a light
green colour, are somewhat intertwined below,
thus producing a dense growth which enables
this grass to displace weeds of one or two years'
duration. Rough meadow-grass shows a pre-
ference for limestone soils, and is susceptible to
rust. It produces a fine succulent nutritious
herbage, and may be relied upon for early spring
growth.
As P. pralensli, P. fririalh, and P. nemoralh
are all of common occurrence, it is very useful to be
able to distinguish each from the other two. The
reader will already have gleaned certain general
distinctive characters ; in addition to these, how-
ever, some very practical distinctions are based on
the form of the ligule : in P. pralensis the ligule
is ohinac but prominent, in P. trivialis it is long
a.MApuinfcfl,,a,x\A in P. nemornlis so very short as to
be practically absent. As the application of these
tests only requires the bending of the leaf away
from the stem so as to bring the ligule into view,
they will be found far more generally useful
than the truly botanical distinctions founded on
minute differences in the structure of the florets.
Floating Sweet-grass, Water-grass, ]\Ianiia-
grass, Glyceria fnilans. Root-stock stout, widely
creeping. Stems about 3 feet high, leaves
FESCUE GRASSES.
IG'J
narrow. Distinguislietl by its slender sliglitly
spreadint^ panicle, and long linear spikelets con-
taining from six to twelve florets. Flowers from
June to August. This is essentially a water-grass,
and is readily eaten by cattle and sheep. As it
grows naturally by the water-side, it is well
adapted for irrigated grounds and moist situations,
as in the Fen country, for example. Its herbage
is succulent and abundant. Floating sweet-grass
is cultivated in Germany for its seeds, which are
sold under the name of manna-seeds, and used
in soups and gruels. Another botanical name for
this grass is Poajliiifans.
Water Meadow-grass, or Reedy "Water-grass,
Glycena aqiuitiea, grows under similar condi-
tions to G. Jluitans, but has a very creei)ing root
and a stem 4 to 6 feet high. It yields an
immense bulk of coarse nutritious herbage,
forming in marshy localities rich summer pasture,
and yielding winter fodder. Also called Fua
aqiiafica.
Quaking Grass, Briza media (Plate 4, Fig.
5), will be at once recognised from the sketch.
This elegant grass is commonly met with in poor
pastures, but is of no agricultural value, its her-
bage being extremely scanty. To get rid of it
seeds of superior grasses should be sown, as in their
presence the quaking grass disappears. As it
frequently occurs in hay, an analysis (No. 46)
is quoted. Other names for it are Maiden's-
hair, Lady's-hair, Cow-quakes. Its height is 6
to 18 inches, and it flowers in June. The
Lesser Quaking Grass, Briza minor, is a smaller
variety, while Briza maxima, an annual, is a
fine handsome species with very large spikelets,
introduced into our flower-gardens from Southern
Europe.
The Fescue Grasses, belonging to the genus
Festnca, have, especially just before flowering, a
habit very similar to that of grasses of the genus
Poa. As a rule, the two genera may be distin-
guished from each other thus : in Poa the florets
are not awned, whereas in Feshica the florets are
awned from the summit of the flowering
glume.
Sheep's Fescue, Festnca oviiia (Plate 3, Fig.
9) . Roots fibrous ; stem erect, angular, 3 to
1;J inches high. Panicle upright, compact up
to the time of flowering. Spikelets alternately
arranged, and containing from four to six florets
with short awns. Flowers in June and July.
This, the best known fescue, is a great favourite
with sheep. It forms the chief natural grass in
the Highlands of Scotland, in the mountains of
Wales, and in hilly districts generally, especially
on thin limestone soils of rocky uplands, as for
example the carboniferous limestone of Derbyshire.
It yields a sweet nutritious herbage ; the leaves
are of a dark green colour, and grow in tufts, and
as they ai-e very narrow or bristle- shaped, the
herbage has a wiry appearance. Notwithstanding
its excellent properties as a pasture-grass, sheep's
fescue cannot be recommended for the hay-field
on account of the smallness of its produce. Pro-
bably a variety of F. ovina is the Narrow-leaved
Sheep's Fescue, F. tenuifolia, distinguished by its
less tufted mode of growth, its long, slender, light
green leaves, and its looser panicle without awns.
Hard Fescue, Festuca diiriusmila, differs from
F. ovina in having somewhat creeping roots, and
the culm just under the panicle round and smooth,
while in F. ovina it is usually angular and
roughish ; again, the upper leaf of hard fescue
is smooth on the outer surface, that of sheep's
feseue being rough. It grows in moist hilly
places, and is a capital grass under cultivation.
The composition of its hay is given in analysis
No. 47. Closely allied to hard fescue is the Red
Fescue, Fesfuca rubra, which is rather taller in
growth, attaining a height of 2 feet or more, and
its spikelets have a reddish tinge. It is very
suitable for loose dry soils.
Meadow Fescue, Fesluca praiensis. Root
fibrous ; stem smooth, round, and 1 to 2 feet
high. The leaves are flat, not bristle-shaped,
like those of F. ovina. The panicle is nearly
upright, rather loose, and the spikelets each
contain five to six florets. This is a large-
growing grass, but its leaves are tender and
juicy. It does not grow in tufts like F. ovina, nor
does it thrive on dry soils, but luxuriates in rich
well-drained clayey loams, and is therefore emi-
nently suited for moist river-side meadows. As an
early and productive grass it is recommended both
for permanent pasture and alternate husbandry.
It yields an abundant supply of herbage quite
as early as meadow fox-tail, and is superior to the
latter in nutritive projierties. For hay, it should
be cut in flower, as it loses much by being left till
the seed is ripe.
Spiked or Darnel-leaved Feseue, Festnca loliacea,
is very similar in appearance to Lolinni pereniie
170
DAIRY FARMING.
(Plate 3, Fig. U), Imt the leaves of tlie former
are finer or more bristly than those of the latter,
and each s])ikelet has two outer glumes (the usual
number), whereas the spikelet of L. perenne has
only one outer glume, as will be mentioned when
treating of that grass. F. loliacea has no awn.
Tall Fescue, Fasluca elalior, also has flat leaves,
and it is distinguished from the other fescues men-
tioned by its greater size, its height varying from
iJ to 5 or () feet.
The foregoing fescues are all useful nutritious
grasses, and will usually be found iu natural
pastures on soils suitable to each kind.
The genus Bromus includes a number of sjjecies
which are quite useless from an agricultural ])oint
of view, and attention is therefore drawn to them
to enable the grower to identify them where they
occur, and to use means for their extirpation, as the
ground which they occupy may be much better
filled by more profitable species. The four com-
monest brome-grasses are Bromus asjjer, B. creel n^,
B. sterilin, and B. mnllis.
Rough Erome-grass, Bromus a.ipcr (Plate
4, Fig. 0), attains a height of 4 to G feet, and
grows chiefly in woods and copses. It is an
annual, and flowers from June to August. The
awns are short. Upright Brome-grass, Bromus
erect us (Plate 4, Fig. 7), grows to a height of
2 to 3 feet, and occurs in sandy fields and waste
places on dry soils. It is a perennial, flower-
ing at the same time as B. asper, which it re-
sembles in having short awns, but its spikelets
are usually of a darker colour. Barren Brome-
grass, Bromus sicrills (Plate 4, Fig. 8), unfor-
tunately belies its name, for it is productive of
a large number of seeds which get scattered and
serve to reproduce this undesirable grass. It is
from 1 to 2 feet high, and is a common weed-
grass in fields. Like B. asper, it is an annual,
flowering from June to August. In outward
appearance, also, it is like B. asper, but differs
from it in its ten/ long awns. Soft Brome-grass,
Bromus mollis (Plate 4, Fig. 9), is pcrhai)s the
commonest of the brome-grasses. Its height
varies from 6 ihches to 2 feet, and it is abun-
dant on roadsides and mai-gins of fields. It is
an annunl or biennial, and flowers from May to
June or July. The spikelets are shaped like a
lance-head, and the awns project a little beyond
tiiem. Smooth Rye Brome-grass, Bromus secalhius,
is an annual, and closely resembles B. mollis, but
differs in that the florets are rather more spreading
in the spikelet. B. secalinus, again, is of larger
growth than B. mollis, and in the former the awns
arc shorter than the florets, whereas in the latter they
are as long as the florets. The rye brome-grass is
a troublesome weed in wheat and rye fields, and
it should be destroyed early in the season, when it
is easily distinguished by the different appearance
of its foliage from that of the young crop. This
])lant is the so-called "cheat" of the United States
corn-fields. Its seeds, when they get mixed with
wheat or rye, make the bread produced from them
very unpalatable.
Crested Dog's-tail Grass, Cj/nosurus cris/n/us
(Plate 3, Fig. 10). Root fibrous. Smooth
upright stem, bearing usually five leaves with
smooth sheaths. The leaves are short, rather
narrow, and tapering. It grows to a height of
I or 2 feet, and flowers in June and July. The
interrupted spike-like panicle, as represented in the
sketch, suffices for the detection of this grass. It
grows naturally on dry pastures, but will thrive
well in damp tenacious soils or in irrigated meadows.
As its foliage is not coarse, and as it does not
grow in tufts, it is useful for lawns and other
swards kept under by the scythe. Dog's-tail is
juicy and soft at the time of flowering, and for
hay (analysis No. 48) should be cut then, as it
contains far more nourishment at this stage than
later on. Owing to its short and somewhat fine
herbage it is not a heavy crop. Cattle, sheep, and
deer are very fond of it, but they will not eat
the culms, and these, brown and withered, may
often be seen standing erect late in the autumn,
and forming " the bents so brown ;" they afford
useful material in the manufacture of straw-
plat.
To the genus Trilicum belongs the troublesome
weed called couch or twitch grass, but this is more
than compensated for by its including that
most useful grass, the wheat -plant. A closely
allied genus is Lolium, to which the rye-grasses
belong. Trilicum differs from Lolium in the
following particulars : in Trilicum, as in most
genera of grasses, there are fioo outer glumes to the
spikelet, whereas in Lolium there is only one,
and that one occurs on the side away from the
axis, as may be seen by examining the spikelets
of any rye-grass. Furthermore, the .spikelets iu
Trilicum are fixed broadside to the axis, as may
be seen in a wheat car; in Lolium, on the other
COUCH-GRASS AND RYE-GRASS.
171
liaiid, the spikelets are fixed t'diji'irise to the
axis.
Coueh-o-i-ass, Triticiim repeiis (Plate 4, Fig'.
10), is a very variable j)laiit, with stems grow-
ing from 1 to 4 feet high, and flowering from
June to August. This grass, owing to its creeping
habit, can only be looked upon as a pest, more
cspeeiully in arable "land, where its straggling
underground stems, ramifying in every direction
in the loose soil, offer serious obstacles to cultiva-
tion, and, what is worse, the fragments into
which the plough or spade breaks up the pros-
trate stem will themselves become independent
centres of growth, and thus spread the nuisance.
Animals only eat the herbage when it is quite
young, but they are very fond of the creeping
stem, which is juicy and sweet, and contains about
three times as much nutrient matter as the por-
tions above ground. In Italy these underground
stems are collected, washed, and sold as food for
horses. The Sea Wheat Grass, TrUicum junceum,
and the Dog-wheat or Bearded Wheat Grass, T.
caninum, which is awned, are much rarer species
than couch-grass.
Common Rye-grass, Lolium perenne (Plate 3,
Fig. 11), has fibrous roots, and smooth stems
growing to a height of 18 inches or 2 feet. It
flowers in ^lay and June. Any one unacquainted
with this grass would be able to identify it imme-
diately by means of the coloured sketch ; observe
that there are no awns. Rye-grass is liable to
great variation, there being as many as sixty or
seventy varieties. Examples are the Devon Eaver
grass, Lolium Bevotiiensis, and Pacey's variety,
L. perenne Pacei/annm, which is an intermediate
variety as regards size, and sends up a large bulk
of good herbage after hay-harvest. L. perenne
semperrirens is a very green rye-grass that keeps
its colour well. Analyses of rye-grass and its hay
are given (Nos. 24, 49).
Italian Rye-grass, Lolium ifalicum (Plate 3,
Fig. 12), should perhaps be considered as only a
variety of L. perenne, which it closely resembles,
but is taller, has longer flower spikes, and is
furnished with aivns, whereas L. perenne is awnless.
L. italiemn is an early grass, and its yield when
grown on sewage-dressed land is extremely large.
As it is not always to be relied upon as a peren-
nial, it is best adapted for alternate husbandry.
Analyses Nos. 25 and 50 refer to this grass.
The two foregoing rye-grasses are excellent
forage plants, and are generally grown witli clo\cr
or sainfoin as spring crops. Common rj-e-grass
on loamy soils forms a close turf, and Italian
rye-grass can frequently be cut three times in a
summer.
Darnel, Poison or Bearded Darnel, Jjolium
temulentum (Plate 3, Fig. 13), is a much less
desirable grass than its congeners. It is very
much like L. itulicum, but differs from that and
from L. perenne in the fact that the solitary outer
glume is longer than the spikelet to which it
belongs, and further from L. perenne in that it
is awned. Darnel is a noxious weed, and poisonous
properties are attributed to it; its seeds mixed
with cereals cause vomiting and intoxication in
animals eating them. It is found chiefly in
cultivated fields, and foreign seeds, notably flax,
usually contain darnel seed. Fortunately this
grass is not very plentiful in Britain, and it is
needless to add that where it is observed growing
it should be effectually eradicated. It is, how.
ever, quite a pest in some of the Californian
corn-districts, where it is termed "cheat,'' the
same name being given to Bromus secalinus on
the east side of the Rocky Mountains.
The Barley-grasses, belonging to the genus
Hordeum, and bearing a close resemblance to
the cereal barley, which is also included in this
genus, are rather commonly met with, especially
on gravelly roadsides. They are never cultivated,
and are therefore to be regarded as weed-grasses,
the long brittle awns of the inflorescence piercing
the skin, or irritating the intestines of animals
which eat them. Grasses of the genera Slipa and
Calamagrosfis are objectionable for a similar reason.
Many of the foregoing details, such as height
and time of flowering, can only be taken as
approximately true, as they vary according to
climate, soil, season, and so on. Mixtures of seeds
might, perhaps, have been looked for here, but
as local variations in soils are so common we could
hardly have hoped to have constructed lists which
would have been capable of general application.
Indeed, since the time when Mr. A. C. Wheeler,
the head of the Gloucester firm of seed-growers,
first directed attention to the geological characters
of soils as a guide to the composition of the
grass-seed mixture fittest for them, seed-merchants
have been bestowing more and more attention in
this direction, and have, as the result of accumu-
lated experience, not only been able to construct
n-2
DAIUV FARMING.
general taljles, Imt are aMo, wlu'ii funiisliwl
with full particulars, to "prescribe" mixtures I'or
exceptional soils.
Here we may conveniently introduce a
List of C'lltivated Gkasses.
jtgrostii stolon i/cra ...
A lofccurits pyateuttia . . .
AiUhoxtttithtim odoratum
Arena JUtvcseem
A vena p itbesccns
i'ynonurus cri»tatu$ ...
Daclylis glomcrata
Fcntiica duriusciila
Fcstuea elatior
Featuca hettrophyUu . .
Festucu loliacea
Fesluca ovina
Festnca pratensis
Fcstuea rubra
Fesluca tenuifolia
Glyceria aquatica
Glyceria Jluitans
Lolinm Devoniensii
Lolium italicum
Lolium Faceyanum ...
Lolium perenne
Lolium sempervirrns ...
F/ih'um pratense
Poa ncmoralis
Foa prutensis
Foa trivialis
Cieepiii"; Bent-grass
Meadow Fox-tail,
Sweet Vernal.
Yellow Oat-gi-ass.
Hairy Oat-giass.
Crested Dog's-tail.
Rough Cock s-foot.
Hard Fescue.
Tall Fcseue.
Various-leaved Fescue.
Darnel-leaved Fescue.
Sheep's Fescue.
Meadow Fescue.
Ked Fescue.
Fine-leaved Fescue.
Water Meadow-grass.
Floating Sweet gra.- s.
Devon Eaver grass.
Italian Rye-gi-ass.
Pacej-'s Rye-grass.
Common Rye-grass.
Evergreen Rye-grass.
Timothy, or Cat's-tail
Wood Meadow-grass.
Smooth-stalked Meadow-grass.
Rough-stalked Meadow-grass.
It will l)c noticed that the fescues, rye-f^rasses,
awl meadow-grasses furnish »more than half
till' whole number. Other genera, again, are
totally unrepresented — A/ra, llolcus, Briza,
Bromus, TrUicum, Ilordeum.
How often have we seen a farmer strolling
contentedly through his mciidows just before
hay-harvest, and gazing complacently at the big
crop he would shortly gather in ! A Mg crop,
ti-uly, and yet we have felt sorry when a walk
through the meadows has convinced us that more
than half of it would consist of quaking, brome,
and soft grasses, with others equally undesirable.
And as we have looked at the great quantity,
and thought of the jioor quality, we have at
the same time thought how much it would be to
the advantage of the farmer to make himself
ac(juaiuted with the grasses, so that he miglit
be able to repress the bad species in favour of
the good.
Before leaving the Gramhiecc. we desire to
call attention to a few other analyses of products
yielded by this very useful order. No. 51 is
an analysis of ordinary' meadow-hay of average
quality. No. 27 snows the composition of green
rye (the cereal, Secale cereale, a jjlant distinct
from rye-grass), and No. iQ> that of green maize
(Indian corn, Zea Mais), which will not perfect
itself in so cold a climate as that of Britain, but is
largely cultivated in the United States of America ;
they both alford green fodder. Analyses are also
quoted of the following cereals, which are all more
or less used by millers in the ])reparation of various
kinds of meal for stock-feeding : wheat, barley,
rye, maize, millet, dari, rice, and tlu' nutritious
oatmeal (Nos. o7 to GJ).
Unfortunately, the grasses and cei'cals are
subject to serious diseases, which arise from the
plants becoming infested with the spores or germs
of certain parasitic fungi. These spores germinate
in the plant and send out in all directions fine
branches or tubes called Iii/pha, which break
through the walls of the cells constituting the
tissue of the plant, and derive their nourishment
from the material which the plant had olitaiiied for
its own use. As a consequence the ])lant sickens
and the parts attacked become rotten, the fungus
meanwhile luxuriating in the destruction and decay
which it has effected, and producing fresh crops of
spores which bj' vario\is agencies are transmitted to
ncighljouring healthy ]ilants, and these in their
DISEASES OF PLANTS.
17J
Fig. G9.— Sectkin through
OV.\RY OF M.IIZE, AT-
TACKED BY Smut.
immediately lieueath.
%
turn become also tlio prey of disease. These fui)<;'al
diseases are known by such names as smut, Ijiuit ,
rust, mildew, and ergot. Some attack one part of a
plant, others another.
Smut attacks the younti'
seed, and sometimes it de-
stroys the glumes as well.
It is indicated by masses
of dark-coloured dust (the
spores) emerging from the
iuHoreseenee, and perhaps
from that jiortion of the stem
Barley, rye, wheat, and es-
pecially oats are attacked by smut, wild grasses being
less liable. In warmer countries, maize and millet
suffer, swellings us large as a turnip being some-
times produced in the former (Figs. (58 and 09).
The bunt, brand, or pepper-brand infests all
kinds of wheat, spelt being less liable to attack
than other sorts, and winter wheat
less than spring wheat. This fun-
gus, like smut, attacks the young
seed, which it destroys and re-
places by a black greasy sub-
stance of disagreeable odour.
Fig.s. 70 and 71.^
Rust and mildew attack chiefly
the leaves and stems, and not
often the seads, so that the injury
rests chiefly in the very bad quality
of the straw ; nevertheless, the
grains suffer to some extent. Rust
is first indicated by blotches of
browh rust-coloured dust breaking
out on the surface of the jjlant.
Certain spnres are then produced
which get transferred to the bar-
berry plant, on the leaves of which
another stage in the life-history
of the fungus is completed, re-
sulting in the production of a
new set of spores which can only
germinate on wheat or some similar
plant. This disease usually attacks
wheat, barley, and oats ; it is
Fig. 70.— Bunt less frequent in rye and pasture-
grasses. Mildew forms a delicate
web-like covering on the green leaves of clovers,
turnips, mangolds, &c.
Ergot, or ergot of rye, as it is frequently called,
is a disease more to be dreaded than those already
\\
mentioned, for not only does it involve practically
the destruction of the grass it infests, but it also
produces a substance which is in itself highly
dangerous, and which, if taken internally, is
capable of producing abortion in cows and mares.
A case is on record of a Shropshire cattle-breeder
having lost £1,^00 in three
years from this cause. This
disease attacks the young
ovary, or seed-vessel, which
becomes at first enclosed by
a soft mass of hyphse-tissue.
This is accompanied by a lioney-
like secretion, and followed by
the conversion of the entire
ovary into a hard blackish
mass, similar in shape to the
rye-grain but much lengthened. Fig- 71-— Bunted Grain
It is to this hard bluish-black "'' ^V"'^^^ (™'«'-^^''')-
substance that the name of "ergot" is popularly
given, and the representation of an ergotised grass
at this stage is seen in Plate 4, Fig. 11. Where
rye-bread is used, the ergot sometimes gets ground
up with the rye-grains in the preparation of the
flour, and very disastrous, sometimes fatal, results
have ensued to the people who have eaten it,
gangrenous diseases being the usual consequence.
Ergot attacks a great many grasses and cereals,
rye being notably subject to its ravages. The
cultivated grasses which most frequently become
ergotised are timothy grass {P /ileum pratense),
fox-tail [Alojieeurns pratemis), tall fescue
{Fcstnca elatior), floating sweet-grass {Gli/ceria
Jiuilans), rye-grass {Loliiuii perennc). Of weed-
grasses, those most liable to attacks of ergot are
soft brome-grass [B ramus mollii), meadow brome
{B. pmtensis), couch-grass [Triticum rejiens), and
wall barley-grass {Hordenm murimim) .*
We may here refer to certain flowering-plants
which are more or less parasitic on forage crojjs,
and the rise or spread of which the cultivator
should do his best to check. Those we have
selected are the dodder, broom-rape, yellow-rattle,
and eye-bright.
Clover Dodder, Cnscufa minor (Plate 4, Fig.
13), is a j)lant belonging to the order Convol-
vur.ACE.i;, which includes the well-known bind-
weed, or field convolvuh s Convolmlns arvensis.
* See an article on " The (Jronth of Erfjot," by Professor
Henry Tanner, in the Live Hlock Jouriuil, October 31, 1879,
page 317.
174
DAIRY FARMING.
Till' (jdddcr ni;iy Keconie a seriuus post in clovor-
fields, wliere it usually obtains a footing' through
its small seeds having been sown with those of
the clover. The dodder-seed germinates in the
ground and the young shoot trailing over a clover
stem develops small sucking rootlets which ))ene-
trate into the tissue of the hoat, and enable the
])arasite to abstract nutriment from the clover to
a.ssist in its own growth. Like all truly parasitic
plants, dodder contains no green colouring matter,
its colour being pale yellow to whitish, except
towards the tips of the stems, where it is pinkish.
It can easily be discerned from a distance in a
clover-field by the light-coloured patches it pro-
duces. The stem of the dodder will encircle
that of the clover many times, and is not easy
to detach. Usually the interlacing stems of the
parasite are seen at the surface, the heads of flowers
being underneath ; the whole plant has a faint
aromatic odour. If a mass of dodder be stripped
away by hand from the ground, the hands will
become sticky, owing to a moist adhesive matter
on the surface of the dodder, and the ground
which is thus exposed will be seen to have every
trace of clover on it destroyed. Other species
of dodder attack the flax-plant and the stinging-
nettle.
Broom-rape, Orohanclie M/'iior (Plate 4, Fig.
12), is a yellowisb-brown plant parasitic on the
roots of clover. It is stated that the seeds of
this plant remain dormant in the soil until they
come in contact with the roots of the plant on
which the parasite preys, when they at once
germinate. The minute irregularly-shaped seeds
get introduced in imperfectly-cleaned clover-seed.
The height of the broom-rape plant varies from
0 inches to 2 feet. Other species are parasitic on
the roots of broom, furze, and milfoil.
Yellow-rattle, It/iinaiil/iiis Crlsla-rjaUi (Plate
2, Fig. {)), and I'Jye-bright, Euphrasia officinalis
(Plate 2, Fig. 10), both belong to the order
SciiOPHULARiACE/E, which includes such wild plants
and weeds as toad-flax, snap-dragon, figwort, fox-
glove, speedwell, brooklime, liartsia, and cow-wheat,
most of which are characterised by the irregular
form of the corolla, as in the snap-dragon. Roth
yellow-rattle and eye-bright have the reputation
of being parasitic on the roots of grasses; they
are not, however, completely parasitic, as they con-
tain green colouring matter, and therefore dilTcr
from dodder and broom-rape. They generally
occur in jioor jiastures, and their presence is a
sure indication of bad soil. To get rid of them
the land should be well cleaned and manured.
The yellow-rattle is called horse-penny in some
districts. The louse-wort and cow-wheat are
similar partial parasites belonging to the same
natural Older.
Of non-flowering jilants, two may be mentioned
as being used for cattle-food — Iceland moss and
Irish moss. They are unfortunately named, as
neither of them is really a moss. The true mosses,
indeed, are quite valueless to the stock-feeder,
and when they occur in a pasture a wholesome
ajiplication of the brush-harrow, followed by a
course of good manure, will be found useful for
effecting their eradication.
Iceland moss, Cefraria islandiea, is really a
lichen, one of that class of curious, many-coloured
vegetable growths seen on rocks, old walls, tree-
trunks, &c. It grows plentifully in cold regions,
upon otherwise barren rocks, and occurs in the
mountainous districts of Britain. The reindeer
subsists largely on Iceland moss, the bitter
taste of which disappears after soaking in a
weak solution of carbonate of soda. Its per-
centage composition is :
Water
Albuminoids
Lichen-starch
Lichen-acids, &c.
Crude filjre...
Ash
10-0
8-7
700
6-3
3-5
lo
innn
Irish moss, Chondnis crispus, is a sea-weeJ
occurring plentifully on our rocky coasts. It is
used both as human food and as cattle-food, and
consists chiefly of a gummy substance which forms
a stiff paste with boiling water. Its composition,
as sold, is :
Water
Albuminoids
Carbo-hydiates (mucilage, ic.)
Crude fibre...
Ash
18-8
9-4
00 i
2-2
14-2
1000
The important subject of seeds, with their
adulterations, deserves more than the passing note
we are able to give it. The old practice of saving
seeds from his own crop is now seldom adopted by
the farmer, as he finds it more to his advantasje to
COMPOSITION OF FEEDING-STUFFS.
17i;
ROOTS.
GREEN FODDER.
1 1 2
3
4
a
6
7
8
»
10 1 11
1?
13
14
.
^
Bed Clover.
Alsike.
t*
T3
1
O
o
§
li
1
1
of
'la
ll
li
— i
ll
1^ s
5
^•=
Water
920
8D-0
85-0
87-0
86-3
88-0
81-5
89-0
80-5
83-0
78-0
85-0
82-0
81-5
Albuminoids
1-1
1-1
1-4
1-2
1-6
1-1
1-0
1-5
3-5
3-3
3-2
3-3
3-3
2-7
Carbo-hydrates
5-3
7-9
10-8
9-6
10-2
9-1
15-4
5-8
7-2
7-0
9-5
5-1
6-3
7-3
Fat
01
0-2
0-2 •
0-2
0-2
0-1
0-1
0-5
0-8
0-7
0-8
0-6
0-6
0-7
Crude Fibre
0-8
0-9
1-7
r2
1-0
0-9
1-3
2-0
6-0
4-5
6-8
4-5
6-0
0-2
Ash
07
0-6
0-9
0-8
0-7
0-8
0-7
1-2
2-0
1-0
1-7
1-5
1-8
16
100-0
100-0
loo-o
100-0
100-0
100-0
100-0
100-0
1000
100-0 100-0
100-0
1000
100-0
GREEN FODDER (continued).
15
16 1 17
18
19
20
21
23
23
24
25
26
27
Lucerne.
■s .
•Si
"Sa
S
>
i
A GO
II
Si
on
Young.
In ear'y
blossom.
6
Water
800
810
71-0
80-0
84-0
85-3
53-0
89-2
70-0
70-0
73-4
82-2
70-0
3-5
4-5
4-5
3-2
2-4
3-1
6-3
1-4
3-4
3-6
3-6
1-2
3-3
Carbo-hydraies
8-2
7-2
9-2
8-2
6-4
6-6
20-1
6-2
13-3
12-8
12-1
10-3
Fat
0-8
0-6
0-8
0-6
0-4
0-3
1-1
11
10
10
Crude Fibre
60
5-0
9-5
6-5
5-4
3-5
11-9
1-8
80
10-6
7-1
4-7
Ash
1-5
1000
1-7
20
1-5
1-4
1-2
1-3
1-4
2-2
20
2-8
11
1-6
100-0
1000
100-0
1000
100-0
100-0
100-0
100-0
100-0
1000
100-0
1000
28
u
O
s
29
5
M
30
5
31
'32
33
34
35
36
37
3S
39
40
41
1
O
S
I
42
43
44
45
46
•i
1
n
1
o
l>
1
£
1
1
i
•3
e
1
S3
0 i
Smooth Mea-
dow-grass.
Rough Meadow-
0
i
Water
16-5
160
ifi-n
16-7
16-7
160
16-7
16-7
16-7
14-3
14-3
14-3
14-3
14-3
14-3
14-3
14-3
H-3
14-3
14-3
12-3
15-0
12-2
14-6
14-4
13-3
14-2
11-3
9-7
10-6
8-9
6-4
11-1
11-6
33-9
3S-2
3«-7
32-6
33-2
27-9
34-2
32-S
34-2
45-8
37 0
37-3
40-4
32-6
380
'44-4
36-8
344
40-2
3-5
2-2
3-3
30
3-3
2-5
2-5
2-5
2-6
3-0
2-4
2-9
2-2
2-7
2-6
2-9
2-3
3-2
26
25-6
260
27-0
30-4
26-2
330
27-1
25-5
•J5-2
22-7
29-0
31-2
30-8
29-4
28-9
23-9
32-6
32-6
30-3
Ash
6-0
5-3
6-0
5-1
60
6-2
6-2
8-3
7-0
4-3 ' 6-7
5-4
5-9
9-9
4-6
21 51
7-1 7-4
100-0
1000
1000
100-0 100-0
1000
100-0
100-0
lOO-O
100-0 100-0
100-0
100-0
100-0 100-0
1
100-0 1 100-0 1 100-0 100.0
HATS (continu d).
SEEDS AND CEREALS.
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
69
60
61
62
63
64
■a
5
s
W
it
1
0
i
■^1
If
1
i
n
S
1
■5
>>
■3
s
1
a
8
'A
0
W
1-1
II
7-6
14-3
n
Hi
Water
14-3
14-3
14-3
14-3
143
140
145
13-4
145
14 6
130
14 5
139
12-2
14-6
5-0
Albuminoids
10-4
9-3
10-2
11-2
9-7
30-7
22-4
23 0
24 0
13 2
110
6 2
10-5
9-0
133
7 5
34-6
45-3
36-1
40-6
41-2
33-5
513
52 3
4!I0
63 6
69 0
Fat
n
2-8
2-7
3-2
2-3
10-2
2-3
•^3
26
34
12
13
16
50
30
Crude Fibre
33-2
2-Z-6
30-2
22 9
26-3
8-1
6-3
55
69
21
2 6
08
23
50
35
3-1
09
3-7
Ash
4-7
5-3
6-3
100-0
7-8
100-0
6-2
100-0
9-9
100-0
30
1000
29
30
23
17
1000
11
16
20
1000
16
100 0
100-0
100-0
1000
100-0
1000
100 0
1000
1000
1000
100-0
17G
DAIRY FAU.MING.
piircliase from seed-merchants, and there are many
reasons why tliis should be so. Thus, it would
scarcely pay the farmer to set up the various
mechanical contrivances by which seeds are cleaned,
nor would he, as a rule, be able easily to command
the services of a person well acquainted with
the various impurities which different sami)k'S
of seeds usually contain. Further, as the seed-
merchant works on a large scale, the expenses
are less than they otherwise would be, and the
seeds proportionately cheaper. Adulteration of
seeds is either accidental, intentional, or both. Of
the two, the accidental adulteration is usually the
more injurious; it occurs in imperfectly cleaned
samples, so that what is sold as a samj)le of the
seed required contains, in addition to the seeds
themselves, small sticks and stones, and seeds of
other plants, usually of ordinary weeds, or perhaps,
what is far worse, the seeds of such filants as
dodder, broom-riij)e, yellow-rattle, darnel, and even
ergot of rye, which from its appearance is often
mistaken for mice-dung. Intentional adultera-
tion is punishable by law, and is usually effected
by introducing into the sample for the sake of the
extra weight other valueless seeds which may or
may not have been " killed " by heating them. Of
course, if the added seed has first been killed,
far less harm is done to the crop than would other-
wise have been the case; it would suffer in quantity
rather than in quality. The best protection which
tlie grower has is to obtain his seed from a
thoroughly trustworthy firm, and at the same time
not to be too close-fisted, for lad seed is dear at any
price.
Explanation of tiik Analyses.
All plants contain water, more especially in the
green state; after being air-dried they are found
to have lost the greater portion of this water.
Albuminoids are bodies rich in nitrogen, and when
they occur in food-stuffs they are the only mate-
rials which play the part of Jh'sli-formers. Albu-
men (or white of cg\^), casein (the nitrogenous
compound in milk and cheese), and gluten (the
sticky clastic substance contained in wheat) may
be taken as examples of albuminoids. Carbo-
hi/drates contain carbon, hydrogen, and oxj'gen,
the two latter being present in the proportion in
which they occur in water; in food-stuffs carbo-
hydrates primarily perform the function of heat-
i/ircrs, and they are usually i)resent in the form
of some modification of starch or sugar. Thus,
in a grain of wheat, or in a potato, the chief
carbo-hydrate is starch, in beet-root it is sugar.
Fat, also, is a compound of carbon, hydrogen, and
oxygen, but the oxygen is present in a smaller pro-
portion than that in which it occurs in the carbo-
hydrates. Like these latter, fat assumes the function
of a heat-giver in the animal body. In the analyses
given on the preceding page, small quantities of wax
and green colouring matter are included under the
head of fat. Crude fibre is chiefly composed of a
carbo-hydrate called cellulose, and the fibre being
indigestible has no direct value as a food-stuff. The
ash, or mineral residue, is that which is left behind
after the plant is burnt in the air ; it consists
of inorganic compounds such as potash, lime,
magnesia, and silica, which the plant derived from
the soil. The value of a plant as a food-stuff must
be estimated from the amount of albuminoids,
or flesh-formers, and of carbo-hydrates, or heat-
givers, present ; fat, also, when it occurs, should be
taken into consideration. As an illustration of the
manner in which the analyses should be read,
let us take, say, Xo. 37, the hay of timothy grass.
^Ye learn from it that, on an average, 100 lbs. of
this hay would contain Hj'u His. of water, 9i'u lbs.
of albuminoids, 45 j^ lbs. of carbo-hydrates, ;3 lbs. of
fat, -l-l^s lbs. of indigestible fibre, aiul -I-tV lbs. of
ash. It may be mentioned here that recent in-
vestigations show that the percentage of albu-
minoids given in the analyses of the roots (Nos.
1 to 7) are somewhat above the truth. For about
one-half of the foregoing analyses we have to
thank Professor A. 11. Ciuireh; most of the others
are quoted after Professor l'',niil Wolff, of Hohen-
heim, and some of them a]ipear in an English form
for the first time. W. F.
Difference in Tal
CHAPTER XIII.
Hay-makixg.
between Good and Bad Hay— Time of Cutting— Mowing Maciiines— Hay-makers— Hay-loadcrs— Barns and
Stacks— Artiiicial Curing of Hay— Curing in Trenches.
, t'O the dairy-farmer It is always
a matter of great importance
that the hay-crop be well
secured, free from rain and
well made ; and the hay-
harvest in a fickle climate
^^^■^ like that of England is a
i '^VJ^ ])eiiod of considerable anxiety and
actiMtj. Most dairy-farmers depend
to a large extent on the hay-crop for
the wintering of stock, and some de-
I)?nd wholly on it ; hence it is very desirable that
the crop be harvested in good condition. Hay
that is well-harvested, cut at the proper time,
and neither under nor over dried, is very nearly
as valuable as its equivalent quantity of green
and succulent grass; while badly-harvested hay,
cut much too young or too old, sunburnt with
too much exposure, or badly weathered by
showers of rain, is so much reduced in value
as to be no better, and sometimes worse, than
so much straw. And in wintering stock on
hay of this kind, it is necessary to use a quantity
of corn to make up for the nutritive properties
of which the hay was defirived by improper or
unlucky harvesting. This corn is so much dead
loss to the farmer, for with good hay he would
have done just as well without it. There is some
ground, therefore, for the anxiety and energy that
are brought into play on a dairy-farm at the time
of hay-harvest. There is plenty c f excuse for the
laj'ing aside, for the time being, of all other farm
operations that can possibly afford to wait, and
for directing all the available force toward saving
the all-important hay-crop in the best possible
condition. IVhen this is done, the farmer always
feels as if a weight had been removed from his
mind. There is some difference of opinion as to
whether or not well-made hay is equal to the
grass from which it was made in outritious
properties and in general usefulness to stock.
The grass must, as a matter of course, be pre-
served in some way for use in winter ; it cannot
in this climate be left on the land and consumed
ill situ through the whole of the year. If it
were so left, it would not only become faded
and weather-beaten, the nutritive properties
having mostly gone back to the roots ; but
the cattle could not safely remain out of doors
to eat it. Green grass is, of course, the most
nearly perfect food for dairy-cows, and it
becomes a matter of importance that winter
forage should differ from it as little as may be,
that it should not suffer in feeding value, and
that it should be very nearly as palatable as
the grass was at the time of cutting it. When
the summer's sun is hot enough and not too
hot, when the grass is cut at the right stage
of growth, when the hay is carefully and in-
telligently made, and when there is no rain
about, aU the valuable properties of the grass
are secured in the hay, and water only is given
off in the drying. Even the colour, the sweet
taste, and the pleasant smell are retained, the
two latter improved and the former not much
reduced; and the solid constituents remain in
much the same state of combination as they
were in the grass.
Time of Cutting. — The time to cut meadow-
grass is when the complexion of the field
Ijer/ins to wear a brownish tinge. At this stage
the bulk of the grasses are flowering, and some
17'=l
DAiKv FAinrixo.
of the earliest ones have gone to seed. N'cry
heavy crops should be cut earlier , than this,
particularly sewag;* grass, or they will become
laid and rotten in the bottom. Clover should
be cut when the majority of the heads are
in blossom, for if it stands till it has done
fliiweriii"? the woody fibre increases and the
nutritive qualities decrease in proportion. All
grass and clover should, in fact, be cut a little
under rather than over ripe, as at this staj^e
they contain a considerable quantity of suyar,
gum, mucilage, albuminous and other soluble
compounds, which are all liable to be washed
out by repeated or long-continued showers of
rain, and ])articularly so after the hay is partly
made. While the grass is still newly cut and
fresh, a coating of waxy or oily matter is found
on the epidermis, giving it a waterproof cover-
ing and protecting it from injury by rain ; this
protection remains so long as the grass is fresh
and uiibruised, but when it has been turned
and knocked about repeatedly, the fibres are
more or less bruised or broken, the cell-walls
are lacerated, and the juices containing the soluble
constituents begin to ooze out and escape, un-
less the drying proceeds pretty rapidly, sealing
them up in the stems and leaves. If rain
falls at this period the drying is
cliecked, the escape of the compounds
is promoted, and fermentation sets in,
during which the two most valuable
properties of the hay are destroyed, viz.,
albumen and sugar. So in showery
weather it is atlvisable to leave the
grass or half-made hay quite alone; for
stirring them during rain, and when
there is no certainty of getting them
dried and made up into cocks in good
condition, does much more harm than
good. To make up into cocks hay that
is wet with rain-water is the surest
way to spoil the hay, and until the
rain ceases and the wet can be got out
of it, it is best to leave it quite alone.
The stirring bruises the hay all the more — a
result that is easily attained when it is full of
rain-water — and cocking it up wet only pro-
motes fermentation, so that no good whatever,
but great harm, comes of messing about among
it ill wet weather.
The following analyses by Ur. Voolckor ilius'-
trate the mischief which is done to hay by rain
and improper making :
Average Compusitios op Goon Ci.oveuhav.
Moisture ... 16G0
•Nitrogenous substances ... ... ... 15'81
Non-nitrogenous substances 60'00
Mineral matter (;ish) ... ... 7'.59
10000
CloVEK-HAY INJIUED BY RaIS, AND BAI>LY MADE.
Jloisturc ... ... ... ... ... 20-4o
tNitrogenous organic matter ... ... ... 8o0
Non-nitrogenous substances ... ... ... 6427
Mineral matter (ash) 6-78
10000
There is no good whatever in stirring hay about
when even the atmosphere is such that no drying
will take place. It is not enough that it is
not raining and that the hay has no rain-water
in it, for if the atmosphere be damp no moisture
will evaporate from the hay, consequently no
drying is going on, and the hay is far better
left alone without the bruising it gets in stirring
and knocking about. It is sun, or wind, or dry
air, or all these together that do the drying; and,
however valuable it may be with them, stirring
is absolutely worthless without them.
Mow ill ff Macliiiii's. — The invention of the
Fig. 72.— MowiNu ilACHiNE.
mowing-machine, and its general adoption through-
out the country, have completely changed the
features of hay-making. In Fig. 72 we give an
illustration of a two-horse grass-mower, by means
of which 8 or 10 acres of grass may be con-
• Containing nitrogen ... 2*.^2
t Containing nitrogen .. r36
HAY-MAKING.
179
veniently mown in oue day, ono mau and two
horses only boing' omj)loyt'd ; it' more is wanted
Fig. 73.- Sharpening Knii'e.
to be cutj a change o£ horses will be necessary,
and the driver will want attending to with
sharpened knives and other requisites. By far
the best method of sharpening mower-knives
is seen in Fig. 73. A fine grindstone running
in water will do the blades much less harm
than file-sharpening will, for the stone does not
destroy the tempering of the knife,
and when a treadle is attached to
the grindstone, one mau will
sharpen a knife in a very short
time. The three chief things to he
attended to in using a grass-mower
are sharpening, oiling, and driving ;
the rest will then take care of itself.
A good machine is an immense ad-
vantage to a farmer, if he has a
careful man to drive it, or if he drives
it himself; by setting to work at
three o'clock in the morning, several
acres may be cut before the heat of
the day comes on, and without op-
pressing either man or horses ; the
gi'ass is down ready for the morning's sun, and both
man and horses, after an hour's rest, are at liberty
for other work; or, when the weather is settled,
a large acreage can be cut by relays of horses.
A spell of fine weather is made the utmost use
26
of, and the harvest is over in a very short time;
or, if the weatlier is unsettled, the grass can be
left standing till there is better jiromise, and
then be quickly mown. It is difficult to say
whether a mower is of most striking value in
a settled or in an unsettled time of weather ; in
the latter case a few fine days can be made
the best use of, and in the former the harvest
is quickly over. Anyway, no farmer who cuts
10 acres of grass ought to be without a mower,
unless he can always depend on having the
mowing done by a neighbour at a moderate cost ;
and for small farms a one-horse will be found
preferable to a two-horse machine.
Haij-malcers. — Grass that is cut by machine lies
in good form for drying, and it may be left so
until next day if there is other work to do; and,
indeed, as a rule it .is as well left until next day,
unless the weather is unusually hot, and there is
a danger of its being sunburnt. It is difficult
to shake out machine swathes by hand or with
a fork, when they want tedding, simjjly because
they are so much spread over the land ; and to do
the work well a tedding-machine, or hay-maker
(Fig. 74), is required. However valuable a mower
may be, a tedder is hardly less so ; and, indeed,
the latter is almost a necessary sequel to the
former. The forward motion for tedding, and the
backward for turning, are each useful time after
time in the hay, and the hay-maker is a most
Fig. 74. — Hat-maker.
valuable machine ; it will do all that is required in
settled weather to make the hay dry enough for
stacking, and it is a good plan to keep it going
all day, repeatedly stirring the hay about, now
shaking it out and now turning it, mixing it well
180
DAIRY FARMING.
up tofijether, leavin<T it so light on the <j;r(iiiml that
sun auJ wind can get freely into it, and making it
Fig. 75.— HOHSE-RAKE.
better and quicker than can be done by hand. In
very hot weather the hay-maker is particularly
valuable; the hay requires to be constantly kept
stirring, so that the sun may not scorch a portion"
of it while the rest is still under-made. Sunburnt
hay is deprived of no small
portion of its nutritive pro-
perties, and it does not con-
tain enough moisture; the
only way to prevent this is
to stir it about as often as
possible, and for this purpose
the tedder is uncommonly
useful.
Horse-rakes. — In good
weather the hay will not re-
quire touching at all by
liaiul. The mower cuts it;
the tedder stirs it about,
leaving it light on the Held ; _
the sun and wind dry it, and
it is ready for stacking. At
this stage a horse-rake (Fig.
75) will be found a most useful inqilciiicnt, doing
the work of si.\ or eight men, who are thus set at
liberty for carting and stacking. A horse-rake with
four-feel-six wheels will collect the hay into rows
that are quite thick cninigh to cart from, leaving
the ground much cleaner than would be done by
hand, and in long
hay leaving it so
clean that it will
require no raking
afterwards ; in short
hay it will gene-
rally be found neces-
sary to rake the
ground after the
" putting - in " is
done, but this the
horse-rake will do,
crossing the direc-
tion taken before
and raking perfectly
clean. A boy riding
and a light horse
will do a large
amount of work in
a veiy short time
with one of these
self-acting horse-
rakes, and a farmer with 20 acres of hay will
always be repaid in a short time the capital laid
out in buying one of them.
Hay-loaders. — For large farms the hay-loader
(Fig. 76) is a very valuable implement. In con-
struction it is not unlike a liay-makcr : a revolving
frame with curvetl teeth places the hay on an end-
less web, which conveys it to the top of the load;
the horses arc kept g^ing, and the wheels of both
HAY-LOADER AT WORK.
181
wa<2jgon and luadcr are astride tlie row (if hay;
the machine is easily and qnickly attached to and
disengaged from any kind of harvesting cart or
waggon, and it takes up the hay as cleanly as a
fork ; it will raise a ton of hay from the wind-
row in live minutes, and it requires no exti-a
men or horses to work it; it will work satis-
factorily on all fairly level and even land, and
it can be used to gather loose grain-crops
with equal facility. These are the advantages
claimed for it. Fig. 77 shows the loader at work.
and in wliieli good seasons for securing crops are
the exception and bad ones the rule, it is a great
advantage to be able to avoid rick-making.
^^^lere there is a hay-barn the hay can be
secured load after load as it gets ready, but
where stacks are made it must either be made up
into " tramp-cocks," where it can remain until
there is sufficient to begin and finish a rick, or a
rick-cloth must be put up, as in Fig. 78, with the
poles stuck in cart-wheels or in the ground ; and
if neither of these precautions is adopted there is
Fig. 77.— Hay-loader at AYork.
These four machines — the mower, the tedder,
the raker, and the loader — costing no more than
two middling horses, are an excellent invest-
ment for a farmer who cuts 50 or 60 acres of
meadow-grass; and even on small farms, a one-
horse mower, with a small tedder and horse-rake,
will pay excellent interest on the outlay, enabling
the farmer to do more work in less time and
with fewer hands than could be done under
the old-fashioned system of hay-making.
Hay-hams. — One of the most useful of modern
farm equipments is the hay-barn, which is simply
a permanent shed for the storage of hay or of
corn. lu a climate whose fickleness is proverbial.
danger of the rick being deluged while it is still at
the width, in which case there is great trouble to
get it dry again. But a rick-cloth does not remove
the necessity of aftenvards roofing and thatching
the rick, and the former of these is a tedious, the
latter an exj)ensive operation ; it is at best a pro-
tection against rain whilst the rick is being made,
and can in no sense be regarded as more than
temporary, whereas a hay-bam provides all the
advantages of the rick-cloth, with various addi-
tional ones, and it is to all intents and purposes
a permanent protection against bad weather.
Where there is a good hay-barn, several cart-loads
can be hastily drawn in under it, if the weather is
IS'Z
DAIKV FARMING.
threatening and there is hay dry in the field, and
tliey can be inihjaded at leisure when the rain is
falling'. A hay-barn admits of the hay being got a
little softer, because it can be stored away a load or
two at a time, and so settle quietly down, cooling
Fig. 78.— Hay-stack and Rickcloth.
as it settles; but if hay is got too soft, and put
into a rick which is begun and completed in a
couple of days or so, the excess of moisture causes
far more "sweating" than is good for the hay. In
many cases the ricks have had to be hastily cut to
prevent firing, and it is no uncommon thing for
hay-rieks to be destroyed by spontaneous combus-
tion, which comes of the heating and sweating.
Hay-barns, too, are very useful for a variety
of purposes when
there is s^Jare room
in them ; for the
storage of carts and
implements, and in
sj)nng-time they are
])articularly useful
as lambing - sheds,
for by that time
the bulk of the
hay is generally
eaten .
Hay - barns are
constructed in many
different ways and of a great variety of materials.
They may be run up at a very moderate cost on i)oles
stuck in the ground, surmounted by a light frame-
work which is covered over with asphalted cloth ;
and a straeture of this kind will ans-wer every pur-
pose required of a hay-barn, while it will last a
long period if it is smeared over w ith boiled u-as-
tar every second year, to preserve it against the
damp. They are also commonly built in a sub-
stantial manner on brick or stone or iron pillars,
and roofed wth tile or slate, and in many cases
the bleak side of the barn will be entirely built in
with wall, the front only being open and
standing on pillars. The most recent,
and, on the whole, the most ajijjroved
>=, and satisfactory kind are built Avholly of
iron, as seen in Fig. 79, or the barn may
be a single rather than a double one ; the
j)^^^ are of east-iron, standing on and
strongly bolted to large slabs of stone
that stand a foot or two out of the ground
and dip a foot or two into it, and the
roof is of corrugated and galvanised
sheet-iron, well braced and bolted, and
firmly attached to the pillars. Such a
barn as this, erected at a moderate cost,
will hold an enormous quantity of hay
or corn, and it will be noticed that the
carts or Avaggons may be drawn in and un-
loaded under cover, part of the barn being filled
up at a time. The hay-barn in the cut has
a raised floor, whose object is to keep the hay
off the damp ground. The best kind of floor
is stone or asphalte, well laid down.
If the hay is got hurriedly on account of the
weather, and rather soft, it is a simple matter to
leave a sort of chimney here and there in it to allow
Fig. 79.— lEON Hay-babn.
the heat and steam to escape ; this is simply done
by filling a sack with hay, setting it upright
on the ground, building the hay round it, and
drawing it up as the hay-mow rises; or it may
be done by nailing strijis of wood on three jioles
that iire ])laced in a triangular form, reaching
from the bottom to the top, aud remaining in
HORSE-FORKS.
183
the mow. Either of these methods is very
simple and very effectual.
Horse-forks. — Another valuable, and time as
well as lahour saving equipment of modern days.
Ui^Mi^^l'l/— ^^
Fig. 80.— Horse- FORK.
is the horse-fork, or elevator. Of these implements
there is an endless variety, but one principle is
common to all of them, viz., the employment of
horse-power by means of rojses and pulleys. In
Fig. 80 is sho^vn one of the most effective of these
tools, and also the method by which it is emploj'ed
inside a building. Two parallel and stout spars
of wood, some 6 or 8 inches apart, and leaving
a clear space between them all along, are sus-
pended from and well braeed to the ridge-tree
of the barn. The fork is suspended from a
carriage which nins on four wheels, a ; one end
of the rojse is fast, and the other runs over
pulleys, B, passing do\vn to the ground, where
it runs under a third pulley and is attached to
the horse. Tlie fork with its load is easily sent
along the whole length of the building, and the
load is dropped wherever it is wanted by pulling
the rope c, which forces the forks asunder. The
general arrangement of this simple but effective
machinery inside a hay-barn is seen in Fig. 81.
By means of it a cart-load of hay can be unloaded
at three grabs and in aljout five minutes, saving
the toilsome labour of pitching by hand, and
doing the work with fewer hands and in much
less time.
Another kind of horse-fork is made to nm
on one spar only, which is not rigid, but merely
1 Rk ON l-RVMEWORk
suspended from the ridge-tree. In this case the
four small wheels which carry the fork run on the
one spar instead of two, clasping it, so to speak,
turned inwards instead of outwards on the frame
to which they and the fork are attached, and
leaving a space between each pair, so as to clear
the iron bolts by which the spar is suspended.
This principle will answer instead of the fore-
going one inside a barn, while it admits of being
arranged to serve for stacking outside, as seen
in Fig. 82 ; and the framework that carries the
fork-equipment will answer well to sustain a
rick-cloth in showery weather.
Yet another kind, made by Mr. Wright, of
Cardiff, used for stacking only, and not applicable
to the inside of a barn, is attached to a pole and
suspended from a boom, as seen in Fig. 83. The
Kg. 83. — HoRSE-PORK ON Pole.
boom works freely either to the right or left,
dropping its load in almost any desired place on
a moderately big stack. The fork is adapted for
hay, straw, chaff, or even com in sheaf, and it
will unload a two-hoi-se waggon, elevating the
load to a height of 30 feet or so, in from five to
184
DAIRY FARMING.
ten minutes. One or ntlicr of tlicsi' im))lem('nfs,
aeeoi'ilin<T to requirement and taste, will Ije found
of great service to the dairy-farmer iu the Ini.sy
time of harvest.
Artijicial Jlaij-mnhiitg. — The artificial dryin<j
of hay in a treacherous climate like that of
Britain is a question full of importance to
farmers. It not uncommonly lia])|)ens that the
cro]) is made almost completely worthless, and it
is frequently <i^reatly injured, Ly continuous wet
weather in harvest-time. In such cases the farmer
is utterly helpless, and all he can do is to stand
by and see the mi.sehief done, being' pow^erless to
prevent it. But the pi-oblem of saving the hay-crop
in a wet season by means of artificial heat a]ipears
to have been solved bv Mr. Gil)})s, of Gilwell
one dircctiiin, llien in another, the combination of
the two movements being such that it causes the
"•rass to pa.ss along from the end at which it is
fed to that at which it is delivered in a dry con-
dition. The third movement is very novel and
curious in its action. The tines are not (ixed on
the shaft, but the 'boss' which carries them,
and which is connected to the shaft, has a certain
amount of play given to it ; hence, when the
tines are lifted by the revolutions of the cranks,
they finish oif with a diagonal action, which gives
a movement in the direction of the delivery end
of the machine, and this causes the grass to move
along the table towards that end.
" The result of these three actions is that
srass fed in at one end in the most tangled
Fig. 84.— Artikicial Hay maker.
Park, Essex, after many years' patient study and
experiment. In Fig. 84 we give a woodcut of
the harvester, and the following description of it
i.s by Mr. R. S. Burn :—
" When examining Mr. Gibbs' latest form of
machine for hay-drying, I was struck with the
way in which it opens uj) the grass so as to present
every part of every fibre thoroughly to the dry
air. This is done by a combination of movements,
capable of adjustment as to speed and angle. The
first movement is effected by tines placed upon
a horizontal cranked shaft, very much after the
fashion of the three-throw pump. The tines are
placed at intervals on the shaft. The second
motion is the ' reciprocating,' applied to the
table on which the grass rests, and along which
it moves while being subjected to the dry air;
while, therefore, the grass is tedded liy the tines,
it is at the same time moved altcrnatolv, first in
and matted condition, or wet, half-made hay,
comes out at the delivery end quite loose and
fipened up. The action of the tines is pecu-.
liarly delicate and yet forcible, and the extreme
simplicity of the mechanical movements and fit-
tings is the best feature of the apparatus. There
is nothing of importance to go wrong ; any
labourer can work it, adjust its parts, and repair
them instantly."
During the tossiug about the hay is exposed
to a current of heated air, produced from coke,
which quickly drives off the moisture, and the
effect of this artificial drying is to restore quality
to hay which has been partly spoilt by the rain.
The colour of good hay is preserved and the
odour maintained when freshly-cut grass is used;
and these qualities are brought back in some
measure when they have been lost by oveiTnuch
exposure to wet. The fan of the furnace and
ENSILAGE.
]S5
the maoliineiy ci£ the (hyer are di-iveii by an
engine; the rest of the arranirement is elearly
enouo-h seen in the iUustration. The quantity
of hay that this machine will make in a day
depends on the degree of wetness in the hay;
it is, as a rule, better to let the hay be partly
made in the field and to finish it off iu the
machine, if this can be done in the wet weather,
during which the machine is valuable; and of
this half-made hay the machine will get through
a load an hour, while freshly-cut grass would take
a longer time. The machine is not designed
to supereede the ordinary method of hay-making
in good weather, but to continue the work when
the weather is such that it is impossible to save
the hay in the usual way. The inventor has
received many testimonials as to the efficiency
of his machine fi'om practical agriculturists iu
this and other countries. We have seen Mr.
Gibbs put green grass, and afterwards badly-
weathered and thoroughly-wetted hay, into his
machine ; the former came out sweet-smelling,
well-made green hay, and the latter a tolerable
article, very much improved in the process, which
lasted some four or five minutes. The invention
is clearly one of great value and merit.
Ensildf/e. — The following very curious system
of storing green fodder is of Hungarian origin,
and was introduced to the notice of British
farmei-s by Professor Wriglitson, in an article
contributed to the Journal of the Royal Agri-
cultural Society in the year 1S7J-. The system
consists in cramming the green food, of what-
ever description, tightly down into deep and wide
trenches that have been dug in the ground, and
the wetter the fodder is the better its packing
and preservation; when cut out in winter it is
found to be a rich brown colour, very palatable
to stock, and it is known under the unattractive
name of " sour hay." In this way various kind;;
ol green forage may be preserved for winter
use.
In France the system has been somewhat ex-
tensively practised for several years. It is there
known by the term " ensilage," which means,
literally, in a pit or trench ; but the word is now
understood to mean also green fodder that has
been preserved in a pit or trench. Green maize is
put through a chaff-cutter and cut into half-inch
lengths, in which form it is found to pack better
and closer ; the air is exeludal more satisfactorily,
and the preservation of the fodder thereby secured.
Pits are dug in the ground, the perpendicular sides
walled and the inside cemented to exclirde the air,
while rain and the water in the soil are kept out
of it, the one by a roof and the other by drains.
In some eases a building is j^ut uj) purpcjsely for
ensilage, with the walls well cemented. The main
requirement is the exclusion of air, the next the
exclusion of extraneous water ; yet the forage can-
not contain too much moisture of its own. As
the j)reservation of the fodder is generally more or
less defective round the outsides, it is probable
that a circular trench or building would be the
most suitable form, presenting the least area of
outside ; and it should be as large as may be con-
sistent with convenience and economy in practice.
In using the ensilage a portion is taken out of the
pit each day for the next day's use ; and, however
cold it may be when taken out, it becomes in
twelve or fifteen hours' time quite warm with
active fermentation. After twenty-four hours'
exposure to the air it will have passed the proper
limit of fermentation, and will then rapidly spoil.
While iu the pit the fermentation is very slow ;
exposure to the air stimulates it.
CHAPTER XIV.
Milk.
Varying Qualities of Milk— As shown in Different Breeds of Cattle— Anatomy of the JIanimal Glands— Physiology of Milk
Secretion— Pliysical Properties of Milk— Its Various Constituents— Butter— Milk-Sugar— Other Con-
stituents—Influences bearing on the Secretion of Milk.
I'^N clairy-farmin<ij one promi-
^ iient fact must always be
borne in mind : that some
breeds of cows are sjiecially
adajited to butter, and
others to cheese produc-
tion. And this holds good not only
in reference to different breeds, but
also to different animals of the same
breed. Every one who has paid at-
tention to cheese and butter making
is aware that certain cows in a herd are much
better " butter-cows ■" than the rest ; and this
is seen not only in the quantity of butter their
milk will yield, but also in the readiness with
which the cream is churned. Some breeds,
indeed — the Ayrsliires, for example, and, in a
somewhat less pronounced degree, the Short-
horns — are well adapted to the production of
either cheese or butter, as may be desired; and
yet in these breeds there will be a difference,
as between one animal and another, with
regard to special adaptation to the one pur-
pose or to the other, as the case may be.
Speaking in general terms, both the quantity
of milk given and its special features will
bear a given relation to the tyi>e of the breed.
Left in a state of nature, or when not bred and
trained for the production of milk, we find that
cows are unable to do much more, so far as
milk is concerned, than support their own
calves ; and wherever we find a breed of cows
celebrated either for quantity or for quality of
milk, we may conclude justly that its reputation
in this respect is chiefly owing to the skill
which man has brought to bear, one generation
after another, with a view to secure the sort of
animal most useful to him. In a ereater or
lesser degree, and with varying success, all
dairy-farmers seek to do this. Locality and
soil, no doubt, have a great influence on the
result, but the art of man has a greater, though
he cannot entirely overrule those influences
that are not his own. In speaking of a
breed of cows, as adapted to dairy uses, it is
unfair to take exceptional individuals of that
breed and hold them up as an illustration of
the type; this may only be done when we wish
to show the highest capability of a specimen
animal j)roduced by the breed, or when we give
an illustration of the end we wish to attain.
Such an animal, indeed, is, at the present time
especially, a practical expression of the average
ojiinions of the best breeders as to the qualities
they consider are best fitted to the end they have
in view ; but as yet there are few, if any, breeds
whose special characteristics do not fluctuate
more or less in different individuals of the breed.
In respect of some breeds of cattle, as, for
instance, the Scotch Polled or the Hcrofords,
the object of several generations of breeders
appears to have been less the production of milk
than of beef, and perhaps more the quality of
the beef than the highest form of symmetry
in the animal. In other cases, of which the
Ayrsliires are the best example we have in
the British Islands, the object has been to pro-
duce a breed of cows whose reputation rests
chiefly on the large quantity of milk they give,
the production of beef having been an extrinsic
consideration. And yet again, other brei^ds,
of which the Alderneys may be taken as the
liighest type in this or any other eoimtry,
have been bred with a view to quality of milk
rather than quantity, and beef has been at most
a secondary consideration. Once more, the Short-
MILK OF DIFFERENT RACES.
187
horns present to us an embodiment of the best
results yet attained in combining symmetry,
size, beef, and milk in one breed ; and yet
the Shorthorns are apt to swerve too much in
the direction of one or two of these quaHfica-
tious, leaving the others more or less in the
background, if the breeding is not carefully
watched and undue tendencies immediately check-
mated.
For her size, the Ayrshire cow is com-
monly considered, in districts where she is well
known, to be the highest embodiment of great
milking powers ; and though, on account of
the smaller average size of the cream-globules
in it (Fig. 85), her milk is not so well adapted
as that of the Alderney to butter-making, it is
not because it is really poor in fats, but because
the cream-globules, being as a rule smaller,
separate less readily from the milk. For
this reason the milk of the Ayrshire cow
is especially adapted to cheese-making, be-
cause the butter is the more perfectly
enclosed in the curd ; the milk of the j°
Alderney, on the contrary, is especially
adapted to butter-making, because the cream-
globules, being larger, rise the more readily
to the surface of the milk, and the cream
is the more easily churned into butter (Fig.
86). And the Ayrshire cow presents the
wedge-like form which is by many considered
to be the most conducive to milk-production —
that is, her hind-quarters are spacious, deep,
and well developed, while her fore-end is lighter,
finer, thinner, and narrower. Her udder and
teats, too, present us with another peculiarity,
which may or may not be indicative of deep
milking properties : the udder is attached to a
larger portion of the surface of the abdomen —
that is, it spreads further forward and backward,
is held up flatter and closer to the body, and
is less of a pendent form than in most other
breeds; the teats have a close affinity to the
udder in form, being rather short and stumpy,
and set wide apart — less pronounced, in fact, and
more as if- they were an after-thought than
those of other kinds of cows. It is not to be
desired either that the udder-glands should stretch
along the belly too far, or that the teats should
be very flat and short, for in the latter case it
is very diflScult to milk them by hand; but
spreading rather tlmn pendent teats and udders
27
are peculiarities of true-bred Ayrshires, and,
within bounds, it is better they should be as they
are in general form.
If we take the Alderneys as a type dif-
fering in these respects from the Ayrshires,
we find their teats and udders preserving the
same affinity to each other in form and struc-
ture, but they are both much more elongated
and pendent, and when full of milk are more
prominent and obvious for the size of the cattle.
The udder-glands are elongated rather than flat-
tened, pointing downwards rather than spread-
ing forwards, and the teats are cone-shaped
rather than short and flat. These characters
are, in fact, common to many — to most —
breeds ; while in some, the Shorthorns, for ex-
ample, the form and shape of the udder and
Fig. 85.— Ayrshike Milk. Fig. 86.— Jersey Milk.
teats, and the relative size of the latter, may
be regarded as intermediate between the types
we have mentioned. The elongation of both
teats and udder, and the size of the former,
will generally be found to increase the longer
the cow is in milk, so that short teats, which at
first are difficult to milk, will improve in this
respect. J. P. S.
Anatomy of the Mammal Gland.
The female animal of the bovine species
secretes in the mammal glands, which we call
" udder," the milk intended for the nourishment
of its young.
The udder of the cow consists of two lon-
gitudinal glands, which lie alongside each other,
separated by a fibrous partition. Each of these
glands has two outlets, but sometimes also three,
in which case the third and hindmost is small, and
rarely of any milk-producing capacity. The usual
188
DAIRY FARMING.
division of the iidiler into four quarters* is not
strictly correct, thouo-h the four teats are indepen-
dent of each other, forming as it were four(li\isions
of tlie uddei, for ducts and blood-vessels run from
the foremost part of the udder to the other ex-
tremity, and vice verm. The outer skin of the
animal covers also the udder, only that it is thinner
and softer there, and especially at the base of the
teats it is very fltie and jjeeuliarly elastic.
The degree of fineness of the skin on the udder
is in direct relation to the structure of the other
skin and to the individuality of the animal. Also,
the iuiir on the udder gives us a clue as to the
condition of the animal. Cows with thick, coarse
skin have also
stifT, coarse, and
long hair on the
udder ; while
with fine skin
the hair is
scarce, soft, and
lustrous. The
teats are hair-
less.
The udder
is not merely
covered with
the general skin
of the body,
but underlying
it there is a
strong layer of
connective tis-
sue, from which
elastic fibres ramify in the substance of the glands,
and serve to give the parts solidity. Ligaments
connect the upper part of the glands with the
muscles of the l)elly. The fil)rous partition, which
lias been already mentioned, is called the Ligamen-
ium suspensorium mammarum, and is the most im-
])ortant structure to hold the mammal glands in
thei r position . 1 1 descends between the two glands,
and is united by numerous fibres with the layer
of connective tissue afore-mentioned, and consists
])rincipally of bundles of elastic fibres interwoven
like network, and inlaid with thickened connective
* The division into fourquartors is, however, -very useful in
a pructiciil sense ; und us tliere are four sejiarate milk-eistc^in.s,
and sometimes even six — thouf];h the two hindermost in tliese
cases are imperfectly developed, and give no milk — the old
arrangement will be adliered to. [Kii.]
Fig. 87.— Udder of a t'ow
a Arteria pudenda estema.
b Vena pudenda externa.
e Coutiuuatiou of art. pud. ext.
tissue. Eaeli of the mammal glands, when deprived
of its natural covering-s, represents a greyish-red
substance of 9 to 20 inches in length, 6 to \i
inches in depth, and -l to 8 inches in breadth during
the period of milking. Fat is attached to it,
especially at the two extremities, otherwise it lies
mostly on the connective tissue-covering of the
glands.
The teats are grown on to the lower part of the
udder, and consist of two parts, the basis and the
nipple. The length of the teats is very variable j
and we can only say that generally older and
better milkers have larger teats than younger
and inferior. The nipple of calves not yet in ges-
tation is small,
and the basis
not apparent ;
only continued
irritation, occa-
sioned by milk-
ing or sucking,
fully develops
the organ.
Sinus, or milk-
eistems, we call
the four cavi-
ties, 'one of
which is placed
in each gland,
just above each
teat. The canal
which runs
through the
teat and fur-
nishes an egress for the milk is in direct com-
munication with the sinus, and into the latter
open also numerous fine ducts, which, coming from
the different parts of the gland, collect the milk
which is formed there.
The place where the sinus ends and the canal
of the teat begins is marked by a deep indenture,
and from there to the end of the canal the latter
is surrounded by muscles. The end of the canal
is closed by a separate muscle. The size of
the sinus is not in correlation to the milk-
productiveness of the animal, as a small sinus
is often supplemented by many and large milk-
ducts.
Fig. 87 1 gives a view of the a]>pearancc of the
+ Krom Fiirstenberg, " Die Jlilehdriisen der Kuh."
Lymphatic gland.
. Vena subcutanea abdominis.
Lymphatics.
PHYSIOLOGY OF MILK.
189
udder of a cow after the skin is taken off it. The
vessels are shown very carefully injected, and
exposed so as to show each material portion of
the udder in situ.
The large milk-ducts which open in the cistern
fjet smaller the further they are from the latter ;
they also branch off in all directions, and every
branch gets narrower until it can only be dis-
tinguished by a microscope. The organisation of
the gland which contains these duets vnW be found
the following, when looked at through a micro-
scope : — Light-coloured stripes surround pieces
of reddish-grey gland and send smaller threads
into the mass to surround smaller particles of
it. The latter are the small flaps, the former the
large flaps, and the stripes consist of bundles of
connective tissue, vessels, and fat. In animals
that are nourished very highly there is much
fat in this place, which exercises sometimes a
pressure on the gland, and either hinders or
stops the secretion of milk. We know such
udders by their, at first sight, promising size, but
they feel hard and give little milk; they are
called " flesh udders."
The arteries and veins of the udder are
very large. The arterial blood comes into the
udder from the arteria pudenda externa, which
descends from the sexual parts with the vena
pudenda externa. This artery passes along the
upper part, and sends a small branch to the back
part of the glands. An inch farther forward
there are two large branches, the arter-mammm
posticce, which supply the after part of the
glands, and in the middle we find another large
branch, the art-mammm interna, which spreads
on the inner side of the gland. A smaller artery
gives blood to the middle part of the gland,
and in the fore part of the gland the art-mammae
anterior does the same. The principal artery
now leaves the udder and goes towards the
navel, but it has become very small by this
time.
The principal veins which bring the blood
again out of the udder are the vena pudenda
externa and the vena suhcutanea ahdominis.
Their branches correspond with the above-men-
tioned arteries, and are called vcnce mammae j5o«-
ticai, vena mammae interna, and venm mamma
anferiores. The first and last send branches to
and form a network around the fore and hind
teats. The exterior of this network lies im-
mediately under the skin, the interior on the
membrane of the canal leading out of the milk-
cistern. The lymphatics accompany the veins
in their branchings, and during the periods of
lactation are filled with lymph. Each gland
is provided with a nerve coming from the loins,
which corresponds in its branchings, generally
speaking, with the veins and arteries.
The development of the mammal gland
begins already in the fifth week of the foetus,
when the latter is not quite 1 inches long.
We may see at this period four small rounded
protuberances, which are separated by a hardly
discernible cavity. Later on we find in these
little warts the traces of a fine duct, and the
warts develop themselves into teats. At the
time of birth the udder consists of a larger or
smaller quantity of fatty tissue, which contains
already a few ducts surrounded by a little gland
substance.
The development of the gland begins from
the canal in the teats. The new milk-ducts, or
canals, are formed by new branches sprouting in
all directions from those already existing. The
ends of these canals divide at last into many
small cells, and this process is repeated until
the udder has stopped growing.
The secretion of milk is generally possible
when the animal is two years old ; but when
the udder is irritated sooner the animal may
give milk soon after the first year of its life.
Such cases are, of course, exceptional, but they
have been repeatedly observed. Fiirstenberg
has often tried successfully having heifers
milked by the hand or sucked by a calf, when
they would not conceive because they were too
fat and highly fed. After some time milk
appeared, and through its secretion the fat of
the animal decreased and conception followed.
Also male and castrated animals can give,
under certain conditions, milk not differing in
composition from the milk of the female animal.
Especially he-goats and oxen give a little milk
when the teats are irritated regularly by the
hand or by sucking.
Physiology of Milk Secretion.
It is not yet ascertained how milk is formed.
Two hypotheses of this physiological process
are very far apart as yet, and neither of them
190
DAIRY FARMING.
shows us more than the way in which it mi<jht
be produced. One of these hypotheses is culled
the theory of fransudation, the other the theory of
mcfiimorp/io.iis. The first assumes a simple filter-
ing of the constituents of milk from the blood
throug'h the gland, and a turning them into milk
by this process; the second that milk is formed in
the gland by the decomposition of the cells of that
organ. It will be necessary to state in short the
reasons which both parties bring forward.
The theory of metamorphosis assumes that
all feeding experiments of milch-eows have re-
sulted in the observation that with the food
we can influence the composition of milk only
to a very small degree, while it is just the
opposite with blood, therefore no transudation
is possible. The colustrum-cells, which appear
before and after the birth and in some diseases,
are gland-cells, which are in an incipient state
of decomposition, and are secreted in such eases
without having advanced so far in it as to
be simple milk-globules. Therefore one might
conclude that the formation of milk is in its
usual and normal state a decomposition of gland-
cells. In the blood the salts of sodium prevail,
in the gland those of potassium, therefore milk
is formed by liquefaction of the latter. Also,
one may say that the life and health of the
sucking-oalf would be continually endangered
if milk was formed direct out of blood, as the
composition of blood is subject to great changes.
Casein is explained to be a modification of ordi-
nary cell albumen, which is decomposed. Butter
is said to be partly formed by direct transudation
of fat out of the blood, partly by a fatty metamor-
phosis of albumen in the gland. Milk-sugar may
be partly derived from the sugar in the blood or
by the decomposition of fats and albumen.
The opposite theory, that of transudation, is
little studied as yet ; the origin of casein it explains
as being the serum albumen of the blood, changed
by a ferment which exists in the gland.
It may be said that both these hypotheses
are impossibilities if considered to their full
extent; their combination alone affords explana-
tions which are at all satisfying to the present
state of science. Milk is not formed by transuda-
tion nor by metamorphosis exclusively ; both
processes must be certainly called in requisition,
but to assign to each of them the part which
it has to perform is as yet impossible.
PiiYsic.vL Properties of Milk.
The boiling-point of milk is only a small
fraction of a degree higher than that of water;
the freezing-point as much lower. Its capacity
of heat is a little smaller than that of water ;
about like 0-817 to 1. Of course the capacity
changes according to the composition. Milk
contracts until it reaches its freezing-point, and
expands strongly in the moment of congelation.
Its power of expansion is no constant quantity ;
it varies according to the amount of solids in
the milk.
Below 50" the consistence of milk gets more
viscous, and the more so the lower the tem-
perature is. At the same time, its powers of
cohesion and adhesion are augmented in the same
degree.
The specific gravity of milk at 59° varies
between 1"0;J7 and 1'035, but in general, excep-
tional cases excluded, only between 1'028 and
1'034. Milk which is out of the first mentioned
limits may be taken as either adulterated or
diseased. An experiment made with 233 cows
of different breeds, in different countries, had
the following result : —
Over
1-034 ...
2
per cent.
Between
1-034 and
1-033
... 10
„
,,
1-033 „
1-032
19
„
,j
1-032 „
1-031
... 24
,j
J,
1-031 „
1-030
... 28
„
,,
1030 „
1029
... 10
„
„
1-029 „
1-028
5
„
Under
1-028 ...
2
„
Under normal conditions the average specific
gravity of milk obtained from a number of cows
will be 1-030 to 1-031.
The Composition of ^Iii.k.
The milk of cows, as well as of all other mam-
malia, consists of water, butter, casein, albumen,
milk-sugar, and mineral substances.
The average percentage is the following : —
"Wafer
87-2.5
per cent.
Butter
3-50
Casein
3-flO
Albumen
0-40
Milk-sugar
4-60
Mineral substances ...
0-75
CHEMISTRY OF MILK.
391
The limits of variation in the composition
of pure milk are considerable, as will be seen in
the followinfj table : — •
Water
83-6.5 to 9000
per cent.
Butter
1-SO „ 5-20
Casein
3-00 „ 5-00
Albumen
0-30 „ 0-5.5
Milk-sugar
3-00 „ ,5-.50
Mineral substances ...
0-70 „ 0-80
Casein is a member of the group albumen,
about which so little is yet known. Voeleker
found its composition to be the following- : —
Carbon
Hydrogen...
Nitrogen ...
Oxygen
Sulphur ...
Phosphorus
53 57
7-14
15-41
22-03
1-11
0-74
Casein is not in solution in the milk, but
is swelled up by its absorption of water into
a kind of very thin jelly. This may be proved
by putting milk in a dialysator, when the
casein does not pass the membrane, as it would
do if it were dissolved.
Casein, not soluble in water and highly-diluted
salt solution, is soluble in diluted hydrochloric
acid and carbonate of soda. Acetic acid pre-
cipitates casein, but dissolves it again when more
of it is added. Casein is not precipitated on
boiling, but this is the case when rennet is
added at a certain temi^erature.
The coagulation of casein is observed in three
modifications : —
(a) The natural coagulation by acidity of
the milk and by the influence of rennet ;
(fi) The precipitation with aeidtj ; and
(c) Mechanical precipitation.
The first form may be . observed when milk
stands until it gets sour, when the milk-sugar
(lactine) is changed slowly to lactic acid, which
changes the neutra,l phosphate in the milk into
acid phosphates, and forms alkaline salts at the
same time. As soon as a certain quantity of
acid phosphates has formed, which is in direct
relation to the quantity of neutral phosphate,
the casein is coagulated, because the acid phos-
phate influences the alkali of the casein.
This also proves that the casein is an alkali-
albuminate.
The formation of lactic acid out of milk-sugar
is explained by the following formula : —
C„H,,0„ (Milk-sugar) -|- II^O fWatcr) = CjHeOj (lactic acitl).
For some time before the coagulation of
the casein begins by natural acidity the milk
cannot bear the slightest addition of any acid,
nor boiling, without coagulating immediately.
In a higher temperature less lactic acid is neces-
sary to coagulate the milk, or " curdle it,^-" as we
say in practice.
The coagulation by rennet belongs also to
the first modification, as. before mentioned, as
with both rennet and lactic acid the casein is
precipitated in the milk in a jelly, which contracts
very soon and emits a greenish fluid, the serum,
or whey. The rennet only acts under a certain
temperature ; the more rennet is added and the
higher the temperature the quicker it acts, but
the temperature must be kept between compara-
tively narrow limits^ as otherwise rennet does
not act properly.
The second modification (^) or kind of
coagulation occurs through acids, with the
exception of lactic acid. Other acids — for
instance, diluted hydrochloric acid and acetic,
acid — do not coagulate casein in a compact
jelly, but in flakes, which sink to the bottom
after some time. It need hardly be said that
such casein is not fit to be iised for making-
cheese.
The third modification (c) of coagulation
is caused by different agents ; for instance,
neutral phosphate of soda, neutral carbonate
of soda, jnd others, which precipitate milk
though they dissolve casein. The addition o£
any of these agents forms a strong precij^ita-
tion of phosphate of calcium, which makes
the casein and butter fall to the bottom.
In this case the casein has not been made in-
soluble, because water will wash it out of the
precipitate.
The real coagulation of casein by rennet and
acid makes the casein insoluble, or, more accu-
rately, takes away its power to absorb a large
quantity of water and to swell up like a gelatinous
substance. The butter is enclosed in all cases of
coagulation or precipitation of milk by the shrink-
ing casein, and in the sei-um (whey) are left the
soluble constituents of milk : albumen, milk-sugar,
and mineral substances.
192
DAIKY FARMING.
Albumen.
Colustrum, and also diseased milk, are p;enerally
richer in albumen than ordinary milk. The com-
position of albumen is tlie following : —
Carbon 535 per cent.
Hydrogen 70 „
Nitrogen ' 15-5 . ,,
Oxygen 224
Sulphur 1-6 „
1000
Tlie albumen of milk is taken as identica
with the albumen of the blood serum ; it coagu-
l.ites at 161° to 163°. Carbonic, acetic, phos-
pborio, and tartaric acids do not precipitate
allmmen. It is soluble in water, diluted acids,
dilutwl carbonate of soda, and common salt.
The existence of Lacfoproteine has often been
affirmed and denied. After casein and albumen
are precipitated and the pure w]i?y filtered off,
we may cause another precipitation by tannic
acid. This is lactoproteine, an albumen which
is still little known.
Butter.
Butter, the fatty substance of milk, is not
in solution in the milk, but exists in shape of
tiny drops, or globules, which are suspended
in the serum. In I lb. of milk, containing
4 per cent, of butter, about 40,000 millions of
globules must be contained. After being churned,
butter is a yellowish, salve-like mass of about
0'92 specific gravity, which gets crummy under
50° ; over this limit pasty, at 68° soft, and at
about 97° it melts, while at about 73° it gets
hard again if cooled. The melting and solidify-
ing points are variable, like the composition and
specific gravity. Butter consists of the trigly-
cerides of the following fatty acids : —
Butyric acid
Caproio
Caprylic , ,
Capric „
Myristinc acid
Palmitic „
Stearic „
Butinic ,,
Oleic
Volatile fatty acids.
Real fatty acids.
In their combination with glycerine they must
be classified as follows : —
Myristine
Palmitine
Stearino
Butino
ButjTine
Caproine
Capryline
Caprinine
Oleine
As fluid fats.
Myristine and butine are only present in
a very small percentage; under the fluid fats
oleine predominates very considerably; so the
butter consists pnncip.ally of palmitine, stearine,
and oleine.
Fresh butter contains in
Solid fat
Fluid ...
Winter. Summer.
60 40 per cent.
40 eo „
Yoelcker says butter contains
Solid triglycerids 68 per cent.
Oleine 30 „
Triglycerids of the volatile fatty
acids and of caprinic acid ... 2 ,,
100
Butter becomes changed in condition when
we keep it some time; we then call it rancid.
It is impossible in practice to get butter free
from casein, albumen, and milk-sugar. These
substances decompose sooner or later, and con-
taminate firstly the oleine and the triglycerides
of the volatile fatty acids. The products of
the decomposition of these fats can then be smelt.
The aggregate of the butter is fluid in fresh
milk, as Soxhlet has proved. The globules in fresh
milk and cream are rounded in form, which
proves that the fat is fluid and milk is an emul-
sion. A still better proof is that frozen milk
shows a different state of the globules. They
lose their brightness, become granulated, and
show under the microscope the same apjiearance
as those which have been churned for some time.
AVe see from this that the fat of milk gets solid
by violent mechanical movement or in a tempera-
ture of about 25°. Butter globules in cold
milk may be cooled down to this temperature
without getting solid, though the point of
solidification of butter is 73°. We have several
examples in physics analogous to this, and its
cause is the resistance of very small, isolated
particles against freezing. Intensity of cold or
agitation influences the solidification of the
globules unequally, for globules of smaller size
are less affected by both, so that we can explain
why it is that in buttermilk we always find
the smaller jrlobules left and not turned into
CHEMISTRY OP MILK.
193
butter. AVe stoj) eliuiiiin<;' wlion most of the
fat has been sohdihetl, as we should spoil this
and beat it soft a<jain if we continued the move-
ment still longer.
It is still impossible to decide absolutely
whether the milk-fvlobules are covered by a kind
of skin or not, though this question has been
discussed and experimented on for many years.
Some think the milk-globules are cells which liave
fallen off from the membranes of the follicles,
and are consequently covered by a membrane ;
othere believe they are covered by a layer of
casein, condensed by attraction. Another view
of the case is that the globules have a covering
of serum, condensed by attraction. Numbers of
other theories have arisen and fallen again, and
only two are maintained with some amount of
probability until now. We may say, either the
milk-globules are cells and have a membrane, or
they are drops of fat round which local attrac-
tion has formed a kind of halo of condensed serum.
It would take too much space to go more into
all the pros and cons here, therefore these state-
ments may suffice, as we cannot pronounce with
absolute certainty on the matter.
MiLK-SDGAR {lactiiie, lactose).
Milk-sugar has been found in milk as far back
as 1G19. Its chemical formula is C12H22O11+ H2O,
and its composition the following : —
1780; its chemical formula is CsHoOs, and con-
sists of —
Carbon
Hydrogen ...
Oxygen
Water (crystallisation)
400
61
48-9
5-0
100-0
The colourless, glassy, four-sided prisms of
the rhombic system are hard, not easily soluble
in water and alcohol, grate like sand between
the teeth, and are unaltered in dry air. At 298°
to .316^ they emit the crystallising water, and
lactocaramel is formed. The specific gravity is
1*543 to l'54r8. Milk-sugar reduces alcalic copper
solutions. In milk the milk-sugar is in solution,
and very apt to turn into
Lactic Acid.
It is not yet known what gives the impulse
to its formation, but it seems to be a chemical
ferment of casein. Lactic a«id was detected in
Carbon
Hydrogen.
Oxygen .
4000
6-67
53-33
Lactic acid exists also as a product of sour
fermentation of other kinds of sugar ; for instance,
in sour cucumbers, &c. It is a colourless, syrup-
like, very sour, non-volatile fluid, which dissolves
in water, alcohol, and ether, 1-215 specific gravity,
and is decomposed at 29S°. It is quite beyond
doubt that the foiTnation of lactic acid is the
reason for the spontaneous coagulation of milk, as
if we take the milk-sugar out of the milk in a
dialysator, it coagulates only after a considerable
time, when general decomposition has begun by
the decomposition of the fats.
The Mineral Substances (Ash, Salts).
The ashes of milk are identical with those
of plants, and without doubt the composition
of the plant ashes is of important influence, as
the analyses of milk ashes show considerable
difference. Experiments have proved that food
rich in potash augmented the percentage of potash
in the ashes of milk.
An average of many analyses shows the com-
position of milk ashes to be the following : —
Phosphoric acid
28
31 per cent.
Chlorine
16
34
Oxide of calcium
27
00 „
Oxide of potassium ...
17
34 „
Oxide of sodium
10
00 „
Oxide of magnesium
4
07
Oxide of iron
0
62 „
103
68
Oxygen deducted
3
inn
68
no
This table shows that the ashes consist prin-
cipally of phosphoric salts.
Gases.
If milk just from the cow is filled in a
bottle and tightly corked, so that no air is left
in it, a little gas will soon collect at the surface
and make the bottle look as if it had not been
perfectly filled.
194
DAIRY FARMING.
These gnses are coniposeil as f()ll(i\vs : —
Oxygen...
Carbonic acid
Nitrogen
009 to 01 per cent.
7-4 „ 7-6
0-7 „ 0-8
ITrka.
There ean be no doubt as to urea being a
rcn^ular part of milk, but to a very small extent —
about 0"007 per cent. Diseased milk contains
considerably more of it, especially when the
gland has been affected by inflammation, when
the milk, even for years afterwards, contains urea
in abnormal quantities.
Creatine, creatinine, leucine, and tyrosine
have been found in milk, but they must not be
regarded as among its constituents. Their presence
is only sporadic, and caused by j^remature decom-
position of the proteids of milk.
Iodide has been found in milk, but proved
to come fi-om food containing that element. In
the same way other substances which are absorbed
by the blood can pass into the milk.
Colouring stuffs and etheric oils are also
to be found in milk. Green food visibly affects
the colour of milk and butter, and aromatic
food gives also an aromatic smell or taste to both.
Influences Bearing on Milk Secretion.
IndividuaJili). — The individuality of the animal
has a most important influence on the quantity
and quality of milk. This will be easily under-
stood when we think of the formation of milk as
an action of secreting organs. An animal whose
organs of circulation and vesicular system are well
developed, so that circulation and assimilation are
not hindered, must show a higher secreting action,
under similar conditions, than an animal who is
deficient in these organs ; and a mammary gland
which is perfectly developed in all its parts
• Diust secrete more milk than one which is smaller
or stunted in gro\\th. On the other side, an
animal whose constitution shows a strong pro-
pensity for the production of fat and flesh must
give less milk, and practice proves that in such
cases we may not reckon on a large yield of milk.
Further, the general state of health and the
pathological condition of the udder are in direct
relation to the secretion of milk, and we may
remind the reader of the decrease in milk whicli
accompanies every disease, and also of the morbid
augmentation of milk-secretion — the hijperplasis
-of the mammal gland.
Of course, it is not the quantity alone which
must be valued in the dairy ; the quality is of
great importance, as with a great quantity of very
watery milk we are not always better off.
The digestive a.s.<imilation of the animal is
in intimate connection with this question. Let
us take, for instance, two cows, of which one re-
quires proportionally more food to su]>ply material
for the ph^'siologieal functions of the body;
we must prefer the other, even if she gives
no more milk than the first, as she wants less
food. But this question frequently apjiears in
practice with a much wider margin between
the two animals in question, and heavy eaters,
who want much food for their large bodies, are
very often poor milkers.
On the Continent we expect a good cow to
give four to five times her live weight in
milk per year, or, on the average, 5 to 7 litres
daily.
Breed. — It has often been both denied and
affirmed that breed and milk-production stand
in constant relation to each other. Practice,
however, affirms that this relation exists so far,
at all events, as quality of milk is concerned.
We have two prominent examples furnishing
proofs of this that cannot be overthrown, how-
ever ingeniously a contrary theoiy may be built
up. The Dutch breed, or, as they are wrongly
called in America, Holstein cattle, give us a
permanent example of milk deficient in fats,
and the Jerseys give us an also permanent
example of very rich milk. These instances
show clearly enough that breed is in direct re-
lation to milk-production ; but it must not be
overlooked that this relation consists only in the
handing down, from llie 2}aren(s of a disposillon,
and that this disposition can be influenced, or
even annulled, by breeding, feeding, rearing,
state of health, development of the organs, as
well as by other causes. If we speak of the in-
fluence of breed on milk-production we must
acknowledge this to be the case, but always sub-
ordinate it to the individual influences which cause
the exceptions to the rule.
Period of Lactation. — We underetand the
period of lactation to be the time beginning
directly before or after parturition, and ending
COLUSTRUM.
195
fi^enerallj' some time befure the folldwini;- parturi-
tion. The quantity as well as quality of the milk
nnilergoes eonsiderable changes during this time.
The largest quantity is secreted during the first
month ; after that the yield goes down somewhat,
but remains for about two and a half months pretty
stationary. It then gets less and less during the
next six months, until the secretion is quite dried
up. Of course, this rule applies only to the average
mileh-eows, and is greatly influenced by the in-
dividual properties of the animals. Many cows
remain dry much longer than the desirable six
or eight weeks, during which the extra nourish-
ment required by the foetus ought not to be
lessened l)y milk-secretion ; but when cows remain
dry for three or four months it is a great loss
to the farmer, and considerably diminishes the
value of the cows. Some animals never stop
giving milk up to the day of calving, when a
fresh flow of it begins.
The composition, condition, colour, taste, and
smell of the milk that a cow gives for several
days after calving differ greatly from that
which she gives later on. It is usually of a
deep yellow colour, and is peculiarly luscious and
unctuous, the latter owing to an excess of albu-
men. Rennet does not coagulate it, but boiling
does. The specific gravity is I'OJG to IM)(i5.
Colustrum contains, besides the milk-globules, other
particles, consisting, according to the researches
of FUrstenberg, of pieces of membrane and clusters
of cells, which he takes for milk-globules in a
state of transition, i.e., not perfectly formed yet
(Fig. 88) . These cells contain a granulous substance
88. — Colustrum.
and fluid in which one or more drops of fat are
suspended. Fiirstenberg has observed these
clusters in all grades of their decay, or rather
their falling into milk-globules, and has found
this process further advanced the more remote
the day of parturition was. Colustmm changes
in composition almost from hour to hour; samples
taken from six cows showed the following extremes
directly after the birth : — •
Dry matter loO to 38-4 per cent.
Amonsst this :
Butter.
2-7 to 8-5
Milk-sufrar.
0-0 to 2-9
Albumen.
4-1 to 15-5
Casein.
7-3 to 11-2
Ashe?,
2-5 to 3-3
In the cremometer colustrum shows up to
50 per cent, of a creamy matter, which consists,
however, only to a very small extent of fatty
matter. In general we may say that the changes
in colustrum proceed in the following manner : —
The solids, which are very considerable in the first
hours, become normal in quantity during the next
five to eight days. The proportion of fat, which
usually ajipears only a little higher or lower a few
hours after calving, is quickly reduced to its normal
position. Milk-sugar is found at first in onl^'
very small quantities, but has reached its normal
height in three to five hours. Albumen is some-
times found up to 15 per cent, in the first day,
and in eight to fourteen days it has fallen to the
usual percentage. On the average the colustrum
of the first day contains : — •
Water ...
Butter ...
Milk-sugar
Casein ...
Albumen
Ashes . . .
Solids
Water
78-7 per cent.
4-0 „
I -.5 „
7-3
1000
21-3
78-7
100-0
Colustram has a purgative influence on the
intestines of the calf, and this has been for a
long time the reason of its being thought un-
healthy ; but it is not only the best medium for
clearing the intestines of the excrements collected
there during foetal life, but for the newly-born
calf it is also a noui'ishment of the highest
physiological importance. If colustrum is an
excellent nourishment for the calf, it is, on the
other hand, very dangerous in the dairy, as it
promotes all kinds of irregularities, particularly in
the process of curing or ripening of cheese. Milk
should never be used for cheese-making until the
fifth day after calving, and even then it is not
always safe. 11. L. de K.
CHAPTER XV.
Cheese-makixo.
Matters affecting the Production of Milk— Land— Herbage— Water— Watering-places — Shelter — Points in the Manufaplure of
Cheese— Decomposition— Cooling— Cleanliness— Temperature— Rennet— Cutting the Curd— Getting out the Whey— (Jrinding Curd
. y —Salting— Ripening— Acid in Cheese-making— Its Benefits— Evils of too much Acid— Summary of
^*'^ ^v$il '7 t'le Question, and of the Effects of Acidity in Ripening Cheese.
f[K^~T seems, with regard to many well known to our oldest eheesr-niakers. It
tilings, to be a prinei])le in on aceount of these undetermined elements that
the human mind to jiraisc it is difficult in many eases to produce a satisfac-
the past at the expense of tory cheese, and the difficulty is not by any means
the present. We are never wholly removed, but only reduced, by skimming
tired of referring to the
" good old times," and of wishing
that they were with ns again or that
fhey had never left us. We assume
that times are worse now than they were
in the perifid to which we vaguely refer
as " our forefathers' daj-s ; " and it is more than
probable that future generations will speak much
in the same strain. So it is the opinion of many
people thiit English cheese now-a-days is not as good
as it was in the olden times — say a century ago ;
and the opinion is in the main sound, though it does
not admit of proof, for if our cheese has gone down
the hill in quality within the recollection of those
who are living, it is safe to assume that it is worse
now than it was in the days of those who are dead.
In any case we may allow that if J'lnglish cheese
has not actually gone worse it has relativel}' done
so, for American cheese is certainly much better
on the average now than it was twenty years ago,
and it therefore follows that our own suffers more
in comparison with it now than it did at that
period. What is called " higli-i'arming," whether
it consists of feeding the land with artificial manures
or the animals with artificial foods, has, without
a portion of the cream off the milk. It is some-
thing like bleeding a patient who has a fever !
Anyway, cheese-making in these times is an art
that is practised in a perfect manner by very few
persons. If one in a hundred makes a perfect
cheese, the ninety-and-nine make one which is
more or less imperfect. And still cheese-making is
not a complicated art ; success in it dejiends less on
a mastery of seientifie formulte than on watchful-
ness, care, industry, dexterity, cleanliness, and
attention to details. There is a great difference
in jieople. A few persons seem to aciiuire by
intuition a mastery over technical details which
science has been years in demonstrating. In the
domain of cheese-making these will generally be
women ; they hit upon one scientific truth after
another l)y a jn-ocess of reasoning which neither they
nor any one else can explain, but which is correct
nevertheless, and fhey do the right thing at the
right time, without caring to inquire into the why
and wherefore of it. J'^xpcrience is a valuable thing
in cheese-making, but it will not make any one a
first-class cheese-maker who does not possess natural
or acquired habits of scrupidous cleanliness, patient
industry, dexterity, and unflagging attention to de-
tails of manawment. Natural intellisrence and ac-
doubt, changed the character of the herljage on
which the cows are chiefly fed in the period during quireil knowledge are equally of no avail when they
which milk is most plentiful, and this, in its turn, are found in connection with lazy, dirty, slovenly,
has changed the character of the milk. What this and careless habits. The truth must not be
change of character in the milk consists of is not blinked that downright hard work cannot be wholly
yet made clear, but that it has taken place is a fact dispensed willi in cheese-making, whether labour-
LAND AND HERB.UiE.
197
s:ivino- appliances Ijc used or not: such tMjiiipmcnt
only lessens the amount of it, not wholly removes
it. This cannot be too often impressed on the
notice of those who are en<?aged in cheese- makinti^,
for it seems to be one of those things in which the
need for tuition is perennial. Books on cheese-
making will not alone make people good cheese-
makers, and they cannot impart those essential
(qualities to which allusion has been made; they do
not till the place of practical experience, nor will
they supply natural intelligence where it is lacking.
But they are designed to aid those who have in(piir-
ing minds, and who are desirous of profiting by the
experience of others, and they do it in this wise :
by placing befoi'e them a record of results arrived
at by scientific and practical men, by describing
to them the systems followed in different dis-
tricts and countries, by warning them against
mistakes which others have fallen into, and by
explaining the best and most successful methods
as adapted to the ever-varying conditions of piro-
duction, of soil, and of climate.
It was erstwhile the practice for dairymaids
to " change place " from one farm-house to
another without any inlsglving as to whether
they would succeed as well in the new situation
as they did in the old. By taking the same
amount of pains they were fairly certain of making
good cheese in all places alike, making due allow-
ance for differences in the character of the land ;
and their masters and mistresses were equally
confident of the result. As a matter of course,
all dairymaids did not make equally good cheese
then any more than they do now, perhaps ; but
one who made good cheese at any one farm was
confidently expected to make good cheese at
any other farm, and she commanded a wage
corresponding to her reputation as a cheese-maker.
But in recent years it has been quite common
for one who made a fine daiiy of cheese at one
place to fail in doing so at another; and it has
not been at all uncommon for a dairymaid, be
she mistress or servant, to succeed well one
year and to entirely fall the next on the same
farm. This sort of thing has been a source
of much anxiety and even bewilderment to
numbers of excellent people.
Land. — It may be stated as a first fact that
"sound" land — that is, land which does not
need artificial draining — whether improved or
not l)y applied manures, will as a rule produce.
If not a richer, at all events a sounder and a
better-flavoured cheese than "unsound" land
will produce under like conditions of treatment.
In the first place, the sound is the healthier land
for stock, however much the unsound may have
been improved in that respect by draining ; and
the healthier cows are, the better and sounder
tind healthier is the milk they give. Sound land
will not by any means produce in all cases more
cheese per acre than unsound land will produce
— this depends on the strength and richness of
the land in each case — but it will usually produce
more from a like quantity of herbage, because
its grasses are more varied in character, more
delicate, more nutritious, healthier, and altogether
superior. It will generally be found that drained
land has not that healthy elasticity to the tread,
nor Irrigated land that cheerful aspect or wealthy
variety of grasses, nor recently-ploughed land
that thick, warm, carpet-like sward that we find
on many of the grand old pastures of the kingdom.
Herbage. — On the majority of old pastures
that have not been manured for years — perhaps
for generations — because they need it not, very
much less skill is required in dairy operations than
is found to be the case on heavily-manured land,
on irrigated meadows, or on artificially-seeded
land. The grasses of irrigated meadows and
heavily-manured pastures are ranker and coarser,
and those of newly-seeded land less matured
and more succulent, than the slower-growing and
more perfectly-matured herbage that is found
on fine old-turf land. Milk produced from
irrigated meadow-grass, or from heavily-manured
land of any kind, turns sour earlier than that
which comes from old pastui-es, and it is con-
sequently more difficult to make cheese from it,
whilst that from young and vigorous artificial
grasses has a something in it that makes it
less tractable than the milk produced from old
pastures, the herbage of which has been permanent
for generations. Generally speaking, the quality
and variety of natural grasses are reduced, while
the bulk is increased, by heavy dressings of
maniire ; and irrigation produces a similar effect.
If we examine the herbage of different pastures,
a greater number and variety of grasses will
generally be found on good old natural pastures or
unmanured grass land than on land which has
been farmed highly, and the scantier herbage
of the former description of land will be found
198
DAIRY FARMING.
to contain some of tlu- finer ijrassps and le^'uminous
plants that are looked for iu vain on land which,
iiavinj^ been heavily manured, produces a greater
bulk of a coarser description of herbao;e.
In buttcr-makinjf more particularly than in
cheese-makino^, the ilavour, aroma, and colour, not
to mention quality of the product, are detemiinetl
by the character of the food wliich the cows eat,
but cheese is influenced by it in no small de<jree.
Every dairy-fanner knows how quickly the flavour
of turnij)s that are eaten by cows is conveyed to
the milk, and throu<;fh it to the butter; and it is
C(]ually plain that the ])eculiar excellences of jj^rass-
made butter depend, in a great measure, on the
character of the herbage in the pastures. It is
generally more delicate in aroma and pleasing
in flavour when the cows graze on sound land,
which, producing perhaps but a moderate bulk
of herbage, includes among its greater variety of
grasses some of the more delicate and sweet-
scented ones, such as wild thyme, sweet vernal,
lotus, medicago, the various clovers, and other
leguminous plants, that are very " few and far
between," or altogether absent from land which
gives, by the agency of heavy dressings of manure
or of sewage, large crops of coarse, bulky grass.
As fully one-third by weight of the composition of
the best qualities of cheese consists of butter, and
as the quality, the flavour, and the avoma of butter
are so much influenced by the kind of herbage on
which the cows are pastured, it naturally follows
that cheese will vary greatly, in several respects,
according to the kind of land and the quality of
the grass ; and though the soil itself has no direct
iniluenee over milk, it has an all-powerful indirect
one by means of the grasses that grow ou it and
the water that filters through it.
The flavour of cheese, no less than its (piality,
will bo influenced by certain grasses, herlis, or
weeds that are found in some pastures. Sometimes
the flavour of milk is much injured by the cows
eating rank, unhealthy, immature herbage, such as
that produced by sewage-irrigation; and it will
also derive a flavour, which will be communicated
to the cheese and butter, if the pastures contain, or
if the cattle have access to, the following plants : —
Garlic mustard, llcfic;c ) _. , . ,,,. . -.t , ^
, , , , ,, f C}isi/mnrti(m A/iiana. iSutunil
niustaru, Jack-uy-thi;- > " , „ ..
-,, , ,, , I Order, Cructferte.
Hedge, or oauco-alonc J
Broad-leaved Garlic, or) ^WiMmKr.iiHMm. NaturalUrder,
Riinsoina ... .. i Liliacea,
Ivy
Tansy
Ch i.noiuilo
( Jlrihra miix. Natural Order,
( Araliacete,
( Tanacetum tiifffarc. Natural
( Order, Compositie.
( Various B]iccies of Anlhemit.
\ Natural Order, Compositic,
And other strunijly-tasted coiuposite plants.
Siveral of the more pungent umbellate plants.
Some of the stronger Mints. Oenus Mciit/ia. Natural Order,
I,cil/i»tie.
These plants are not so commonly found in
pastures as in old fences, ruins, stone-qiuirries,
&c., to which cattle in many cases have access.
Tlie odour coming from one or other of them will
sometimes be quite distinctly perceived arising
from the freshly-drawn milk of such cows as have
eaten them, and it will also be found iu the butter
and cheese, greatly to their hurt.
Water. — The influence that water has on the
flavour and quality, as well as on the quantity,
of milk is too commonly regarded as a matter of
little or no importance. Some farmers act as if
they thought their cows' systems were so many
filters, that the milk is not affL»cted no matter
how impure the water is that the animals drink,
and that quantity rather than quality is the
thing to be aimed at in the water-supply. Yet
it is not enough that dairy-cows, especially in hot
weather, should have an abundant supply of water,
but also that the water should be pure, if possible,
and easy of access. Every dairy-farmer whose water-
supply is apt to run out in hot, dry weather is
aware how quickly his cows "pare" in their milk
at such times ; and as water forms about 87
per cent, of ordinary milk, it is obvious that all
milk-producing animals recjuire a large supply of
it. Mous. Dancel asserts that not only is the
quantity of milk directly influenced by the quan-
tity of water the cow drinks, but that if she
gives more than 7 quarts of milk per day she
will require to drink from 30 to 50 quarts of
water in the same period, and if she habitually
drinks less than 27 quarts she is actually and
necessarily a poor milker. These quantities refer
to hot weather, of course, and to large cows.
It is true that cows wtII soon learn to do with
less water if the supply of it is limited, but they
do so at the cost of the milk ; and it does not
necessarily follow that the milk is richer in (|uality
because less in quantity, under these conditions.
On the contraiy, the miraiit alluded to also declares
that the results of his experiments led him to the
WATER.
199
conclusion that by incitinn^ yows to ilriuk laro-o
quantities of water the quantity of milk yielded
liy them ean be increased several quarts a day,
without materially lowerino; its quality. Still, it
is possible to push experiments of this nature so
far that the milk will be reduced to a very low
standard of quality. The practical application of
this law is to place within easy reach of milch-
cows an ample suj)ply of the necessary liquid, and
leave them to drink as much or as little as they
choose to do.
But however trae it may be that the quantity
of water drunk will directly intluenee the quantity
of milk produced, it is no less true that the quality
of it will affect the quality of the milk. Impure
water, made so by solutions of decaying animal
or vegetable matter, or by filth of any kind, will
inevitably produce milk that is more or less ill-
fiavoured and unsound. And this is not all the
mischief, for such milk, beyond tainting with its
own peculiar flavour the butter and cheese made
from it, wdll always go bad earlier than milk that
is produced from pure water. Swamp\^, stagnant
ponds out in the fields, and pools in the yards into
which impure drainage or surface-water flows at
will, are not the places where cows should be
allowed to slake their thirst. We do not notice
all the mischief which comes of cows drinking
impure water; and were it not that the animal
system is a wonderful puiifier, the mischief would
be much more marked than it is. We have to
thank the vis medicatrix natune for curing much
of our carelessness, and in these things we have
better luck than we deserve. For winter use pure
water should, if necessary, be brought from a
distance; and for summer use muning streams
are best of all, providing they are pure. A farm
well supplied with jJure running streams is always
more valuable than a similar one where the water
has to be provided in artificial ponds and " meres,"
for it is next to impossible that these should long
contain pure, clean water — not that rain-water,
which alone supplies them, is impure, but because
it carries with it, as it runs over the surface of the
land, more or less of mud and other impurities,
and because the cattle themselves carry much filth
into it. Rain-water, in fact, where it can be col-
lected and kept free from contamination, is perhaps
as good as any kind for stock ; the danger £nd the
difficulty alike lie in the tendency of such collected
water to become filthy and stale.
In many districts, however, the only water
available is that provided by artificial aids, and
where such is the case the best method of storing
it is in " meres " that are made in this wise : —
The location of the mere is decided on, and it
is generally placed in a depressed portion of
the land, so that rain-water will gather into
it. A circular, basin-like hollow is first scooped
out, the depth of which in the centre is some
0 feet or so — according to the diameter and
slope of the mere. The hollow is next lined
all round and from bottom to top with a 4
or 6 inch coating of well-made concrete, which
sets hard and is proof against the burrowing of
worms and other inquisitive folk. On the con-
crete a 3 or 4 inch coating of plastic and «• ell-
tempered clay is firmly pounded — this it is
that keejis the water iu silii. And last of all,
a compactly-arranged pavement of rather small
flat stones, set edge-wise, is placed on the clay
to protect it from above against injury from
the feet of thirsty cattle, as the concrete jDrotects
it from below against injury from more curious
but less important animals. These artificial ponds,
since the dry summers of 1868 and 1870, have
become veiy numerous in the Peak of Derbyshire,
as well as in other districts, and they are found to
be a very tolerable substitute for natural supplies
of water where these cannot be had. Well-made
at the onset, they will last for generations, but
it is found necessary to clear out occasionally
the mud which seldom fails to accumulate in
them. It is usual to place them, if possible,
where the fences separating two or more fields
intersect each other, so that two or more sets
of land are watered by one good-sized mere. It is
not advisable to have any trees growing within
at least 20 yards of them, for the roots
of trees, in their wonderful quest for moisture,
have often been known to penetrate through
the concrete lining of a mere, tap it, and lay it
dry.
But meres will seldom be made in laud to
which water can be conveniently brought by
means of a drain, because running water is pre-
ferable to mere-water, speaking generally. Such
water may commonly be brought in ordinary drain-
pipes, providing it has no falling and rising land
to get over and the descent is even and regular.
As it is not always easy, even if it were desirable,
to bring the water quite to the surface of the
•2()0
HAIUY FAKMlXa.
land at tlio jioint wlicre it is inteiulcil to lie
made use of by cattle, it becomes necessary to
cut out a portion of soil so as to lay the
drain bare at that jwint. In Fisj. 89 we o^ivc
a diagram representing the soil cut out and
Fig. 89.— ■Wateiusg PLACE.
paving-stones laid down on both sides of the
drain, forming a sloping path down to the water
from either side. In Fig. 90 we give a diagram
representing the one side only as sloped out. In
Fig. 90.— Watering-place.
this case the water is kept cleaner than in the
other, because the cattle cannot easily get into
it with their feet, but it has the disadvantage
of offering those facilities for goring each other
that cattle are seldom slow to take advantage
of, for the way into it is the way out of it.
In the former instance the cattle can go in
at one side and out at the other, and so escape
the more easily from the spiteful attacks of
their companions. They soon learn, however,
to watch their opportunity for getting a drink
in peace, so the question of deciding on which
of the two forms of watering-place we shall
adopt resolves itself mainly into a choice between
keeping the water clean always and allowing
it to become filthy at times. If the former.
Fig. 90 will be the one adopted ; if the latter,
Fig. S9. The cost in each case will be so nearly
the same that it need scarcely influence the
choice at all. In either case the slope should
be " ribbed," so as to prevent the cattle slipping
as they go down to drink. In draining wet
land sufficient Avater is commonly found to
form, in the main-drain at the lower end of
the lickl, a watering-place of the kind we are
speaking of, and os])ccially so if a spring or
two be struck by the drains; but as the weakest
link determines the strength of the chain, so
it will not always be safe to rely in hot,
dry wi'Mtlicr on a siii)ply of water procured in
this manner.
S/ielter. — The necessity of providing shelter for
dairy-cattle in winter is beyond the need of argu-
ment, for all men are agreed on it; but it is not
eipially clear to every one that it should be pro-
vided for tiie other portions of the year as well.
Yet in high cold districts there are many biting
storms after the cows are turned out in spring and
before they are tied up in autumn, and in low-
lying districts they need some shelter against
the summer's sun. This out-door shelter is best
provided by plantations and by good white-thorn
hedges, where they will grow to advantage ; good,
strong stone walls, in the absence of hedges and
plantations, are, of course, the next best kind of
shelter. Equally with that of providing good
buildings, it is a landlord's duty to provide good
fences on the farm, with plantations for shelter, if
necessary. These are permanent improvements
that the farmer ought not to be called on to
make. Anyway, a well-sheltered farm is always
much more productive than one which lacks
shelter, and stock of all kinds will be found
to do better on it. Dairy-farmers are well
aware that a stormy day of any kind, be it of
hail, rain, or snow, will cause dairy-cows that
aye out in it to suddenly fall off in quantity
of milk, unless they can find shelter from the
storm ; and in many of the dairying districts
of the British Islands these storms are common
enough in early sj)ring and late autumn. And in
districts where the heat of the summer Is very
intense, shelter against the sun's rays is a matter
of considerable imjiortance. Forest-trees in the
hedge-rows, or scattered here and there about the
fields, jirovide this shelter, as a rule, very success-
fully, and cattle never fail to make use of it ; but
people who have no such outside shelter are in the
habit of tying up their cows in the shippons or
sheds for a few hours in the middle of the day,
while the sun is hottest and the flies are busiest.
Shelter against excessive heat on the one hand
and extreme cold on the other, and against all
kinds of storms, we are boimd to provide, not on
account of humanity only, but also on account
of econonn-.
FAULTS IN CHEESE-MAKING.
201
Faults i\ Ciikf.sk-making.
"We have pointed out in tlie pieeeilinir pasjes
the conditions necessary to the pnaluetiou of good
milk, and we may now proceed to discuss the
faults which are common in cheese-making, and
which are in a great measure the cause of so much
cheese being inferior in cpiality and condition.
The treatment of the milk before the cheese is
made is a matter in which many cheese-makers err
srreatlv, and to this we will first refer. It is beyond
doubt that in hot weather milk is often seriously
injured before it is drawn from the cow by too
much exposure to a hot sun, or by over-driving in
any way. The heat of a cow's body becomes so
great that the milk in her udder is on the high
road to sourness and decay before milking-time
comes, and it turns sour outright in a very short
time after milking, if it is not taken proper care
of at once.
Decoinposilion. — Milk, as a fluid containing a
considerable proportion of the element nitrogen,
is subject to early decomposition under ordinary
conditions ; and all substances containing this
element are much more liable to decay than those
which contain carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen only,
as starch, sugar, fats, &e. The active agent in the
rapid decay of nitrogenous substances, whatever
it ma}' be, ajjpears to exist in the air, for if such
substances be boiled in water for a time, and after-
wards kept free from the air, they will remain
unchanged for a considerable time, but imme-
diately after being re-exposed to the air they
commence to decay. Milk will turn sour most
readily at 98"^, or blood-heat ; below or above that
temperature the souring is more or less retarded,
for the time being, according to the extent of the
variation. Above blood-heat milk is not long
preserved, unless the temperature is raised to
boiling-point and the milk is afterwards kept
free from the atmosphere, in which event it will
keep sweet a much longer period than if no such
precautions were taken. The souring of milk
is a fermentative process, the active principle of
which consists of living organisms, most of which
belong to the vegetable world. The germs or fimgi
from which these organisms are developed are
commonly derived from atmospheric dust which
is deposited on substances exposed to it ; and if
the substance so exposed is one that can promote
their growth, these organisms vegetate and increase
with wijuilerfiil rapidity, an 1 in so doing cause
the substance itself to decompose. Milk from an
over-heatetl cow contains such organisms in one or
other of their stages of development, and is in ar
increased degree susceptible of absorbing other.^
from the air; hence such milk is found to decay
earlier than milk i)roduced under ordinary condi-
tions. But the boiling of milk drives off or
destroys these organisms, and if they have not
already done mischief in it, the milk will after-
wards keep sweet for a considerable time.
Cooling and Aeration. — Milk that is rapidly
cooled down immediately after milking to a
temperature of, say bo° , will keep sweet twice as
long as milk that is simply allowed to slowly fall
to that temperature in a room that is cold enough
for the purpose, and it will remain sweet all the
longer if a eun-ent of pure atmospheric air, oi
oxygen, is forced through it previous to cooling.
The decay-germs grow only below the surface of »
liquid rich in nitrogen and poor in oxygen, and
the free exposure of milk to a pure air will add
to its keeping properties. Again, milk in closed
vessels will turn sour much sooner than in open
ones, unless it is reduced to a temperature little, if
any, above freezing-point ; and it will also more
quickly turn sour in deep than in shallow vessels,
if kept at a temperature in which milk will turn
sour at all. The active agent of decay requires
moisture, food, and a moderate degree of warmth
in order to do its work; a temperature of •21^''
will destroy this agent, while one of 40° to 45°
checks its activity. Hence heating milk up
to boiling-point and lowering it to freezing have
each the effect of retai'ding the soming, which is
the first stage in decomixisition ; while an exposure
to pure air supplies the requisite oxygen, and
admits of the escape of the gases and odours
which, common to milk that is freshly drawn,
are in themselves elements of decay. The simple
effect of cooling it to a low temperature, of heat-
ing it up to a high one, and of passing a current
of oxygen through it, is to place mdk under
conditions that are not favourable to the growth
of the decay-germs; but restore the conditions
that are favourable, and decay will at once begin
again.
The practical application of these facts lies, in
the first place, in providing shade of some kind, so
that milch-cows shall not be over-heated by a hot
summer's sun, and in being careful that they are
202
DAIRY FARMLXG.
not over-driven in coming from the pastures to be
milked ; next, in warm weather at any period of
the year, in taking care to cool and aerate the
evening's milk as soon as convenient after each
cow is milked. For this purpose there is no
implement more effective than Lawrence's refrige-
rator. The milk is thus cooknl and aerate<l at one
operation, and in a most effectual manner. It
must not, however, be aerated in an atmosphere
reeking with the odours of the cow-sheds or of the
farm-yard, or of anything else that will taint tlie
milk, and to this end the refrigerator should be
set up in some place away from impure odours,
and the water must be brought to it in pipes ;
and care must be taken not to cool the milk much,
if any, below 60"^ for cheese-making purposes, or
it is injured. If kept below that temperature, milk
seems to lose certain properties that it does not
afterwards regain, the cuixl from it is dull and
spiritless, and the cheese appears to ripen after
the manner of fruit in the shade. If the milk is
aerated at the time of cooling, it will keep per-
fectly sweet until the following morning at 60" to
80", but it is not safe at a higher temperature,
unless in cold weather. The morning's milk does
not, of course, require cooling, though aerating
would most likely do it good.
Cleaxltxess.
Many cheese- makers do not take enough
pains in keeping perfectly clean all the vessels
and utensils with which the milk comes in con-
tact. A good deal of cheese is injured through
this sort of carelessness. All the vessels require
to be well scalded with boiling water after every
time of using, well scnibbed with a hard brush,
and well rinsed in clean cold water. Care must
Y>e especially taken to clean out all impurities from
the seams and joints of all the vessels, and they
should always be cleaned before they have had
time to become sour. If they are left several hours
after using, the milk or whey dries on the surface,
finds the very bottom of eveiy crevice, crack, and
seam, and is removed with increased difficulty;
and if they are allowed to get soured it is not easy
to get them sweet again. The vessels in which
the milk is kept through the night should espe-
cially be kept perfectly sweet and clean, and so,
for the matter of that, should all the others.
And it is no less necessary to keej) the floor and
walls of the milk-rooms as fresh and clean as mav
be conveniently possible. In cheese-making it is
impossible to avoid more or less spilling of whey
on the Hoor or smearing the walls with sjwts of
it; and, lying about in odd corners, deeajdng in
the crevices between the flags of the floor or the
bricks of the walls, whey is a terril)le enemy to
cheese-makers, many of whom do not seem to
be aware of it. The same remarks ajjply to spilt
milk that is not washed away. The walls of milk-
rooms should Ik? carefully cleaned whenever neces-
sary, and the floors should be frequently swilled
with clean water, well scrubbed to clear off all
kinds of dirt, re-swilled with water, and after-
wards wijwd fairly dry. A capital dairy floor-
wiper is seen in Fig. 91; it consists of a strip
of vulcanised rubber
attached to a flat piece
of wood, and project-
ing about an inch;
through the piece of
wood a handle is
inserted, forming a
cheap and handy in-
strument, the use of
which in a dairy will
be found economical
of time and money,
as it leaves the floor clean and nearly dry. Both
whey and milk soon decay in such places, and they
emit pungent, unpleasant odours during the process ;
accumulations of such decaying slops will soon
vitiate the air of the place to such a degree that it
is impossible to make either good clieese or good
butter from milk kept there. Fresh paint, paraf-
fin oil — anything, in fact, that has a powerful
odour — will do harm to milk if kept in the same
room ; decaying vegetables or flesh-meat, onions,
whey-tanks, jiiggeries — all are inimical to good
cheese and butter. Care must be constantly ob-
served in order to secure perfect cleanliness; the
floor must be scrublted and swilled thoroughly,
and the walls carefully washed ■whenever neces-
sary; all kinds of substances who.se smtlls are
offensive must be rigorously kept far enough
away ; everything, in fact, must be done, daily and
hourly almost — -and especially in warm weather,
when the lialjility and danger are the greatest — to
keep these putrefactive odours at a safe distance.
And all this care, watchfulness, cleanliness
are necessary because milk is a quick absorbent
of any impure odours or decay-germs that the
TEMPERATURE.
203
air may contain ; because it is continually on
the look-out, as it were, to seize on anythiniy
that will hasten its destruction; and because
it is impossible to make very good cheese or
butter from milk that has become tainted
with any kind of impurity. This subtle power
of absorption, which milk possesses in a higher
degree than most other licjuids, increases the
difficulty of producing fine qualities of cheese
and butter until it is understood ; carelessness
after that is inexcusable. Thorough cleanli-
ness of utensils, milk-rooms, atmosphere, every-
thing, in fact, that comes into contact with
milk, may justly be said to be one of the
most important essentials in the dairy, and
the neglect of it, in one way or another, is
one of the chief causes of most of the ill-made,
ill-looking, ill-flavoured, and ill-conditioned cheese
and butter — especially butter — that we find
everwhere in the country, that is, in every
district.
After what we have said about keeping the
milk away from unclean utensils or an impure
atmosphere, it would almost seem superfluous
to warn our readers against any other source
of impurity; but there is yet one other fault
that we must mention, because it is perhaps
more commonly committed than most others.
We refer now to carelessness at milking-time.
As a rule, no notice is taken of the cows^ udders
to see whether they are clean or dirty, and no
pains are taken to clean them if they are dirty
before milking begins. Yet it commonly happens
that dust and dirt of one kind or another are
sticking to the udder, only to fall into the
pail as the milking goes on. In the chapter on
milking we have refeired at some length to the
faults common at this stage. Many disasters
in cheese and butter making are due to these
too generally neglected details, and many a
dairymaid has been baffled in her efforts by the
results of the carelessness of others. Unless
the milk be kept perfectly sweet and clean
it is impossille to produce the finest cheese or
butter from it, and the superiority of the pro-
duct will generally correspond with the degree
of cleanliness of the milk.
Temperature.
Another practical fault in cheese-making,
very commonly committed in f aim-houses, lies
29
in " setting " the milk for coagulation at vary-
ing temperatures. Many dairymaids still go
by the " rule of thumb " in deciding the tem-
peratvire of the milk, and they leave the ther-
mometer (Fig. 92), if they have one, hanging
up to the wall from week's end to
week's end, regarding it as a curious
but unnecessary instrument, and
tnisting to their own variable hands
instead. Now it is impossible to set
milk at a regular heat in this manner,
for the dairymaid's hand will vary
in temperature at times ; still, we
admit that some dairymaids are
surprisingly lucky in the setting of
milk by guess. But with irregular
setting it is certain that the cheese
will vary more or less, though regular
setting will not alone secure uni-
formity in the cheese ; but if regular
setting will not secure it, other con-
ditions Ijeing neglected, surely ir-
regular setting will not. When we
contend for a regular temperature
of setting, we do not mean that
it shall be unvarying throughout
the whole of the year, for this
would be equivalent to a certain
amount of irregulaiity. A given
temperature is not thought to be
the best for all districts alike ; in Derbyshire 80°
is thought to be the proper heat, and in Cheshire
90'^, varying, of course, with the time of the year
and the state of the weather. But whatever the
ideal standard of a district may be, it will be
necessary to modify it as the seasons change ; for
instance, if 80" is the normal standard in mode-
rate weather, it should be 82'' in cold weather and
78*^ in hot, and if it is extremely hot or extremely
cold a still greater variation would be allowed.
If the temperature of the air is 80'^, that of the
milk may, for instance, be the same ; but if the
air is down at 65'^ the milk should be set at 82°,
and if the air is at 90° the milk should be set at
78°, there or thereabouts.' This is not a hard-and-
fast rule, and we onlj^ give the figures to illustrate
our meaning. The results of irregular setting are
these : If the temperature at the time of setting
the milk for coagulation is too low, the cui-d
remains soft, a good substantial coagulum is not
produced, and it is very cliflicult, if not impossible.
Fig. 92.
204
DAIRY FARMING.
to separate enoujrh of tlio whey fmin it after-
wards; at too low a temperature, say 70" to 72^,
the rennet cannot act properly, and the quantity
of whey left in the cheese is at once an evidence
of imperfect rennet action in the milk and the
chief cause of early decay in the cheese. If, on
the other hand, the temperature is too high, the
coagulum produced is too firm and solid, the curd
is too hard and dry, and the cheese is deficient
in moisture. In making thick cheese it is neces-
sary to coagulate at a higher temperature than
in making thin, in order that the cheese may
" stand," by reason of a less percentage of mois-
ture contained in it; and this explains the reason
of the high temperature at which the milk is
" set " in the Cheshire system of making cheese.
We assume now that no acidity is employed in the
process. For thin cheese the temperature should
never be under 75", and for thick seldom under 80°,
in each case varying with the weather — rising in
cold, dropping again to the minimum in warm
weather. These temperatures have reference to
most kinds of English cheese.
Renxet.
The practical fault next in order is that of
using badly-jjrepared rennet; and, as every one
knows, a great deal of cheese is injured in flavour
in this way. It may be that the rennet-skin
has been imperfectly cured, in which event it is
not the dairymaid's fault, except in this sense —
she ought to reject such a skin. Or, if the skin
itself be all right, it may bo spoilt in a dirty vessel
or in dirty water. Or, if it be right in both these
respects, it may be wrong with regard to strength,
in which case the milk will take a longer or shorter
time, as the case may be, to coagulate. The effect
of using an over-dose of rennet is to make the
milk coagulate and the cheese ripen quicker thau
they would with a fair quantity. It is necessary,
therefore, that care should be taken, first, that the
skins are good ones, to begin with ; second, that
they are put to soak in clean vessels and clean
water ; and third, that the rennet-liquid be of a
uniform strength. Badly-prepared and impure
rennet will give its flavour to the cheese, and a
nauseous flavour it is. Nothing is better than a
glazed earthenware jar to soak rennets in, and the
following method will produce a perfect rennet-
li(piid : — Mi.x a brine of salt and water, one jtart
salt to twenty jiarts water by weight ; linil it for
half an hcur, after which let it stand till it is
cold ; to two gallons of the brine add six rennet-
skins and one ounce of saltpetre. The mixture
will be ready for use in a month, and will keep
good for a long period if kept from the air.
During the month the skins should several times
be gently rubbed between the hands, and at the
end of it be removed finally from the liquid,
while the jar should be kept covered as much as
possible, in order to exclude the air. This rennet
will be of a uniform strength, and the milk will
coagulate in the same time each day, if the right
quantities of each are mixed together. The ortli-
nary jiraetice in farm-houses is to put a piece of
rennet-skin in soak each day for the next day's use.
By this plan the strength is not all got out of the
skin, and the liquid, though fresh, is not uniform
in quality. Properly-made rennet coagulates milk
without turning it sour in the least degree ; but it
acts quicker if the milk is a little sour.
Rennet-skins from calves not yet a week old
are considered to be more effective in coagulating
milk than those from older calves. It is said that
when a calf has begun itself to live on other kinds
of food than milk, its stomach becomes less valu-
able for cheese-making purposes, hence the greater
value of the younger skins ; but the skins are all
the better — contain more of the coagulating fer-
ment— when they have been in pickle, and
afterwards hung up to dry for several months,
thau when they are comparatively fresh, hence
old "rennet-skins," or "veils," or "bag-skins,"
as they are Variously termed, are preferred by
cheese-makers. Some people hang them up to
dry after they have been in pickle a month or
two, and it is considered that they keep on in-
creasing in strength as they dry; others keep
them in pickle, or, at all events, in salt, until
they want to put them in soak for use. It is
probable that the former is, on the whole, the'
better plan, for the skins will sweeten as they dry,
and they will thus lose the disagreeable taint that
skins in pickle generally possess. The liquid in
which they are ])icklod is not fit to use for cheese-
making, and if the veils are left a long time in it,
some of their strength soaks into and is thrown
away witli it.
Treatment of the Cuun.
Cutting the Curd. — We come now to breaking
the cunl, at the staire when coatiulatidu is far
TREATMENT OF THE CURD.
20c
enough advanced; and licvc it is that practical
faults of a serious kind are very eommonly
committed. The object of cutting the curd
is, we need hardly say, to enable it to separate
from the whey. In the first place we may state
that numberless mistakes are made as to the
particular stage of development which denotes
that the curd is fit for " cutting " or " breaking."
No exact time can be laid down with reference
to this matter, for the period of coagulation
will be influenced, first, by the temperature of
the milk ; second, by its condition as to sweet-
ness ; third, by the strength of the rennet ; and
fourth, by the quantity of rennet that is used.
But coagulation should, in the making of ordinary
kinds of cheese, be alwaj-s perfected in forty
to sixty minutes; if these limits are exceeded
in either direction, the curd will be too soft
in the one case and too hard in the other. If,
howevet, the milk is always sweet, and is set
at a uniform temperature, and the rennet used
is uniform both in quality and quantity, the
milk will vary very little as to the time required
in coagulation, and the period when it will be
ready for cutting may be predicted with tolerable
certainty. The test of readiness is when the
curd breaks cleanly over the finger when you
dip into and try to raise a portion of it.
The various ways of cutting the curd, and
the length of time occupied in the operation,
form in the process of cheese-making a 23eriod
which is alike very important and very sus-
ceptible of mischief. It is not too much to
say that the quality of cheese depends in no
small measure on the way in which the curd is
broken down — the time occupied and the instru-
ments employed in the process. First, as to
the instruments : It may be stated that curd-
cutters should never have rough and ragged
edges, and it is better that they should be
sharp rather than blunt; but in any case the
edges shotdd be smooth, not rough, and this
is a point that is too generally overlooked.
The reason why the cutters should have sharp,
smooth edges lies in the fact that such edges
bruise the curd less than any other. At the
period of cutting down the curd is very tender
indeed, and an instrument that will pass through
it with the greatest ease and with the least
amount of friction is to be preferred to any
other; but the curd-breakers in general use
in this country are rough, clumsy instruments,
better calculated to crush than cut the eui-d.
The curd should be cut or split, not crushed.
The old custom was to pass a wooden bowl
or a skimming-dish gently through the curd,
to and fro, time after time, until it was
separated into moderately small particles, pass-
ing the curd, too, repeatedly between the fingers ;
and but for its tediousness and irregularity of
action, this old method was not the worst we
have seen. By breaking gently in this way,
or by cutting with an instrument whose edges
are clean and sharp, no harm is done to the
curd; but by using a coarse, clumsy, blunt-
edged breaker, the curd is bruised, and some
of its butter and casein are liberated so that
they pass off in the whey.
The rate at which the cutting is done and
the time emploj'ed in the process are matters
in which hasty, careless persons should have
no part or lot. Such persons, in fact, are
better out of cheese-making altogether. Curd
should be cut very slowly and gently, especially
at first, and at least a quarter of an hour should
be used in the operation. To hurry the cutting
has a similar effect to crushing the curd with
a rough, blimt instrument — that is, a portion
of the butter is set at liberty and escapes with
the whey ; and where there is much whey-
butter the cheese is seldom of first-rate quality.
After the curd has been cut through a time or
two it shoiild be gently turned over by hand,
and the cutter should again be used; as the
whey goes on leaving it the curd shrinks in
bulk and hardens, and as it does so the cutter
may be used a Httle faster, so that the whole
mass is cut into small pieces. The cutting
is an important matter with regard, also, to
the separation of the whey from the curd,
and to this end it is expedient that the curd
should all be cut. If a portion of it is left
in lumps of varying size, the whey will not
leave them so readily as it does the smaller
pieces; and where scalding is not practised
and acidity is not employed, it is extremely
difficult to get out the excess of whey, in cases
where the cutting of the curd has been im-
properly done ; no , amount of pressure after-
wards will get out the whey so well as it
might have been got out by careful cutting
of the curd, and in this we see one of the
206
DAIKY FARMING.
fruitful causes of subsequent disaster in the cheese.
The whey left in sets up an excessive ferment,
■which causes the cheese to heave and blister,
to bulge out at the sides and in the middle,
and to come to an untimely end; it is also,
in part, the cause of both sweetness and bitter-
ness in the cheese, according to the kind and
the extent of the ferment; and it destroys the
colour where annatto is used.
Again, irregular cutting of the cuixl will pre-
vent uniformity of texture in the cheese. The
larger lumps of curd contract, forming a sort of
shell on the outside, and enclose the whey more or
less securely inside ; and unless these lumps arc
cut through in the after-process they not only do
not part with their whey under pressure, but tliey
do not properly consolidate with the rest of the
cheese, hence the textiire of the cheese is irregular,
and there are holes and crevices in it. And when
we speak of " lumps ■" of curd in this sense, we do
not mean large pieces, such as would be sure to
be crushed in passing through the curd-mill, but
lumps of any size, from a pea upwards, that con-
tain whey which has no business there.
The firet object, then, of cutting the curd is,
of course, to get out the whey ; it is, in fact, the
first operation that can be performed for this end ;
and all the subsequent cuttings, and pressings, and
turnings, and finally grinding, until the cheese
is at length put under pressure to form it into
shape, are all done with the same object. And
as the efficacy of all these subsequent operations
depends so greatly on the way in which the first
one of cutting was performed, we see the necessity
of impressing on all cheese-makers the great im-
portance that attaches to cutting the curd at a
proper time, in a proper manner, and by a proper
instrument.
Gelling out the Whey. — This is, of course, all-
important in every sense, but it is commonly
performed in a very imperfect manner, and an
enormous quantity of cheese is annually mined
from this cause alone. No matter how carefully
the milk has been preserved from taint and dirt,
how clean all the vessels have been kept, how
regular the temperature, how uniform the rennet,
and how particular the cutting, no cheese can by
any possible means be good unless the whey is
properly got out of it. This point missed, all
the rest are thrown away. In the process of
making cheese, the great bulk of the milk-sugar
is not retained in the eunl, but jiasses off in the
whey ; so it follows that if the whey is imperfectly
got out, a too large portion of the milk-sugar is
also retained in the cheese, and it is this that is
the cause of sweet cheese. This sugar, too, or
a portion of it, enters into fermentation in the
cheese, forming, amongst other products, carbonic
acid gas, which, in trying to escape, causes the
cheese to heave and become porous. An excess of
whey causes annatto, that is used for colouring
the cheese, to be unequally distributed, so that the
cheese is not a uniform colour; or the lactic acid
formed from the milk-sugar has a destructive
effect on the colouiing matter later on, causing it
to fade and the cheese to become a bad colour.
The presence of the whey and the fermentation
begun by the milk-sugar causes the cheese to
decay without ripening, in a manner that makes it
a very disagreeable and unhealthy article of food.
The necessity of getting out all the moisture,
over and above the quantity which the cheese may
safely be allowed to retain, will now be apparent.
This is effected, first, by the cutting of the curd ;
second, by pressure; and third, by a moderate
amount of acidity, where such is employed.
Acidity in cheese-making is the most effectual
means of expelling the whey, but it must be
employed M'ith great caution, for though it is a
capital servant, it is a bad master. Tliis acidity
may be produced at will in various ways ; the
best way of producing it is by heating up, by
means of steam or hot water underneath the vat,
the mass of curd and whey to a temperature of
about 98*^ to 100°, and letting it rest for a time;
or it may be produced by adding about two quarts
of sour whey to each hundred g-allons of milk at
the time w-hen the rennet is mixed with it. The
quantity of sour whey to be used will depend on
the temi)erature the milk has been at during the
night, for the lower the temperature the more whey
will lie required to develoj) the acid ; it will also
depend on the degree of sourness that the whey
has attained.
Hut though no heating of the curd and whey
has taken place, and no sour whey has been used,
acidity will ari.se afterwards in the curd, if it is
left without salt for some time — in a few hours
in warm weather, and in twenty or twenty-four
in cold, a certain amount of acidity will have
developed. Some of the more successful farm-
house cheese-makers that we have known have
GRINDING AND SALTING THE CURD.
207
uncoiisoioiisly employed the ag-eney of acidity iu
expullin<? the whey, and they do it by not applying
any salt to the cheese uutrl the following morning.
These are cases where the cheese is salted on the
outside only, as in the Derbyshire system of
making. In this system the whey is " dipped "
whilst it is still quite free from acid, and there is
no acidity in the curd when it is vatted and put iu
press. Now as there is no acidity, it ought to be
allowed to develop a little afterwards, and
this it will do if no salt is applied ; but if
salt is applied, even to the outside, at the
time the cheese is first put in press, the curd
will not turn acid at all, and iu this case the
whey may not be sufficiently expelled, while
if the cheese is left in press until, say, the
following morning without salt, a gentle
acidity will have been developing slowly
during the night, and as it has developed
will have assisted in expelling the whey. In
warm weather sufficient acidity for the purpose
will develop in the course of six to ten hours,
and a careful dairymaid will then apply the salt
without waiting till the following morning. The
application of salt checks the further development
of the acid, wliich by the following morning
would have become too acrid.
Grinding the Card. — This operation may
be regarded as a necessary evil, and as such
it is seldom performed with entire success.
The old plan, before curd-mills were invented,
was " erimming " the curd by hand, that is,
working it well and repeatedly through the
fingers ; and this way of reducing the curd
to fine pieces was better than grinding it in
any mill whatever, because it did the curd less
harm than any mill will do it; but the labour
of erimming was veiy great, and this led to
the introduction of curd-mills. The object of
grinding curd is three-fold : first, to cause
it to pack evenly in the press- vat; second, to
assist the remaining whey to escape; and
third, to enable the salt to be uniformly dis-
tributed throughout the entire cheese — that is,
where salting the curd is practised. Previous
to grinding, the curd usually becomes com-
paratively tough and solid, and in passing it
through a curd-mill it is, of course, very much
crushed and bruised, and this causes a good
deal of the butter to flow out with the re-
maining whey when the cheese is put under
pressui'e ; the li(|uid that luns out of a newly-
ground cheese that is put under pressure is
commonly white instead of green, and the
white in it is so much loss to the cheese. This
is caused by the iron pegs or studs with
which the mill does its work. Various things
have been designed to obviate this, the latest
and most successful being a mill in which
there are sharp knives in place of the studs
Fis. 93.— Curd-mill with Knives.
(Fig. 93), and these cut instead of crush the
curd, so that less of it swims out with the
whey. This curd-mill is intended to be used
across the top of a factory milk-vat.
Salting.
The quantity of salt used to cheese varies
greatly in different dairies. A great deal
of cheese is injured by over-salting, a great
deal also by under-salting, and this is the re-
sult of the haphazard manner which commonly
prevails. A certain amount of salt is necessary
to prevent the cheese from putrefying, and the
quantity is governed by the amount of fat in
the cheese — the richer the cheese, the less salt
is required. Salt is necessary, not so much
to give the cheese a saline taste as to prevent
excessive fermentation ; but as a given amount
of fermentation is necessary to the ripening of
the cheese, an over-dose of salt checks the
ripening by reducing the ferment too low, and
the cheese never ripens properly. Salt, being
powerful antiseptic, wholly prevents fermen-
tation if a large quantity of it is used, and in
this event its effect is similar in some respects
to that of an over-development of lactic acid^
that is, the cheese is hard and dry, and ripens
improperly or not at all. On the other hand,
too small a quantity of salt does not sufficiently
check the fermentation, particularly in poor
cheese that has too much whey left in it, and
quick decay is the sequel.
208
DAIRY FARMING,
Ao-ain, cheese is often injured by improper
saltint^; the salt or the curd, or both these, are
in too ]a.Tge lumps, so that they are not uniformly
intermixed. It is of less consequence, however,
that the cuixl be in very small pieces than that
the salt should be fine and pure. If the salt
is lumpy, the cheese is unequally salted, and
the consequence is that some portions ferment
too much and others too little; from this it
follows that some parts ripen too quickly and
others too slowly, while the texture and the
colour alike are wanting in uniformity. The
salt should be of the finest description, pure,
and of good quality, and it should be mixed
as evenly as possible with the recently-ground
cui-d; the best way is to spread out the curd
thinly and evenly, and then sift the salt over
it by means of a fine sieve. The salt and curd
should be well mixed up together by hand, and
then left to cool for a time before vatting.
The right quantity of salt to use will depend
on the quality of the curd — whether or not it is
rich in butter, that is — on the season of the year,
and on the quantity of whey still left in the curd
at the time of salting. If the milk has not been
skimmed at all, and all the butter is consequently
left in the cheese, | lb. of salt to 25 gallons of
milk in summer, rising in autumn to about h lb.
of salt to 20 gallons of milk, will, under ordinary
circumstances, be found to be about the proper
rate at wdiich to salt the curd ; but as milk varies
greatly in the percentage of solids, according to the
breed of the cows and to the district in which they
are kept, it is obvious that a milk-basis is a less
correct one to go upon than that of the curd itself,
and the best plan is to weigh the curd just before
grinding it, and apply salt at the rate of i lb. of
salt to 25 lbs. of curd. This rate, however, will
need increasing if skim-milk cheese is made or if
the milk is naturally poor in fats, because the pro-
portion of nitrogenous matter in such cheese is
relatively larger than it is in cheese of good
quality ; the fats will take care of themselves
■without much aid from salt, while nitrogenous
matter soon goes to decay without it. Hut the
above rate will make due provision for the propor-
tion of salt that is pressed out of the cheese along
with the remaining whey.
The foregoing remarks apply only to methods
where the salt is directly mixed with the curd. In
other methods the salt is applied to the outside
only of the cheese, either as dry salt or in the
form of brine, and this way of salting is found to
answer well where the cheese is properly made
before. But while it is diflicult to over-salt a rich
cheese in this way, because it will not from the
outside absorb more salt than it needs, it is a
simple matter to over-salt a cheese that has been
robbed of its cream, because nitrogenous matter
absorbs salt more greedily than carbonaceous
matter does; it is, in fact, easy to under-salt the
one and over-salt the other, and as salt is applied
ad lib., the result depends entirely on the absorp-
tive desire the cheese has for salt. On other
systems a portion of the salt is put in the milk
before coagulation, but whether or not there is
any advantage in this depends on various circum-
stances, and is open to argument.
Inferior salt does great harm to cheese, not
only on account of its impurities, but also because
it is not uniform in strength. Dryness is fairly
.satisfactory evidence of the purity of salt, but it
fiught to be crystalline and transparent, pure white
in coloui-, and of moderately fine grain, not too
fine nor yet coarse, and it should emit no odour.
Many cheese-makers prefer coarse salt to fine, but
it is now coming to be understood that this is a
mistake. There is, of course, salt that is much
too fine for cheese-making — to wit, the highlj'-
pulverised, mealy, chalky salt — and this should bo
even more carefully avoided on the one hand, than
very rough, coarse salt should on the other.
Ripening.
Much well-made cheese has been greatly in-
jured in the ripening by one or other of
the following faults : — First, damp and badly-
ventilated rooms ; second, newly-built or newly-
plastered walls ; third, a temperature that is too
high (above 75'"), one that is too low (below 65°),
or one that is continually var3'ing between these
points or beyond them ; and lastly, turning it too
seldom. Mr. X. A. Willard sums uj) the question
of temperature in the following able manner : —
" T/iree Points in Curing Cheese. — The Cheddar
dairjinen, by long-continued practice and experi-
ment, have established three points in the curing
of cheese. First, that a temj)erature of from 70"
to 75" is the proper range for securing mellow-
ness in texture, sweet, clean, nutty fiavour, and
long-keeping qualities; second, that this tempera-
ture must be maintained throughout the curing
TIIK RIPENING OP CHEESE.
209
process, and tliat une\Tn temperatures much above
and then sinkiug below the range named are pre-
judicial to fine flavour; and third, that excessive
dryness o£ the atmosphere, like that produced
from the heat of stoves, injures texture and
flavour by producing a too rapid absorption of
moisture. Take, for instance, the lump of curd
as it comes from the press. If it has been
well made from average whole milk, we have
a tough, curdy-like mass, consisting of — without
assuming to be exact — say, 28 per cent, of butter,
40 per cent, of water, and some minei-al matters.
It is in this condition about as unfit for food as
unbaked dough. Now, what is required of this
piece of raw cui-d to fit it for the palate of the
fastidious cheese-eater of England ? Well, in the
first place, the casein must be completely broken
down and intimately mingled with the butter,
while a portion of the water must be eliminated,
and the balance so distributed through the mass
as to make the whole a homogeneous substance —
mellow, plastic, delicious. The moisture must be
so intimately mingled through the whole that it
cannot be easily separated or distinguished from
the other parts, but rather giving one the impres-
sion, when a bit of cheese is pressed under the
finger or tasted in the mouth, that it is rich in
butter. In addition, the several parts, while
undergoing this change, must have retained a
clean, sweet, nutty flavour. Now we know by
analysis how much moisture should be held in a
properly-cured cheese. The analysis of the very
best of the Cheddar cheeses when six months old
shows that it contains nearly Si per cent, of water,
a little more than 33 per cent, of butter, and 28
per cent, of casein. An analysis of the best
American cheese indicates about 27 per cent, of
water, 35i per cent, of butter, and 2(5 per cent, of
casein. In other words, it has 2 J per cent, more
butter and 3 per cent, less water than the English
Cheddai", thus indicating that the 3 per cent, of
moisture in the English Cheddar in excess of that
in the American is made to take the place of
butter, producing a more palatable and desirable
cheese, and one that will sell for more money
than the American in the English market. ]\Ir.
Keed, of Herkimer, who for some years kept an
accurate record of the weight of cheese from the
time it was made up to different dates, found the
average shrinkage of cheese during the first thirty
days after manufacture to be — in June, 10 per
cent. ; July, 1 2 per cent. ; August, 6 per cent. ;
September, 3 per cent. ; October, 3 per cent. ;
November, 4 per cent. ; December, 3 per cent. —
thus showing that as temperature decreases in
the fall, the shrinkage also decreases. It is well
known that our best cheese is of September
make. The temperature of the weather during
September and October approximates more nearly
to 70* than in June or July. I think it may bo
safely assumed that in all well-cured cheese of
desirable quality and flavour we must have at
least from 30 to 33 per cent, of moisture, or else
an excess of fat to more than supply the deficiency
of moisture when the latter runs below 33 per
cent. The defect complained of in American
factory cheese when well made is a tendency to
dryness. In some of our home markets — like
Boston and Philadelphia, for instance — a grade of
cheese made in Ohio has obtained some popularity.
It is softer and more plastic than the ordinary
shipi^ing cheese of New York. Much of it has
the appearance of possessing an excess of fat; it
is not fat, but moisture, which is so intimately
blended with the solids as to be taken for what
the cheesemonger denominates ' good stock.'
One of the prominent faults in curing cheese is
a too rapid evaporation of moisture in the early
stages of curing. The water does not have a
chance to assimilate with the other parts before
passing off ; hence dryness and apparent lack of
butter. If the evaporation had been gradual, and
time given for the water to become assimilated or
' fixed,' so to speak, in the cheese, the curing
process would be carried on more perfectly, and the
evaporation thereafter would of necessity be more
slow. I saw this exemplified in the experiment
made at the jNIcLean factory last summer, when
it w-as attempted to cure cheese by a process of
applying dry steam in the way lumber is seasoned.
The cheese came out insipid and almost tasteless,
so far as a development of a cheesy flavour was
concerned, and although it was placed in the
curing-room and kept there a long time, it did
not again take on a good flavour or become mel-
low, like cheese properly cured. Again, when the
fermentation is carried on unevenly — at one time
hastened by a high temperature, and then checked
by a low temperature — the cheese is apt to put on
a bitter taint. I used to think this bitter taint
came, for the most part, from weeds which the
cows ate (and it does take taints in that way) ; but
210
DAIRY FARMING.
I have fdunil from experiment that a bitter taint
can l)e developed in any cheese by alternately
stimulating and cheeking fermentation, and this
repeatedly under high and low temperatures.
There are immense quantities of cheese, well
made at first, that are seriously injured by this
bitter taint. It is of Tarious degrees of intensity,
according to conditions in curing, but all leaving
an unpleasant taste in the mouth. It is particu-
larly objectionable to English buyers, who are
generally experts in discriminating defective
flavours in cheese."
Some people think cheese ripens best in
darkened rooms; this, however, is a fallacy; but
darkened rooms are useful in the heat of summer
to discourage flies — this is the only good they can
do, and they do harm where they prevent the
cheese from being carefully examined from time to
time. During the first month the cheese should
be turned once a day, in order to prevent the mois-
ture from settling too much toward one side of
the cheese, and also to give free egress to tlie escap-
ing moisture from all parts of the cheese alike in
turn. When they are more than a month old they
will do with turning a little seldomer, and when
they are nearly ripe thrice a week is often enough
to turn them. While ventilation is very necessary
to the proper ripening of cheese, cold draughts
must be avoided, and whatever fresh air is admitted
should at all events be pure. We have known
cheese very much injured by newly-plastered
walls; the fresh lime in the plaster exerts a bad
influence especially in the flavour of the cheese,
and particularly so if the room is damp and ill-
ventilated.
During the ripening the cheese is passing
through a slow process of fermentation, and it is
expedient that this fermentation should be regular
and uniform as to rate ; if the temperature fluc-
tuates, the fermentation will proceed in a fitful
manner, now going too fast, now too slow, and the
ripening cannot possibly be as satisfactory as when
the temperature of the room is stationary. A
cheese-room should always be furnished with a
thermometer, and this should be consulted each
day, means being taken to prevent the irregulari-
ties of which the thermometer will not fail to give
timely warning.
The best way of heating a cheese-room is by
hot-water pipes laid round by the walls ; by this
means the warmth of the room is sustained in
all parts alike, whereas if a stove is used some
of the cheese will be too warm and the rest too
cold. The room over a farmer's kitchen is gene-
rally a good cheese-room, and very little heat is
reepiired beyond that supplied from beneath, but
in order that the cheese may derive all the benefit
from the warmth, the floor should be of boards, and
not lathed and jdastered underneath. To apply
the warmth underneath the cheese in this manner
is the best possible way of applying it.
Acid in Chee.se-makix(}.
The question of acidity in cheese-making is a
most important one ; and while we admit that acid
does not answer equally well in cheese made from
all kinds of soil and herbage, and upon all systems
or modes of manufacture, we think all kinds of
cheese are, or would be, the better for a little — -just
a JUlle — of it, however sweet, fresh, and pure may
be the milk from which they are made ; while
some kinds, made from milk that is more or less the
incorrect thing, require more than merely a little
of it. The chief ditheulty attending it lies in the
danger there is of giving the cheese too much of it
too early. As we have said, one of the most fruit-
ful causes of bad cheese is found in the imperfect
expulsion of the whey; and numbers of worthy
persons have racked their brains sadly in trying
to discover at once the cause and its remedy, little
dreaming that the simplest cure imaginable was
close at hand, actually waiting — almost begging — ■
to be employed. But this " simplest cure " may
easily become, except in the case of tainted milk,
almost worse than the original mischief, and it
consequently requires to be employed with the
greatest care. While a limited development of
acid is very serviceable in expelling the whey and
in consolidating the curd into a compac-t cheese,
too much of it will make the cheese harsh, hard,
too dry, too solid, and poor in reality as in appear-
ance. When too much acid has been develojied in
the curd, the cheese, it is true, will neither heave,
nor bulge, nor crack, nor decay early ; but there are
other things it will not do, and the fa>dts of these
latter omissions are more marked than the merits
of the former ones. For instance, it will not ripen
in any reasonable time — in some cases it will not
ripen at all, but goes at length to decay, without
ever having come to maturity, like frait that
grows in an uncongenial district, or that tries to
mature too late in the au<\uun ; it will not mellow
ACID IN CIIEESE-MAKING.
211
down in its texturo, Lut remains hard and sird and
sulky, like so mueh soap.
Some of this over-acidified cheese is very ex-
traordinary ; it will neither ripeu nor decay, but
remains passive mouth after month, and almost
year after year, never ripening as cheese ought to
ripen. There seems to be no stir, no life in it,
and no chance of getting any into it ; for, however
carefully the temperature of the curing-room may
be regulated, the cheese makes no sign of rijiening,
except, perhaps, that its coat becomes covered with
the greenish-blue mould, called pencillinm crusfa-
ceum, which is commonly found on old, ripe cheese.
The cheese is dry, certainly, and there is no excess,
but rather a deficiency, of moisture left in it — it
is too dry, in fact ; and the acid, in expelling the
whey, appears to have expelled or destroyed the
ripening principle of the cheese, as well as its
flavouring oils. It is not that the flavour of such
cheese is bad, on account of which we find fault,
as that there is very little flavour in it to be either
good or bad. The flavour and the quality alike are
in abeyance, if they exist at all in the cheese.
With respect to a good, orthodox sort of cheese,
the flavour is develoj^d in the ripening, and corre-
sponds with it to the last, getting stronger as the
cheese gets riper; but in the case of the over-
acidified cheese, the flavour and the ripening alike,
after having proceeded a short way, appear to
remain stationary.
But this acidity, which is, of course, produced
from the sugar-of-milk, cannot easily develop too
far in curd which has been properly treated from
the beginning, unless the curd is left unsalted
for a considerable period ; in several hours it can
hardly, unless the weather be very warm, become
too far advanced to do the good it is calculated to
do, and at the same time to do no harm ; this is
because the whey being all or nearly all removed,
very little sugar-of-milk remains in contact with
the cui-d, and it follows that very little lactic acid
is formed. But the case is wholly different where
the acid is developed in the mass of curd and whey
before the latter is " dipped," that is, drawn or
ladled off. And this acidity is easily develojied by
three separate causes : first, by heating up to 98"
or 100° ; second, by the addition of sour whey
to the milk ; and third, by the milk itself being
already acid, as it soon is in warm weather. But
however the acid may be developed, and whatever
form it may assume, there is a great deal more of
30
it acting on the curd, and it will develop a great
deal faster while the whey is still on the curd
than it will in the curd alone. Ilcnco the forma-
tion of acid while the curd is still in the whey is
a matter that demands very close watching, while
in the curd alone it may quite safely be treated
with less reserve. But if the whey be dipped from
the curd before any perceptible acidity, or, in fact,
before any acidity at all, whether perceptible or not,
has formed, then the curd will remain sweet for a
much longer time than it would have done if the
whey had remained on it, because the chief source
of acidity has been removed with the whey.
There can be no doubt that lactic acid will tend
to counteract, at all events for a time, the influ-
ence of any taint that the milk may possess when
drawn from the cow, or that it may have after-
wards absorbed from the air (the taint from such
food as turnips, such drink as filthy water, or,
worse still, from an impure atmospheric odour) ; and
in these cases, as well as in certain others, a little
artificially-developed acidity is an unmixed good.
Indeed, to make cheese from tainted milk on the
no-acid principle — that is, with no acid either
developed in the whey or in the curd — is only to
perpetuate in the cheese the taint which the milk
had at the beginning, because such taint cannot
easily be removed by other means than lactic acid,
without either doing more harm than the acid
would do or entailing a great deal more trouble.
In making cheese from perfectly sound and
sweet milk, it is certainly better that no acid
should be allowed to form whilst the whey is
still on the curd, because there is nothing for it
to do at this stage ; but it is none the less true
that the cheese from even such milk as this will be
improved, in the great bulk of eases, by allowing a
little acid to develop in the curd ; and to this end
the cheese must not be salted for some hours,
whether the salt is applied in the curd or on the
outside of the cheese. The whey is reluctant to
leave the curd made from such milk, and such
curd takes the most making into cheese in conse-
quence. Every dairymaid knows that the cheese
is longest in making when the weather is not very
warm, when the air is quite fresh and light, and
when there is no thunder about — ^that is, the whey
is longer in leaving the curd at these times, do
what you will with it short of employing the
aid of artificially-developed acid. And a careless,
hasty dairymaid, who hurries her cheese-making
212
DAIRY FARMING.
at all times alike, will, paiadoxical as it may
appear, spoil more cheese from perfectly sweet
milk in fine, clear, cool weather, than she will
from milk that is slightly acid, or is on the point
of becoming so, in weather whose keeping pro-
perties are not good. This is explained by the
simple fact that she leaves more whey in the curd
in the former case — she does not give it time to
get out ; and this whey afterwards sets up a
wrong sort of a fennent in the cheese, decomposes
there, generates gases, causes the cheese to bulge
and crack, and prevents it from living to a good
old age.
Here, then, is another and the greatest service
that a proper amount of artificially-developed acid
performs in making cheese from perfectly sweet
milk — it helps to expel the whey that may have
been left in by hurrying the process. Rather than
hurry the process, it would be almost as well to
develop the acid in the whey and curd together
as to allow it to develop itself in the curd iilone,
providing always that too much of it be not
developed, because a hasty dairymaid will not
allow the necessary time for it to develop in the
curd, and it is more difficult, perhaps, in the
already compactly-formed cheese than in the whey
to tell when enough acid is formed.
We prefer the acid to be developed in the curd
■while it is in the milk- vat, or soon after it is in the
press-vat, providing this development can be en-
sured, and it may be by keeping the curd warm
after the whey is removed, and not salting it ; and
here it is that a portion of the previous day's
curd, that has soured a little by keeping it through
the night, comes in very useful — to mix with the
fresh curd, and by mixing sour it. We have said
there is more danger in developing the acid in the
whey than in allowing it to develop itself in the
curd, because it is so liable to go too far in the
whey, and because the same amount of acid in the
curd only does less harm to the cheese than that
brought to bear on it in the whey ; and when we
have some of yesterday's curd there is at once no
need to acidify the whey and a certainty that the
curd will produce acid enough for the purpose.
But, as a rule, the best kind of acidity is that
produced in the curd alone, without the interven-
tion either of the whey or of yesterday's curd.
In farm-house cheese-making it is seldom that
thin cheese is "salted in the cui-d " — that is, in
the systems from which acidity is carefully ex-
cluded by keeping down the temperature. The
accumulated experience of generations has taught
some of our dair3'maids that by salting a sweet
curd they entirely prevent the formation of that
quantity of acidity which, in the great bulk of
cases, is necessary to expel the whey up to a given
point, and so they salt only on the outside of the
cheese, thus unconsciously giving the acid a chance.
Some, however, salt partly in the curd and partly
on the outside of the cheese ; others salt partly in
the milk, and the remainder in the curd, or on
the outside, as the case may be ; whilst some salt
on the outside only, and not till the following
morning, thus almost ensuring, in most cases, the
formation of a given amount of acidity. Wherever
salting in the curd is found to answer well in
farm-houses, it will generally be found that a
comparatively high temjjerature is employed in
the pi'ocess of making the cheese, as in the
Cheshire system ; while to salt a cold-made cheese
in the curd would almost certainly ensure so much
whey being left in it that great mischief would
ensue.
Warmth and acidity are closely allied in
cheese-making, and the question of salting ought
always to be considered in connection with them.
If a cheese is made warm, the curd, left unsalted,
will almost certainly develop a little acid before
very many hours, and then is the time for salting;
but if it is made cold, and the weather is cold, it
is probable that no acid will form in it at all, or, at
all events, not for a long time, and salt will have
to be api)lied in the end, irrespective of the acid.
And this latter kind of cheese is very liable to be
" sweet," to heave and ferment, on account of too
much whey being left in it, and so its texture
would be neither comjiact nor uniform. Lactic
acid is very useful in its place in cheese-making,
that is, in the whey or in the curd, but it is alto-
gether out of place in the cheese that is already
partly ripened. Whey left in the cheese until
that period cannot then be expelled by the forma-
tion of lactic acid, and the ferment set up by the
milk-sugar in the whey goes on to form gases, and
these it is that make the cheese to swell out at
the sides and in the middle, destroying alike its
symmetry, texture, and compactness, while the
decomposing whey inside hastens its destruction.
Too much acidity destroys, or at least greatly
curtails, the action of the rennet in the cheese. The
active principle in rennet is the ripening agent in
ACID IN CHEESE-MAKING.
213
tlie cheese ; and this being destroyed, the cheese
cannot ripen — it can only decay. Cheese made
from milk that is coagulated by means of acids
instead of rennet does not ripen ; the acids do not
coagulate the casein of the milk, as rennet does,
into a compact, jelly-like substance, but into flakes,
and cheese made in this manner will, of course, decay
in time, but it never mellows down in a way that
can be called ripening. Now, if the jiroper ripening
agent in cheese be destroyed by the action of too
much lactic acid, or by any other means, the cheese
is left to the decomposing influence of any acids
and ferments that may form in it afterwards, but
it cannot ripen like a properly-made cheese.
It is evident that the acid, while sjiringing
from the sugar- of-milk, has a destructive effect on
the fats in the cheese; for a cheese which has had
too great a development of acid in the making of it
will be hard and dry to the end, never having that
mellow, salvy consistency which a properly-ripened
cheese always possesses. The process of decay in
an over-acidified cheese is a sort of dry-rot, rather
than that unctuous, salvy mellowness which we
always find in a thoroughly good cheese. Many of
the bastard Stiltons decay by the dry-rot method;
they are too much acidified, the ripening agent is
injured, and they were jirobably never very rich in
fats.
It is also evident that the highly-prized flavour
of a ripe cheese is a product of incipient decomposi-
tion— of the ripening, in fact. It did not exist in
the curd or in the milk, but it was developed as the
cheese ripened. Now in an over-acidified cheese
this flavour is either never developed at all or only
to a slight extent, proving either that the acid
has in part destroyed the elements from which the
flavour is produced, or that by checking and pre-
venting the ripening of the cheese it has also
checked and prevented in a corresj)onding degree
the development of the flavour which belongs
to a properly-ripened cheese.
A moderate degree of acidity, then, is service-
able in the following ways : it will greatly helf) to
cure tainted milk, it helps to expel the whey, and
it improves the compactness and the texture of the
cheese. But, on the other hand, a high degree of
acidity will cause the cheese to be comparatively
insipid, or perhaps bitter, hard, solid, sad, dry,
tough, and will prevent the riijening. And, we
may add, the degree of acidity required to effect all
this mischief is reached before we are aware of it.
unless we watch it very closely. A high degi-ee of
acidity can never do anything but harm to cheese
made from sweet, fresh milk, though a low one will
do much good if properly employal ; and it is
only in the case of tainted milk that a high one is
on any pretext admissible, and that is to prevent a
worse evil. But only a very high degree of acidity
will remove the taint wholly from the cheese, and
a degree of it that could not be permittetl in sweet
milk would only suppress the taint until the con-
ditions necessary to its resumed activity were re-
introduced. Professor Gr. C. Caldwell, of Cornell
University, with respect to tainted milk, says :* —
" A particle of taint in the air or on the walls of
the dairy or factory, or in the pails and vats, means
a quantity of fungus germs — often a multitude of
them — all ready and most willing to take possession
of the milk, and to hold it too, when once in pos-
session, with such pertinacity that no process will
expel them but such as will ruin the cheese." A
very high degree of acidity would expel them, but
it would ruin the cheese ; and the only thing that
can be done with safety in such eases is to employ
just that amount of acidity as will keep the fungi
in abeyance without ruining the cheese.
Previous to the establishment of cheese-factories
in America, the acid question was an unknown
quantity in the sum of practical cheese-making, and
it was in very few cases understood by the people
either in that country or in this. It was, as we
have said, in this country employed in many cases,
but in a sense unconsciously so, unless in the
Cheddar district ; for the great bulk of those who
refrained from salting their cheese until the follow-
ing morning were not aware that by so doing they
were promoting the formation of a small degree of
acidity, which had the efl'ect of causing the whey to
drain out of the newly-formed cheese. The whey
left the cheese all the more freely on account of no
salt being used the first day — this thej' were con-
scious of, but they did not know that a slight
acidity was the active cause of it. The Cheddar
cheese-makers have employed acidity for scores of
years— consciously and intentionally employed it —
in the making of their wonderful cheese, but it was
not employed in American factories previous to the
year 18(30. Our Cheddar system is the foundation
on which American cheese has been so greatly im-
provc<l in the past twenty years, and in that system
acidity is the salient feature.
* " Reiiort of American Uairymon's Associiition," 1869, p. 38.
21-1
DAIRY FARMING.
Tlic carryinp^ of milk that had not been aeiatcd
or cooled in closely-lidded cans to cheese-factories
in America was found, especially in hot weather, to
commonly develop a taint whose effects on the curd
were sometimes very extraordinary. The taint
t^eneratcd gases, and these inflated the curd so that
it would rise in a mass and float on the surface of
the whey, and "lloatinij curds" became known. At
this stage some person or persons unknown made
the discovery that acid checkmated taints in milk,
and it was found that cheese made from acitlilietl
curd, although the milk might previously have been
tainted, was more uniform in texture and more
compact than that made without acidity from milk
that had no taint. The cheese also cured well, its
keeping properties were increased, and it retained,
not, indeed, that fine nutty flavour for which fine
cheese is so much esteemed, but a mild, sweet taste,
that made it pass muster in a very tolerable
manner, all things considered. Acid was, con-
sequently, regularly and systematically developed
in an artificial manner.
Consciously or unconsciously, most cheese-
makers employ acid more or less. The Chctldar
dairymaid produces it by " slip-scaldiug " and
the use of sour whey ; the Cheshire by allowing
the curd to remain unpressed and warm for a day
or more ; and the Derbyshire by pressing the
fresh curd and later on salting it on the outside.
But the great thing in cheese-making, where acid
is intentionally employed, is, or ought to be, to
make the acid subordinate to the rennet, not the
rennet to the acid ; and as the acid in a high
temperature is much more rapid and powerful m
its action, it can easily overwhelm the rennet if it
is developed too far.
Salt cheeks the action of acid and rennet alike,
and acid checks the action of rennet, hence it
follows that the rennet should not be subjected to
both checks together, except to a moderate extent.
While very fine cheese is made by the aid of acidity
directly developed, equally fine is made at a rather
low temperature throughout, with a liberal use of
rennet and a little or no acid ; this gives the rennet
the advantage it needs over the acid, because it
comes into jilay faster than acid does at a mode-
rate heat ; and where the salt is not applied till
the following morning, even though the tempera-
ture be low, the result is frequently found to be a
cheese of very good quality.
Excessive salt and excessive acid each prevent
the ripening of cheese, hence it follows that the
rennet, which is the ripening agent in the cheese,
should have a chance of getting good hold of
the curd, and be well forward in its work, before
either acid is developed or salt is applied. This it
does very successfully in several methods of cheese-
making which are quite distinct from each other.
Many cheese-makers, knowing the effect of acid in
expelling the whey quickly from the cunl, have
employed it too freely with the view of saving
trouble to themselves. They have succeeded in
this, but they have nearly ruined the cheese.
Acid in cheese-making is indeed a good servant,
but it is a bad master ; it must always be used with
the greatest discretion.
Having thus reviewed the general operation
of the forces and principles employed in cheese-
making, or affecting it, we have in the following
chapters to trace their more detailed applica-
tion to particular cases or particular qualities of
chccso.
CHAPTER XVI.
Cheddar and Cheshire Cheese.
Antiquity of Cheddar Cheese-Mr. Harding's Labours-Main Principles o£ the System -Heating tlie Mill£— The Rennet and Sour
Whey— Grain in the Curd— Cutting tlie Curd— Breaking the Curd— Scalding-Drawing oft" the Whey- Acidity— Drying the
Curd— Salting and Grinding— Pressing— Curing— Cheshire Chccse-The Milk-vat-Cooling the Milk— Heat
-> "''^' ,-r and Coagulation— Breaking the Curd— Drainlng-Griuding the Curd-Drying-Pressing-Curing.
with strong adverse prejudice iu the country that
gave it birth, and at the present time, after a trial
of some years, seems to thrive but slowly, and
to give scanty proof of the power it possesses to
benefit the dairymen of England.
Fuller, in the seventeenth century, remarks
that " the worst fault of Cheddar cheese is that
they are so few and so dear, hardly to be met with
save at some rich man's table.'' These facts,
gleaned from the writings of two well-known
authors, tell us all we can now learn of the early
history of the cheese and its fame.
The little village, nestling beneath the lofty
rocks, is a fit cradle for the system ; well watered,
sheltered by the hills on the north and east, and
catching the breezes from the Bristol Channel on the
west, a jilaee for healthy people and healthy stock,
for pure milk, and clean, cool dairies. These natural
advantages, especially the shelter from cold winds
and the abundance of water, were certainly favour-
able to the production of fine dairy goods, but the
great secret of the success of those early makers
was that they (perhaps unconsciously) pursued a
system of manufacture the principles of which
were both scientifically and practically correct;
they made for their goods a reputation for ex-
cellence, and passed away, their names unknown
to fame, leaving as a rich legacy to succeeding
generations the method by which they acquired
that reputation.
The Cheddar System.
?T the foot of the main chain of
l;^:"^^ the Mendip Hills in Somerset,
and on the margin of the
" Marsh," once covered with water
when Glastonbury was Avalon,
and now the richest grazing
grounds in the country, lies the village
of Cheddar, which, according to a local
j)oet, is
" Famous for capital C's,
CUflf-s, and Caverns, and Cheddar Cheese."
Here, some hundreds of years ago, originated the
system of cheese-making which, borrowing its
name from its birthplace, has since made that
name a household word among thousands who
have never seen the grand cliffs and stalactite
caverns which are among the most interesting
natural curiosities of the county.
But it is with the cheese we have to do. Its
origin is lost in obscurity, but we can trace its
existence through nearly three centuries. The
historian Camden, who wrote in the reign of
Elizabeth, sjieaks of Cheddar cheese as being
famous in his day, and of such great size as to
require two men to set one on a table, from which
we may infer that the custom of making up the
milk of several farms into one cheese was prac-
tised in the sixteenth century as it was about one
hundred years ago, for the holdings in the neigh-
bourhood of Cheddar were doubtless then, as now,
comparatively small. Here we have the first
instance of associated dairying; and it is curious
to note that the idea remained undeveloped for
more than 250 years, was then put into practical
shape by an American, that it has, after great
success in the United States and Canada, met
This Hijdem. has not yet been improved upon ;
all that has been done within the memory of man
has either only affected the manner of reducing
its laws to practice, leaving the laws themselves
216
DAIRY FARMING.
unaltered, or it has been a fallui-e. True, many
of the awkward appliances of old days have been
thrown aside, and better and more convenient ones
now occupy their places ; and many of the dairies
and cheese-rooms of the present are superior in
construction to those of half a century or more
ao-o; but to a very limited extent have these
affected the principles of the system.
Since the be<:finning of the present century the
introtluction of fixed rules, wherever practicable,
has done much towards simplifyiufj the method.
Many of its various operations are still left to the
judgment of the maker, but the rules have rendered
even these easier to contend with, on account of
the comparative uniformity of the times, quantities,
and temperatures which occur in the daily routine of
the manufacture. The importance of having fixed
rules for the guidance of the cheese-maker cannot
be overrated; but they must possess enough elasti-
city to allow them to accommodate themselves to
all kinds of accidental circumstancesj for no two
days' experiences may be alike.
Prominent among those engaged in their in-
troduction was one whose rare perception enabled
him to gra.sp the general princijiles of the process,
and so reduce them to practice as to render the
"rule of thumb" mode of working, as a matter
of necessity, a thing of the past. We speak
of the late Mr. Joseph Harding, of Marksbury,
who not only brought the theory of Cheddar
cheese-making into definite shape, but also suc-
ces.sfully practised it on his own farm, as do many
of his pupils in their various localities at the
present time, lie was a man of great intelli-
gence, and with painstaking per.severance aimed at
making all circumstances combine to produce the
finest goods. He did not claim to be the origi-
nator of the system, nor even an improver ; on the
contrary, he was a firni adherent to its princijiles as
he found them, simply endeavouring to make them
better known and understood. He did not at any
time hold the opinion that the (juali€fe~ftf cheese
was to be attributed entirely to the Kuagement
in the dairy, though he laid great strcE upon the
system of manufacture as being the chief clement
in the question of success. In addressing an
audience during his visit to Ayrshire in 1854, he
said : " Cheese is made in the dairy yonder where
A is feeding his kine on broad clover, tares, and
rye-giuss; or where B, on the very edge of the
moor, is making what was almost desert to blossom
as the rose with the varied ar.ible forage crops of a
first year's cultivation; or yonder, again, where C
and D are managing old-land carse farms in the
groove first made generations ago, — I will take the
milk from any of them and make the same cheese
anywhere. Cheese is not made in the field, or in
the byre, or even in the cow — it is made in the
dairy. " But these words do not at all indicate
the presence of such a belief in his mind as that
which has been ascribed to him, and to which we
have referred above. We can say with certainty
that no man attached more importance to good
farming and cattle management than did Mr.
Harding; the dairy-work was, however, in his day,
as now, in need of improvement, and many dairy-
men supposed that i\\Q farm and the caflle ruled
the quality of the cheese, hence the assertion above
quoted. An important item in his creed was
that with a change of location, soil, or system
of farming, a change of management was often
necessary, thus involving some little alteration
in the routine of manufacture, but leaving un-
touched the main points of the process.
Others have been or are engaged in spreading
the knowledge of the system among their fellow-
dairymen, or in bringing science to tlie aid of
practice, but limited space forbids our making
more than a general acknowledgment of their
services.
Mr. Harding was the author of some pamphlets
on the method ; lectured upon and taught it in
various districts of the kingdom, notably in Ayr-
shire, on the invitation of the Agricultural Society
of that county;, and included among his pupils
many Continental dairymen. An American author,
the ilon. X. A. Willard, M.A., of Little Falls, New
York, who visited Marksbury in 1866 as a depu-
tation from the American Dairymen's Association,
says of the system, as he there saw it carried out,
that in his opinion it is " the only process from
which American dairymen can obtain suggestions
of much practical utility." *
Such was the reputation of the system when
its first great exj)onent was at the zenith of his
fame, and we doubt much whether the labours of
any others have since then raised the standard of
Cheddar quality. It is notorious that a lai^e pro-
jjortion of the cheese made in Cheddar dairies is
below the standaitl of that time, and the causes are
not dillicult to discover; departure from primary
• " Priictical Dairy Husbandry," p. 271.
CHEDDAR CHEESE-MAKING.
217
principles and inattention to details being pro-
minent among' them. No system can contend with
ignorance, false prejudice, and carelessness: and the
Cheddar method of making cheese will never be
successful in the hands of dairymen who cannot
bring a trained judgment to the aid of fixed rules.
failure. Fast curing, loss of mildness, sharpness
under the tongue at au early age, and decay later
on, generally accompany each other, and are in
many cases the result of an error in the manufac-
ture, with which we shall presently deal.
We now come to the consideration of the
MR. JOSEPH HARDING.
A well-made Cheddar cheese should possess
mildness of flavour, quality or richness, and solidity
of texture, should cure slowly, and keep for a long
time. When a Cheddar is not mellow, is full of
holes, or " shaky " in texture, when it cures fast,
loses its mild flavour, acquires a sharp taste and
has a tendency to early decay, we may safely say
that it was made either from bad milk, or without
due regard to principles ; and in the vast bulk of
cases the latter is the cause of partial or total
method itself, its various operations, and their in-
dividual and collective influence in the i)roduction
of a fine quality of cheese. There are various
theories and practices, some of which are essential
and others non-essential to the unity of the
system. The form of the tub, the choice between
hot water or steam, between one kind of mill,
or press, and another, belong to the non-essential
elements.
The si:e and sJnqje of a Cheddar cheese are
2]»
DAIRY FARMING.
not matters of importance. The impression sliared
by many jiersons that it must necessarily be large
is a mistaken one, and probably arises from the
fact that originally the goods made under this
process were of cylindrical shape, of 100 lbs. and
upwards in weiglit, and became famous in lluit
form. Cheese made by the system whieli \vc arc
about to describe, whether " truckle " shape. Hat,
or deep, whether of 10 or lUU lbs. weight, are
" Cheddars."
The essentials, though few, are important, and
they fix the definition of the system. They must
be princij)lcs, rules, or modes of working which
affect the quality of the produce ; they must,
when followed with judgment, produce goods
having in full the characteristics of Cheddar
cheese as before described. It must be clearly
understood that Cheddars cannot be made in any
manner that may be suggested to the mind of
a cheese-maker; if such a person proposes to
introduce a practice which in any way involves
a deviation from any principle of the system,
he can no longer claim to be a Cheddar-maker —
he no longer follows the system in its integrity.
There is a certain laxity of opinion on this question
which needs sotting right. We have heard a
cheese-maker say that any cheese which in its
cm'd state had been ground in a mill was neces-
sarily a Cheddar; and another person has given,
in our hearing, the definition of the term as " a
cheese made within a radius of ten miles of
the village from which the system derived its
name." Tliere is a heresy yet more common than
cither of tliese, with which we shall deal in the
detailed description of the process.
The distinguishing characteristics of the s^'stem
have ever been, and ever will be, the foundation
of success; they hinge together and work in
harmony, and they cannot be departed from
without injury to the produce. They are : —
1. The use of heat to raise the temj)eraturc of
the milk to about 80" Fahrenheit (or 27" Centi-
grade)* previous to the addition of rennet.
2. The limiled use of a cutting instrument in
the first stage of whey separation.
* Of the thermomctrical readings, in all instances, the
first in order is the Fahrenheit, the last (in brackets) of
the Centigrade scale. The latter, though not accurate to
fractions, are siifTicicntly so for practice. We give them
because the Centigrade thermometer is Hrgely coming into
use among scientists, and is more suited to eXDorimental
work than the Fahrenheit instrument.
'■\. The use to as large an extent as possible
of an instrument which will KpVil or hreak the
curd into small fragments.
4. The application of heat to raise the tempera-
ture of the curd and whey, after breaking, to from
95" (3o.i") to 100" (38"), for the purpose of
hardening the curd and completing the separa-
tion of the whey from it ; the former being
stirred, during that time and after the desired
temperature is reached, in the hot whey by a
blitnl. instrument until the required hardness
and freedom from whey is obtained.
5. The removal of the whey in a sweet con-
dition, at about half an hour from the time
the stirring ceases.
6. The developing of acidity in the curd
by piling and occasionally covering it to preserve
its warmth.
7. The thorough draining of the whey from
the curd, and the cooling of tlie latter before
grinding.
8. The division of the curd into small particles
before pressing.
9. The mixing of salt with the curd, at the
rate of about 1 lb. of the former to 50 1!js. of
the latter.
For the purpose of illustrating and enlarging
upon these leading points of the system, we
Avill here describe the process, as performed in
]Mr. Harding's dairy from his coming into
public notice until the close of his useful career.
His practice has been generally chosen by writers
on dairying when a description of the system
has been necessary. We shall enter into the
details of the process, speak of various appliances
and their uses, of operations and their results,
and of certain modes of working, their advan-
tages and disadvantages, as avc proceed, omitting
nothing the presence of which, in a wf)rk of
this character, may appear desirable, and making
Mr. Harding's practice the basis of the descrij)-
tion.
The dairy at IMarksbury is a part of the
dwelling-house, and consists of the making-
room, the press-room, a boiler-shed, and a cur-
ing-room. In the shed is. a hot-water apjwratus,
by Coekey of Frome, attached .by two pijies to
a large double-bottomed tub of 200 gallons
capacitj', which stands in the making-room.
From the boiler another set of pipes pass around
the cheese-room for heating purposes. Above
CHEDDAR APPLIANCES.
^19
-Section ok Cockey's
Cheese-tub.
it stands a tank, in wliich water is heated for
eleansino- the utensils. Where hot water is used for
heatinj^- tlie milk this apparatus is valuable. The
space A in the
accompanying il-
lustration (Fig.
94) is filled with
hot water, which
enters by the pipe
B, and returns by
a similar pipe to
the boiler. A large
taj) is fixed at the
bottom for drawing off the whey, and a smaller
one, c, for the removal of the hot water.
In the same room stands a tank in which to
set whey for cream, butter of a fair quality being
made from it. The whey, after skimming, is run
ofE through pipes to the piggery cistern. A long
wooden tub, or " cooler," is used to spread the curd
upon after it is taken from the tub, and upon this
is fixed a simple curd-mill, having a cylinder in
which square teeth are inserted spirally, these
working through a rack of square bars. It is
turned by hand, and grinds the curd well, though
it is not necessarily the best in the market. The
press in use is a screw and lever machine of simi>le
Fig. 95.— Pkess.
construction (Fig. 95). The screw-opening vat
(Fig. 96) is used ; this was introduced by Mr.
Harding, and is the best yet invented for large
cheeses. A tin milk-receiver, consisting of a
hopper, to which is attached a pipe, is so placed —
the hopper being outside and the pipe passing
through the wall, with its other end resting on
the side of the cheese-tub — as to allow the milkers
31
to pour the contents of their pails into the tub
without entering the dairy. In the curing-room
are "turning" shelves, which
are easily moved either \\:iy,
so that all the cheese stored
on them may be turned with
one motion, saving much
time and labour in this de-
partment of the work. This
description of the dairy will, i^'g- '■»().— Screw-openinq
we think, suffice. ' '
The evening's milk is poured l)y tlie milker
through a fine strainer into the checse-tul). There
is no previous cooling of the milk, though, doubt-
less, where it is done much danger of souring
is avoided during hot weather; but into the
space A of the Cockey tub (Fig. 94) cold water is
introduced, and the milk cooled down thoroughl}'.
Mr. Harding fully recognised the necessity for
a pure and sweet material from which to manu-
facture his cheese. By reducing the temperature
to 55° (13"), or lower during the summer, the
preservation of the milk under fair conditions
is secured ; this can be done if a stream of water
of a quarter of an inch diameter is available.
Here let us say a word about the cream rising
on the night's milk. This is, despite the opinions
of some to the contrary, objectionable. Without
going into the theory of the question, we may say
that the cream of some specimens of milk rises
faster than that from others, and is less easily
stirred in again ; but while the difference between
them on this account is marked, it is certain that,
with either, to be able to prevent its rising is a
great advantage. In the cheese factories the
"Austin" agitator is used with good results; a
description of this apparatus will be found in
the section on American factories. A simple ap-
jiliance on the same principle — a change from a
rotary — represented by a small water-wheel, to the
horizontal motion of a floating rake, the action
intermittent, a movement of the rake occurring
once every two or three minutes, will answer the
purpose, the quarter-inch stream of water used to
cool the milk driving the wheel, and thus per-
forming two useful offices at the same time. It
is found that by the use of the Austin apparatus
the milk is rapidly cooled and aerated, that no
cream rises, and that a clearer whey can be pro-
duced in making the cheese than would otherwise
be the case. At Marksbury nothing of the sort
220
DAIRY FARMING.
is used ; the eream is skimmwl ofF, poured through
the Strainer with the morning's miliv, and tho-
rouglily stirred in. ]5ut the advantaj^'e is on tlie
side of intermittent aj^itation.
When the mornini^'s milk has heen run into
tlie tub, hot water from the Coekey boiler is
turned on, and the whole mass heated to from
80° {-Zl'') to 82" (28°). The higher temperature
is necessary with small quantities of milk in cold
weather, and in draughty, ill-constructed dairies
81' (29") is not too high in the early and late
parts of the season. When a dairy is not fitted
with glazed windows and free from cold draughts,
cheese-making cannot be satisfactorily carried on ;
it may be cool in summer, but there is an un-
certainty at all times, and very little chance of
uniformity in the quality of the goods produced.
It is also probable that the cheese-maker will
suffer in health under such a condition of things.
AV^e lately made the acquaintance of an old lady
who is a victim of chronic rheumatism, which
she attributes to having for many years made
cheese in a cold and draughty room. Away, then,
with perforated zinc and wire netting, and let
every dairy be snugly built and fitted with glazed
windows, which can keep out and keep in heat and
cold ; and if in summer the room needs cooling,
close the windows and swill the floor with water.
In a well-constructed building there should be no
need of heating the milk to more than 82" (28''),
when setting for coagulation, at any time in the
season. When the milk is at the desired tempera-
ture the flow of hot water should be stopped, and
about one-third of it drawn off through the tap c
(Fig. 94), that it may not by its contact with the
bottom of the inner shell raise the heat of the
contents unduly, whilst that which is left will
assist the milk in retaining its temperature.
In the old-style dairies, where no hot-water
apparatus is used, a portion of the milk should
be drawn into a pail, placed in an ordinary boiler
containing sufficient boiling water to rise around
the pail to within a few inches of the top, and
heated until, by pouring it again into the tub, it
will raise the temperature of the remainder to the
desired point. A little careful calculation is needed
to avoid over-heating, or the annoyance of finding
that the pailful from the boiler will not sufficiently
heat the rest by one or two degrees ; but this
is not difficult. By this system of boiler-heating
good cheese can be made, but a steam or hot-
water ai)paratus is decidedly to De preferred on
all accounts.
The rennet and sour whey are now ad<li'd to
the njjlk. The former, as made at Marksbury, is
reliable in its action and pure. Best old Irish
veils are used, selected by Mr. Titley, of Bath. Salt
brine is made which will float an v^g, and to every
gallon of this is added four veils, a half-ounce of
saltpetre, and half a lemon sliced, which soak in
the brine for a month, at which time the liquid is
ready for use. A half-pint of this will, with the
use of sour whey, coagulate 100 gallons of milk in
sixty minutes or less. Now the artificial rennet
has largely superseded that made at the farm —
at least in the West of England dairies. If the
cuixl is ready for manipulation in much less than
an hour it will be tough and hard, and if coagu-
lation occupies much more than sixty minutes
the curd will be tender and difficult to separate
from the whey without loss ; in other words, to
break it as usual would ensure a " white whey."
So it will be readily seen that the coagulating
power of rennet should be definitely known to the
cheese-maker, in order to ensure uniformity of
action.
Concerning the use of sour whey various
opinions prevail, but experience has shown that
a curd produced without it, a larger quantity of
rennet being used, is not as firm and manageable
as that produced by a less quantity of rennet and
a limited amount of whey. The acidity in the
curd after scakling is more rapidly developed when
it is used, and few things tend more to render a
cheese soapy and tasteless than that the acid de-
velopment occupy a long time. At the same time,
we may remark that great judgment is required
in the use of sour whey in coagulating milk ; to
exceed the necessary quantity is risky. This varies
with circumstances ; in a warm dairy the variation
is less than in a cold room. In the former the use
of from a quart in warm weather to 3 quarts in
the colder parts of the season to every 50 gallons
of milk is sufficient; but very few accurate calcu-
lations have so far been made on the question of
quantity. The figures given are from the practice
at Marksbury, and we have not yet found it neces-
sary to depart from them.
Annatto is used by most makers. ]\Ir. Harding
protested against its use, but when an artificial
colouring was demanded recommended NichoUs'
liquid preparation. lie penned in 1800 a para-
THE THEORY OP CURD-BREAKING.
2-21
g^raph (" Recent Improvements in Dairy Practice,"
Vol. XXL, Part l.,R.A.S.E. Journa/) on the sub-
ject which is certainly worth transcribing : — " To
the cheese-consumers of London who prefer an
adulterated food to that which is pure, I have to
announce an improvement in the annatto with
which they compel the cheese-makers to colour the
cheese. The improvement is not in the smell,
which remains as unpleasant as ever, neither is it
in the taste, that is as filthy as ever ; but it consists
in this, that we now get annatto in a liquid state
instead of a cake, which saves the trouble of rub-
ing out." This is better than argument. But
if annatto is used, the proper measure should be
mixed in a bowl of milk, poured into the mass,
and carefully stirred in. The stirring should con-
tinue for five minutes or so after the rennet and sour
vvhe\^ have been added to the milk, that the coagu-
lation and colour may be uniform, and that no
cream may rise before the curd begins to form.
A further result of this stirring is the produc-
tion of a grain in the curd. The movements of the
particles of milk have not entirely subsided beforti
coagulation sets in, and the currents of milk-at(ims
are gradually affected b}' the rennet until their
movements cease, and the direction of their flow is
marked by a grain, the presence of which is shown
by the curd splitting before the finger smoothly, as
in the line a. Fig. 97, and breaking with a ragged
edge if the finger be forced
through it in an opposite direc-
tion, as at B. This theory is
supported Ijy experience, and is
of the utmost importance in de-
termining the manner in which
the curd shall be broken up
in the process of whey-separa-
tion. Now one of the leading jji'ii^ciples of the
Cheddar system is that the process of " breaking,"
as it is technically called and hereafter described,
shall as far as possible be performed with l/hii/t
instruments, which, in passing through the curd^
shall cause it to split in the direction of its grain.
But the limited use of cnffing implements is at
present requisite because no hlnid instrument has
yet been introduced which will divide the curd into
Fig. 97.— DiAGKAM OF
THE Grain Theoky.
Fig. 98. -Curd-knife.
(Fig. 98) with an oval-sl-.aped handle, the former
being as long as the depth of the tub in which it
is to be used. When the curd is " ready to cut,"
this knife is passed through it in opposite direc-
tions, leaving the mass in blocks of 6 or 8 inches
square. Then the " skimming-dish " (Fig
named because it is
'.til.— .Skimming DISH.
used for skimming
cream as well as for
breaking cuixi, is
called into the work ;
the manner of handling it requires careful descrip-
tion. The blade is passed edgewise into the
contents of the tub, and then drawn gently up-
wards, as shown in Fig. 100, allowing the block of
curd to split in its ,.
grain, and when that
is done, carefully
drawn out edgewise,
and the operation
repeated until the
mass is reduced, by
much natural sjilittini
. 100.— .Section of (Jurd,
SHOWING Splitting.
blocks of a workable size and shajie. The curd-
knife of the Cheddar method is a single blade
; little cutting and as
as possible, into lumps
of 4 or 5 inches in thickness. This part of the
I)rocess is performed slowly, but with gradually
increasing rapidity, the condition of the curd
and whey indicating to the trained maker the
necessary speed. To persons who have never used
it the skimming-dish appears awkward, and likely
to so smash the curd as to cause loss. But such a
notion is erroneous ; there is nothing yet invented
which, taking its place, will do its work as well.
We cannot imagine any alteration of its form which
might be a practical improvement, or give any
advantage not now jiossessed.
Now the use of cutting instruments is left off,
and the " breaker " comes into requisition. This
is shown in Fig. 101, and consists of a bent wooden
handle, through the lower
part of which sorne nine or
ten brass rods of gth of an
inch diameter are inserted
at about 1\ inches apart,
their ends being fastened
into two strips of wood, the
edges and ends of which,
as well as those of the
handle, are carefully rounded
off. In fact, the implement is thoroughly adapted
to the work of curd-splitting or breaking. Two
others, the " revolving " and " hoop " breakers,
, 101.— Breaker in
Breaking.
222
DAIRY FARMING.
B C
BRf;AKEB AViRES.
now nearly obsolete among' ('lieddar-makei-s, were
made with round wires or rods for the same pur-
pose. By the former of these we must not be
understood to refer to the " Keevil apparatus "
or the revolving frame of blades usetl in some
Wiltshire dairies; they are not Cheddar ;i])]ilianees
in any sense of the term.
Rut there have been introduced into many
dairies implements similar in form to the shovel-
breaker first described, but differing from it in the
most important point — the shape of the rods and
side-strips, which are made to cut or lear the curd
instead of splitting it. Sections of the various
sorts of rods used in the construction of breakers
are given in Fig. 102, where a is the wire of the
Cheddar shovel-
breaker, B the
ilianiond wire,
and C the cutting
blade. Of the two
latter, b is de-
cidedly the most
objectionable, as
we know from personal experience ; but the use of
either interferes with one of the chief principles of
the Cheddar system. The "American" method
pursued in Transatlantic dairies and factories has,
as one of its leading characteristics, the use of
cutting instruments, and the factory curd-knives
have many blades, situated about half an inch
apart, so as to cut the curd into small cubes
at the outset. The cntting breakers are, then,
we contend, " American " in principle, and should
be known as such. "Whether they are improve-
ments on the round wire Ijreakers or not matters
nothing. They deviate from the true Cheddar
jirinciple of breaking.
But are they improvements? When these cnt-
ting or tearing breakers are used it is impossible
to break the curd properly and continnomli/ and
not produce a " white whey." We have been able
to trace the resulting evils to their source in
various cases, but the makers fall back on some
mysterious and unknown influence as the primal
cause of the mischief, while the " new " breaker
remains to perpetuate it. But as we do not
recognise the cutting breaker as a Cheddar
implement, nor its work as part of the Cheddar
process, we will dismiss this part of the subject
by remarking that the flavour and keeping quali-
ties of the cheese made in the West of Eiwland
have not improved since its introduction, but
rather the contrary.
The great objection raised against the round
wire breaker is that it " smashes " the curd. This
may be true of it when in the hands of ignorant
and careless makers, but if properly handled no
more loss of butter and casein passing off with the
whey need be incurred than is consistent with the
production of the finest cheese, and the whey may
always be, as it should, as clear as Rhenish wine.
It is, with our present knowledge of cheese-
making, impossible to produce a whey totally free
from butter and first-class cheese at one and the
same time. This may possibly be achieved in the
future.
In "breaking, " the implement should be held
as in Fig. 101 during the earl}' part of the process,
and moved slowly, the speed increasing gradually.
Care should be taken to break evenly throughout
the mass, and the whey should at any time be
so clear as to reflect the face and figure of the
operator. This rule is simple but sufficient.
When the curd is reduced to lumps of the size
of large peas, " scalding ■" commences. The hot
water is again applied, the breaker turned over,
being held as in Fig. 108, and the curd stirred until
the correct temperature is
gained. In old-style dairies
the curd is allowed to
settle, and a quantity of
whc}' drawn off and heated
in a pail placed in the
boiler. The custom of "slip
scalding," or raising the F'S- 103.— Breaker in
, ' . Scalding.
temperature by pouring
into the tub two pails of whey, one at a rather
earlier and the other at a later stage of the
process than that at which the heat is applied
by hot water or steam, was in vogue in 1860,
and for some years Ijefore and after, but the
practice has largely fallen into disuse, though
in cases where the old style exists the effects
are beneficial, as by it the chance of getting too
hard a curd is somewhat lessened.
In scalding, as in heating for coagulation, a
higher ti'inperature is necessary in cold than in
warm weather, in a draughty dairy than in one
jiroperly constructed, with small than with large
((uantities of milk; the range, however, lies
between 97" (30^) and 100" (,'3S''), and it is
seldom necessary to go above or below it in liomi'-
MANAGEMENT OF THE CURD.
223
dairy practice. In making largo quantities, as
in factories, 95° (35i''') is sufficient for summer
work. When the necessaiy temperature has been
reached, the hot water should be turned off, and
the stirring continued until the curd feels
" shotty," or is hard enough to rub between the
fingers without adhesion, and the whey pressed
from it is clear ; then the breaker is withdrawn,
and the curd allowed to sink to the bottom of the
tub. As the curd often enters into this condition
suddenly, being apparently far from it at one time
and within a very few minutes afterward found to
be hard, it cannot be too carefully watched. While
scalding, great care must be taken to prevent any
curd lodging on the bottom of the tub, where the
heat will cause it to adhere and become lumpy;
the motion of the breaker must not, however, bo
violent. And here let us remark, that from the
first cutting until the scalding and subsequent stir-
ring is completed, the process must not cease for
a moment, excepting for whey-heating under the
old style of management. The Cheddar method
does not admit of cheese-making and domestic
work being done alternately by the maker in the
same time ; the entire attention of one person is
required throughout the earlier half of the work,
and the cheese should be the first object of con-
sideration until it is in press.
But to return. At this stage of the process
the curd is allowed to remain under the whey for
half an hour, when the latter is drawn off, no
particles of curd being allowed to pass off with it.
For this purpose a simple syjihon and a cylindrical
strainer is the best arrangement known. The
strainer is placed in the tub, close to the side,
the sj'phon filled by immersing it in the whey,
and then, the ends being held tightly in the
hands to prevent the contents running out, the
shorter arm is adroitly put into the whey,
which begins to flow from the longer arm,
and continues to do so until almost all has
been drawn from the tub, leaving the eurd un-
disturbed. The shorter arm of the syphon should,
when resting on the side of the tub, reach to
within half an inch of the bottom of the strainer,
which should be eight or more inches in diameter
and as deep as the tub. When these are not used,
the whey is drawn through the tap, care being
taken to prevent any eurd being carried with it.
When this has been done, the curd is piled in
a compact heap, and if the weather is cold covered
by a cloth to enable it to retain heat and develop
acidity. This cannot be done too quickly; the
longer the time it occupies, the colder will be the
curd, and cold cheeks acid.
In from twenty to thirty minutes the curd is
cut into two or three pieces and re-piled, those parts
most exposed before being now turned inwards,
and all packed closely together. To decide when
curd is sufficiently acid is difficult to an untrained
maker, and no definite rules exist on the point,
some dairymen using a hot iron, to which the
curd adheres and from which it draws out in fine
threads when a certain amount of acid is present,
others — the majority — trusting to their experience.
Various chemical tests have been suggested, but
they occupy too much time, and are too trouble-
some for the ordinary maker; while as yet no
acid-meter has been invented which will register
acid as a thermometer does heat, and there seems
no probability of the app(\arance of such an instru-
ment.
But, lacking such aid, we know that curd
should not occupy more than an hour in develop-
ing 251'oper acidity, and at that time should be
uniform throughout the mass. If the air is so
cold that it would necessarily take a longer time,
some strainer cloth should be put on it, or the top
of the tub covered over. The use of any material
of close texture should be avoided ; curd covered
by it will smell musty.
When sufliciently acid, the pile of curd is cut
into three or four lumps and spread over the
bottom of the tub, and t'lere left for ten or fifteen
minutes ; then, divided into smaller lumps, again
spread abroad ; after another short interval torn
into pieces of 3 or 4 inches square and 2 inches or
less thick, and spread upon boards or in a cooler,
this being a gradual method of drying, the
windows opened if the weather is fairly warm,
and rapid cooling induced. It will require once
turning ; and when the surface is dry, the tem-
perature about 60° (15^°), and a tinge of brown
ai:)pears, it is ready to grind.
As on an average a pound of cheese is made
from a gallon of milk, we may take the number
of gallons of milk as the basis for salting. The
salt should be thoroughly mixed with the curd
when ground, at the rate of 1 lb. to 56 gallons
of milk, and too pure or too fine a salt can hardly
be used. Mr. Harding used and recommended
Titley's double refined salt, which is, as is also
2:JI-
DAIRY FARMING.
the "Eureka" salt of Messrs. Ilisririn, of Liverpool,
specially adapted to dairy use. The curd should now
be put into press, and the grinding, salting, and
vatting cannot be done too quickly consistently
with thoroughness. Any further cooling or
drying should be avoided, and in ten minutes
from the time it is ready to grind it shoidd lie
under pressure.
The cheese remains in press until tlie day
after making, is then taken out aud bandaged
(if this has not already been done), turned, and
again put under ])ressure. To makers of heavy
goods we commend the screw-opening vat (Fig.
yC), as less liable than others to injure the cheese
when removing or replacing it. When the cheese
is to be removed from it, the screws a a (Fig.
96) being turacd, open the vat at its side and
bottom, so that the latter can be lifted up from
the former with case.
After the second day under pressure, the
cheese will be ready for removal to the curing-
room, and we will follow it thither. It is only
curd yet, and the process of mellowing down into
a ripe, clean-flavoured, and luscious article of food
fit for the table has yet to come. Here may be
stored perfect and well-pressed curd, promising
to become all that we could wish — a credit to
the maker, the desire of the dealer, and a source
of gastronomic pleasure to the consumer; and
here it may by over-heating acquire a sharp,
strong, and unpleasant taste ; or by the tempei-a-
ture being kept too low may become soapy and
characterless in flavour; here, in fact, it may
be spoilt by simple neglect. Authors on dairy-
ing who point out bad curing as prominent
among the causes of failure are by no names
wide of the mark.
(Cheese cannot be cured perfectly in ill-con-
structed, draughty, or damp rooms, which are
(oo cold in winter and too warm in summer,
without any artificial means of warming the
contained air, and keeping the temperature at
a desirable point, and in which the thermometer
shows a variation of many degrees. We have
seen a modern dairy, built within the last twenty
years, the walls of which were mildewed, and the
cheese in which was furred, and this in the county
of Somerset, the home of the Cheddar system ;
and we have reason to know that a large num-
ber besides in the county and country are more
or less unfit for the purpose for which they
are intended. Mr. Harding found fi-om personal
observation that newly-made Cheddars give out
moisture at the rate of 2 lbs. per ton in twenty-
four hours, and accounted for the lack of charac-
ter in and uniformity of much of the cheese made
late in the season, by want of artificial heat
and proper curing-rooms, the evaporation of the
moisture being slow, from the low temperature
of the surrounding air. Subsequent experience
establishes the correctness of his belief. Let us
then say what has already been so often said,
that if the cheese is to be of first quality,
we must store it in a proper room, with a cor-
rect and uniform temperature. The room should
be so constructed that the air it contains should
be .affected as little as possible by that outside.
Ventilators are useful, though they must be
more generally closed than open. Warmth should
be obtained by the use of a heating apparatus;
the pipes connected with the Cockey boiler as
at Marksbury will warm a cheese-room admir-
ably, though where no hot-water system is in
use a slow-combustion stove will, though in-
ferior, answer the purpose. But neither must
be situated very near the cheese-shelves.
The best temperature for the curing of Cheddar
cheese is from GO'^ (1.5i°) to Go" (IS^''), in which,
if well made, they will ripen and be ready for sale
in three months or less from the date of making,
while in a cold room the same goods will require
twice as much time, and a correspondingly large
amount of storing space will be needed. The
cheese should be turned over every day until it is a
month old, and afterwards not less than once in
two days. The bandages may be stripped from
large cheeses at five or six weeks, and from thin
ones of less than 50 lbs. weight at a month from
the time they are made. It is an advantage to
have the date of manufacture marked on the
bandage, for ready reference.
In some cases it may appear desirable to make
milk-cream butter and "half-cream" or "skim"
cheese, and no description of the system would be
])erfect which did not include some remarks on the
manufacture of the two latter, and the points on
which the process of making each differs from that
of whole-milk cheese.
" Half-creams " are made from the evening's
milk .skimmed and the morning's meal of whole milk
mixed, and "skims" from two meals of sicimiiied
milk. The routine of the work is the same with
CHEESE FROM SOUR AND TAINTF.D MILK.
235
both ; the differences are o£ time, eomlition, and
temperature. In making these goods there is
great danger ol! produeing too liai-d curd ; this, it
will be readily seen, is greater with skimmed than
with half-skimmed milk. The maker should be
careful to cut the curd rather earlier than is usual
with whole milk, as a tender curd is more necessary.
In scalding, the heat should not be lowered, but
the curd needs less stirring and more careful
watching than in making full-cream cheese. The
acidity should be hastened, and all the subsequent
work done as quickly as possible, as the curd will
cool and dry vapidly. It should be put to press at
not less than 05" (IS^''), and cured in a room
the air of which stands at about the same tem-
perature.
A few remarks upon the treatment of sour
and tainted milk under the Cheddar system will
perhaps be useful. Many makers have both, but
especially the former, to contend with occasionally,
and want to make the best of a misfortune. It is
certain that w-e cannot make a jirime article from
either, but with care and proper management an
eatable cheese can be produced.
Experience has shown that sour milk cannot
be made up too quickly. A loss of solids will
be the result, but of two evils we must choose
the least ; so when the curd is firm enough, cut
and break it, remembering that the tendency to
become tough is projiortionate to the sourness
of the milk, and that if this part of the worli is
not quickly desi^atched, the lumps of curd will
become unbreakable before- they are sufficiently
small — a condition of things to be avoided at ali
risks. At no time in a cheese-maker's experience
is tlie minute division of the curd in brealcing
more necessary tlian when he lias sour milk to
convert into clieese. Scald high — say 100° (38")
to 10:J° (39°) — and carefully watch for the har-
dening of the curd during the stirring, which will
occupy but a short time. Let the curd lie under
the whey the usual half-hour, or the natural acid
will be too much checked ; but after the whey has
been drawn off, expose it to the air a short time,
then pile, though not as closely as is usual with
good cheese, and when the sourness is cheeked by
the exposure, pile as with the curd of whole milk.
Place it, when torn abroad, upon some sloping surface
where it can drain itself, and dry it thoroughly
before grinding. Use more salt than would be
required for a curd made from sweet milk — say
1 lb. to .'JO gallons of milk — and put at first
under less than ordinary pressure.
Tainted milk is not so common in England
as in America, where "floating curds" made from
it are the terror of the cheese-makers. We have
had personal experience in handling such milk,
and know that it may be successfully treated.
The great counteractant of taint is acid, which
should be developed by high scalding and close
piling. The curd should then be dried as rapidly
and ground as finely as possible. If stirred too
long after scalding, the cheese will be hard, and
liable to crumble. The condition of the curd
must therefore be narrowly watched during that
part of the process.
The causes of sourness and taint are spoken
of elsewhere ; we therefore give these facts for
the guidance of practical cheese-makers, and refer
them to that section of this work treating of
these subjects for any scientific information re-
lating to them.
We have in these pages endeavoured to give
a true description of the Cheddar system of
cheese-making, avoiding unnecessary technicali-
ties, and dealing with all the details of the process
for the information of all, from the tyro to the
trained maker. The system became famous at a
time when the work was done in what to us
would appear a most unsatisfactory manner, and
scientific aids were, as far as we can judge, un-
known in the dairy; it has gained notoriety
within the last fifty years, through the teaching
of ]\Ir. Harding and others ; and we venture to
predict for it, if fairly distinguished from other
systems (such as the American, from which it
greatly differs on some important points), and
its principles faithfully carried out by intelligent
dairymen, a future of fame greater than its
past has been. J. O.
Cheshire Cheese.
For a very long period the county of Chester
has been famous for its cheese. Many hundreds of
years ago Cheshire cheese had obtained a reputa-
tion which was barely approached by that of the
cheese of any other county in the kingdom ; and
in modern times its fame has spread to many
lands, in some of which imitations of it have been
and are still being made. Cheshire cheese is also
made in the adjoining counties, more particularly
in Shropshire and Staffordshire, where the same
22o
DAIHV FARMINC;.
gL'olotrical lorniutiiin prevails. 'riirn' can be nn
doubt that the properties i^eculiar to Cheshire
clieese, whether it is made in that or in the adjoin-
ing counties, are in a great measure owing to tlie
new red sandstone, and to the boulder clay liy
which it is accompanied, from which the soil of
that part of the country has been derived in the
course of ages. Cheshire is also famous on account
of its salt deposits; no doubt the .saline element
counts for something in the agricultural jiroducts
of the country. It is sufficiently clear that the
soil contains some property or properties which in-
fluence the character of the herbage, and that the
herljagc gives to the milk produced from it, and to
the cheese that is made from the milk, certain fea-
tures that can only in part be imitated in other
districts and countries.
It is beyond the need of argument that a faie
old Cheshire is a magnificent lump of excellent
food. Of late years, however, Cheshire cheese
has lost some of its old and excellent reputation.
Whether this is owing to the general use of
enished bones and other fertilisers on the dairy
pastures of the county, whether the Cheshire dairy-
maids have lost their ancient cunning, or
whether too much skimming of the milk
for butter is done, we know not ; but it is the
universally-received opinion that the cheese
of the county, long famous for its nieati-
ness, quality, flavour, fi'-'^ness, and size, is
as a rule less excellent than it used to be.
In the olden times the shape and size of
Cheshire cheese were features peculiar to it
and to the Cheddar cheese of the period, but
the other peculiar properties of the Cheshire were
not shared by any other kind of cheese, and are
not to this day. So far as shape and size are
concerned, the depth is commonly greater than
the diameter, and each cheese will weigh 40 to
80 or 100 lbs. The weight, however, depends
ill a great measure on the number of cows whose
milk can be devoted to a single cheese; in
small dairies the cheese, while still retaining the
orthodox Cheshire shape, would necessarily be
small in size.
It is seldom in the Cheshire system that the
cheese is made oftener than once a day, and that
once in the morning. The evening's milk has,
therefore, to be kept through the night, and mixed
with the morning's before the chee.sc-making com-
mences. For a \i>uix iieriod it has been cus-
tiiiiiarv til j^i't'p tjie milk over-night in j)ans or
coolers of one kind or another, in which it would
be in small i|uantities and shallow, and in the case
of small dairies it has been not uncommon to keep
it a day and a half, until there was enough to
make a cheese. Longer than this, especially in hot
weather, it is not advisable to keep it for cheese-
making purposes. But whether it ]k kept one
night onl}', or as much as two nights in some
cases, a milk-room specially adapted and kept for
the purpose is a great convenience. After stand-
ing the twelve or more hours, as the case may .
be, the cream is usually skimmed oflE for butter-
making, more of it being taken off as the cheese-
making season approaches its close. Up to mid-
summer very little cream is taken off, but after
that period the milk will bear more robbing. In
modern times it has become common not to put
the milk in small pans to cool, but to put it im-
mediately after milking into a properly-constructed
vat, which has an inner and an outer shell, with a
space between them.
In Fig. lOl is seen the modern Cheshire
milk-vat, which, after the manner of the factory
Fig. 104.— Cluett's Improvep Milk-vat.
milk-vats, has an inner and an outer shell, the one
of stout tin and the other of wood or of sheet-iron,
well bound together and water-tight. Its inside
measurement is 7 feet by 2 feet 10 inches. The
inlet and outlet for hot or cold water ai'e seen
in the angular funnel and in the tap, one above
the other, at the end of the vat. In Fig. 105
is seen the inner shell detached from the outer
one; the "whey-plug" seen at the right-hand
end is soldered to the lowest part of the shell-
bottom, so as to drain off all the whey, and
passes through the outer shell, to which it is
attached in a water-tight manner by the nut
seen on the lower part of it. This plug is at
the opposite end of the vat from the water-tap,
and is not seen in the engraving of the vat
eom])lete.
CHESHIRE CHEESE-MAKING.
Ill this vat the milk is cooled over-night, and
coagulated the following moruing. In the even-
ing- the space Ix'tween the two shells is filled with
cold water, which is changed a time or two, until
Fig. 105.— INNEE Shell op Milk-v.\t.
the milk is con] enough. In ca.ses where it can he
done, a small stream of cold water is kept running
through — in at one end and out at the other — until
the milk is cool enough ; in hot weather the stream
is kept running all night, so that the milk is not
only cooled at the onset, but kept cool all through
the night ; and there can be no doubt about the
advantage of cooling milk in this manner in wann
weather, in stirring it whilst it is cooling, so that
its heat and odour may both escape the more
freely, and in keeping it through the entire night,
by means of the stream of water, at a temperature
which will prevent its souring or tainting.
It is not advisable to cool the milk too much ;
under ordinary circumstances of weather 65" will
be found quite low enough, and some do not cool
it below 70". A good deal depends, however, on
the milk-room ; if it is a cool, well-ventilated
room there is less need of cooling the milk below
TO" than if the room is a warm one and ill-
adapted to the purpose, because in the former
case the milk will go on cooling until it meets
the temperature of the room, whereas in the latter
case it will grow warmer until it meets the tem-
perature of the room. In very hot weather it is
well to cool it below 60", or even to 55" if pos-
sible, before leaving it for the night, because it
cannot remain at that temperature unless in case
of cold water continually running under and
ai-ound it through the night; but under ordinary
circumstances of weather, and in a milk-room well
adapted to the purpose, it will not, as a rule, be
necessary to be at jiaius to cool it even so low
as 65".
"When the evening^s milk is skimmed on the
following morning, a portion of it, if it has Ijeen
kept in pans, is heated up in a kettle of some
sort; if it has been kept in the milk- vat it is
32
all warmed by having hot water or steam in
the space that was previously occupied by cold
water. This heating up of the evening's milk is
usually done before the morning's is added to it;
but if the evening's milk is found to be
about 70-" there is not much, if any, need
to heat it, for the new milk added to it
will generally bring the temperature up to
the point which, according to tlie fancy of the
dairymaid, is considered best for adding the
rennet and for coagulation. This, however,
has in the past been a haphazard sort of
system, depending for uniformity on the mere
judgment of the dairymaid, the test being her
hand or finger. In modern times thermometers
have come into general use, and accuracy is thus
obtained ; but this does not appear to be a matter
of much consequence, because authorities differ so
widely in their opinions as to the temperature at
which it is best to set the milk for coagulation,
so that uniformity obtained by using a simple
scientific instrument ajipears to be a matter of
indifference. One authority (White) places it at
70" to 75", another (Aston) at 88" to 94" ; but
the use of a thermometer will enable each indi-
vidual cheese-maker to secure on all days alike a
uniform temperature, but what that temperature
may be will still depend on the fancy of the
maker. More or less annatto for colouring is
added to the milk at the time the rennet is; the
quantity used will depend on the season of the
year or on the fancy of the maker. If in summer,
less of it is used, because the flowers among the
grass in the fields are supposed to give enough
colour to the cheese. Flowers, no doubt, have an
effect in colouring both cheese and butter, but the
colour of both depends chiefiy on the time which
has elapsed since the cows calved, and the longer
it is since they calved the j>aler grows the milk, so
that as winter approaches it is found necessary to
use more artificial colouring-matter, in order that
the later-made cheese may not be paler than that
of the summer.
Sufficient rennet is used to coagulate the milk in
forty to sixty minutes. When sufficiently advanced,
the coagulum is carefully broken down by the aid
of a curd-breaker, which we illustrate in Fig. 106.
This breaker is made of tin, the handle being of
wood ; the little squares seen in the woodcut are
formed of strips of tin set edgewise, and inter-
secting: each other so as to form meshes of about
228
DAIRY FAHMIM;.
Fig. 106. — CunD-BIlHl.VKER.
an inch square. The operation of hreakiiiy is at
first performed very slowly and carefully, and in
the course of a quarter f)f an hour or so tlie curd
in the bottom of the vat is
raised \vith a skimmer,gont]y
broken up b\' hand, and iu-
term i xed with t he rest, during
which, wliere a double-shelled
vat is used, hot water is
poured into the space to raise
the temperature of the curd
more or less, and the process
of breaking with the tin
breaker is resumed and con-
tinued for some ten or fifteen
minutes longer. The curd
then settles to the bottom,
and is gathered toward the
Tipper end of the vat, while
the whey is being removed
Ijy means of a syphon, a
ladle, or a whey-plug, as
seen in Fig. 105. The
last-named is the latest method employed, and it
is a feature in the new milk-vat. Fig. lOJ-, which
has been received with much favour in Cheshire
dairies.
In Fig. 107 is seen an improved curd-breaker,
whose base is shaped
to fit the bottom of
the milk-vat (see
Fig. 105). It is
also used to gather
the curd towai'd the
upper end of the
vat.
It has hitherto
been usual to have
a special curd-
drainer, a rather
shallow apparatus,
built of wood
throughout, and
standing on four
legs — size, 5 feet
by 2 feet 2 inches,
and about 1 5 inches
deep (see Fig. 108).
The drainer has a false bottom — that is, loose —
consisting of the racks which are seen standing
inside. On the false bottom is spread a strong
coarse cloth, and on the cloth the curd is placed.
The cloth is large enough to completely wrap up
all the curd, which then remains about an hour
Fig. 107.— Improved Curd-breaker.
Fig. 108. — Curd-drainer.
covered up and at rest, except tliat it is now and
then turned over.
But the new milk-vat (Fig. 101) dispenses with
the need of a special drainer. As the whey runs off
at the lower the curd is gathered toward the upper
end of the vat, and two racks (Fig. 109), together
Fig. 109.— One of the two Rack.s.
4 feet long, and in width equal to the inside
measurement of the vat, are placed in its lower
end, which is at liberty, the curd being then at the
otiier end. A cloth is spread on the racks, and
the curd placed in the cloth, exactly as in the case
of the special drainer, the only practical difference
being the saving both of tlie cost of the drainer
and of the room that it would take up in the
dairy. Tlie curd is not placed on the racks im-
mediately after the whey is removed from it, but
it rests awhile in the upper end of the vat, during
which time it is becoming compact and firm, and
the whey is draining away. It is then cut in
lumps and placed pn the racks to drain. In this
place it remains two to three hours, and is cut
again into blocks, and turned over several times in
the period ; it is also kept well covered up by the
coarse draining- cloth, and in some cases a light
CHESIlIllE CHEESE-MAKING.
franiewnrk "f wood is, jilaccd on the top of the vat,
and over this an additional cloth, iu order to keep
the curd warm whilst it is draining. If the
weather is cold, warm water or steam is turned on
in the space between the inner and outer shells of
the vat, and this effectually maintains the curd at
the proper temperature. The tendency of the
curd at this stage is always to settle down into a
compact mass, particularly when a little acidity is
developed in it.
In many of the Cheshire dairies (as, in fact, in
those of other counties too) more or less whey-
butter is made, and in the most modern ones the
whey is set to cream in blue slate cisterns, com-
monly in the room in which the cheese is made,
but not in that in which the milk is kept over-
night. ISIr. Cluett, of Tarporley, the maker of
the improved milk-vat, recommends that these
cisterns be let into the floor, so that when the
whey is ready to be taken from the curd tlie milk-
vat can be wheeled to the cisterns, one end of it
projecting over them, and the whey empties itself
into them through the plug-tap, saving all lading
and carrying of the whey, and greatly reducing
the labour and untidiness of the dairymaid's occujja-
tion. The whey generally remains in the croaming-
cisterns until a fresh lot is ready to take its place.
The process through which the curd next
passes is that of grinding it in the curd-mill
proper amount of salt is mixed with it — about
Sh to 4^ lbs. of salt per ewt. of curd, accord-
ing to the fancy of the dairymaid. In some
cases a portion of the salt is applied earlier than
this — when the eui-d is placed on the racks to
drain — and the balance at the time of grinding;
in yet other cases a little salt is put in the milk at
the time of setting it for coagulation, a little more
perhaps before the grinding, and the remainder
after grinding. In the most approved methods
the curd, after being ground and put in the
Cheshire Cubd-mill.
(Fig. 110). Before the grinding the curd is
weighed, and immediately after the grinding the
Fig. 111.— Vat with Curd in it.
cheese-vat, is placed in an oven Avhich has been
erected for the purpose, and not under a press,
as is the custom in other parts of the kingdom.
Fig. Ill represents the vat of freshly-ground curd
as it is placed in the oven; a is the wooden cheese-
vat, B the cylinder of perforated tin, and cc the
skewers that are inserted to help out the whey.
"When the vat is removed from the oven, the curd
will generally be found to have settled down a
good deal, and a narrower cylinder of tin then
replaces the wider one.
The oven in question is sometimes, in order to
economise heat, placed in the inner wall dividing
the kitchen from the dairy, so that the kitchen
fire serves to heat the cheese-oven without any
additional expenditure of fuel. The curd is put
loosely in the vat, and without any pressure at all
is placed on a shelf in the oven, where it usually
remains until the following morning only. Some-
times there are two or three cheeses in the oven
at once. The warmth of the oven helps the
remainder of the whey to leave the curd, and
skewers are inserted through the mass of the
curd in a lateral direction through holes in the
280
DAIRY FARMING.
side of the checse-vat, in order to still further
faeilitate the escape of the whey. The warmth of
the oven is regulated according to the weather,
between 70" and SO*^ or so, and this in some
instances, where the curd is lightly salted, induces
a slight acidity in the curd ; during the night the
curd settles down in the vat into a tolerably com-
pact mass. The curd sometimes remains in the
oven longer than the following morning, in which
event it is taken out, turned over, placed in a dry
cloth in the vat, and replaced in the oven.
When the cheeses are finally taken from the
oven they are placed in the lever-press, providing
there is a vacancy for them; but as it sometimes
happens that these large cheeses have to remain in
press a week, or even longer, those coming out of
the oven have to wait their turn to go into press,
unless ample press-room is provided to meet all
contingencies. The comjiound lever-press shown
in Fig. IH is an exceedingly valuable one for thick
Fig. 112. — Cheshire Cheese-phess.
cheeses, two of which it will accommodate very
e;isily; and a.s there are two bottoms in the press,
each one independent of the other, the two cheeses
are pressed quite even, whereas llicy would not be
if they were jilaced one on the other without a
rigid i)artition between them. This implement will
press either one or two thick cheeses at will, or
two, three, up to six thin cheeses, and as it can
be raised or lowered by the handles, shown in the
illustration, it is extremely simple and easy of
1 3. — C H EE.SE-ST,\N U.
adjustment. In some dairies a few cheese-stands
(Fig. 113) are provided for the cheese in case any
of them have to wait before going under press,
and as the stands are on wheels they are very con-
venient for, conveying the heavy cheeses from one
part to another of the dairy.
During the time the cheeses are in press they
are daily turned and dry-clothed, and when finally
taken out of press are scalded with hot water ;
after the scalding they are greased all over to
prevent cracking of the skin, and they are next
swathed in stout bandages to preserve them in
shape during the subsecpient drying. Lastly, they
are taken up-stairs to the cheese-room, or drying-
room, where they are turned over at intervals until
they are sold to go away. In some of the more
advanced dairies there is a handy little lift, by
whose help the cheeses are raised by a i"ope and
pulley to the chamber above, thus doing away
with the labour of canning them up the stairs.
The lift consists simply of a light framework
of wood, which slides up and down between
uprights, and the ]mll('y is overhead, in the room
above.
The drying-room, or cheese-room, as it is most
generall}^ called, is commonly the one immediately
over the kitchen or general living-room of the
farmer's household, in which case it obtains a good
deal of the necessary warmth from below, and this
means the saving of coal above. Many farmers
have hot- water jjipes laid round by the wall on the
floor of the cheese-room, and when properly laid
tliov arc on the whole the liest means of warmin<r
A CHESHIRE DAIRY.
231
Fig. 111.— GROUND-PLAN OF CHESHIRE DAIRY PREMISES.
232
DAIRY FARMING.
the room. Others, ag-:iin — and these are the most
niimeri)iis — have only a stove in the cheese-room,
and tliough this is a useful heat-producer it is
objectionable, on the o-round of uirmjuuI distribu-
tion of the heat produced.
In Fi<;. lit is g'iven the f!;round-i)lan of one of
Lord Tollemache's recently erected and most a])-
proved farm-houses, dairy-offices, and pij^geries
attached. The milk-vat containing the evening's
milk remains in the " milk-house " all night, and
ne.\t morning is wheeled into the making and
press room. The general arrangement will be
easily traced in the plan — the whey-vats for
creaming, the pipe conducting the whey to the
tank, the chain-pump to raise it to the cisterns,
the meal-house, the cooking-boiler, and the general
arrangement for feeding the pigs, all of which are
contrived with a view to economy and efficiency.
The adjacent cattle-sheds and other farm-offices
are withheld from the plan, as not being jiertiuent
to our present object of showing dairy arrange-
ments.
The time required to ripen Cheshire cheese
varies with the method of making and with the
season of the year, generally from two to four
months. It does not necessarily follow that the
bigger the cheese the longer it will be in ripening ;
this depends on the method of making. Yet it
may be stated that, on the ordinary farm-house
system of making, the larger cheese will be the
longer in ripening; at the same time, however, it
is true that when the curd is properly warmed and
acidified, as described in the earlier i)art of the
present chapter, the cheese made from it will ripen
as quick!}' as a much smaller one that has been
made without such manipulation. And in many
cases, particularly where the curd is placed in an
oven for a time, the ripening of the large Cheshire
cheeses is promoted with a like result, though in a
different manner, to that which is at once the
ornament and the strength of the famous Cheddar
method. It cannot be too strongly urged on the
notice of cheese-makers that a proper degree of
warmth is as essential to the ripening of cheese as
to the riijcning of fruit, and that the warmth
should be judiciously applied from the time when
the curd is precipitated from the milk until the
cheese is ready for the market.
Some farmers have a light wooden trough,
down which they slide the cheeses from the
cheese-room, through the window, down into the
waggon outside, when they are sent to market.
This, too, like the " lift " we have spoken of, is
a simple and useful device for saving labour.
Apart from the consideration that these large
cheeses are awkward things to carry, and are
beyond the strength of most dairvmaids, they
cannot be carried about by hand without the risk
of damaging them, especially when they are fresh
from the press. It follows, therefore, that the
labour-saving devices we have mentioned, includ-
ing alike the self-turning cheese-shelves, the lifts,
and the slides through the window, can be strongly
recommended ; they are, as a matter of course,
the more valuable in the larger dairies and in the
factories, but even in small dairies of twenty cows
or so, they will be found very useful eeonomisers
of both time and trouble.
CHAPTER XVII.
Derbyshire, CJloucester, Stilton, and other British Cheeses.
Derbyshire Cheese-making— Primitive Methods— Improved Presses and Apparatus— The Derbyshire a Sweet-curd System— Gloucester
Cheese— Single and Double— Its Characteristics- Painting— Leicester Cheese— Its Excellence— Recent Decline- Supposed to be
from Modern Tillage— The Process— Annatto-Stilton Cheese— The Process— Halt a Grain of Salt— Sham Stiltons— Qualities of
the Genuine Article— Southern Counties' Dairying-Dorset— Wilts— " Truckles "—Slipcote Cheese— Con-
^ \ tinental Cheeses in England— The North and Scotland— Yorkshire— Scotland.
VhOUGH it has long held in
our own country a good po-
sition among the more pojiular
of English cheeses, the several
excellencies of Derhy cheese
are of a somewhat less pro-
nounced type than those of
ire, Cheddar, or Stilton, and it has
n the sense they have, ohtained a
-wide reputation. It has long been
favoiu'ite cheese in several districts
of the United Kingdom, but it has r.ot secured
au extended popularity in foreign countries.
It is true that none of our kinds of cheese have
ever been extensively exported, for we cannot
spare them, and we import largely instead ; but
our Stiltons and Cheddars and Cheshires are well
known in polite circles in many of the cities of
Europe. The essential character of Derby cheese
is that of a middle-class cheese ; it is not in any
sense a fancy cheese, as the Stilton and the Slip-
cote and many of the Continental cheeses are, l)ut
it is a good substantial food ; it does not appeal to
the suffrages of the " upper ten," and its consump-
tion has been mainly confined to the middle and
the lower classes of the people, aad to special dis-
tricts within the limits of the British Islands.
Yet a first-class Derby will not unfavouraI)ly
compare with a first-class cheese of most other
English makes.
The method on which Derby cheese is made is
less complicated than that of most other kinds ; the
appliances in use are fewer and simpler, and thedairy
premises are usually of a more primitive character.
It is not common that the cheese is made oftener
than once a day, though we have known cases
where careful dairymaids have made it twice a day
during the whole of the summer ; these have con-
sidered, and with truth, that cheese is all the
better if made from milk that is quite fresh and
sweet, which it not always is when it is twelve or
fourteen hours old in warm weather ; and on this
method the cheese has the further advantage of re-
taining all the cream of the milk. This, however,
has been found to be, or has been supposed to be, a
disadvantage on land that has been highly farmed ;
full-milk cheese has been found very liable to
crack and heave, and be generally unmanageable,
and dairymaids have been driven for relief to the
sure exjiedient of skimming a portion of the milk.
It is well known that milk produced on highly-
farmed land, and by the consumption of cake and
com, is richer in fats than milk that is produced
from sound old pasture land that has not been im-
proved by high-farming; and it is more than sus-
pected that this increase in fats imports into the
cheese some occult element or other that is very
unmanageable at times ; the additional butter ob-
tained by these artificial aids does not appear to be
balanced by a correspondingly increased percentage
of the nitrogenous constituents of milk ; and as the
Derbyshire system of eheese-making is essentially
a " sweet-curd " system, this disturbance of the
normal balance of milk-constituents has the effect
in many cases of hastening the decay of the cheese.
It may be objected here that the Stilton system of
cheese-making is essentially one that disturbs the
normal balance of the milk-constituents, by putting
an extra quantity of cream into the milk from
which the cheese is made. To this we would reply
that Stilton cheese can only be made with entire
success from sound old pastiu-e land, without arti-
-iU
DAIUV FARMING.
iicial aids, aiul that the Stilton system ailiiiits of
the development of acidity in the eurd, whieh is a
ffreat help in causing cheese to be more manaf:^^-
ahie. In no dairying district in tlie Islands has,
we believe, the land been more improved than in
Derljyshire, and in that county it is commonly
believed to be at all events expedient to skim a
portion of the milk, in order that the cheese ma\-
"stand" better, and that it may not bulge and
crack, or become otherwise unmanageable.
The old-fashioned circular tin or brass " cheese-
kettle " is generally used in Derl)ysliire farm-
houses, and the cheese is usually made in the
ordinary kitchen of the house; it is seldom that a
room is provided specially for making the cheese
in, and the equipment generally is less finished
than we find in certain other districts ; neverthe-
less, great improvements in these matters have been
brought about in the past twenty or thirty years.
Though we have seen in use within a recent
period various dairy utensils of wood, and even
a cheese-tub of the same -material — hence the
name — wood is now almost wholly discarded, and
tin, or brass, or glazed earthenware, as the case may
be, has taken its place. The vessel in which the
milk is coagulated is generally of tin, though
sometimes of brass, the milking-pails are no longer
of wood, but of tin, unless in very conservative
establishments, and the pans in which the milk
is sot to cream are of glazed earthenware or of tin.
When the manufacture of malleable glass is a suc-
cess, that will be the best material of which the
last-mentioned vessels can be made.
Thirty years ago the cheese-making apjiliances
in Derbyshire dairies were as a rule very primitive
in character. Curd-breakers and curd-mills were
unknown, except in a few of the more advanced
dairies, and lever-presses were luxuries possessed by
few. The curd was generally " broken " by the
aid of a wooden bowl or a skimming-dish, and in
the earlier stages afterwards the whey was expressed
by balancing a large weight on the cheese-vat con-
taining the curd, the vat itself resting on a ladder
crossing the top of the cheese-kettle. In some
cases we have seen the dairymaid kneel on the
flat ))ieee of board which was placed on the curd,
carefully poised above the cheese-kettle, and the
heavier the maid the faster flowed the whey ! An
advance on this was found in using a pole some ;i
or I yards lon<r ; one end of the pole was thrust
into a hole in tiie wall, on the other end weights
would be suspended, the vat on the cheese-kettle
being midway between the weights and the wall
(Fig. 115). This was an improvement on balancing
Fig. 115. — TUJS PoLE-PKESS.
a weight, or the dairymaid balancing herself, on
the top of the cheese-kettle. Later on, two upright
wooden screws were attached to the ladder, far
enough apart to admit of the cheese-vat resting
there, and between them a piece of wood which
passed over the curd in the vat. This implement
(Fig. 11 (J) was called a " screw-press ;" it was found
Fig. IIG.— The Sckew-pbess.
to be an exceedingly useful tool, and a great deal
of excellent cheese has been made by its help ; a
DERBY CHEESE-MAKING.
235
turn or two of the handles now and then caused
the whey to spurt out freely from the cui-d, and a
lijjht or heavy pressure could at will he obtained ;
hut it had the disadvantage of not following- up its
■work, and so required frequent attention. Lastly,
the young cheeses were placed under heavy stone-
presses (Fig. 117), many of which are in use to
this day, and here they would remain, being dry-
clothed and salted at intervals, until ready to go
to the cheese-room up-stairs. These lumbering
Fig. 117. — Stone-press.
stone-presses do their work in a satisfactory sort
of way, but they are very heavy to raise when the
cheeses need turning. This was the old order of
things.
Later on the curd-breaker (Fig. 106, page Z'ZH)
was introduced, and the curd-mill was invented.
The curd-mill commonly used in Derbyshire dairies
is the double-roller one seen in Fig. 118; the
rollers are of wood, and the iron studs wind round
them spirally in lines, and are so arranged that
those of one roller do not clash with those of the
other J while at each side they work through iron
racks, which dear them of curd. These double-
roller mills ai-e supposed to crush the curd less than
the single-roller ones, though they break it up fine
enough. Before the introduction of curd-mills the
curd was always broken by hand, or " crimmed,"
in local parlance, before it was vatted preparatory
to being put imder the stone-press; and this oj^era-
tion of hand-breaking, though it was laborious, did
the least possible amount of harm to the curd
33
in the way of crushing it and setting some of the
elements at liberty. When curd has been ground in
the mill, and is again put under pressure, the whey
Fig. 118. — CUKD-MILL.
flowing from it is charged with particles of casein,
and hitherto no system has been invented by which
this loss to the cheese can be prevented where a
curd-mill is used at all.
:dl inijjrovements
dai
The greatest of
utensils was the inven-
tion of the lever-press,
and it immediately
superseded all other
kinds ; many a farmer's
wife, weary with the
labour and nauseated
with the iintidiness of
old-fashioned cheese-
making, has rejoiced in
the new acquisition of
a lever-press, and dairy-
maids have regarded it
as a godsend, relieving
them as it did of a
great portion of the
previously inevitable la-
bour of cheese-making.
A light, haTidy press, of
simple lever action, is
commonly used in lai-ge
dairies, instead of the
wooden screw-press, for expressing the \\hey in the
early stages after the curd has been broken down ;
and in small dairies, where only one or two cheeses
-CojtPOCSD Levek-
PKESS.
236
DAIRY FARMING.
per diem are made, it is also used for all the suliso-
quent pressinjj to wliieh the cheeses are suhjected.
In large dairies, however, a larg'er lever-press, that
is compound in action (Fi<?. 119), is used for the
later statjes of pressing. It is a very strong im-
plement, exceedingly simple and easy to work,
and thoroughly cflicient in all respects. Having
two fixed upright bars on either side, the cheeses
are always ])ressed perfectly even, whether there
be one or half a dozen of them, and the amount
of pressure can be regulated with the greatest
ease and to the greatest nicety. That any one
should still use the old stone-presses seems odd,
but habit is strong.
Over twenty yeai-s ago, ^Mr. George Travis,
a practical dairy-farmer in Derbyshire, invented
whev i^ running olT. Three cheeses can with
ease be made by one person; and the curd is
ready for the vat in considei-ably less space of
time than the old method- of making occupied.
Lading off the whey with bowls is obviated,
and pressing and kneading the cuixi with the
hands are not rccpiircxl. The whole of the utensils
used can be cleansed in less than fifteen minutes.
2. A greater weight of curd is obtained
from the same quantity of milk than can possibly
be produced by the most experienced dairywoman
with the old utensils. Tlie cheese is also far
superior, and more uniform in quality.
The evening's milk is sieved into the appa-
ratus, unless it is preferred to set it up in pans
for creaming, and the morning's milk added to
it. The milk is coagulated, the curd broken, the
bulk of the whey removed, and the curd made
ready for press, by the aid of this apparatus,
saving a great deal of sloppy, dirty work, relieving
the dairymaid of much labour, and economising
time.
An improvement on Mr. Travis's invention
is seen in Fig. 121, Pugh's patent cheese-making
apparatus. This apparatus consists of a circular
pan, made of tin, coj)per, or other suitable material,
having improved taps at the side for niuuing
off the whey at intervals, ns required. This pan,
Fig. 120. — Travis's Appakatus for Cheese-making.
a cheese-making apparatus which \\as at once
simple and efficient. It created a good deal
of interest at the time, and is still used in many
farm-houses. In Fig. 120 we give an illustra-
tion of this apparatus ; and the following are
the advantages claimed for it : —
1. A great saving of labnuv and time is
effected.
The breaker is of the simplest construction,
and is worked in such a manner that the curd
is effectually broken without being bruised in
the slightest degree; and it requires very little which is mounted on an iron frame, turns upon
trouble to work and clean it. In the sei)aration an axis, and may be tilted at jdeasure to cause
of the whey from the curd, a self-acting leverage the whey to run off. Above the jian an improved
is used, which requires no aftenticm while the sy.^tom (if l('v<'ragc' is i)nivi(le(l, which gives jires-
Pl'gh's Cheese-making ArrAiiATrs.
DERBY CHEESE-MAKING.
237
sure to a vertical roil, to wliich is attaclied the
pressing-plate, or sinker. To enable the dairy-
maid to get at the curd more readily, the pressure-
plate, when raised, may be placed in a per-
pendicular, horizontal, or inclined position by
means of a novel and selt'-aeting movement;
it is also made to revolve, in order that it may
the more easily be cleanetl. The framework of
knives, seen in the illustration, revolves round
the pan, and bi'caks down the curd in an efficient
and satisfactory manner.
These apparati, however, have made their way
only into the more advanced dairies in Derbyshire,
Staffordshire, &c., and a great deal of Derbyshire
cheese — that is, cheese made on what is known
as the Derbyshire system — is still made in these
counties on the old lines, of which the following
is a description : — •
AVhere cheese is made only once a day — and
this is the case in probably 99 pier cent, of the
dairies of the country — the evening's milk is
sieved, as a rule, into the ordinary cheese-kettle ; in
warm weather it is cooled as well as circumstances
atlrait of, stirred about to facilitate the escape of
the warmth and the odour peculiar to new milk,
and is placed in the coolest part of the premises
until morning. Not uncommonly it is left out of
doors, if it is likely to be cooler there, and is
covered up to keeji intruders out of it. In other
cases it is sieved into shallow tin or earthenware
pans, where, being in smaller bulk, it is likelier
to remain sweet through the night. In either
ease a portion of the cream that has risen during
the night, and sometimes the whole of it, is
skimmed off on the following morning, after
which the morning's milk is mixed with the
evening's, and the whole mass is raised or lowered,
as the case may be, to 80*^ Fahr. — raised by
heating up a portion of the evening's milk that
has been skimmed, lowered by standing a pail of
cold water in the morning's milk for a time. It
is, however, seldom that the temjjerature requires
lowering, even in hot weather, providing the
evening's milk ha.s been properly cooled, and in
cool weather it almost invariably requires warming
up. If the evening's milk is at about 6b°, the
morning's, which is at about 95", will bring it up
to about the desired temjierature with little or no
trouble.
The rennet is added when the thermometer in
the milk indicates 80", and sufficient of it is used
to coagulate the milk in about one hour. When
the coagulum is firm enough, the curd-breaker is
very gently used for about ten minutes, the curd
being now and then turned gently about by hand,
so that the breaker may act more efficiently
throughout the whole of it. The breaking is a
delicate operation; if it is hurriedly done, the
whey will be white, with detached particles of
curd; if it is done carefully, and not too early,
the whey will be green, and there will be no loss
of curd. When it is considered to be broken into
pieces that are small enough — say half an inch
square — it is allowed to settle for a time, during
which the green whey comes out of it freely, the
whey coming upwards, the curd settling down-
wards in the kettle. As soon as the great bulk of
the whey has thus separated itself from the curd,
it is ladled off, and the curd is wrapped u^) in a
cloth, put into the cheese-vat, and jdaced under
pressure of some sort to express the remainder of
the whey, or as much of it as can be conveniently
got out at that stage of the process.
Whilst the curd is going through this prelimi-
nary stage of pressing, it is cut across the middle
several times with the knife seen in Fig. I'Z'Z, the
yig. llili
-ClKl) K.NUE.
outsides are trimmed off and piled up on the top,
and it is placed again in press. This process is
repeated as often as may be deemed necessary to
get out nearly all of the whey. The cm-d is then
passed through the mill, vatted, and jjlaced under
heavier pressure than before, so as to be firmly
moulded into the form the cheese is required to
assume, and to get out the rest of the whey. This
process of pressing generally lasts two or three
days, during which the cheeses are turned over and
dry-clothed two or three times a day.
The chief difference between the Derbyshire
and most other systems lies in the period at which
the salt is applied to the cheese. In the Cheshire
and the Cheddar systems it is ajiplied to the curd
immediately after the latter is ground; in the
Derbyshire system it is applied the following
evening or morning, as the case may be, and to
the outside only of the cheese.
And this is an important difference, involving
a fundamental principle. We have seen that no
heat is applied to the curd after coagulation on the
238
DAIRY FAinilNG.
Dcrbysliii-e jjlan, tluit tlio whoy is dipjiod off as
early as jxissible, and that the curd is vat tod
whilst perfec-tly sweet. This is exactly what is
meant hy a " sweet-eurd process ; " and it is the
converse of any process by which acidity is ad-
niittedj by any means whatever, at or before this
stance. Ikit mark the sequel : thou<i;h the curd is
vatted whilst it is perfectly sweet, a g-iven amount
of acid will develop in it, because uo salt is api)li('d
to it, as a rule, for six to eij^hteen hours after-
wards. By withholding^ the salt for some hours
the youn» cheese will be<^in to sour a little, whereas
if the salt had been mixed with the sweet curd no
acidity would occur.
Much depends on the state of the milk from
which the cheese is made, as to whether the acid
shall develop quickly or slowly; and on the saltinfj,
as to whether it shall develop at all. If the milk
is already turning a little acid, the curd will acidify
at an early date, say in the course of the after-
noon ; if the milk is perfectly sweet,' the acid
will be some time longer forming in the curd.
The j)roper time, then, at which to apply the
salt to the outside of the cheese, as in the
Derbyshire system, will depend on the skill with
which the dairymaid detects any sourness of the
milk ; or, if the milk is perfectly sweet, on her
judgment as to the time when sufficient acid shall
have developed in the newly-formed cheese. But
the skill and judgment here indicated are some-
what rare to be met with, though they are in truth
not very difficult to acquire.
The Derbyshire system is, as we have said,
essentially a sweet-curd system — that is, the whey
is dipped sweet, the curd is vatted before any acid
has formed, and no salt is applied for several hours
afterwards, and then only on the outside ; but this
system has been improved on with advantage in at
least one case that we are acquainted with. Some
years ago we knew a thought i'ul and intelligent
dairy-farmer in Derbyshire, now gathered to his
fathers, who effected a striking imjjrovement in
the condition and quality of his cheese by the very
simple expedient of keeping over a portion of un-
salted curd and mixing it with the following day's
cheese. The kept curd, being exposed to the air,
became sensibly acid during the night, and when
it was intermixed with the fresh euvd of the fol-
lowing day, it imparteil to it just the right amount
of acid to produce a perfect cheese. The fai;m in
question had always previously produced cheese
that was scarcely more than a goml second-class
article, but the first year that the plau was adopted
of keeping over a jwrtion of curd, the whole dairy
was sold for 87s. per cwt., which was 15s. or 20s.
more than it would have commanded under the old
system.
There is now less cheese made in Derbyshire
than there was ten years ago. The Alidland
Hallway runs through the heart of the county,
and a very large traffic in milk has been established
to supply the needs of London, Manchester, and
Sheffield ; and as the climate and soil of the
county are excellently adapted to the raising of
stock, many farmers make butter instead of
cheese, and rear a number of calves on the skim-
milk. These matters have diminished the vubuue
of Derbyshire cheese-making.
Not only the accommodation for making the
cheese, but also that for storing it after it is
made is, as a rule, rather deficient in Derltyshire
farm-houses. In many cases the cheese-room is
over the kitchen, and no heat is provided beyond
that which the kitchen fire supi)lies — an inter-
mittent heat at the best. In summer the heat
would be too great and in winter too little — con-
stantly varying, in fact. In the more advanced
eases coke-burning stoves are used, similar to the
one shown in Fig.
123. These stoves
will burn twelve
hours without atten-
tion, and at a veiy
moderate expendi-
ture of fuel, so that
if they are made
up at bedtime they
will be alight when
morning comes. In
still other cases ii
.system of hot-water
])ipes is laid down
in the cheese-room,
round by the walls
and near to the
floor. This, though
more expensive than a stove, is a much more
effectual way of securing an even tempera-
ture all over the room ; and it is a kind of
temperature that causes the cheese to ripen fast
enough without drjnng too much, and without so
much cracking of the crust as a stove i)roduccs.
Fig. 123.— C'HEESE-iiOciM .SruVE.
GLOUCESTER CHEESE-MAKING.
239
Heat from a stove is not the Lest for curing
cheese, inasmuch as it dries the air too much,
and causes the too rapid evaporation of moisture
from the cheese. This fault does not appertain
to the hot-water pipes. The room over a farmer's
kitchen is altogether too hot in summer, and the
heat cannot be removed from it ; but it forms an
excellent cheese-room in all the cooler parts of
the year. Stoves and hot-water pipes have the
advantage of allowing the heat to be removed
and replaced at will,
Gloucester Cheese-makixg.
Single and double Gloucesters have been famous
for a long period, and they have given to the Vale
of Berkeley a reputation that has penetrated into
many lauds; but Gloucester cheese is no longer cele-
brated as it once was. This in part is owing to
the enormous importations of foreign cheese into
this country, whereby many good old traditions re-
lating to English cheese-making have been some-
what rudely dispersed, and in part it is owing to
the great extension of the milk-trade with London
and other cities. Double Gloucesters may indeed ha
almost regarded as a thing of the past, for they are
now made only to a small extent; but single Glouces-
ters continue to be made in many farm-houses. The
only difference between these two sorts of cheese —
a difference not generally understood — consists in
their difference in thickness and weight. They
are each about 16 inches in diameter, the double
Gloucester being between 4 and .5 inches thick and
weighing about ^i lbs., while the single Gloucester
is between 2 and 3 inches thick, and weighs about
15 lbs. ; the distinction between them is one of
size only and has no reference whatever to quality
beyond the difference in this respect that is created
by the longer time required to ripen the thicker
cheese. The following are the average analyses of
double and single Gloucester cheescj four sam^^les of
each : —
Do^'l!LE Gloucester.
Water
... 3.5-70
Butter
... 28-45
•Casein
... 28-08
Milk-sugar, lactic acid, <S;c.
... 3-26
f-Mineral matters (ash) ...
... 4-51
Single Gloucester.
Water
Butter
JC'asein
Milk-sugar, lactic aciJ, itc.
§ Mineral matters (ash)
32-27
30-40
27-57
6-66
4-10
100-00
• Containing nitrogen, 4-50.
t Containing common salt, 143.
If we take the smaller quantity of water and
the larger of butter as tests of comparative quality,
the single is decidedly a richer cheese than the
double Gloucester ; quality is, however, a matter
which depends not on richness alone, but on condi-
tion and degree of ripeness. The richness of cheese
is in some cases greatly developed in the ripening,
while in others it seems to remain in abeyance.
Single Gloucester cheese is generally ready to sell
when it is two to three months old, while the
double is more than twice as long in ripening.
Whether the longer and slower ripening really ac-
counts for somewhat inferior quality of the latter
is a point not yet determined, but in any case it
is a disadvantage to have cheese on hand for six
months when it can just as well be brought into
the market in half the time; and this simple com-
mercial axiom has no doubt had more than any-
thing else to do with diminishing the make of
double Gloucester cheese. It is probable that the
Gloucester system of cheese-making will gradually
be displaced by improved methods which involve a
less exj)enditure of time and labour, for the cheese
of the county does not really possess any special
features or qualities which will render it jjroof
against the march of modern imj^rovements.
The utensils generally used in the making of
Gloucester cheese are few in number and simple
in character, but in some instances Keevil's
cheese-making apparatus has been adopted. This
implement is very similar in most respects to the
one shown in Fig. 121, page 230, and we need not
therefore describe it. In many cases the cheese-
presses consist of large square boxes, which are
raised and lowered by means of pulleys and ropes.
They are tastefully made of dark-coloured wood,
and, being varnished, are intended to be orna-
mental as well as useful. They are filled with
stones, gravel, iron, &c., to a weight of several
hundred pounds, and rest directly on the cheese.
The remainder of the vessels and equipments do
J Containing nitrogen, 4-41.
§ Containing common salt, 1-20.
210
DAIRY FAR^riNG.
not differ matorinlly from those more or less in use
all over the kingdom, and consequently do not eall
for any special remark.
Under the general system the cheese is made
twice a day, from perfectly fresh milk each time.
Yet in other cases " half-coward " cheese is made ;
and this means cheese made in part of skim-milk.
It is maxle once a day only, from the morning's
milk fresh and the evening's skimmed, the two
kinds being mixed together. The milk in any ease
is warmed up to 80" — in some cases to 85'^ — at
which point the colouring, if any, and the rennet
are added to it, and the curd forms in about an
hour. The coagulum is broken down by a wire
breaker similar to that shown in Fig. 100, page 22S,
except where Keevil's appai'atus is used, when the
curd is broken by a revolving framework, which
contains on the one side vertical and on the other
horizontal wires. On the old system the curd,
after breaking, is left to sink, and the whey is
ladled off ; with Keevil's apparatus the whey runs
off through the taps. It is considered important
to get out of the curd before passing it through
the curd-mill all the whey that can be got out
conveniently. To this end the curd is variously
pressed, according to the facilities at hand ; in the
Keevil apparatus it is pressed by a plate of per-
forated and galvanised iron, and in the old system
by hand, or by a piece of wood on which a weight
is placed. When as much whey as possible has
been got out, the curd is ground and put to press.
The next and two or three following mornings
the cheese is taken out of press, turned, and salted
on the outside. This is the best way of salting
such cheese ; but in other cases the curd, after
having been under pressure for some time, has salt
scattered over it at the rate of about 2i to 3 per
cent., and is afterwards re-broken, re-iilled into the
vat, and a gradually-increasing pressure is Ijrought
to bear on it. During the pressing period, which
lasts nearly a week, the cheeses are daily taken out
of press and wrapped in dry cloths — a jdan that is
common to most of our old systems of cheese-
making.
The Gloucester dairies arc conspicuous for
cleanliness — a most important feature, noticed
and commended by various persons who have
inspected the system. To this very cleanliness,
rather than to the quality of the cheese, is no
doubt owing much of the reputation which
Gloucester cheese has obtained in the past, and
it is a feature equally valuaMe and commendable
wherever it is found in cheese-making districts.
The careful dairymaid everywhere carries on, con-
sciously or unconsciously, an unceasing crusade
against dirt; and this is necessary, for nowhere
more essentially than in a dairy is dirt "matter out
of place." That the Gloucestershire dairymaids
have a thorough appreciation of the benefits which
come of carefully avoiding all taints and impurities
is proved by the custom which is common in
the county, of making the cheese twice a
day, instead of once as the custom is almost
everywhere else. By so doing they have per-
fectly fresh milk to deal with, providing the
weather is clear and fresh, the cows not over-
heated by rapid driving or by exposure to a burn-
ing sun, and the utensils are kept clean and sweet.
The industry involved in making cheese twice
a day is not compatible with dirtiness or untidi-
ness anywhere ; and in other districts, where twice-
a-day cheese-making is the exception, we have
always found it in conjunction with almost fas-
tidious cleanliness.
The characteristics of Gloucester cheese of
good quality are — sharp, well-defined edges, and
no bulging anywhere ; a clear yellow hue around
the edges, and a well-developed blue mould rising
through the paint on the sides; a smooth, close,
firm, and waxy texture rather than a loose and
open one ; a mild, though rich flavour ; and a
somewhat tough and solid skin, destitute of cracks,
that will, when the cheeses are ripe, bear a man's
weight without giving way underneath the foot —
this, indeed, is the standard test of firmness and
solidity.
A remarkable custom of painting the cheese
has existed in Gloucestershire for a long period — a
custom more nearly akin to Dutch practices than
is found elsewhere in England. About a month
after they leave the ])ress the cheeses are scraped
and painted over with Indian red or Spanish
brown, or a mixture of both with small beer,
to give them a pale vermilion colour, on account
of which they have long been supposed to be
more acceptable in the London markets. This
of course is a mere fancy, but it is established
l)y the practice of many generations of cheese-
makers. In cheese-making, whether it be applied
to the outside or to the inside of the cheese, and
especially in the latter case, we should be glad
to sec artificial colouring-matter dis])cnsed with.
LEICESTER CIl KKSE-i\I AKING.
241
Leicesteesiiire Ciieese-makixg.
The finest qualities of what is known as Leices-
ter cheese are f^enerally admitted to be, with the
sino'le exception of jjenuine Stilton, the best cheese
produced in these islands. Stilton, however, is
a double-cream cheese, and as such is not a fair
competitor; it also is made in Leicestershire, yet
it is known to the world by the name of the dis-
trict, and not by that of the county in which it is
made, and in this resjject it resembles the true
Cheddar cheese. But " Leicester cheese " has
lonof borne a foremost reputation, and the finest
samples of it have usually commanded from
10s. to 20s. per cwt. more than the best
cheese made in any other county in the kingdom.
These finest samples, however, are not now so
numerous as they were twenty years ago, and a
really fine dairy is coming to be the exception,
while second-class ones are the rule in the county.
In this matter of deterioration of dairy products
it appears that Leicestershire occupies no more
favourable a position than most of our other dairy-
ing districts.
Tlie falling off in quality of the cheese of the
county is not considered to be due in more than
a small measure to the want of skill and care on
the jiart of the dairymaids. The farmers of the
county whom we have consulted on this point are
decidedly of opinion that draining, re-seeding, and
otherwise imjiroving the land have had the el?ect of
reducing the quality while increasing the quantity
of the cheese ; and this opinion applies equally to
land that has been drained and top-dressed simply,
without re-seeding. Even where the old sward
has remained intact, and no fresh seeds have been
sown, it is believed that draining and manuring
have so altered the character of the native grasses
that they will no longer produce the magnificent
cheese for which the county has so long been
famous. And where the land has been ploughed
generations ago, and probably been allowed to seed
itself down to grass as it liked, subsequent drain-
ing and manuring have developed some property
or other which tells against the quality of the
cheese.
It may be taken as a sound proposition that
the finest cheese and butter, both, are produced
from old-turf land — that is, land that has not
been ploughed for a long period, if ever ; and of
this the Leicestershire farmers seem to be more
generally conscious than those of other counties.
In reply to the question, " What kind of land do
you consider most suitable for making finest Lei-
cester cheese ? " one large dairy-farmer writes in
us : " Low-lying land, having a cold marly subsoil,
and showing a growth of rushes in the furrows."
And another says : " It is a known fact that cold
grass land, showing a few rushes, generally pro-
duces the finest cheese, and this very land, after
being drained and otherwise improved, fails to do
so. No doubt more cheese can be produced, but
it is of an inferior sort ; and in these times, con-
sidering there is a diiference in value of about
£15 per ton between fine and medium cheese, it
becomes a question whether the extra quantity
makes up for the absence of quality." The chief
significance of the " question " here involved lies
in the fact that it becomes each year increasingly
difficult for I]nglish farmers to compete with
foreign countries, unless they can make fine quali-
ties of cheese ; in which case they have to them-
selves a demand with which foreign cheese cannot
directly interfere.
With regard to making Leicester cheese, one
of the authorities quoted above, Mr. Pilgrim, of
Hinckley, writes to us as follows : " There is no
regular course to be laid down, as almost every
dairymaid has her own method, scarcely two
carrying out in detail exactly the same system;
the milk from different farms, owing to some dif-
ference in the herbage, requires- different treatment
both as regards the heat of putting the milk
together and also the curing, some dairies requiring
more salting than others. My idea is that a true
and successful make of cheese depends on putting
the milk together at its proper temperature, ex-
tracting all the whey, and well curing without
over-salting, yet with all these being properly
carried out it does not follow that fine cheese is
the result; this depends on the herbage from
which the milk is produced."
The usual method of making Leicester cheese is
as follows : — In spring and autumn the tempera-
ture of the milk when set for coagulation is SO''
to 8-1'', but in summer not higher than 76° to 78"^,
and sufficient rennet is added to cause coagulation
in about an hour and a quarter, more or less. The
curd is then slowly and carefully broken down, so
as not to bruise it and liberate the butter, and
after the curd has had time to settle down to
the bottom of the vat, a process that generally
212
DAI1!V FARMING.
tiikes about twenty niiiiutop, the whey is cither
ladled off or run through a tap in the bottom of
the cheese-pan — if it has a tap; in very cold
weather the whey and curd are in some eases heated
up to SO*^ or 84*^, after the curd is broken.
The lurd is then gathered into a cloth, is pressed
and broken several times until the whey is removed,
and before it is finally vatted for press about 2
to 4 ounces of salt are mixed with the curd of
each 40-lb. cheese, in order to make sure that it is
cured. The cheese is after a time turned and dry-
clothed, and when it has boon twenty-four hours in
press is well salted on the outside, a process that is
repeated each day for four or five days ; the cheese
is then well washed in warm whey or grea.sy water,
and put on the shelf to dry. The ripening takes
usually six or eight months, and a fine-quality,
well-made Leicester cheese improves by kee])ing
twelve months.
Leicester cheese is as a rule rather deeply
coloured with annatto — a practice that ought to be
abolished on account of its utter uselessness and
stupidity. Annatto is a disagreeable and disgust-
ing thing to put into milk ; it is unpleasant both
to the taste and smell, and adds absolutely nothing
to the intrinsic worth of the cheese. It is to all
intents and puqioses an adulteration, and though
it is used with the express intention to deceive,
the deception, strange to say, is both known and
tolerated by dealer and consumer alike. This
seems strange, but it is tnie nevertheless ; dairy-
maids would soon leave off artificially coloiu-ing
their cheese if the consuming public would drop
the infatuation of liking it so coloured. The prac-
tice, however, will not die out until the penalty
due to adulterations is applied to it.
The quality of a fine Leicester cheese is always
very superior ; the flavour is rich, clean, full, and
nutty ; the texture is firm without being close or
dry, flaky rather than waxy, and moist as opposed
to wet; it is a very "meaty" cheese, and rich,
and the flavour left on the palate after tasting
it is very agreeable; in diameter it varies from
16 to 20 inches, and it is usually 4 to 5
inches thick. The excellence of the cheese does
not rest on any uncommon richness in butter, for
in this respect it is not superior to most other
kinds of English cheese, but on some occult pro-
perty cominuuicated to it by the peculiar lierbiige
of the county; there is a fulness of flavour abnut
it, a meatiness, a warmth and wealth of quality,
that reminds us of fruit that is produced from a
rich soil and rijxsned in a genial climate. It has
no borrowed qualities, no peculiarities attained by
a special system of manufacture or of ripening;
it is a plain and substantial article, thoroughly
English in character, and as such, is superior to
every other kind of cheese similarly produced.
Sti i.ton Cheese-making.
In some respects the most famous of our dif-
ferent kinds of cheese; prized highly among the
" upper ten " and by epicures everywhere ; unique
in shape, in flavour, and in quality; Stilton is
yet one of the most modern of English cheeses.
Barely one hundred years old, it has attained a
celebrity, at once singular and extensive, that is
not enjoyed by any other kind of cheese made in
this country. It is regai-ded more as a delicacy and
a relish than as an article of ordinary food, and
it is found alike on the tables of the refined
and wealthy and in the menu of the leading hotels
and restaurants throughout the kingdom.
In Marshall's " Rural Economy," published in
1790, it is said: — "Mrs. Paulet, the first maker
of Stilton cheese, being a relation or an acquaint-
ance of the well-known Cooper Thornhill, Avho
kept the 'Bell' Inn at Stilton, on the great north
road from London to Edinburgh, furnished his
house with ercam cheese, which, being of a singu-
larly fine quality, was coveted by his customers,
and through the assistance of Mrs. P. they were
gratified at the expense of half-a-crown a pound ;
but where the cheese was made was not for some
time publicly known, hence it obtained, of course,
the name of Stilton cheese. At length, however,
the place of pmduce was discovered, and the art
of making it learnt by other dairywomen of the
neighbourhood. Dalby first took the lead, but it
is now made in most villages aliout Melton !Mow-
bray; and in Rutlandshire many tons are made
every year, and the sale is no longer confined to
Stilton."
In Pitt's " Agriculture of the County of
Leicester," published in 1809, the author speaks
as follows of Stilton cheese : — "This is, I believe,
the richest and highest-priced thick cheese of
British manufacture; it is made in most of the
villages about Melton Mowbray, and sold at the
principal inns in the county, to accommodate their
customers. The price, like other cheese, is subject
to fluctuation, but seldom, I believe, so low as Is.
STILTON CHEESE-MAKING.
243
per lb. or more than ly. (iil. The first cheese of
this kind is said to liave been made by Mrs. Panlct,
of Wymondham. Tlie following' is g-iven as the
best receipt for making it at that period : — ■
" Take the milk of seven cows and the cream
of the same number ; heat a gallon of water scalding'
hot, and ])our it upon three or four handfuls of
marigold flowers that have been bruised a little ;
then strain it into a tub to your milk, and put
some rennet to it, but not too much, to make it
hard ; put the curd into a sieve to drain — it must
not be broken at all, but as the whey runs from it
tie it up in a cloth, and let it stand half an hour
or more ; then pour cold water upon it, enough to
cover it, and let it stand half an hour more ; then
put half of it into a vat 6 inches deep, and break
the top of it a little to make it join with the other ;
then put the other half to it, and lay a half-
hundredweight upon it, and let it stand half an
hour ; then turn it and put it into the press, and
turn it into clean cloths every hour the day it is
made ; the next morning salt it, and let it lie in
salt a night and a day ; keeji it swathed tight till
it begins to dry and coat, and keep it covered with
a dry cloth a great while. The best time to make
it is in August."
Mr. Jubal Webb, of Kensington, kindly sup-
plies the following particulars relating to modern
Stilton cheese-making, as stated by a practical
maker : —
1. To make a fine rich Stilton, suitable land
must be found on which to graze the cows ; and to
be suitable it must be rich, old pasture, such as
will keep them strong, full of milk, and healthy,
without extraneous helfi in the form of cake, corn,
grains, or roots, all of which tend to sjaoil either
the flavour or the quality of the cheese.
2. There are only the months of May, June,
July, August, and Sejitember in which really fine
Stiltons can be made, and in wet seasons the
making should not commence before the middle of
May.
;3. Suitable vessels must be procured to " put
the milk together " in, to drain the curd, to
" make the cheese up in," &e. — cans, cheese-pan,
curd - drainer, strainers, hoops, stand - drainers,
shelves, &c.
4. The cows must be milked at regular in-
tervals, that is, at 5 a.m. and 5 p.m. regnlaiiy ;
this is important, as it is considered necessary to
the production of a dairy of cheese even in size.
34
5. Tiie niglit'.s milk being brought home is
put into a " lead " to stand all night ; when the
morning's milk comes in it is put into the cheese-
pan, and into it is put the cream of the night's
milk, and both are stirred up together; when the
mass has got to its proper temperature, 83", rennet
made from calves' stomachs is poured into it, the
quantity of the latter being governed by the
quantity of the milk in the pan ; if the quantity
and strength of the rennet are right, the curd
will " come," ready for the second process, in one
hour.
6. The curd is then broken up very little, and
left to stand, say, for ten minutes; it is next put
into " leads,''' covered with cloth strainers, to allow
the whey to drain away gradually, and as it
drains, the ends of the strainer cloth are gradually
brought together and tied closer and closer, until
the curd becomes tolerably firm and dry ; it is
next placed in a large tin strainer, and is cut
into square pieces. In this form it remains until,
in the opinion of the maker, it is ready to put
into the hoops.
7. Before being put in the hoops it is broken
into small pieces ; then it is put in, first a layer of
curd and then a sprinkling of salt, until the hoop
is full, care being taken that the salt does not
get to the ends or sides of the cheese, and it is
lightly pressed down in the hoop. Too much or
too little salt are equally injurious to the cheese,
and a knowledge of the right quantity to use
can only be acquired by experience.
S. When in the hoop it is placed on the
shelves of what is called the " drainer," on clean
dry cloths, and is turned "other end down" two
or three times a day. This process goes on until
the curd is sufficiently compact to turn out of
the hoop, which is generally at the time when
the cheese shows signs of being smooth on the
surface. The time occupied in this process de-
pends entirely on the temperature, and varies from
four to eighteen days, and perhaps longer.
9. After being taken from the hoops the
cheeses are bound up in linen cloths that are
broader than the height of the cheese, and long
enough to go round it in each case; the cloths
are attached with " cheese-pins,'^ and as they
get wet are repeatedly changed for dry ones —
sometimes as often as thrice a day, until the
coat of the cheese begins to form. This process
requires much labour and attention in many cases.
244
DAIRY FARMING.
for on it (Icpoiids tlio form and shape of the
cheese.
10. When the eheeses are ready the liindcis
are finally taken off; the eheeses are then placed
on shelves in the cheese-room, and are fur a
time turned over twice a day; later on, once a
day mil suffice. The room should be kej)t at
an even temperature. When the cheeses show
signs of " miteiug " they should be daily bi-u-shed
and changed from shelf to shelf; the brushing
opens the pores of the cheese and admits the
dry air, thus promoting the development of the
fungus called blue mould which is so highly prized
in Stilton cheese.
The skim-milk, whose cream goes to enrich
other milk from which Stiltons are made, is
generally fed to calves or pigs, but is some-
times made into cheese, the quality of which is
inferior. The rearing of calves, in connection
with Stilton cheese-making, is perhaps the most
profitable use to which the skim-milk can be
put, and applied to this purjjose it is extremely
useful throughout the year.
There is no one method of making Stilton
cheese that can claim to be better than all the
others, thougli each successful maker generally
considers her or his own to be more nearly the
orthodox way ; and in such cases, where jjeople
are convinced that they are in possession of some
valuable secret in connection with their art, it
is difficult to anive at exact data, and general
statements are all we have to depend on. For
instance, IVIr. W^ ebb's practical friend says, " An
experienced maker kuows to half a grain how
much salt to use ; my wife knows to less than
that, and nobody ou earth knows the right
quantity but herself." While we admit that the
loss to the Stilton interest will be irreparaljle
if our friend's ^vife dies without revealing the
secret, we are brought face to face in this in-
cident with the extreme difficulty that exists of
procuring any statement of figures ; as, for in-
stance, to the quantity of salt to be used to
a given quantity of curd. Stilton cheese is a
fancy article, and all sorts of fancies ajipear
to be connected with the making of it.
Mr. J. C. Morton tells us that the rennet
used by Stilton makers is prepared in the usual
way, only instead of calves' stomachs those of
lambs are used ; and in addition to the ordinary
quantity of salt, a lemon, stuck full of cloves.
is put into the jar amongst il, the lemon adding
to the efficiency of the rennet. (This may be
true so far as coagulation is concerned, and in pro-
moting the expression of the whey, but it is
a hindrance — not a help — vo the rennet in the
ripening of the cheese.) The utensils used in
the process of making Stilton are similar to those
used in making most other kinds of English
cheese, with two exceptions : first, no eurd-mill
is used, as the curd is never ground ; second,
the hoop or cheese-vat, instead of Ijeing made
of wood and having a fixed bottom, is usually
a cylinder about 10 inches high by 8 inches
in diameter (Fig. 121), made of stout tin-plate,
and having neither top
nor bottom — except loose
ones to help in turning
the cheese over. During
the first day the cheese
is turned over every two
or three hours, by placing
one hand on the loose
top and the other on
the loose bottom of the
vat; these flat pieces —
of wood or metal, as
the ease may be — do not
fit down inside the hoop,
and the cheese requires no pressure bej'ond its
own weight. Mr. Morton also tells us that
when they are taken out of the hoops a thin
piece of calico is dipped in boiling water, wrang
out, and then pinned tightly round each of the
eheeses, where it remains until it is thoroughly
dry. Some persons insert into a new cheese,
with a eheese-tryer, plugs of old cheese to hasten
the ri]iening and the formation of mould, but in
a well-made Stilton this is unnecessary for either
jmrpose.
The demand for Stilton cheese three-quarters
of a century ago was so great that it sold
readily at Is. 2d. per lb., and it was made in
many places in the Melton Mowbray district.
It is at the present day very difficult to get hold
of a genuine Stilton ; in the Leicester district
alone it seems to be possible to make the ortho-
dox article. The demand for this kind of cheese
has gone on increasing, and has spread to other
lands, so that so-called Stiltons are now being
made in nearly every cheese-making distiict in
the cduntiy. The ccmMMjiicnce is that there is
Fig. 124.— Hoop KoR Stilton
Chek.se.
SOUTHERN COUNTIES' DAIRYING.
2.15
a great deal o£ cheese sold that is Stilton in
name and a])pearanee only, and produced far
enough away from the grand old pastures of
Leicestershire. These putativ^e Stiltons have the
Lrittleness hut not the softness, the mouldi-
ness but not the rich and hutteiy ripeness of
the real ones ; they are hard and unyielding, not
mellow and plastic, and they do not ripen so
generously as the true Stilton. Nor is this by
any means always owing to faults in making,
but chiefly to tlie absence of those peculiar pro-
perties that are not found elsewhere than in
the Stilton district.
The blue mould in imitation Stiltons is in
some instances produced by inserting copper
skewers through the openings in the hoop ; the
ostensible use of these particular skewers is to
promote the outflow of the whey, but it is
really to produce this mould. Iron skewers
would liberate the whey just as well as the
copper ones, but they would not produce the
desired mould. The use of these copper or
brass skewers is to be condemned as positively
dangerous.
The making of imitation Stiltons in other
districts and countries has kejjt down the price
of all kinds but the very best, and these are
generally secured for those customers to whom
price is a consideration of secondary importance.
A true Stilton, well made and thoroughly ripe,
is not always mouldy inside when it is cut, but
it is always so mellow that it will spread on
the bread and melt on the tongue as if it were
so much butter. The cheese most nearly resem-
bling it, according to our taste, is a really good
Neufchatel, but there is no cheese made in any
other place or country that can be compared,
without suffering in the comjxirison, to a fine
old Stilton.
Southern Counties' Dairying.
One of the most interesting facts connected
with English dairy-farming is that in almost
every county is found a different system of
management, and in some counties there are
several systems in vogue. Cheshire and Derby-
shire are, perhaps, the only counties having a
system peculiar to themselves in which there is
any approach to imiformity of method through-
out the county. Even the famous Cheddar system
of cheese-making does not prevail thi-oughout
the whole of Somersetshire, though it is the
most general system practised, and it has estab-
lished it-self more or less in most other counties
in the kingdom where cheese-making can be re-
garded in any sense a special feature. Somerset,
however, has a world-wide reputation on account
of its Cheddar cheese-making ; Dorset is famous
for its butter ; single and double Gloucesters
have made their native county known far and
wide; and Devon is everywhere celelirated for
its cream ; but with these exceptions none of
the southern or western counties are specially
famous for any particular branch of dairying.
Dorset.
Dorset is chiefly known on account of its
butter; there is, however, a considerable quantity
of cheese made in the county, some of which
is very good. In some parts of the county the
Cheddar practice is wholly or partially adopted ;
in others the milk is skimmed time after time
imtil nearly every particle of cream is got out
of it, and very poor cheese is made from what
is left in the milk — this is the " all skim "
cheese. But there are the " blue veiny " and
" double Dorset " cheeses, and these are usually
of good, sometimes of excellent quality. A really
good blue veiny Dorset resembles a ripe Stilton
in appearance, and by some it is preferred to
Stilton. The system of making the cheese has
not changed in any material sense, so far as
the principle is concerned, but the methods em-
ployed are in many cases carried out with more
care, system, and regularity than they formerly
were. The cheese is made once a day, generally
speaking ; but where butter is the leading pro-
duct, and the milk stands a longer or shorter
time to cream, the cheese is a matter of minor
importance, and is not always made daily. There
are no special features in the process to call for
remark, and Dorset cheese-making has not been
formulated into a system and promulgated as
a guide for other counties.
Wiltshire.
The principal dairying district in Wiltshire
is on the western side of the county, bordering
on Somerset and Gloucester, and running along
from Warminster, by Trowbridge and Chippenham,
to Swindon, over a fairly level tract of country,
some ten or twelve miles in width and forty
246
DAIRY FARMING.
or fifty iu len<^th. From tliis district a large
quantity of milk is sent daily to Loudon, and
at Swindon the Aylesbury Dairy Comj)any has
a receiving-house for milk and a creamery, iu
which a considerable quantity of milk is set to
cream ; the cream is sent to London, and the
skimmed milk is made into cheese, a market for
which is found in the adjacent South Wales
district. Where cheese is made in farm-houses
in AVilts, it is usual to make it once a day only,
and that once in the morning. The evening's
milk, after being denuded of a portion of its
cream for butter-making, is mixed with the
morning's, and the two together are, if neces-
sary, raised to 80", at which temperature the
rennet is added in sufficient quantity to coagu-
late the milk in about an hour. The curd-breaker,
similar to the one shown in Fig. 106, is then used
very gentlj\ When the breaking is done the
curd and whey are heated up together to 90°
or so, according to the weather, and kept in
stirring by the breaker. The curd then remains
at rest until it is firm enough to handle, when
it is taken out of the whey and put to press ;
it remains in press for some twenty minutes,
during which the remaining whey is escaping
from it; and it is then taken out of press,
passed through the curd-mill (Fig. 125), and salted
at the rate of
about 2 lbs. of
salt per 112
lbs. of curd.
The press- vats
are commonly
turned <]ut (if
a solid block
of wood, the
bottom ))ierced
with holes for
followinsr day
on two cast-iron standards. The shelves are of
li-iuch board, and may be fixed or movable,
the latter to accommodate different-sized cheeses.
the
the
escape of the whey. The
cheese is taken out of press, salted on
the outside, swathed in a dry cloth, and put
back to press ; this process is repeated a
time or two on succeeding days, after which
the cheese remains in press for about a week, Imt
receives no more salt, and is then removed to the
cheese-room, where it ripens. The cheese-turner
shown in Fig. 120 is made and used in Wilts.
The frame is constructed partly of iron, braced
with wrought-iron bars; at each end is a centre,
or gudgeon, on which it revolves, and it rests
Fig. 126.— Betoltisg Cheese-rack.
from flat Wilts to "truckles" and Cheddars,
as seen in the illustration. The largest-sized
turners, 9 feet in height, \y\\\ accommodate
upwards of a ton of cheese, all of \\liich can
be turned at one operation and in less llian a
minute. The makers of these turners are Caison
and Toone, of Warminster.
The Wilts " truckles " are cheeses that have
obtained a certain reputation. They are usually
about 9 inches deep and the same in diameter,
and are not uncommonly called " loaves." August
is considered a favourable month for making
them, but in some dairies they are made all the
year round. They are very apt to bulge out
at the sides if they are not skilfully made;
and as very few people know how to make
really good ones, they are mostly made in the
autumn months, as there is less probability of
their losing chape at that period of the year.
It is considered necessary in making these cheeses
that the curd should be quite sweet, and this
is the chief cause of the liability to go out of
shape in ripening, because the sweeter the curd,
the more the fermentation in the cheese as it
rii)ens. Before vatting the curd it is made as
dry as possible, that is, all the whey is got
out of i(, it is thoroughly crumbled, is firmly
pressed into the vat by the hands, and usually
remains in press fnur or five days, being turned
WILTS TRUCKLES AND SLIPCOTE CHEESE.
247
eveiy day and re]ieatedly salted on the outside.
The cheeses are then taken to the cheese-room,
bandaged for a time to maintain the shape, and
are ready for the table in about twelve months.
In a few of the more modern and better
equipi^ed dairies the evening's milk is poured,
from the outside, into a vat, which consists of
an inner shell of tin and an outer one of copper,
varying in size according to the requirements
of the dairy, and fitted over a fireplace like
an ordinary boiler ; there is a space between
the inner and outer shells of the vat, and this
is filled with cold water during the night; if
the weather is very hot a tap at the top and
another at the bottom of the outer shell let in
and let out a stream of cold water, which, if
expedient, can be kept running thi-ough the
space all night, thus keeping the milk in good
condition. In the cold weather of winter, when
there is a probability of the temperatm-e of the
milk being too far reduced, it is not unusual to
light a fire in the furnace and heat up the
water in the space between the shells, by which
means the milk does not become too cold dur-
ing the night ; the double-shelled vat is used
simply to regulate the temperature of the even-
ing's milk, and not to make the cheese in, for
when the morning's milk is in the cheese-tub
the evening's milk is partly skimmed, and then,
having been heated up to about 80°, is put to
the morning's in the tub ; the subsequent pro-
cess agrees with that described above.
The device of the self-heating vat — or self-
cooling, as the case may be — strikes us as being
a very good one, but as the whey and curd to-
gether have to be heated up after coagulation,
we cannot see the necessity or usefulness of
the wooden cheese-tub ; the vat, it appears to
us, would do very well indeed to make the
cheese in, saving at the same time a great deal
of trouble. It would be a simple matter to
run the morning's milk into the vat already
containing the evening's, the latter having in
the meantime been skimmed and heated up to
the required temjserature.
In some of the southern counties it is a
common practice for the farmers to let the cows
for the season to a daiiyman, who pays a stated
sum per cow, and makes the best he can of the
bargain. The dairyman and his family usually
milk the cows, and the season terminates at a
given period. In other cases the farmer hires
a dairyman to do all the work connected with
the dairy, paying a given sum per cow per week
or for the season, and retaining to himself the
control of the products of the dairy, the manager
being responsible only for the proper manage-
ment of the cheese and butter making.
Slipcote Cheese.
A very curious little cheese is made at Wis-
senden, in Rutlandshire ; it is round or square,
about 4 to 6 inches in diameter, and 1 to 2
inches thick. The method of making it is as
follows : — The milk is coagulated by means of
rennet, and is then put into a strainer until it is
comparatively dry ; then enough of the curd to
form one cheese is taken and placed in the hollow
of a small dessert-plate, where it drains still more ;
when firm enough the little cheese is taken from
the dessert-plate and placed between cabbage-leaves,
which are changed daily until the cheese is ready
to eat. The time of maturing varies with the
weather — generally from three days to a week are
required ; the ripeness of the cheese, or its readi-
ness to be eaten, is indicated by its beginning to
run as it were into a thick liquid, and when its coat
or skin becomes loose and shows signs of slipping
off ; hence the name, Slipcote cheese.
More than any other kind of English cheese,
the Slipcote is of a Continental character, though
it is at the same time an original and not a copy.
A few of the Continental cheeses have been on a
small scale imitated in this country ; it is obvious,
however, that they will not be extensively pro-
duced imtil the taste of the jjeople has been so
educated as to create an equivalent demand for
them. Such education is, however, no doubt going
on. The Gorgonzola, a famous Italian cheese, in
some respects resembling the Stilton, has been very
successfully imitated in Leicestershire, and there
can be no doubt that, with the exception of the
Roquefort, all the more worthy and popular of
the Continental kinds of cheese can be successfully
produced in England. Whether or not it will be
profitable to produce them is a problem whose
solution we leave to time. Some of our well-
known authorities are advocating the production
of soft cheeses in the place of a portion of the
hard ones peculiar to this country, and it is to
be hoped that an opening for some of the better
kinds will be provided. Made for early con-
248
DAIRY FARMING.
Furn])(iiin, tlie returns will be quicker, and a new
element of variety will Ije introduced into the
dairyinty of tliese islands. The methods of makinon
the various kinds of Continental cheese will be
found in the section on Continental Dairying.
Dairying in tiik Nokth.
None of the counties north of Derbyshire and
Cheshire have obtained a special or distinctive
rejiutation in either cheese or butter making.
Much good cheese and butter are made in the
northern half of the kingdom, but it contains no
district or county that is famous on accc>unt of its
cheese in the sense that Cheshire, Leicestershire,
and Somersetshire are, nor is there one whose re-
putation for butter is equal to that of Dorset.
In the Vale of the Tees, in Yorkshire, Cother-
stone cheese is made, and it is highly esteemed in
its native county, beyond which its rei)utation has
not far extended ; that reputation is, in fact, to
a great extent a borrowed one, for the cheese is
an imitation of Stilton, and though it possesses
various merits of its own, it resembles Stilton
more in appearance than in anything else. Similar
attempts to imitate Stilton cheese have been made
in various parts of the country, but they have
all met with but indifferent success. Minor dif-
ferences in milk, which at present are not well
understood, cause considerable variations in cheese,
even though the same process of making the latter
is employed ; it is not that the milk is poorer, or
that less skill is used in making the cheese, but
some property is absent which prevents fidelity of
imitation.
The dairying of Wensleydale, a district in the
North Riding of Yorkshire, is thus described by
Mr. W. Livesey : — " The cows, when in the old
pasture land, are milked in the fields, standing
most quietly during the operation. Thus the
animals have never to be driven to and from ship-
pous, as in Lancashire. The milk is carried to the
farm-house in a way I have never seen elsewhere.
Here they have large tin cans, or ' kits,' called
' budgets,'' of various sizes, generally holding from
4 to 6 gallons ; they are much the same shape a.s
some cans used in carrying milk by rail, except
that one side is made concave in place of convex,
so as to fit the back of the carrier of the milk, who
has it fixed by strong leather straps, exactly after
the i)lan of a soldier's knapsack. The milk i.s thus
carried various distances, jusl as the i)astures or
meadows are relatively situate to (he farm-house.
Some are distant above a mile. To a stranger it
is a novel sight, morning and evening, to see the
men flitting about with their ' budgets ' on their
backs, and more singular still to see a few females
laden with them, for the thrifty, hard-working
women shoulder their loads like men, and show
what they can do in the dairy line.
" There are two modes of making cheese here,
which are still distinguished by 'the new way'
and the 'old' one; though the 'new' has been
now practised for about twenty j'ears. This 'new'
method is the simplest and shortest one I have ever
seen. AVIiether it would answer in cheese of larger
size I cannot tell ; I doubt if it would. The small
cheese here made after the ' new ' mode (those I
have seen) are of good quality. I ought to state
that the largest cheese made here is less than 20 His.
weight; the bulk I have noticed vary from 10 lbs.
to 15 lbs. each; some are as small as 4 lbs. and
5 lbs., for cheeses are made here from a dairy of
five, four, or three cows, and sometimes even from
one. These small cheeses are not deep, like the
little ' truckles ' of Wiltshire, but J/at-sha])ed,
except where they copy the veiy deep Stiltons.
Generally the dairy consists of seven to ten cows,
but a few run up from sixteen to twenty cows.
So wedded are the people to small-sized cheese that
in the largest dairies they will make the milk into
three cheeses per day, where in Lancashire it would
be made into one. At a farm I called at, where
seven cows were kept, two cheeses per day were
made. They do not use a large cheese-tub, as in
Lancashire, for curdling the milk ; this is done in
the ' cheese-kettle.' The ' kettle ' is a large brass
or copper pan, exactly like those used in Lanca-
shire for heating the whey. In some few cases the
kettle is of tin. The night's milk is passed through
the sieve into the kettle, where it remains until
morning, when it is j)laced upon the fire to heat.
When got to the proper temjierature it is removed
and placed ui)on the floor, and the morning's milk
is run through the sieve into the kettle, mixing
with the heated night's milk. In the large
dairies, where the kettle will not hold all the
milk, a small tub is also used, and there two
]x;rsons can be employed in making the cheese at
the same time. It is strange what various pro-
vincial terms are used for the same article ; for
instance, what is generally known as a 'veil' is
here called a ' keslop,' and iu Lancashire a ' bag-
YORKSHIRE CHEESE-MAKING.
249
skin/ Atfain, while the rennet is known in the
latter county as ' steep/ here it is called ' prezzur !'
I once took an inteliig-ent Scotch farmer to one of
our choicest Lancashire dairies, and after he had
thoroughly questioned the maker as to the various
processes, he exclaimed, ' Oli, my, my 1 it's aw
done b' the rule o' thumb !' In other words,
all bif guess-work. Here they say they ' mak um
b'th' greap,' which, explained, means by the feel —
testing- the heat of the milk and the state of the
curds by the hand. The ' prezzur ' is made either
every day or alternate days, by cutting a piece
from off two or three ' keslops/ and letting it stand
about twenty-four hours in cold water which has
been previously boiled. It is made in a pint mug
or cup, and its strength is, of course, guessed at.
"The 'new' mode of making is shortly as
follows : — The night's milk being heated in the
' kettle,' and the morning's milk added to it, tlie
pint of ' prezzur ' is poured into it and well mixed.
It then stands about from half an hour to three-
quarters to coagulate. It is then very gently
broken up by the hand into very small pieces. At
some farms a breaker is used matle of wire crossed
as in a riddle, something like the Lancashire
breaker; but the shape is circular, and they are
of veiy small size. They have not an upright
handle, but a part of the outer wire rim is drawn
out and bent, so as to form a short handle. In
the breaking by the hand the movement is, of
course, upwards, but by the breaker it is dowTi-
wards. The breaking, which occupies about an
hour, being over, the whey is removed by ladling
it off. Then the curds are placed in a circular tin
about 11 inches across and about 4 inches deep,
the sides and bottom of which are very full of
perforated holes about the size of the bore of a
large quill. The tin full of curds is then left to
drain for about three hours, when it is reversed and
left for three more hours ; then its contents are
transferred to the cheese- vat, put to press, and kept
there for nearly twenty-four hours, after which it
is floated in ' pickle' for three days, just the same
as the system of ' brining ' in Lancashire. I got
the maker to test for several days the tempei'ature
at different stages, with the following results : —
Heat before curdling 95° to 98°
Heat after adding hot whey 94° to 97°
Heat when vattLng 64° to 69°
The maker stated that in summer the tempera-
ture at curdling was kept lower than at this date
(October 20), it being, in the warm weather, set to
coagulate at the same heat as the milk stood when
brought from the cow. The pickles or brines are
made on the customary j^lan in Lancashire — boil-
ing the salt in water, the liquid when cold being
made the strength that an egg will Hoat in it. A
little dry salt is placed on the top of each cheese
as it floats in the pickle, and this melting, gets
mixed, and so keeps up the strength of the pickle
to the original standard. All the cheeses are
slightly coloured by the use of cake annatto. The
climate here is low in temperature, with a very
large rainfall, and, the cheese-rooms not being
heated, the cheese is kept colder than in any other
county in England or Scotland where I have tra-
velled. Up to fog-time the cheeses are kept a
■week in the cool room, where they are pickled, and
then removed up-stairs to ripen ; after the period
named they are, in some places, kept for a short
time upon a shelf, which is suspended from the
ceiling of the kitchen and about the middle of the
apartment.
" Now for the ' old ' mode, at which I as-
sisted in making a cheese from the milk of five
cows. The night's milk being heated in the
' kettle,' the morning's milk — which stood at
82" before it was jwured out of the ' budget '
— was added when the whole contents of the
kettle were 102°. The maker 'b'th' greap'
found it was too hot, and so added some cold
water, remarking, ' You see the cheese will be
no poorer, for this [the water] will all go into
the whey.' This reduced the milk to 100'-'.
A pint of ' prezzur,' together with the piece
of ' kesloji ' which had been used in making
it, were put into the milk, which was well
stirred to secure a thorough mixing. It was
covered over with the wooden lid of the ' kettle,'
and left to stand thirtj^-five minutes, the tem-
perature of the place being 40*. When begin-
ning to break up the curd with the hand, I found
the contents of the ' kettle ' had got do\vn from
100" to 89". The breaking-up occupied half
an hour, when the maker, having previously put
a pan of whey upon the fire to heat, poured it
upon the broken-up curds, and brought up the
heat again to 100". She remarked that at this
cold season of the year it was needful to keeji
up the heat of the curds higher than in summer,
otherwise, in place of feeling ' sharp,' they got
to be pasty, and stuck in the curd-mill (or
250
DAIRY FARMING.
' frriiuli-r ' as tlioy call it). The brokcu-up
curds remained to settle for about tliree-quartors
of an hour, when they stood at 90^', and the
whey was removed in the manner before named.
The cui-ds, which were then at 8i°, were put
into a cheese-vat, which was lined with a dry
cloth. After standing for about half an hour
t(j drain in the cheese-press, with a light weight
applied, the mass of curd had got down to 05"^.
It was then cut up into small lumps, and re-
placed in the vat with a dry cloth, where it
was again placed to drain, and this process was
afterwards once again repeated, about two hours
having been occupied from the time the eurds
were first put in the vat. At length the mass
of curds was cut up and ground in the curd-
mill, the heat of the ground curd being 55"".
They were finally vatted into a Stilton-shaped
vat, and placed in the cheese-press, remaining
there for nearly twenty-four hours. At the
expiration of that period the cheese has a stout
calico bandage stitched upon it, when it is put
into pickle, where it remains three days. When
taken out of pickle it is not washed either in
cold or warm water, but simply wiped dry with
a cloth. On a subsequent day I had the curiosity
to weigh the milk and weigh the cheese produced
from it after it came out of the press ; the
weight of the milk was 91| lbs., that of the
cheese 10 lbs. 14 ozs. This result agrees with
those of many tests. I may quote one Derby-
shire cheese-factory. In May, June, July, and
August the weight required for 1 lb. of cheese
ranged from 10 lbs. 4 ozs. to 10 lbs. 1 oz. ; in
September, 9 lbs. 8 ozs. ; and October, S lbs.
10 ozs. Another maker on the 'old' mode, but
who makes them the ordinary shape (not deep,
as the Stilton shape), lets the curdling of milk
occupy nearly, and sometimes quite an hour,
and the time from breaking up to putting it
to drain in vat alone another hour, and lets the
draining and cutting up and re-draining of curds
occupy four to five hours. Though the cheeses are
only about 12 lbs. weight, she presses them for
forty-eight hours, and keeps them in pickle three
days. The temperature at which she operates
now (October 20) is as follows : — Settling t«
coagulate, 98*^ ; commencing to break up, 90*^ ;
placing to drain, 80" ; final vatting after grind-
ing, 00°. It will be noticed that no hot whey
was used by this maker. Though the Wensley-
dalo cheese are so small, and the ordinary shape
rather thin, yet most makers keep them in the
press for forty-eight hours. I find that a very
great majority of the dairies are made on the
' old ' method and of the flat shape."
In the adjoining county of Lancaster, cheese-
making is not a prominent branch of agriculture ;
the immense population of the county provides a
constant demand for fresh milk and butter, so
that, although a large number of cows are kept in
the county, the milk of but a small proportion of
them is used in cheese-making. There are, how-
ever, at least two kinds of cheese made in the
county, " brined " and " hand-salted," which
have obtained a certain local reputation ; the for-
mer is made chiefly on the north of the Ribble,
and the latter on the south of it. In both cases
the cheese is made after a simple and primitive
fashion, by " rule of thumb " in fact. The curd,
as well as the milk from which it is made, is kept
throughout the process comparatively cool ; the
time of coagulation is from one to two hours, and
a thermometer is seldom used in the process. The
method of making the two kinds of cheese varies
chiefly in the way in which salt is applied to them.
In the case of brined cheese, the method of salting,
as the name implies, is by means of brine — a saline
liquid in which the cheese floats during several
days, in weaker brine at first and then in stronger,
until enough salt is absorbed by the cheese. In
the case of hand-salted cheese, the salt in a dry
form is used. In some dairies a little salt is used
in the curd, when the latter is ground, and the
rest on the outside of the cheese; in others the
whole of the salt is applied to the outside of the
newly-formed cheese. The latter plan we think
is the better where the cheese is cold-made, because
it gives a chance of a slow degree of fermentation
arising in the cheese, which salting in the curd
would prevent; the brining system, too, admits
of a little fermentation, and this is alwaj-s useful
in enabling the cheese to be finn and shapely.
Scotland.
The broad lines on which Scotch dairy-farming
is conducted differ in few, if any, respects from
the systems in vogue in various parts of England
and Wales, and wo shall therefore have no need
to enter at length into a description of them ; it
will suffice to mention a few of the more salient
points, without coming to elaborate details.
SCOTCH DAIRY I'lLVCTlCE.
251
As a proiniiu'iit spwiality, claiiy-t'ariuiug dcjos
not appear to have been as long practised in
Scotland as in England, yet for more than a
hundred years it has been a distinct rent-paying
branch of husbandry in the county of Ayr, and
in that peinod it has become prevalent in Dum-
fries, Lanark, Kirkcudbright, Argyll, Renfrew,
and Dumbarton; it is general, in fact, over the
whole south-west of Scotland, from the Solway
to the Clyde, and along the northern side of
the latter river. The well-known Ayrshire breed
of cows is almost universally employed in the
dairy-farming of the districts named, a breed
essentially composite in origin, but possessing
many excellent cjualities.
The well-known Dunlop cheese is still made
in some parts of the country, though to a very
small extent ; its quality, owing less to the want
of richness in the milk than to the inferior
sj^stem on which it is made, is considered to be
beneath that of most kinds of English cheese,
as it is also beneath that of other Scotch cheese
that is made on an improved system ; it is
gradually fading away from the land, and will
in a short time, in all probability, have disap-
peared.
Cheese is now generally made on the Cheddar
system that was introduced into Scotland many
years ago by Mr. Joseph Harding, of !Marks-
bury, who was employed by the Ayrshire Agri-
cultural Association to practically expound the
system to our northern farmers. As in all dis-
tricts and countries where it has had a fair trial,
the Cheddar system has done well in Scotland,
and Scotch Cheddars are now famous in many
parts of the United Kingdom.
A practice of letting cows to professional
cheese-makers, locally termed " bowers " — a sys-
tem which is not uncommon in several of the
southern counties of England — has long pre-
vailed on many of the large farms in Scotland,
but the system of payment differs from that of
the English j)ractice. The bower undertakes the
whole management of the cows for a year, gene-
rally commencing at Martinmas. The farmer
provides the cows, a given area of land for pas-
turage, and a stipulated quantity of hay, straw,
turnips, feeding-stuffs, of one kind or another,
besides in some cases coal and salt. It is, in
a sense, sub-letting the land for a year, and
letting along with it the cows as live-stock,
and also some of the dead-stock of the farm.
As rent for these things, the bower agrees to
pay back to the farmer a given quantity of
cheese per cow, which varies from 3-l.() lbs. to
460 lbs., according to the quality of the cows
and the pasture, and to the quantity of com
agreed upon in the bargain ; and his own profit
is derived from what he can make from the cows
over and above the cheese he has to give back
to the owner. It is not a system that is calcu-
lated to improve the cheese-making of a country,
because the famier takes the risk of the cheese
fetching a good or bad price according to its
quality, to say nothing of the fluctuations of
the market, so that it is quantity, not quality,
that the bower aims to produce. Yet if the
bower himself were saddled with the risk of
losing money if the cheese were inferior, then
this system of letting the cows would tend to
the imjjrovement of cheese-making, because the
bower's profit, and the amount of it, would de-
pend on his skill, his care, his industry, and
his success. Another arrangement is for the
bower to pay so much money per cow, irre-
spective of the cheese, so that he takes him-
self the whole risk; and providing he is a
trustworthy and substantial person, the farmer's
position in the bargain is comparatively free from
risk and anxiety.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Cheese- Fa cTOitiEs ix England.
First Origin of Cheese-Factories in Britain— The First Factory in Derby decided upon— A Second at Longford found Advisable-
Rules of the Derbyshire Cheese Factory Association— Early Experience, Difllculties. and Success- Changes and Progress
in the System Employed-Kcsults of the Earlier Operations, and Growth of Otlier Factories- Causes of the Recent less
Successful Results— Want of Care and Emulation-Fraud of some of tlie Milk-suppliers- Carelessness of Others -Maniuxis and
Feeding-stuifs- Growth of the Purely Milk Trade- Cheese-making in Factories- Testing the Slilk— The
,'^^-lp i^'~^ Vats, andCooIing— Coagulation— Treatment of the Curd— Various Appliances-The Points of Good Cheese.
■ N the 1st of July, 1808, on the
motion of Lord Vernon, the
Council of the Royal Agri-
cultural Society instructed
the Secretary to take the
necessary steps to obtain in-
formation as to the working of the
cheese-factory system in the United
States ; but farther progress in the
matter was for some time hindered by
various causes, and jMr. Jenkins' valualjle
Report did not appear in the Society's Journal
until the spring of 1870. Meanwhile the sub-
ject had not been allowed to drop in the
counties, particularly in Derbyshire ; it was dis-
cussed in the papers and at the meetings of
Farmers' Clubs and Agricultural Societies, and
in time became a constant quantity in the general
conversation of dairy-farmers.
The project began to take definite form when,
at the annual meeting of the Derbyshire Agricul-
tural Society, held in the town of Derby on the
21th of December, 1869, Mr. Crompton, always
a warm friend and a most able exiwnent of the
new .system, brought forward for consideration,
and in an able speech described, the advantages
of the American method of cheese-making. At
this meeting a committee was appointed to in-
vestigate the matter, and to report on the desira-
bility or otherwise of giving the system a fair
triitl in the county. Meetings were held and dis-
cussions promoted in various dairying localities in
the neighbourhood of Derby, among the peoi)le
who were directly interested in the scheme, ami
the collective opinion of dairy-farmers was obtained
as accurtitely as possible.
On the 18th of February the members of the
society assembled in the Derby Town Hall to
receive the report of the committee, the chair
being occupied by His Grace the Duke of Devon-
shire. The great interest which the proceedings
had awakened was shown by a numerously-at-
tended meeting, to which the committee repoi"ted
that there were satisfactory reasons, should the
system have a fair trial, for expecting the fol-
lowing advantages : — " 1st. Greater uniformity in
the quality of the cheese. 2nd. Enhancement of
value in dairies which, from poor plant and the
absence of good accommodation, are now 2)roducing
inferior cheese. 3rd. The removal of an arduous
occupation, frequently deterring men of capital,
owing to domestic considerations, from entering
upon farms on which cheese-making is a pro-
minent feature. 4th. Improvement in the value
of hind, from improvement in the value of pro-
duce. And 5th. The general introduction of
unifonnity of .';ystem, better plant, skill, and
supervision."
The committee recommended that the system
shoidd have a full and fair trial in the cotmty,
eventually to stand or fall on its merits. But it
was so wholly new to the ideas of dairy-farmers,
so revolutionary in appearance, so totally different
from the old time-honoured practice of making the
cheese at home, so very great a reform, that in
order to induce farmers to give it a trial, it was
deemed expedient to esta])lish a guarantee fund
to secure contributors of milk against any loss
that might arise from failure of any kind. No
one knew anything about cheese-factories except
from hearsay or from residing; everything was
assumed, everything taken for granted, liut notiiing
THE ORIGIN OF CHEESE FACTORIES IN ENGLAND.
253
demonslTatod at present ; hence it was not sur-
prisini>- that farmers should hesitate to risk their
milk in a system with which they had no sort
of practical acquaintance. Doubts and fears wei-e
freely expressed, opposition was begun and en-
countered, prejudice was aired and disposed of, and
at length all tlie difficulties that stood directly in
the way of giving the system a trial were removed
by the establishment of a guarantee fund.
The nobility and gentry of the county came
forward liberally in support of the fund, and
it was decided that it shoidd be made available
to cover, if necessary, any deficiency which might
arise in a period not exceeding three years. In
this time, it was thought, the system would
either be so far a proved success that it could
be safely left to its own resources, or it would
be a declared failure and must needs be abandoned j
hence the guarantors became liable for three years.
And in order that no misunderstanding might
arise as to the distribution of anv portion of the
fund that might be nsed, and as to the point at
which it could be fairly thought the fund might
be justly drawn upon, it was decided to pay the
contributors 6|d. per gallon for all the milk
they sent to the factory, and this quite indepen-
dent of the price the cheese might sell for, and
quite irrespective of any drop that might occur
in the cheese markets of the period for which
the fund was made available; the milk, it was
arranged, should be paid for monthly. These
terms were, of course, so highly favourable that it
was no longer a difficulty to obtain promises of
support from the fanners, in the way of sending
milk to the factory ; the milk would be paid for
at a good rate, and in good time, whatever became
of the cheese, and the scheme if a success could be
continued, if a failure could be dropped, and no
great harm could be done. No blame whatever
attaches to farmers who were unwilling to sujiply
milk ■ndthout a guarantee of receiving j)ayment
equal to what they could have secured at home ;
it was not to be expected that they should place
without security the raw material on which they
chiefly depended to make their rents at the mercy
of a system in which they had, and could have, no
veiy strong faith, because they had no practical
knowledge of its working.
Mr. Alderman Roe very kindly placed at the
disposal of the committee a suitable building in
Siddals Road, Derby, rent-free for one year; and
Mr. Iligginbotham with equal kindness offered to
supply gratis for the same period, from his silk-
mills adjoining, the steam required for the cheese-
making operations ; and as the idea of a cheese-
factory had first taken definite shape in the town
of Derby, it was at length decided that Mr. Roe's
and ^Ir. Higginlwtham's offers should be accepted,
and that the factory should be within the precincts
of the borough. Meanwhile a competent American
cheese-maker had been secured through Messrs.
Webb, Turner, and Co., of New York; and he
having arrived in Derby on the 11th March, 1870,
was superintending the manufacture of the neces-
sary plant, accoi-ding to patterns he had brought
with him. Mr. Cornelius Schermerhorn was the
cheese-maker whose services had been secured,
and his salary was arranged to be £200 for the
cheese-making season, with his fare paid to Eng-
land, and also back to America should he decide
to return home at the end of the first season.
Meanwhile, the original committee having
satisfactorily fulfilled their mission and having
presented their report, a new committee was
appointed by the guarantors to superintend the
erection of the necessary buildings, to order the
required plant, to assist the American manager
in the general an-angements, and to carry on the
work of the season. The establishment of a sub-
stantial guarantee fund, and the commencement
of active preparations, had in the meantime created
considerable interest in the work throughout
the district, and matters generally were beginning
to wear a brighter and more encom-aging aspect.
INIuch of the more open opposition in the neigh-
bourhood had been silenced, some enemies of the
project had become friends, others had become
neutral, others again remained as they were,
and throughout the length and breadth of the
dairying districts of the country the result was
being looked forward to ^vith feelings in which
hope and anger, confident belief and persistent
opposition, were curiously jumbled up together.
The chief opposition, all the more dangerous be-
cause it was used privately, came from the cheese-
factors. They saw, or fancied they saw, in the
movement a principle of co-operation that would
interfere with their mode of doing business, and
they did all the harm they could to the new ven-
ture. But, as Mr. H. M. Jenkins wittily and
tersely stated the case in 1871 before the Society
of Arts, " It is far better for the farmer to have a
254
DAIRY FARMING.
factory for bis Lank tluin a factor for liis banker."
And so the thing went on.
The LoxGi'OKD Factory.
It was at first proposed that only one factory
should bo started, at all events for the first year ;
but as the interest sjrew, and encouragement rolled
in, it was considered oidy fair to the system itself,
to say nothing of the desirability of proving- con-
clusively its success or failure at as early a date
as possible, that there should be two factories,
one in the town aud the other in the country.
It was felt that a cheese-factory in a town seemed
ratlier paradoxical, and that if it succeeded its
friends would perhaps be unduly jubilant, while if
it failed its enemies would be the same. The
Sid(hils Roa<l factory alone could not, in fact,
in any sense be regarded either as a fair or a
sufficient test of the system ; and it was at length
decided, though the cheese-making season was just
about to commence, to establish a second factory
in one of the villages of the district, where con-
ditions could be secured such as ehccse-factories
would he expected to meet in the future. In the
first i)laee, it was obvious that, although there was
milk enoTigh to be had within a not unreasonable
distance of the town, the immediate surroundings
of the Derliy factory were not of the most favour-
able character for cheese-making; aud though it
was contemplated that milk-selling could to some
extent be woi'ked in conjunction with cheese-
making, and thus add somewhat to the success
of the venture, yet this very advantage detracted
from the fairness of the test, and so far reduced
the apiilieability of the system to a purely dairy-
ing locality.
But here another ditficully arose. In order
to give the system a fair trial in a rural ))lace,
it was felt to be necessary that an entirely new
building should be erected, specially designed
for the puqiose, and re}>lete with all the appur-
tenances and ecjuijiments on wliich the success
of such an institution must needs in no snudl
measure dcpeiid ; but the committee could not
in fairness to the guarantors think of erecting
a bran-new building out of the guarantee fund ;
nor coidd they, on the other hand, reasonably
call on a landowner to erect one at his own ex-
pense, for the puiiiose of trying an experiment
whose object was to serve the public, unless
they could assure hitn that in case failure was
the result he should, at all events in part, be
recompensed for his outlay. Such a building
would, in case of failure, be comparatively use-
less for any other purpose, and in this event
whoever built the building would have to suffer
loss. An old building, it is true, of some sort
might possibly have been found and converted
into a factory, thus in part sa-\4ng the cost of
erecting a new one; but it was considered that
the system could not be fairly tested under
such conditions, and that as it was to receive
a three years' trial, a new building oidy would
meet the requirements of the case.
The Hon. E. K. W. Coke, of Longford, who
from the first had been one of the warmest friends
of the movement, and Mr. Newi;on, of Etwall,
also a warm supporter, now came forward, and
each of them not only offered to put u])
the new building at his own expense, but to
place it at the disposal of the committee rent-
free for the first year; and on their part the
committee undertook to refund 40 per cent, of
the outlay if, at the end of the three years, the
system should be found to be unsuccessful; and
the money for this purpose was proposed to be
raised by, if necessary, a still further call on
the guarantors. As, however, the offers of
both gentlemen could not be accepted, a vote of
the committee was taken. The majority was in
favour of the Longford location, and the proposed
conditions having been accepted by all parties
concerned, the Imilding of the Longford factory
was immediately commenced. This was, of
course, the first cheese-factory, as such, ever built
in the British Islands ; and as the season was
advancing before it was finally decided on, it was
built of wood, chiefly with a view of saving
time. Considered apart from its liability to
decay in a damp climate like that of England,
there can be little doubt that wood is a very
suitalile material of which to build a cheese-
factory. Stone of any kind is perhaps the worst
material of all, because of its dampness and
porousness, its facility for absorbing moisture
on the outside and transmitting it to the inside
of the building. Brick is much better than stone
in this resjiect, and concrete better than citlu'r;
but wood is a very dry and, if properly coated
outside, a sufiiciently damp-proof material, and
it is on account of its dryness that it is especially
suitable for buililiiigs of this kind. Dnni]) walls
THE DERBYSHIRE CHEESE FACTORY ASSOCIATION.
255
of any kind, and new walls full of fresh mortar,
are eminently unsuitable for cheese-rooms ; henee,
all things considered, wood was the best material
of which, so late in the season, the Long-ford
factory could be built. A bronze plate affixed to
the front of the building bears the following
inscription : — " The first cheese-factory built in
England. Opened May 4th, 1870, under the
management of Cornelius Sehermerhorn."
It was deemed desirable that the country
factory should not commence operations with
fewer than 400 nor with more than (JOO cows'
milk; above or below these numbers would, on
the one hand, be so large as to be unwieldy, and
on the other would be too small to warrant the
large outlay which a new building entailed, while
between the limits would secure most of the
conditions which factories in the future would
in all probability have to meet. Before deciding
on the Longford site, the committee held meet-
ings at Sudbury, Shardlow, Etwall, Longford, and
Weston Underwood; at each of these places the
proposed site and the available supply of water
were both carefully inspected, and other local
considerations calculated to influence the under-
taking were duly taken note of; in addition to
these matters the number of cows promised at
each place was ascertained, and as Longford was
found to stand at the head of the list, it was
decided to erect the first experimental factory
in that village.
The location is, all things considered, as
favourable as could easily be found — close to
a good public road, and in the midst of a noted
dairj'ing district. The only drawback was the
water, and this is a difficulty which most factories
have had to ci nte.id with, and still have. Close
by the Longford factory runs a stream whose
volume of water for the most part was consider-
able, and whose temperature would answer the
purpose perfectly in all the cooler portions of
the season ; but in the summer the stream be-
comes sluggish as the volume of water diminishes,
and the rays of the sun, j^laying long on the
small stream, raise its temperature to a height at
which it is quite unsuitable for cheese-making,
and this at the very period of the season when
a plentiful supply of cold water is a sine qzid
non. This objection against the stream-water
was fatal, and water of a suitable temperature
had to be brought upwards of a mile in pipes,
from a cool pond in the jiark ; this added alike to
the delay and the exfjcnse.
The decision to have two factories instead
of one, and these situated at a distance of ten
miles from each other, made two things neces-
sary : first, that a second cheese-maker should be
sent for, because one man could not manage two
factories so far apart ; secondly, that the managing
committee should be divided as to superintendence
of matters of detail at each factory separately,
still remaining one committee in all matters of
a general character touching the interests of
the movement. The second cheese-maker — Mr.
Levi Sehermerhorn, brother to the first one —
was telegraphed for to America, and he arrived in
time to liberate his brother, who then took charge
of the Longford factory from its opening. The
members of the Derby Committee were Mr. Cromp-
ton (chairman), and Messrs. Burnett, jMurray,
Nuttall, and Tonilinson ; the Longford Committee
were the Hon. E. K. W. Coke (chairman), and
Messrs. Brough, Coleman, Lowndes, and Salt.
The duties of each sub-committee were to pay the
milk-suppliers each mouth, to examine and pay
all bills, to dispose of the cheese, and to keep an
eye on all matters connected with the factory.
These sub-committees were responsible to the
central committee, whose members were guaran-
tors each of £50 or upwards. These several
committees, together with the factories under
their control, were known as the Derbyshire
Cheese P^aetory Association, and the rules of the
Association were as follows : —
" That this Association he called ' The Derhyshire Cheese
Factory Association
" That it he managed and governed by a Central Committee,
the memhers of -which shall be those persons subscribing
no less a sum than £50 to the Guarantee Fund, or their
agents, and the representatives of the Managing Committees,
of not more than three members from each. Seven members
of such Central Committee to be a quorum.
" That the Central Committee shall appoint a Managing
Committee for each factory, not to exceed six members, two
of whom shall be selected from the suppliers of milk to such
factory. These Committees to have the entire control of their
respective factories, and of the officers of such factory ; the
manufacture of the cheese, and the disposal of the whey.
A Sub-Committee of not more than three members, including
the Chairman of such Managing Committee, or his Deputy,
to be appointed the Finance Committee, and for the sale of
cheese at such factory.
" That the Managing Committee of each factory shall have
power to make such bye-laws as they may consider expedient,
and carry them into effect. Such bye-laws to be submitted
to the Central Committee.
25fi
11AIKV FAinnxG.
" That Jlessrs. Crompton, Kewton, and Co., of Derby, be the
Treasiiici-3 of tlie Association.
" That tho Central Committee shall appoint a Secretary to
the Association, who shall be required to audit tho Manager's
books of each factory every month, prepare reports and
accounts for such Committee, record the minutes of their
meetings, and caiTy out their instructions ; pay the suppliers
of milk their due, and transact generally tho business of the
Association.
"That all payments above £1 shall bo made by cheques
signed by tl>c Chairman (or his Deputy) of tho Managing
Committee of the factory to whiuh such payments belong, and
the Secretary.
" That the accounts of each factory be kept separate and
distinct.
" Tliat persons supplj-ing milk to cither of the factories
shall be recpiired to send, twice each day, the pure milk from
the whole of their dairy-cows (excepting such milk as shall
be required by them for their family consumption) during the
manufacturing season, the termination of which shall be
determined by the Managing Committi'C of each factory.
" That the terms for the current year on which the
milk is to be obtained shall be a guaranteed payment of
6Jd. per gallon, of 10 lbs. weight, payable the iirst Friday
in every month, between the hours of ten and one o'clock,
at the Sccretai-y's office in Derby, together with a share
of tho profits of tho factory, according to the quantity of
milk supplied (after payment of working expenses of such
factory), which shall be paid as soon after tho close of
the manufacturing season as the Central Committee can
arrange.
" That the Manager of each factory shall have power to
refuse milk that is of an inferior quality, sour, dirty, or other-
wise impui'e, without reference to the Central Committee ; and
any person detected in sending milk that has been skimmed or
adulterated shall bo reported to the Central Committee, and
render himself liable to a forfeiture of his share of the profits
that may be derived from the factory, and not be allowed to
supply milk to it afterwards.
" Tliat every supplier of milk shall sign a declaration that
ho will submit to the rules of the Association, and tho bye-
laws made for the proper working of such factory with
which he is connected. And in case of his failing to comply
with such rules and byo-Iaws, he shall forfeit all claim to
any profits that may be derived from such factory, and not bo
allowed to supply milk to it afterwards. I5ut in case of his
inability to supply the milk from the number of cows he had
previously declared, under circumstances over which he has
no control, or which the Central Committee shall deem to bo
satisfactory, ho may bo relieved from his agreement on such
terms as the Central Committee shall decide to be just and
proper.
" That persons on the working staff of either factory
shall not allow the admission of any person, other than a
guarantor, or by the written consent of one of tho Managing
Committee, to such factor}', excepting ho be on business
connected therewith."
The Derby factory was a huililing- tliat luul ior
some years been used as a cheese warehouse, and
so far as the upper rooms are couccrned was well
adapted to its new purpose ; the lower room only
required adapting to the plant that was placed in
it, hence tlicro was comparatively little delay in
ffettin<;- all thinijs ready for a start. The interval
between the 11th of March and the Sth of April
was found long enough to get all the items of the
plant made, the building adapted, and everything
in its place. On the latter date the first milk was
received and the first cheese made in an English
cheese-factory — in the year 1870. In the mean-
time jiublic interest had become very keen, and
great numbers of visitors saw the process during
the first few weeks; and during the first season
ujiwards of 5,000 persons, many of them coming
from distant parts of the United Kingdom and
some from foreign countries, entered their names
in the visitors' book, and it is supposed that a still
larger number visited the factories but did not
record their names. So great was the interest felt
in the new movement.
Early Experience of the Factokies.
During the first year the committees worked
under great difficulties. Everything was new
and strange, and many alterations were required
to make matters woi-k smoothly. Happily, that
which at the onset would have proved the greatest
diflieulty of all — the finding of money to pay the
milk-suppliers' monthly dues — was removed by the
guarantee fund. But the amount of opposition
brought to bear against the movement was, for a
long time, very great; and as much of this was of
a secret character it was the more diflieult to con-
tend with. In the first year's Report of the Joint
Committees of jManagement the following words
occur : — " Your committee cannot but regret that
an experiment made entirely upon public grounds,
and purely in the public interest, should have been
viewed in its outset with so much uncalled-for and
unworthy susjjicion. This feeling, however, your
committee is gratified to say is fast passing away.''
And again : — "An item acting prejudicially on the
balance-sheet is the cost incurred in disposing of
the cheese in a distant market, caused, in some
measure, by the extraordinary and unexpected
jealousy and dislike with which the movement was
\iewed by some factors of considerable infiuence in
the trade." Thc^^e quoted words indicate clearly
enough the outside difficulties with which the
committees had to contend. On the opposite
page are the balance-sheets of the two factories
for the first season.
The question of the 4 ozs. deficient in each
gallon of milk is thus cxjilained : — "There is
FIRST SEASON'S BALANCE SHEETS.
257
LoNGFOED Cheese Factory.
Statenunt of Accounts, 1S70.
* Paid for Milk, 1,693,010 lbs
„ t labour, including Salary to Jfr.
Schernierliorn, £100 ; Warehouseman,
to commencement of present season,
and Butter-maker
„ t Annatto, Bandages, Salt, Rennet, and
other Materials ...
,, Commission on Sales, Insurance of
Cheese, Carriage, &c
Balance at the Bank
4,584 4 9
8 6
£.5,049 17 4
Sale of Cheese, 1,220 cwt. 1 qr. 14 lbs,
„ Whey
„ Butter
* This amount includes the sum over-paid tor the 4 ozs. deficient in each gallon of Milk.
t The labour in manufacturing the Cheese cost £179 10s., or 23. Hid. per cwt., and the material £86 18s. 4d., or Is. 5d. per cwt., together
making 4s. 4id. per cwt.
t 77s. 5d. per cwt. of 120 lbs.
Derby Cheese Factory.
Statement of Accounts, 1870.
£ s.
d
£ s. A.
* Paid for Milk, 1,309,090 Ills
3,.547 1
0
Sale of Cheese, 943 cwt. 2 ejrs
8 lbs.
... 13,607 4 9
„ t Labour, including Salary to Mr.
Schermerhorn, i'lOO ; Warehouseman
to commencement of present season, &c.
197 15
1
„ ■\\Tiey
Balance owing at Bank...
230 17 11
87 13 1
„ f Annatto, Bandages, Salt, Eennet,
Water, and other Materials
87 14
2
^^^^
^^^
„ Commission on Sales, Insur.ance of
Cheese, Carriage, kc. ...
93 5
1
_^-^^
£3,925 15
9
£3,925 15 9
• This amount includes the sum of £'S8 over-paid for the 4 ozs. deficient in each gallon of Milk,
t The labour in manufacturing the Cheese cost £177 lis. 5d., or 3s. 9id. per cwt., and the material £S
making 5s. 7}d. per cwt.
X 76s. 6d. per cwt. of 120 lbs.
lis. 2d., or Is. lOld. per cwt.— together
one circumstanee which, as it will affect the pecu-
niary results of the year, your committee will at
once brin^ to your notice. According to the rules
of the Association, and following the example of
the Americans, the gallon of milk was estimated
at 10 lbs., and accordingly each milk-supplier has
received the stipulated amount of 6id. per 10 lbs. ;
but upon accurate measurement it was ascertained
that an imperial gallon of new milk at 8i'^, being
the average heat at which the milk is delivered,
weighed 10 lbs. 4> oz. ; consequently for eveiy
gallon received or paid for your committee have
received 4 oz. short of the true gallon. This
deficiency forms a serious item, amounting at
Derby to £88, and at Longford to £114 — amounts
paid to the sujspliers of milk for quantities never
received, and which remain in their hands as over-
j)ayment or bonus, over and above the value of the
milk they supplied. This they are aware of, and
agree to rectify on the working of the jiresent
year."
Before the price to be paid for the milk was
settled, the committee, "after collecting the ex-
l^erience of intelligent holders of large dairies,
spread over a wide field of inquiry, found the well-
nigh unanimous ojiinion to be that on ordinary
daily-farms, and in ordinarj' cheese-making seasons,
and taking the average yield of cheese for the
entire season, namely, embracing the poor and the
rich curd-yielding jieriods of the season, a pound of
cheese could not be produced on the old system of
farm-house dairying from a less quantity of milk
258
DAIRY FAinilXG.
than 1 gallim l.\ pints. Assuminfr this experience
of the cheese-yielding powers of the milk to be
correct, and also that 3'our committee working in
the same district could not work at a less per-
centage, it follows that at the cost price of the
milk alone (viz., (!^d. per gallon) a ewt. of 1^0 lbs.
of cheese would stand at 77s. (jd. per cwt., exclusive
of whatever might prove to be the cost of labour
and materials used in the manufacture. Assuming
that these, under the factory system, could not be
covered for a less sum than 4s. per cwt., it would
follow that your committee would be under the
oblig-ation of realising from the products of the
milk an amount equivalent to 81s. 6d. per cwt. of
120 lbs., or of being obliged to fall back heavily
on the guarantee fimd. Now, inasmuch as the
average price of the entire make of Derbyshire
cheese has ruled for the past season at 7;is. 6d.
per cwt. (the exceptional dairies realising SOs. and
upwards being an insignificant i^ercentage of the
entire make), your committee had no little anxiety
(buying milk on such terms) lest they should be
unable to sell the produce at prices so much in
advance of Derbyshire rates as to cover the large
amount of money expended in the purchase of
milk ; and they feel much gratified that they have
been enabled to do so.'''
The committee attributed their being able to
repay the large ovitlay in milk, besides cost of
manufacture, without any material aid from the
guarantee fund, chiefly to the following causes : —
1. That in working up milk in such large
quantities, and ou the Cheddar system, a larger
yield of curd is extracted from the milk than is
obtained under the ordinary private dairy system.
2. The saving in cost of labour, which, being
spread over so large a production, is cajiable of
being reduced to the minimum.
3. The advantage, from buj'ing them in bulk,
of obtaining materials on the best terms.
4. The material reduction, inider this system,
in waste and loss of curd, as compared with the same
quantity of milk made into cheese in small dairies.
5. The absence of loss by cheese cracking and
heaving, which places a large percentage of an
ordinary dairy in the infirmary instead of in the
market.
6. The general rule, ajipllcalile to cheese-making
as to every other class of manufacture, that an
article can be produced at less cost in bulk than in
small quant llles.
The cost of bringing over the cheese-makers
from the United States was necessarily heavy, and
as it was an item of expense which would not
fall on cheese-factories in after-years, a portion
only of their salaries — £100 at each factory — was
charged in the working expenses of the year, the
rest being borne by the guarantee fund. There
were also other expenses, such as alteration and
re-arrangement of plant, improvement and enlarge-
ment of buildings, &c., which the committee con-
sidered coidd not be fairly charged to the account
of the experiment, because they would not neces-
sarily be incurred by the factories of the future;
it was thought that in an experimental under-
taking these various expenses were, more or less,
unavoidable on the score of inexjjericnce, and that
in the case of new factories that might be Ijuilt
the mistakes of the pioneers would be avoided.
The salaries of the makers ^vere charged to the
working expenses at a rate which, it was thought,
factories of the future woxild have to pay, and the
various extras incidental to a new undertaking
were properly borne by the promoters of the
scheme.
It is, indeed, probable that the best-managed
dairy, the milk of which was sent to the factories
in that first season, would not have made a clear
G^d. per gallon of 10 lbs. of milk had the cheese
been made at home; and the bare fact that the
factories were able to pay for the milk at that
rate, and still pay fair working expenses, was a
highly satisfactory result, all things considered.
Early Difficulties.
In connoctiiin with this, it must be l)nrne in mind
that the system of cheese-making introduced by
the two Americans was essentially that which was
then in vogue in many of the factories in their
country, and that, consequently, the cheese made in
the two English factories was essentially American
in character. It was, in the first place, American
in shape and general outward appearance, and it
had all the features when cut — the want of com-
])actness of texture, the peculiar taste and smell,
the too early maturity, aud the lack of fine flavour
— which characterised the American cheese of that
period. There can be no doubt that, being a copy
of, though to some extent an imjirovement on, the
American cheese of the day, the sale of the Derby
and Longford cheese was to some extent preju-
diced; for American cheese then, as before and
C^'*' -»
THE LONGFORD CHEESE FvVCTORY.
259
since, was selling' at a price decidedly inferior to
the average price of English cheese.
At that period, indeed, a reaction had set in,
and a reform was in process of being established
in the method of making American cheese. The
Cheddar system was the one which, with various
modifications, had been adopted in the American
factories ; but these modifications being seldom, if
ever, improvements, had been carried too far in
have been obtainetl ; yet the committees, as we
have seen, were enabled to jiay a maximum price
for the milli and a fair amount of working ex-
penses.
lu tlie system first tried in the English fac-
tories, the required acidity was wholly developed
in the whey and curd before any of the former
was removed, and not, as now, started in the whey
and curd together, and afterwards completed in the
Fig. Vll. — LoxcjFuiU) Faciuuy (iNXEiticm),
some respects, and some of the best cheese-makers
in the States were advocating and practising with
success a nearer approach to the true Cheddar
system. The American system introduced into
the Englisli factories was what we may term the
American Cheddar system, and did not contain the
principles of the reform which had set in on the
other side of the Atlantic. Hence the first year's
factory cheese made in this country was less Eng-
lish in character than it might have been had the
latest American methods been introduced. The
result of this was found in a somewhat depreciated
sale, and iu smaller returns than might otherwise
36
curd alone. In the former plan it was expedient
to have a portion of the floor of the making-room
about 3 feet lower than the rest (Fig. 127) ; and
in this lowered part stood the "dry- vat" and the
cheese-presses. When acidity was sufficiently de-
veloped, the bulk of the whey was drawn off by
the syphon which is seen in position on the nearest
vat in the illustration ; the end of each milk-vat
{a) was then separately lowered by removing the
blocks from underneath the legs, the "gate" in
the end was opened, and the curd and remaining
whey together ran down the shute {b) into the
dry-vat (e). The dry- vat was covered with a
2G()
DAIRY FARMING.
el'itli, wliicli lu'lil the cunl and let tlie wliey escape.
The wliey was conducted from tlie diy-vat by an
iudia-ruhber tul)c to an iinder<;;i-ound piix?, which
conveyed it to the whey-tank outside. In the dry-
vat was used a given quantity of salt, about 'I lbs. of
salt per 1 00 lbs. of curd, and the two were well mixed
up toi>;ether ; this was done as soon as the whey
had all left the curd. The leadintf peculiarity of
this system was that the curd did not require to
be ground. During the time when acidity was
developing in the milk-vat the curd was repeatedly
stirred up by hand, in order to prevent its packing
together at the bottom of the vat ; the object was
to keep the particles loose from each other, so that
they would easily swim out with the whey into
the dry-vat, and when there, would permit the
whey to quickly escape. So the curd pai'ticles
were like so many grains of wheat in size and
appearance, and though their tendency was to ad-
here together in a mass, because of the acidity
which prevailed among them, they were kept in a
loose state after they were got into the dry-vat,
partly to obviate grinding and partly to enable
the salt to be evenly mixed with them. After the
salt was thoroughly mixed with the curd the press-
vats were filled and placed in the ^'oweriul screw-
presses, a row of which is seen on the right of
the illustration ; a light pressure was at first
jipplied, and afterwards a heavier one, until the
cheeses were compactly formed. The press-vat was
a cylinder of gal-
vanised wrought-
iron without ends
(Fig. US); the ne-
cessary bottom was
form oil by the board
on ^\■hich it rested
when in j'ress, and
the top consisted
of a " follower,"
which fitted inside the hoop, and sank as the
cheese became more compact.
Ch.vnces in the System.
The experience of the first year proved to those
in charge of the experiment that the American
system, as introduced into this country, required
considcra])le alterations to adaj)t it to our needs.
Whilst the co-operative system in general, and tlie
labour-saving aj)plianccs in detail, which were the
salient features of this new departure iu I'^nglish
128.— Press VAT.
dairying, were found to be admirably suited to
Ijring about the end in view, it was considered
indispensable to the future i)rosperity of the system
that " every possible trace of the American tj'pe of
cheese " should be eradicated, and that under an
English maker our own Derbyshire system should
be coj)ied as closely as possible, and that our slower
and more careful process should be supplemented
by the advantages of machinery, the concentraticm
of labour, and the general economy of manufacture
which the factory system supplied. This, however,
was not a change that could be i)erfeeted by bring-
ing into the factories the Derbyshire method pure
and simple ; there were various unexpected diffi-
culties cropping up here and there in the process of
adaptation, and these involved the production of
some faulty cheese. The difficulties were, liowever,
gradually and one by one surmounted, and the
committee " had the satisfaction of seeing the
admirable method and the best points of the
American machinery and system fully and success-
fully apjjlied to the manufacture of Derliyshire
cheese in two Dei'byshire cheese factories."
But the cheese now produced in the factories,
though flat and thin, and weighing the regulation
30 lbs. apiece, was not really Derbyshire cheese
in character. The Derbyshire system, indeed,
being essentially a sweet-curd system, cannot well
be jjractised in factories, unless many more lever-
presses and certain other appliances are provided
than are found to be required in the American or
in the Cheddar systems ; hence it came to pass
that one or two of the salient features of the
Cheddar method must needs be introduced. The
experiments made in dropj)ing the American and
adopting the Derb^-shire, and again in grafting
on the Derbyshire those leading features of the
Cheddar sj'stem, were inevitably accompanied with
(lilHculties and disa])pointments which could only
be surmounted by " indomitable and untiring pei-
severanee, based upon a firm conviction of the
soundness and ultimate victory of the system.^'
These qualities were jjresent in no common degree
among the members of the committee.
The situation was a peculiar and most anxious
one. The eyes of the agricultural world in this
and many other countries were closely watching
the experiment. !Many dairy-fannei"s were hoping
the ex]ieriment would succeed, others were hoj)ing
it would fail ; the factors were jealous of it; some
huulldnls were strongly opposed to it, others were
THE PROGRESS OF THE SYSTEM.
261
as stronijly in favour of it ; pul)lio ojnnion was
dividetl, swerving this way and that, anticipating
the verdict of practice. Tiie committee felt that
the second season was the crucial one, and the
anxiety attending it was increased by the change
of system that was inevitable. Had the first year's
method turned out all, or nearly all, that could be
desired, the course to be pursued would have been
comparatively clear j but instead of that it was
felt that certain radical changes must be made, and
the success of these was problematical. Hence the
advocates of the system, and particularly those who
had the control of it, were put on their mettle, and
more earnest thought and watching in the iiiterests
of cheese-making have not been exercised in an
equal period for many a long year in this country.
It was a great and almost heroic effort on the
part of some of our leading agriculturists in the
county of Derby to place the cheese-making of
the country — not the county only — on a founda-
tion where the improvement would be permanent.
Every effort, therefore, was used to make the sys-
tem a success under the new order of things ; the
combined acumen of many practical minds was
brought to bear on the subject. Efforts were,
indeed, untiring, and perseverance unlimited; and
success was certain under such conditions. The
second season was one of hard work and much
anxiety, but the result was satisfactory to those on
whom it had depended.
Progress of the System.
Before the commencement of the third season
(1872) the milk-suppliers, who for the two pre-
vious seasons would patronise the system only on
condition that they were shielded from all risk by a
guarantee of 6|d. per gallon for all milk supplied,
had become familiar with the working, and were so
satisfied with the results of the system that they
voluntarily relieved the guai^antors from all risk
in the third season for which the guarantee fund
was available, assumed the responsibility them-
selves, undertook the entire management of the
factories, formed themselves into local and in-
dependent committees, each dealing with its own
factory separately, and became Dairy Associations
on a purely co-operative basis. This was, of
course, the result which must needs follow the
introduction of the system, if it turned out a
success, and the sooner the result was arrived
at the bettei' it was for the system. To be
valuable at all, the system must needs liberate
itself from the leading-strings that were in-
dispensable at first, and the sooner it learned
to stand on its merits, or was compelled to fall
on its demerits, the better it was for all parties
concerned.
To a great extent the new local committees
were composed of the same persons who had
served on them in the two previous years, and
their accumulated experience was turned to good
account. But though these committees now
relieved the guarantors of further liability, so
dispensing with the central committee, and took
the entire management and responsibility into
their own hands, they did not till the following
year take full possession of the stock-in-trade. The
season of 1872 hatl its difficulties, for the cows
of most of the contributing dairies were afflicted
with foot-and-mouth disease, which seriously re-
duced the quantity of milk. The quantity of
cheese sold from the Longford factory in the
season of 1872 was over 82 tons, at an average
price of 74s. 10|d. per cwt. The whey and
butter sjld paid the working expenses, with
the exception of about £52, so that the con-
ti'ibutors received a net price of 74'S. 3d. per
cwt. of 120 lbs. The quantity of milk delivered
was 211,338 imperial gallons, on which a net
dividend of 6|d. and |^ths of a farthing was paid.
The average quantity of milk required to make
1 lb. of green cheese was 9 lbs. 13 oz., the shrink-
age of weight during ripening was about 10 per
cent., and the total cost of manufacture was
6s. Old. per cwt. of the cheese.
The quantity of cheese sold at the Derby
factory in its third season was over 49 tons,
and the average price realised 74s. 7d. per cwt;
the total cost of manufacture 7s. l^d. per cwt.
of the cheese; and the dividend paid on the milk
within a fraction of 6id. per gallon.
Notwithstanding various drawbacks, the year
1872, the thiiil season of the two factories, was
one which added credit to the factory system,
for, after paying all expenses, a higher price
per gallon of milk was paid thaji when the
guarantee fund was in force, and this in spite
of the price of cheese having declined several
shillings per cwt. This result was highly credit-
able to the skill, the industry, and the perse-
verance of the respective committees, as it was an
encouragement fur the future.
2Gi
DAIRY FARMING.
In the fourth season (1873) the milk-suppliers
purchased the plant from the guarantors, taking
full possession as well as entire management, and
doing away wholly with the connection which
till then liad been maintained with the guarantee
fund. Jleanwhile the price of cheese had been
advancing, and the results of the fourth season
at Longford were more favouralile than any of
the jn-eeeding ones ; the management and the
manufacturers were alike thoroughly successful,
and the business was a pronounced success. We
are enabled to present our readers with the
balance-sheet of the Longford factory for the
year in question, and it is well worth preserving
in this permanent form, because it presents a
concise picture of what a thoroughly experienced
and united committee of management may ac-
complish in good times. It wUl be noticed
that the cost of making the cheese is reduced to
a very low figure, and this is e\ndence of great
care and perfect management. See the annexed
balance-sheet of the Longford factory.
During the first three years of the two
factories' existence the system had atti-aeted an
immense amount of notice from farmers in all
parts of the British Islands, and many foreigners
had come over to see and study it. It is true
there was some possibly needless enthusiasm in-
dulged in by the advocates and supporters of the
scheme when it was a pronounced success ; and
it is also true that certain rose-tinted predictions
were made as to the benefits the factory system
would confer on farmere' wives and daughters
and on the dairying of the future ; but these
were chiefly called forth by the certainly need-
less opposition which was encountered in various
quartei-s, and it cannot be denied that both the
enthusiasm and the predictions were justified by
the success which the factories had already at-
tained.
How much of the success may have been
due to that enthusiasm it is not for us to say,
but it is probable that the committees and all
the friends of the movement worked harder for
its success in those early years than it was reason-
able to suppose they would continue to do in
the future. There can be no doubt of the sin-
cerity of those who advocated the factories, to
begin with, .and who worked so hard to demon-
strate their great usefulness, their intrinsic value,
and their adaptability to the needs of English
farmers and to the peculiarities of our insular
dairying. If ever a great reform in agriculture
was undertaken in good faith, this one was ;
there was no half-heartedness in its advocacy-,
no " wishing we hadn't undertaken it," no doubt
of the soundness of the system. And it must be
admitted that the opposition to it was equally
persistent, though it was not in all cases so dis-
interested, nor was it always ingenuous and straight-
forward— it was rather a sort of guerilla war-
fare, conducted in secrecy and through various
crooked paths.
The objects of the promoters were (1) to place
the making of the cheese of the countiy in the
hands of skilled makers, who, having charge of
the milk of several hundreds of cows, could be
paid at the rate which skilled and intelligent
workmanship properly commands ; (2) to relieve
farmers' households of the sloppy untidiness,
and their wives and daughters of the toil and
anxiety, which are inseparable from home cheese-
making; (3) to reduce the cost of making the
cheese; (4) to raise the average quality of the
cheese-production of the land; (.5) to introduce
into farming the beneficent jirinciple of eo-ojiera-
tion ; (6) to break the power of the " middle men ; "
(7) to obviate dei)endence on incompetent dairy-
maids ; (8) to increase the profits derivable from
dairy-farming; and (9) to pi-omote a healthy
emulation, to create a feeling of mutual inter-
dependence, to encourage a freer intercourse, and
to introduce habits of system, inquiry, calcula-
tion, regularity, and order among the farming
circles of the country. That great good was
within the reach of such means as these no one
can deny, and that the means themselves were
thoroughly practical is equally beyond the need
of argument ; the reasons why all the expected
good has not been brought about we will presently
inquire into.
The enemies of the system declared the move-
ment was projected by landlords who wished the
more easily to ascertain the profits their tenants
were making; but this imputation was as un-
worthy as it was untrue, and it was absui-d on
the face of it. Landlords who wished to raise
their tenants' rents did not take the trouble to
inquire into their profits first of all, and all right-
feeling landlords were glad to learn that their
tenants were saving money — but not for the pur-
pose of raising their rents.
LATER FINANCIAL RESULTS.
2G3
LoNGFOKD Dairy, 1873.
Opened Mareh 24, Closed November 29.
Cost per cwt.
PAYMENTS.
RECEIPTS.
Averages.
£ s. d.
£ s. d.
£ s. d.
Purchase of Plant from
Balance from 1872 0 19 9
&
d.
Guarantors
258 10 0
Entrance Fees for 517 cows 258 10 0
2
74
Laboor—
Sale of 86 tons 5 cwt. 3 qrs. 27 lbs. of
!. d.
Manager, 2.5s. per ton ... 107 18 0
Cheese 7,106 2 7J
82 4 per cwt
AU other labour ... 120 0 0
227 18 0
Sale of 2,898 lbs. of Butter 167 14 5
1 If per lb.
0
8|
MaTERIvVLS—
„ "SVbey 346 15 1
Rennet 45 9 6
Annatto 3 6 10
Salt 5 9 6i
Cheese Bandages ... 10 2 9J
64 8 8
Prizes gained for Cheese at Stafford-
shire Show 6 16 0
Interest on Capital in Bank 4 18 5
Interest received from Milk-suppliers
for advances 0 12 1
0
6
Fuel —
Coal 36 9 0
/
Coke 7 18 6
44 7 6
/
0
Of
Sundries —
/
Soap, Soda, Brushes, &c.
6 11 5i
/
0
8
Rent, Rates, and Insurance—
One Year's Rent ... 50 0 0
Rates ... 1 11 1
,, Insurance ... 6 0 0
57 11 1
20 2 2
/
0
Total ■)
cost of V 4
manu- C
2|
Repairs to Plant ...
/
oa
Other Expenses —
/
9}
Weighing of Cheese,
/
facture J
Carriage, &c. ... ... 8 15 8^
1
Discount and other
allowances ... ... 21 16 5
Commission on sale of
Butter 9 6 5
Printing, Stamps, and
Stationery 5 7 li
Bank Charges 18 4 9
Secretary's Salary ... 15 0 0
78 10 5
/
Interest on Money bor-
/
rowed to purchase Plant
7 8 1
/
Expenses of Staffordshire
/
Show 10 0
/
Manager's share of Stafford
/
Prize Money 3 10 0
4 10 0
98 0 0
/
The Manager's Bonus* ...
/
Amount divided amongst Contributors
/
on 221,148 gallons of Milk, rather
over "id. per gallon, or £Vi lis. SJd.
per cow t (
£7
,024 11 0
1
,892 8 4 J
£7,892 8 4i
Quantity of Green Cheese made
,, shnink do. sold ...
Amount of shrinkage (about %\ per cent.]
is. cwts. qrs. lbs.
Average quantity of Green Cheese made per cow, 3 cwt. 76 lbs.
Average quantity of Milk required to make 1 lb. of Cheese,
10 lbs.
No. of Milk -suppliers, 28.
No. of Cows kept at any one time, 517.
* The Manager received 10 per cent, on the money value realised on tbe Milk over and above 6id. per gallon.
+ As each supplier returned the highest number of Cows kept at any one time during the season, and as the Milk of 105 Cows did not come in until
May 1st, the average number of Cows working in the Dairy would be less than 517, the niunber returned. Consequently, the actual money average per
Cow for Milk supplied would be considerably in excess of £13 lis. SJd.
sot
DAIRY FARMING.
EXTKXSION OF THE FaCTOEY SySTEM.
farmere for their own aiul (licir neighbours' use ;
hut the Hope Dale factory, we beheve, was and
Meanwhile other factories were being built is the first and only one built on a purely co-
in the land. The success of the system had been operative principle, each milk-supplier contri-
demonstrated to the whole country, and in districts buting capital on a pro rata scale accordui<,r to
where cheese-makin}-: accommodation in farm- the number of cows whose milk he intended to
'The Holms" Cheese Factory Associatio.v.
Opened May 15, Closed November 20, 187-t.
Cost of
Manufacture
per cwt.
0 G\
PAY.AIENTS.
Labour Contract..
Matkrials^
Kennet
Anniitto ...
Salt ,
Fuel-
Rent —
Kent of Factory ..
Interest on Plant
1.-)
.•?
0
■A
0
0
-'
3
0
1:^
i;
11
2
V>
5
10
0
0
0
12
7
General Expenses —
Cheese Cloths, Bandages, Brushes,
Soap, Soda, Pajjcr, Printing,
Stamps, Expenses on Cheese,
Coal, and Geueriil Items ...
New Whey Vat
Two New Cart Covers
Items of Plant
Contractors' Bonus
Dividend paid to Milk-suppliers 7:ld.
per gallon on 70,728 gallons of
Milk sent to the Factory . .
Balance in hand ...
19 18
0
11 8
9
1 7
0
0 IG
2
24 16
6
f
2,408 9
0
1 13
5
£2,620 6
9
RECEIPTS.
* Produce of 30 tons 14 cwt. 3 qrs.
27i lbs. of Cheese sold
Produce of 2G0i lbs. of 'WTicy Butter
Whey —
Sold in small quantities... 3 11
Supplied to Contributors 119 12 .5
2,4S3 18
13 13
Green Cheese made
Ripe Cheese sold
Tons. cwts. qrs. lbs.
33 17 1 18
30 14 3 27i
Average of Milk per lb. of Green Cheese, 10 lbs. 0"84 oz.
Average shrinkage, 9 per cent.
Being an average of 80?. 9^. per cwt. of 120 Iba. on the entire make of Cheese.
houses was of an inferior character, or where dairy-
maids were scarce, high-waged, and incompetent,
farmers became anxious to have factories to
which they could send their milk. Windley and
Etwall wore the first to follow, then the Holms,
Hope Dale, Suttou-on-the-Hill, Ivonbrook Grange,
and factories in Cheshire and in Somersetshire
were built. This was while the enthusiasm
which had been aroused was in full bloom. The
Holms factory was the lirst to be built by dairy-
send to the factory. Appended we give the
iirst year's balance-sheet of the Holms factory,
which compared favourably with the best home-
made dairies of the district for that year, and was
greatly superior to the average results of home
cheese-making in that ])art of the country.
It will be noticed that the cost of making
the cheese was higher than that of Longford in
the previous year, and than that of Windley in
the following year; this is exiilained by the
THE HOLMS AND WINDLEY FACTORIES.
2C5
comparatively small quantity of milk that could
be ci^ot together in the first season, whilst the
labour account was excei)tionally hio-h for so
small a factory. At that time competent factory
managers did not equal in numbers the demand
there was for them, and too high a price had to
be paid for one in consequence. The committee
of this factory worked hard to attain under
decidedly unfavourable conditions so favourable
a result ; but they were well supported by the
few milk-sui)pliei"s they had, who, we believe, with
one exception, conscientiously strove to carry out
the stipulations of the subjoined bye-laws : —
" 1. Persons sending milk to the above factory shall be
required to send, twice each day, the pure milk from the
whole of their dairy-cows (excepting such milk as shall be
required by them for their family consumjition) during the
making season, the commencement and termination of which
shall be determined by the Managing Committee.
" 2. No person shall send, and the manager of the factory
shall have power to refuse, any milk th,at is of an inferior
quality, diluted with water, sour, dirty, or otherwise impure,
or from which any cream has been taken; nor shall any
person keep back that portion of the milk known as ' af terings '
or ' strippings.'
" 3. Milk from a itetrly-calvcd cow shall not be sent to the
factory until the cow has been calved /o«)- days.
" 4. Milk win be received at the factory fr-om half-past
five to half-past seven o'clock in the morning, and from five to
seven in the evening of each day ; these hours may, in the
autumn months, be subject to certain modifications, the extent
of which will be decided by the Committee.
" 0. The cans used for carrying milk to the factory, and
other utensils connected therewith, mnat be kept thoroughly
sweet and clean.
" 6. A correct account of all milk received at the factory,
■with the number and weight of cheese made therefrom, shall
be kept by the Manager at the factory ; which account shall
be open at all times to the inspection of any milk contributor.
" May 1st, 1874."
The Windley cheese-factory is on the estate of
Mr. Crompton, and was formerly a malt-house ;
at a comparatively small expense the building
was adapted to its new vocation, and a great
deal of excellent' cheese has been made in it.
As at the Longford factory the Hon. E. K. W.
Coke, so at AYiudley Mr. Crompton was inde-
fatigable in trying to make the thing a complete
success ; and the eminently satisfactory results
of those first years are chiefly owing to the in-
domitable perseverance of these gentlemen. It
is not too much to say that to them, more than
to any other two persons, is due the credit of
having clearly demonstrated the success of the
system as applied to English dairying ; and we
may be allowed to doubt whether it would at
that period have obtained a trial at all but for
them. Whatever position in the future cheese-
factories may fill in the sum-total of our dairy-
farming, the gentlemen we have named are
entitled to the merit of having made a most
praiseworthy attempt to largely benefit the bucolic
agriculture of the country. We give on the
next page the balance-sheet for 1875 of Mr.
Crompton's factory situate at Windley.
But after the period to which the following
balance-sheet has reference, cheese everywhere
declined rapidly in price; in the years 1876 to
1879 inclusive we may rate the average decline
to amount to about £:Z5 per ton, and it was on the
inferior qualities of cheese that the greatest decline
had taken jilac-e. Factory cheese had not been
exempt from the universal dejsression. This was
to be expected; but in those factories where the
cheese had maintained the standard equality of
former years the decline of prices was very much
less than the average decline in the country
generally. Those factories certainly suffered most
whose cheese, from one cause or another, had
fallen away from the character it bore a year or
two earlier. Tliis decline in prices was not at-
tributable to cheese having declined in quality to
a corresponding extent, for it had not done so ;
while we admit that in several factories the quality
was inferior to what it had been two or three years
ago, we do not admit that the inferiority was by
any means commensurate with the inferior prices.
The two great reasons of the decline in prices
were — (1) the general dej^ression of all kinds of
trade, commerce, and manufacturing industry in
the country, and {2) the greatly increased im-
portations of Transatlantic cheese. In the sub-
joined balance-sheet of the Holms cheese-factory
for 1877 — the latest we have seen — it will be
noticed that in three years — comiDared with the
sheet of 1874 — the decline in price is barely 10s.
per cwt., and this is certainly a less decline
than the average of home-made cheese had to
submit to in the same period. It will also be
noticed that over £56 of the original plant
capital was then paid off, and £10 laid out in
new plant, and yet the — all things considered
— very satisfactory dividend of Od. per gallon
was paid on the milk. These several balance-
sheets present a graphic picture of the position
of factories at that period, and they are valuable
for reference.
266
DAIRY FARMING.
Ti'iNDLEY Dairy, 1875.
April to October.
• April.
May.
Jl'sk.
Jl'LY.
Arc.
Sept.
Oct.
Lbs. of Milk supplied
128,ai0
2IU,302
230,901
220,011
102,222
150,096
54,3G8
Lbs. of Cheese produced
12,080
20,834
22,678
21,320
19,195
16,011
5,9->4
Average Number of lbs. of llilk to lb. of
Cheese ...
lbs. oz.
10 10
lbs. oz.
10 84
lb.s. oz.
10 9
lbs. oz.
10 5
lbs. oz.
10 0
lbs. oz.
9 G
lbs. oz.
9 2
Total lbs. of Milk
1,204,240
Total lbs. of Cheese made ...
118,078
Average lbs. of Milk to 1 lb. of Green Cheese through the Season
Average lbs. of Milk to lib. of Matured Cheese
"Weight of Cheese when made...
Weight of Cheese when sold ...
Shrinkage (9 per cent.)
Tons.
49
cwts.
3
qre.
3
lbs
28
44
18
2
27
4
5
1
1
Value of Cheese ...
£3,381 10s. 7d., averaging £3 15s. 2d. per cwt. of 120 lbs.
Cost of making
5s
2id. per cwt.
PAYMENTS.
RECEIPTS.
Cost per
cwt.
DrviDKND at 6fd. and a
friiction, or nearly 7d. per
gall., on 11,839 galls, of
Milk (10 lbs. 4 oz. to the
£ 8. d.
£ s. i.
Cheese— 44 tors 18 cwt. 2 qrs. 27 lbs
sold, at 75s. 2d. per cwt.
Butter— 1,170 lbs., at lljjd. per lb. ..
£ t. i.
. 3,381 10 7
57 18 0
«. i.
gall.)
3,379 5 4
Milk— 906 gaUs
33 18 7
2 G
L.\BOlIR^
Whey -88,045 gaUs., at Jd. per gall. ..
. 183 8 6
Maker's "Wages ...
Assistant Makers' "W.ages
75 0 0
34 4 0
Banker's Interest
2 19 11
Slaking and Washing
/
Cheese Bandages
2 9 9
111 13 9
/
1 2
Matekiai. —
Rennet
38 9 6
/
Annatto
1 16 0
/
Salt
3 14 3
/
Cheese-cloths
7 5 6
/
Cbeesep.ipcr
14 6
52 9 9
/
0 4
Ft-EL—
Coal
Coke
13 16 5
13 3
14 19 8
/
0 3j
SCNIIRIES —
/
JJruslifs, Soap, &c.
0 13 6
/ '
St:itii.TR-ry, Stamps, &c....
3 9 0
/
Carriiige and Weighing
/
Clieese
4 5 0
/
Haulage of Fuel and Salt
1 19 5
/
Insurance
1 11 9
/
Sundries
2 7 0
14 6 2
/
0 10.i
Kent —
/
One Year's Rent of Build-
/
5 2i
ing and Plant
40 0 0
/
40 0 0
20 18 0
Dray and Dray Cover ...
/
Bank Charges
6 2 11
/
Secretary and Accountant
£
20 0 0
/
3,659 15 7
£3,659 15 7
THE PRESENT POSITION OF FACTORIES.
267
" TuE IIoLMs " Cheese Factory Association.
Opened April 2, Closed November 17, 1877.
Labour—
Mauager's Salary, fiuilmy all labour ...
Re.vt —
Of Factory and House 23 0 0
Interest on Plant ... ... ... ... ?> 16 it
Matebul'! —
Rennet ami Colouring ... ... ... 24 5 7
Salt 4 13 G
Fuel—
Coal 11 18 5
Coke 1 17 9
Carriage —
Of Coal 5 5 1
„ Coke 1 17 9
„ Cheese 13 19 2
General Expenses —
Cheese-cloths, Paper, and General Repairs..
Plant, Xew Shelving
Amount of Plant Capital paid off
Dividend Paid to Patrons, 6d. per gaU. on l.i0,708
galls. Milk
£ s.
d.
150 0
0
)
33 16
9
- 28 19
1
1
13 16
2
)
21 2
0
27 3
10 10
56 16
7
0
0
3,767 14
0 !
£4,109 17
7
i
Cheese Sold—
Produce of 55 tons ;
Butter Sold —
To Patrons
,, Market
,, Outsiders ...
Sold —
Rennet ...
Whey
Whey to Milk Contributors
Balance from last Season
Interest allowed ...
Overdrawn on Bank
cwt. 3i lbs. of Cheese sold ... 3,1119 19 ll.J
£4,109 17 7
The season's cheese averages 703. lljd. per cwt. of 120 lbs.
The Present Position of Factories.
We come now to a later phase in the
history of cheese-factories in England, and we
admit it is a less pleasant one than we have been
hitherto occupied with. It is s^enerally under-
stood that most of the factories are no longer
producing as good cheese as they were several
years ago, and from this the conclusion is
hastily arrived at that the system is a failure.
We admit the correctness of the premiss, but
we deny that of the conclusion. About half
of the factories are still producing veiy, and
the rest of them moderately, good cheese, but
even were they all producing very bad cheese,
it would still be unfair to condemn the system
for the failure. Results such as those shown
by the foregoing balance-sheets could not have
been produced under a system that was a failure,
and though inferior results have since been pro-
duced, we cannot admit that they are an integral
part of the system. The latter proved itself
to be sound and successful for years, and it
would always prove itself the same pi-oviding its
conditions were complied wth. But neither
37
cheese-factories nor anj-thing else involving a
system can be successful, if the known principles
on which success depends are either intentionally
or unintentionally violated. Results rap the
knuckles of those whom experience has failed
to educate; and so the comparative failure of
some of the factories is making itself to be very
unpleasantly felt. We will endeavour to indicate
the causes of such non-success; and without
drawing too general conclusions from individual
instances will state as clearly as possible the
chief faults that have crept in.
1. In the first place we may state that the
pride in work, the care, the watchfulness, the
emulation, the heartiness of effort which were
introduced by the system, and which were all-
important in those first years' successes, have not
been maintained as they ought to have been
among the factory managers. It was not to be
expected, or even wished, that the promoters'
enthusiasm should long outlive the opposition
that called it into being; and however useful
that element might be in carrying the sj'stem
over the first years' difficulties, it ought not to
have been necessary to keep alive in the makers
268
DAIRY FARMING.
the (lualitics tliat were required for the continued
success of the system. Warmth of feeliuf^ dis-
played in action is very useful in most new
movements, and it is commonly necessary tt)
establish them ; but it is a different thing from
the steady, methodical, sustained work Ijy which
alone any movement can be expected to be
maintained when the novelty has worn off. There
was much earnestness of purpose at the onset
among committees and managers alike ; and it
was reasonably hoped that the latter would settle
down to their woi-k, as men in other vocations do,
with a pride in it, a sense of its importance, a
watchfulness, thought fulness, and unceasing desire
to improve, such as would have maintained the
success which was achieved at lirst. These quali-
ties are found in some of the managers ; but others
seem to have grown mechanical and careless,
others, again, slovenly and dirty; and the factory
system in certain instances has only perpetuated
on a larger scale some of the leading faults that
used to be complained of so much in dairymaids.
2. Factories were calculated to introduce not
only an improved method of cheese-making, but
also a sj^irit of fraternity, goodwill, and friendly
emidation that would have led on to unthought-of
improvements. It was expected that the managers
would meet together now and then, in the in-
tervals between the seasons, to talk matters over
in an unconstrained and helpful spirit, freely
admitting failures where such had occurred, and
freely explaining successes. In such an art as
cheese-making, -which is far from having arrived
at perfection, and which is, or ought to be, pro-
gressive, the meeting together of those who are
practically engaged in it to talk over the pros
and cons of the matter is one of the best means
to success. But when they keep as it were
studiously apart, there are soon as many ways
of making cheese as there are men who make
it. We cannot but think that had factory
managers met together occasionally, they would
have spurred each other up, and those amongst
them who subsided into indifference would most
probably have remained emulous instead; and they
would have gone on learning and improving, as
they undoubtedly did for the first four or five
years, instead of remaining stationary, and in some
instances positively retrograding.
3. One obvious fault into which some factory
managers have fallen is th.at of hurrying too
much the process of making the cheese, from
breaking the curd to vatting it inclusive. It
is not that they have hurried the mechanical
part too much in all cases, though this has
become too common, but that they have luustened
the separation of the whey by "letting on" too
much acid — developing it too far in the whey;
and here it is that great mischief is done. Acid
will counteract the ill effects of tainted milk, and
it will cause the whey to quickly leave the curd ;
but it will also hinder, and if developed too far
will destroy, the slow ferment which the rennet
sets up in the cheese and which is the rijiening
process. Hence over-acidified cheese, while lessen-
ing the labour of the manager, will hinder the
rijiening of the cheese. The development of
acidity may be seen in the change of the appear-
ance rather than of the colour of the whey — a
sort of glimmer on the surface indicates it.
4. The want of esprit de corps, which we have
noticed particularly in some managers, has seemed
to weaken the sense of the necessity of scrupulous
cleanliness ; in which event a man is little likely
to produce good cheese. Some persons appear
to have lost sight of the absolute necessity of
keeping all the utensils with which the milk
comes in contact in the factory as sweet and
clean as possible — perhaps they never had it, and
kept things clean for a time mechanically and
not from conviction. They fail to apprehend that
these utensils will soon become sour if they are
not thoroughly well cleaned every day, and that
they will communicate their sourness to the next
milk that is ]iut into them : many a good cheese,
or what would have been a good cheese, is ruined
this way. And not only the various utensils,
but the factory itself — the floors, the walls, the
windows, everything — should be kept as clean
and fresh and sweet as plenty of hot and cold
water and scrubbing and swilling will make them.
In some eases these matters have been culjiably
neglected.
5. Much cheese has been seriously injured in
factories by not being properly attended to after
it was nuide. It has been allowed to starve in
a damp cold room on the ground floor, and it
has been left imturned until it stuck to the
shelves. It has liecome mouldy and covered with
mites, and the shelves have been covered with
mites and saturated with damp, and a musty
atmosj)here has pervaded the place. Cheese
INTRUSIVE FAULTS AND ERRORS.
269
cannot ripen in siu-li a room. Attain, in tlie
upstairs room the temperature has varied greatly ;
some of the cheeses have been roasted b^^ being
too near the stove, or they have been starved by
being too far away fi'om it, and they have been
left unturned till they have stuck together and
to the floor, when they ought to have been
tm-ned " every other day." A great deal of well-
made cheese is ruined in the ripening. We wish
it to be understood that the foregoing condem-
natory remarks apply to a few only of the factory
managers of the past, and not by any means to
all of them.
G. But the factory managers are not wholly — •
in some eases they are not at all — to blame for the
disasters that have occurred in places here and
there. Certain milk-suppliers have been more to
blame than the worst of managers, for they have
done mischief not by mere carelessness, but from
motives of petty personal gain. Some of them have
deliberately done harm to the factory to which they
were attached by sending skim-milk to it. In
order that they might pocket each week a few
shillings. of "butter-money," they have sent sour
milk, which they knew would greatly injure all
the sweet milk that came in contact with it, and
from which they also knew it was imjjossible to
make good cheese. This has been done secretly,
in defiance of bye-laws, and in violation of com-
mon honesty toward one's neighbour. No factory
manager can be successful when one or two of his
milk-suppliers are addicted to skimming their milk
and privately sending a basket of butter to market
■ — butter which belongs to the Association ; and
the only blame we can attach to him in such a
case is on the ground that he failed in duty, be-
cause he did not detect and reject such milk. It
is no unimportant part of a factory manager's
duty to keep a sharj) look-out for milk that is not
what it ought to be, and when he fluds it, to reject
it, and lodge with the committee a eomjilaiut
against the olfender.
7. Other milk-suppliers have done great harm
through pure carelessness and thoughtlessness.
These have not been alive to the importance of
keejiing thoroughly sweet and clean all vessels that
come in contact, either directly or indirectly, \\ith
the milk' they send to the factory. They are not
aware that milk itself is one of the worst things
imaginable for making vessels sour, if they are
not thoroughly cleaned every time after being
used. Milk left sticking to the sides or bottoms
or in the seams of these utensils will soon make
them unfit to put other milk in ; if the pails and
pans and kettles, and all other vessels that are
used in connection with milk, are not well scnibbed
and scalded every day, they will in hot weather
soon be sour; the milk left in them, in decom-
f)osing, sets up a putrefactive ferment, which is
communicated to and spoils the next milk that is
put into them. And these ferments spread at an
astonishing rate when they have something con-
genial to work in, as milk is, and they do their
work in a very short space of time. The cans used
in carrying milk to a factory, if not thoroughly
cleaned each time they go, will sow the seeds of
sourness in the next lot of milk; this, in its turn,
contaminates other people's milk, and so the cheese
is ruined.
8. There is a growing suspicion that artificial
manures and feeding-stuffs have an ill effect on
milk that is produced by their aid. It is thought
that they communicate to it something or other
that greatly increases the difliculty of making
satisfactory cheese and butter from it. With-
out endorsing this belief, we may mention that we
have known one authentic instance in which the
use of cotton-cake had a most injurious effect on
the butter, making it soft and oily ; and when
the cake was suspected and cut off, the butter
was all right again immediately. This occurred
in autumn, when the cows were eating grass on
the pastures, and were receiving the cotton-cake
as supplementary food. One swallow does not
make a summer; yet it is not by any means
improbable that there may be some truth in the
allegations that are brought against purchased
feeding-stuffs. We have known many instances
in which it has been found more difficult to make
satisfactory cheese from land that had been recently
boned or limed rather liberally. Such cheese was
quite unmanageable, unless a jJortion of the milk
was skimmed — the skimming was like bleeding a
patient for inflammation. We ought not, from
these instances, to come hastily to any hard-and-
fast conclusions ; but we think this matter is well
worth careful ex])eriment and investigation.
9. One fniitful source of mischief lies in not
properly cooling the milk before it is sent off to a
factory in hot weather. Warm milk in closely-
lidded cans, jolted a mile or two over rough
country roads, in a springless cart of the farm,
270
DAIRY FAIIMING.
and hall' chunicd in Itio process, is in no fit state
to be made into clioese; and no man can make
fine cheese from it. In cases where it is tlie rnle
to send the milk only once a day, the intervening^
meal of milk is seldom taken proper care of at the
farmstead, as it would be at the factory ; and we
think the once-a-day system, for this reason if
for no other, ong'ht to be abolished. Many milk-
sii])p]iers would take better care of their milk than
they do if they had to make it up into cheese
themselves.
10. It would ajipear that, in sufiicieut instances
to do a great deal of mischief, both manao-ers and
milk-suppliers have thrown altof^ether too careless.
If there is a careless nuina>>-er the result will be
disaster, no matter how careful the milk-suppliers
maybe; and, in like manner, one careless milk-
su])plier will undo the carefulness of nineteen
others. "What is everybody's business is nobody's,
it would seem, otherwise many careless practices in
connection with cheese-factories would be put an
end to. The bulk of the farmers who send their
milk to cheese-factories are alive to the importance
of the matters we have here discussed, and do their
utmost to conform to the conditions laid down for
their guidance; but in too many instances they are
thwarted by the thoughtless ones, and by others
who are even more blamable than these; yet "evil
is wrought by want of thought as well as by want
of heart." Carelessness in a factory manager is
fatal to progress ; lethargy brings everything to a
standstill ; in which ease imjjrovements are never
adopted^never even considered as they ought to
be. The lively and long-sustained interest, the
almost affectionate eare, the cheerful alacrity, the
unceasing watchfulness, the steady industiy which
American cheese-makers and French and German
butter-makers carry into the work, are things that
may with advantage be copied by jiersons who are
engaged in similar work in the British Islands.
I'riile ill work is the very foundation of these
things. We speak now of what we have seen in
other lands, atul we would fain see the same sort
of thing prevail among our own cheese and butter
makers. We know that this pride in work is not
a thing that can be created at will ; it is a matter
of small beginnings and of slow growth, but when
we see symptoms of it in ))laces, we desire to fosti'r
and promote them by calling attention to what is
being done in other countries, aiid by suggesting
what ought to be done in our own.
It has been frequently said that the fact of
cheese-factories not having become so numerous
in the country as it was predicted they would is
a jiroof that the system is a failure. This we
em]'hatically deny. One of the chief reasons—
probably the chiefest of them — why factories have
not so multiplied in number, is the enormous ex-
])ansion in recent years of the milk-trade to the
towns and cities. In numerous districts where
factories were in contemplation, this expansion has
ojH'rated to prevent their establishment ; and in
others where they have been established it will in
time disestablish them. This, however, we cannot
regret; for the milk-trade, properly conducted, will
out-i)rofit cheese-making anywhere, if only a rail-
way is handy enough.
Cheese-making in Factokies.
The first requisite at a cheese-factory is a con-
stant supply of pure cold water; without it no
factory manager can be uniformly successful. It
must be cold for cooling the milk in hot weather,
when cooling is indispensable, and it must be pure
for washing the utensils. During the . heat of
summer its temperature should not be above 55",
and this se.'ured, the rest of the year will take
care of itself. Enough running water to fill a
pipe whose diameter is 1? inches will be ample to
supply a factory of 500 cows.
One of the most important jiarts of a manager's
duty is to closely watch the milk he receives into
the factory. He is perfectly justified in rejecting
any of it that is sour, dirty, skimmed, diluted,
or otherwise impure and out of condition. His
success, in fact, will in a great measure dejiend on
his vigilance in these matters, providing all his
niilk-sup2)liers are not strictly careful and con-
scientious, for no one can make good cheese from
milk that is not what it ought to be. He cannot,
it is true, detect skim-milk as easily as he can
sour or dirty milk ; nor can he, even with a lacto-
meter, decide absolutely whether or not the milk
has been diluted with water; but carefully-acquired
experience will enable him to detect, by his facul-
ties of sight and smell, and without the aid of
scientific instruments, the more flagrant cases of
carelessness or adulteration.
The lactometer is simjily a hydrometer apjilied
to milk, and it indicates only specific gravities.
The more casein, milk-sugar, and mineral matters
— the more solids, that is — there are in milk, the
THE USE OF THE LACTOMETER.
271
greater will be its specific gravity or density, other
things being equal, and the higher will be the
indication on the lactometer ; and it is on account
of these constituents — not on account of its cream
— that milk is heavier than water. Pure milk
has a specific gravity of about 1-033, that of
water being I'UOO; milk is therefore about 3
per cent, heavier than water. Now the fats of
milk, of which cream is chiefly comjwsed, are
lighter than water, the specific gravity of milk-fat
being 0'9, and of water I'O; cream, however, is
not to this extent lighter than water, because it
contains a certain amount of milk-solids. But in
any case, cream and water are each 3 per cent., or
upwards, lighter than milk. Skimmed milk is
heavier than pure milk, because the lighter fats
have been taken out of it. But if this skimmed
milk be again cliarged with cream, to an extent
beyond its natural quantity, its specific gravity
will be brought nearer that of water than it was
before the milk was skimmed, and sufficient cream
may be put into it to reduce the specific gravity
even below that of water, because cream is lighter
than water.
That portion of milk called " strippings,"
which is the small quantity of milk that a cow
usually lets down a short time after she has been
milked, is known to be richer than ordinary milk
in fats, and its specific gravity is lower than that
of ordinary milk. The specific gravity of strip-
pings is sometimes found to be as low as 1'020,
when the proportion of cream is unusually large,
and 1'0'Zo is not by any means uncommon. If
ordinary milk is found to have a specific gravity
of 1'0'Zb, instead of its normal 1032, it is reason-
able to suppose one of two things : either that it
is exceptionally rich in cream, or that it has been
diluted with 15 or 20 per cent, of w'ater. Hence
it follows that specific gravity is not by any means
an absolute or even a fair test of the purity of
milk, for while it can be raised by abstracting the
cream, it can be lowered again by putting in some
water; and as cream is lighter than water, a
smaller quantity of water put in than of cream
taken out will suffice to restore to the milk the
specific gravity it had before it was skimmed.
Hence it is one of the simplest things in the world
to cheat a lactometer.
Yet a lactometer in the hands of a careful
person may be very useful in a cheese-factory, as a
check on any milk-sujiplier who may be inclined
to tamper with the purity of his milk. In making
a test to ascertain with how much water the milk
may have been diluted, a very fair conclusion may
Fig. 129. Fig. 130.
be arrived at by using two cream-gauges, as
shown in a, b, Eig. 129; a per cent, glass, c;
and a lactometer, Fig. 1 30.
Fill one of the cream-gauges to g;;uge-mark
10 with milk which is known to be pure, and
drawn from several cows. This will be the stan-
dard of pure milk for that day. Fill the other to
the same number with milk to be tested, and fill
the per cent, glass with water to gauge-mark 0.
To avoid any mistake, mark first jar by pasting
letters p. m. on the side or bottom. Set the jars
away, side by side, a sufficient length of time for
the cream to rise, and all to become of the same
temperature. Now note the c[uantity of cream in
each jar of milk. If a less quantity is found on
the milk which is being tested thau on the otliei',
it indicates diluted or skimmed milk.
Now remove the cream from each jar; intro-
duce the lactometer into the jar marked p. Ji., and
note on the scale-mark where it fioats. Then
remove it to the other jar, and note also where it
floats. If it sinks lower than in the first, it is
j)ositive evidence of dilution with water. Rejjlaee
the lactometer in jar marked p. m., and from the
per cent, glass, filled with water exactly to 0, or
zero, pour into P. M. jar until the lactometer sinks
exactly to the same point as in the other jar.
Now count or number on per cent, glass from
zero down (each mark represents one-half of 1
per cent.), and we have precisely' the percentage of
water with wliieh the milk we are testing has been
diluted.
27^
DAIKV I'AU-MLXG.
We do not say that this is an aljsohiti'ly correct
test, for the milk of different cows, or of tlie same
cow at different times, varies very much as to the
proportion of cream it contains. And the cream
of the milk of some breeds of cows, or of indi-
vidual cows that differ from the f^enerality of the
breed, rises so much more slowly than that of
others, that to make the cream-f^jauge test at all
a fair one the milk must stand for a very lonc^
time to cream. And, ajrain, some milk will not
throw up more than a portion of its cream,
however long it may stand, while other milk will
throw up nearly the whole of it in a c()mj)aratively
short time. But if mixed milk from ten or fifteen
cows, all of which is known to be treuuiue, is
taken as a standai-d, all other milk produced under
similar conditions, on the same day, in the same
district, on similar land, and from cows of the
same breed, ought when tested to a])proach pretty
near to it in quality. So the test is not by any
means an unfair one, its results are tolerably trust-
worthy, and it is the quickest and cheapest test
that an ordinary' person can employ, providing it
is used intelligently and with care.
A lactometer, however, requires to be used with
the greatest nicety, if its record is to be of any
value, for a comparatively small change in the
density of a fluid frequently represents a consider-
able change in its composition. If we take milk
as an instance of this, we find — leaving cream out
of consideration — that 9'2 per cent, of milk-solids
raise the density of milk only ;3'0 to 3"5 per cent,
above that of water. Mineral substances dissolved
in water raise the density more rapidlj^ than or-
ganic substances, and the mineral matters in milk
amount only to about 0"75 per cent., while the
milk-sugar and casein amount to about D-O per
cent., the latter being twelve times as great as the
former in quantity.
In simjjly testing the relative percentages of
cream in various sanijiles of milk, a set of sini])le
glass cream-gauges,
as seen in Fig. l-'U,
with graduated
marks upon them
similar to those on
the cream-gauges
in Fig. H!), will be
found suilicient for
all practical ])urposes. A quicker determinatidn
of cream may lie made by the centrifugal
'^'JUJJJJJjJ^JJ-
riy. 131. L'heam I
cream extractor, illustrated in the next chapter.
The percentage of cream is, however, no infallible
sign that milk has or has not been skimnieil,
Ix'cause the ])roi)ortion of cream in pure milk varies
greatly and dcjiends on many causes. The food the
cow eats, the kind of land she grazes on, the weather,
the period of the year, the breed of the cow, the
state of health she is in, and her general treatment
are all causes which affect the quantity of cream
in milk. And there are other causes which are
not at present understood, because the proportion
of cream in a cow's milk will be found to vary
greatly on successive days, though she may be
kept on the same footl, and the weather and her
health may, for anything we can tell, remain un-
changed.
Different kinds of land, equally valuable per-
haps from an agricultural }X)int of view, will
produce milks that differ greatly in richness ; one
kind of land will produce a large quantity of milk
somewhat inferior in quality, and another kind a
smaller quantity of milk of a superior quality ;
while yet another kind of land, that is richer and
stronger than either of the others, will produce a
large quantity of milk of very good quality. One
sample of milk, therefore, that contains a smaller
proportion of cream than another sample against
which it has been tested, must not be hastily
condemned as having been denuded of a portion
of its cream ; for, if they were tested together a
week later, it is quite jxissible their jxisitions in
the cream-gauge might be revereed. Still, as the
table on next page will show, the variations in cream
in different samples of milk, tested on the same
days and produced in the same district, though on
different sorts of land, are found to bear some kind
of relationship, and for the most part to rise and
fall together in somewhat irregular unison. The
tests were made by a painstaking and accurate
friend of ours, in the year 1^77, at one of the
Derbyshire cheese-factories, and they may be ac-
cepted as presenting a trustworthy picture of the
true state of things. The leading feature in the
picture is, however, the continual fluctuation that
is going on. The samjiles in each case were taken
from milk that was l)elieved to be perfectly
genuine, and from the mixed milk of the number
of cows mentioned in the margin.
The least jjercentage of cream is found in July,
and this is probably owing to the heat of the
weather jtreventing the milk from cooling as
VARIATIONS IN THE QUALITY OF MILK.
273
much as it ought to do if the cream is to rise per-
fectly. Cream rises hest, though not quickest, in
a slowly-falling temperature, and the longer the
temperature continues falling, the more completely
the cream will rise ; so that the smaller quantity
of cream indicated in the hottest month may
be owing in part to the cause we have stated,
and in part to the milk being actually poorer in
fats, on account of the cows drinking more and
eating less than when the weather is cooler.
Notwithstanding these fluctuations in quality,
it is the duty of the manager to repeatedly test
various samples of milk against each other in
the manner illustrated by this specimen table,
and it is no less the duty of milk-suppliers not
of standing whilst the cream was rising, hut
the taking off a portion of the cream ia a direct
act of petty larceny committed against the Asso-
ciaticm.
We have referred at length to the questions
of purity and quality of milk, because they are the
lirst cousiderations in factory cheese-making ; and
we have spoken plainly as to the duties of milk-
suppliers and factory managers, because success
is impossible if these preliminary duties are
neglected. Cleanliness is a prime consideration
in cheese-making — cleanliness in everything to
which the word can be applied. We also consider
it to be an important thing that the milk, before
being sent off to the factoryj especially in hot
Variations in Cream.
No. of
Cows.
June.
July.
Adgust,
SUPTE
MB...
Oct.
November.
E.
E.
E.
E.
M.
M.
E.
E.
M.
M.
E.
M.
M.
M.
6
12
27
24
26
21
29
3
13
17
29
13
8
IS
Per
ceut.
cent.
Per
cent.
Per
cent.
Per
ceut.
Per
cent.
Per
cent.
Per
ceut.
fer
cent.
I'er
Per
Per
cent.
Per
Per
cent.
1
16
10
8
8
9
8
14
n_
131
9i
10
lit
HI
13'-
11?
2
10
9
8
8
8
8
9
9
12|
9
9J
11
92
llj
lU
3
24
10
10
9
8
8
9
9J
12
9
8|
Hi
11
14
13i
4
9
10
11
11
10
10
15
11
14
9i
lOJ
lOi
9J
13J
13
5
24
7
8
8
8
8
9
71
llj
7
8
10
11
13
12J
6
30
10
9
9
8
8
10
9
Hi
7
8
11
91
10
lit
M., Morning; E., Evening.
only not to impoverish their milk by any means
— either skimming off the cream or putting in
some water — but also to be very particular about
keej)ing scrupulously clean every vessel that comes
in contact with the milk. Careless members of
the Association do injury to others beside them-
selves, or we should not take the trouble to make
complaint against them. It is useless for nine-
teen milk-suppliers to be very particular as to
cleanliness, if the twentieth is careless ; the one
will undo all the good the nineteen have done.
One lot of dirty or sour milk will taint all the
milk it is mixed -vvith, and the cheese of twenty
j)eople is spoiled through the culpable negligence
of one person. But however blamable such
carelessness may be, it is less so than that of
skimming the milk and then sending it to the
factory as pure milk ; for not only is skimmed
milk more or less sour in hot weather, by reason
weather, should be atjrated — well stirred about, to
let the gases and odours escape out of it —
and at all events j'^i'tially cooled. In cold
weather there is less need for these pi-ecautious,
though aeration is at all times a good thing,
wherever it can be done in a pure atmosphere.
But if the milk is neither cooled nor aerated,
and the weather is hot, it arrives at the factory
in a condition very unfit for cheese-making, and
seeds of desti'uction that cannot be afterwards
removed in the factory are already sown in it.
Yet there are milk-suppliers who take no pre-
cautions as to cooling or aerating, no matter
how hot the weather is or how great the
distance to the factory may be; their chief aim
is to get the milk to the factory as soon as
possible, and then wash their hands of it. They
seem to think it a matter of no consequence
whether their milk be quite fresh or not ; if
274.
DAIRY FAR:\riXG.
it is wruii'^ the factory will set it rii>-lit, tiu-y
imagine, and the result is that they are more
careless with it than they would be it' they made
their cheese at home.
Fig. 1:32 represents the kind of can that is
generally used for carrying milk to a factory.
The sides are perpen-
dicular, and the lid slips
down inside until it rests
on the surface of the
milk, thus preventing
a too violent agitation
III riinte. In the mid-
dle of the lid is a hole
through which the gases
(.f the milk can escape.
As many farmers send
their milk to the factory
in ordinary farm carts that
are innocent of springs,
the milk woiild be almost
Fig. 132. — Fact. )KT .milk-c.vn. churned on its way if the
space in the can were large
enough to allow the milk to wash about ; the sliding
lid of the can obviates this. Arrived at the factory,
the milk is poured into a can that stands on
a weighing-machine, both of which are raised
high enough to atlmit of the milk running
down tin pipes direct into the milk-vats, and
so obviating all lifting of the milk after it is
weighed ; and in order to this the carts are
stood ujion raised ground outside whilst they
arebeingunloaded.
Fig. l^i^i represents
the can in which
the milk is weighed
and the taj) by
which the milk
empties itself into
the pipes. In many
cases the weigh-
ing-can has a plug-
tap in the bottom
instead, and when each lot of milk is weighed it is
let out by raising the plug with a chain that is
attached to it. In the ease of the can shown in
the woodcut the bottom of the can inclines toward
the shute, so that all the milk easily runs out; and
this can admits of being placed on a lower plat-
form than the other, because the pipe does not jwss
under it to abstract the milk.
The cheese is made once a day, except in very
hot and bad-keeping weather, when a zealous
manager will make it twice a day if he has
reason to think the evening's milk will hardly
keep sweet till morning. This, however, does not
occur very often, and need Ijc no more than men-
tioned. The normal routine is to receive the even-
ing's milk into the milk-vats, dividing it pretty
equally among-st them ; keep it cool and in motion,
so that it may remain sweet and the cream may
not rise; and when the morning's milk arrives
make up the two together. There are two
objects kept in view in dividing the evening's
milk equally among the vats : that souring is
more surely prevented by having the milk dis-
tributed over as large a vat-surface as possible,
and that it is advisable to have the evening's and
morning's milk mixed together as evenly as may
be convenient.
The vats (Fig. 1:5 1) are not always the same
Fig. 134.— Factory Milk-vai-.
size, but they are usually capable of holding
about 500 gallons each, being 14 feet long,
by 48 inches wide, and 20 inches deep. They
are made of stout tin of the best quality, and are
enclosed in and suj)ported by a stout outer case of
deal or pine, between which and the tin is a space
\inder the bottom and around the sides and ends.
Dui-ing the night a stream of cold water runs
through the vats, in at one end and out at the
other, filling the space between the tin and the
wood, and thus cooling the milk which the vats
contain. And the water is made to perform a
second duty, for as it issues from the other end of
the vat it is conducted by an india-rubber tube to
a small water-wdieel that is sunk in the floor close
l>y. To the wheel the agitators are attached, and
the water, gradually filling the buckets that arc
on the periphery of the wheel, at length causes
half a revolution, whi(di, l)y crank and lever over-
head, stiis the a-i-itators that float on the surface
TREATMENT AND COAGULATION OF MILK.
of till- milk. The agitators are simply wooden
rakes, and these, pushed to and t'ro by the inter-
mittent action of the water-wheel, move tlie milk
every half-minute or so, and thus prevent the
risinof of the cream.
In this manner the milk is soon cooled down
to about 05'^, j)rovidin<j^ the water is cool enough
for the purpose; below 60'^ it is not considered
advisable to cool milk for chease-making purposes,
and if it has been delivered in good condition at
the factory it may be safely allowed to remain at a
temperature of 05" to 70°, even in very warm
weather. But if it is cooled below 60° it seems
to be deprived of some property that it does not
regain ; the curd from it is dull and lifeless as it
might be, and the cheese appears to rijieu after
the manner of fruit on the wrong side of a wall.
Whilst the milk is being cooled another im-
portant process is going on, for the agitators,
whose chief office is supposed to be that of pre-
venting the ri.sing of the cream, perform the
equally important though less obvious duty of
aerating and deodorising the milk, thus enabling
it to throw off the heat and odour and cowy
smell peculiar to new milk. This aeration ought,
however, to be performed before the milk leaves
the farmstead, for the longer the odour and warmth
are retained in the milk, the quicker will it decay.
Milk obtained from heated cows that have been
tormented by the attacks of flies, or have been
hurriedly driven on a hot summer's day, is already
in a state of heat and ferment which are the fore-
runners of decomposition; it is therefore by far
the best that milk should be at all events partially
aerated and cooled immediately after it is drawn
from the cow throughout the hot weather of
summer and autumn, or it will acquire a taint
that cannot afterwards be entirely got rid of ; and
milk very quickly becomes tainted if it is put into
closely-lidded cans and jolted in a farm-cart over
a mile or two of rough roads, on its way to the
factory. It is, of coui-se, less necessary to take
these precautions with the morning's milk than
with the evening's : the former is made while the
cows are cool and tranquil in the night and when
the flies are at rest, the latter is made in the heat
of the day ; the former is made up into cheese
soon after it arrives at the factory, the latter has
to wait twelve or fourteen hours in the milk-vats.
AVhen the morning's milk arrives at the factory
it is weighed and run into the vats, where the
38
evening's milk is waiting to recei\'e it ; and when
sufficient of it has gone into the vat that is
farthest away from the weighing-can, the tin pipe
is shortened to adapt it to the next vat. Steam
is then turned under vat No. 1, occupying the
space that has been tilled with a stream of cold
water through the night, and the milk in the vat
is raised to a temperature of 78" to 82", according
to the weather, and the rennet is mixed with it.
The heating of the milk at this stage and the
cooling of it during the previous night are modi-
fied to suit the state of the weather and the time
of the year: in cool weather it is heated up to 81"
or S-Z° at " setting " time, and in warm weather
to 78" or 79° ; in cool weather the space between
the outer and inner shells of the vat is merely
filled or f)artly filled with cold water, the stream
of it being then conducted to the water-wheel
without running through the vat on its way; in
warm weather it is not easy to over-cool the milk,
and the water runs through the vat all night.
These modifications, if carried out with thought,
not only save trouble, but imj)rove the quality of
the cheese.
The exact quantitj^ of rennet to be added to
the milk will depend on its strength and purity,
but it ought to be so that half a jiint of it will
coagulate 100 gallons of milk in about an hour;
and it should always be as pure and sweet as such
an unlovely element will admit of, or the cheese
will taste of it. A test of the strength of rennet
is that the milk shall have jjerceptibly thickened
in a quarter of an hour, and that it shall be
sufficiently coagulated in an hour, the vats
meantime being covered, if the
weather is cool, to preserve uni-
formitj' of temperature.
The test of coagulation having
advanced far enough is that the
curd shall break cleanly over the
finger in trying to lift a bit of it ;
and at this point the curd-knife
(Fig. 135) — a man3'-bladed cutter,
the blades of steel, tinned to
preserve them against the effects
of acid in the curd, sharp on
the edges, fixed parallel to each
other about half an inch apart,
and perjaendicular in position —
1.S5. -Curd-
knife.
slowly through the mass of curd Ijackward
forwards, from one end of the vat to the
passed
; and
>ther,
276
DAIRY FARMING.
Fig. 13(i. -Clrd-
KXIFE.
until all is tut. LatL'i- on the curd-knife (Fig. 136),
the blades of whieli are horizontal in position, is
also passed to and fro through the mass of curd,
cutting it into cubes and strips
about half an inch square ; or, in
default of this second knife, the
curd, having rested a short lime
since the first cutting, is turned
over gently by hand, and the first
knife passed repeatedly about in
it until it is all cut into small
]iieces. The cutting and turning
of the cui-d at this period are
])erformed in a very gentle manner,
lii^'cause the newly-formed coagu-
lum is for the time being very
tender, and it is desirable not to
crush or bruise it liy hasty manipu-
lation.
Again the curd rests for a time, during which
the whey is rapidly separating from it. After a
short time a little steam is turned into the space
between the shells, and the curd is kept in stirring
— a little faster than before. The whey now exudes
from the curd very rapidly, and the latter shrinks
in bulk, becoming firmer and tougher as it shrinks.
More steam is now turned on, and the curd will
bear without injury a little rougher usage. It
must be kept constantly moving, or the bottom of
the vat will scorch it, the result of which would
be that a thin hard shell would form round the
scoi'ched particles of curd and would keep the wdiey
inside them. The bottom of the vat is made very
hot by the steam, the whey is rapidly leaving the
cuixl, and the curd is kept in rapid motion to
prevent scorching. This is a very busy period of
the process. Meantime the whey has almost com-
pletely left the curd, the particles of which have
shrunk from half an inch to about the size of
grains of wheat, and they are no longer tender
and delicate.
This steaming of the mass of curd and whey
is called the cooking process, and it is advisable
not to liurry it too much-^not to raise the tem-
perature too rapidly, that is. When the thermo-
meter marks 90"^, the steam is turned off and the
curd kept stirring for some little time longer,
until the bottom of the vat has cooled downi some-
what; at this stage the vat and its contents remain
at rest for fifteen or twenty minutes, during which
time the other vats are being attended to. Pre-
sently the steam is again turned on, the curd and
whey are kept in motion by a curd-agitator, or
stirring-rake, two kinds of which are seen in Figs.
137 and 13S, and the temperature of the contents of
the vat is raised to 98^ or 100". Throughout the
steaming part of the process the manager uses hi-i
Fig. 137.— Stikuing-raki'.
Fig. 138.— Stirring-rake.
thermometer frequently, as it is advisable not to
heat up the mass too high or too quickly, and
when 100^' is indicated the steam is turned finally
off. Again the steaming is modified to suit the
weather — to 90'' or 98° in very hot weather, and
to 100" or lU^"^' in very cold.
The direct effect of the steaming is to expel
the bulk of the whey from the curd, and to de-
velop) lactic acid, which expels the remainder.
After the steam has been finally turned off, and
the curd has been kejjt in stirring a short time
longer to prevent scorching, the curd settles to
the bottom of the vat, and it is left at rest for
the longer or shorter time which is required to
develop a perceptible (juantity of acidity ; this
will depend on two things chiefly — whether the
milk was or was not perfectly sweet and fresh,
to begin with, and whether the atmosphere is
hot or cold. If the milk is quite fresh and the
weather cold, acidity is .sometimes several hours
in develojjing.
It is a common practice to use sour whey in
the milk at the time of setting it for coagula-
tion, in order to hasten the develoi)ment of lactic
acid. The quantity of whey to be used will depend
to a very great extent on the temperature the
evening's milk is found to be at on the following
morning, for the higher the temperature of the
THE USE OF SOUK AVIIEV,
277
milk, tlie smalliT tlic quantity of whey that will
be required to briiio^ about the desired result. By
remainin;;- through the night at a temperature of
upwards of 05*^, the milk has been going through
the incipient stages of acidity, and when warmed
up to lOU" the acid soon becomes perceptible; but
when the milk has been kept at a lower tempera-
ture, it is fi'ee enough from acid when morning
comes. It will seldom, if ever, be found necessary
to use any sour whey in warm weather, or when
the milk is over 63'-' in the morning ; and even
in cold weather it must be used with caution.
We assume that the whey to be used is distinctly
acid, though not extremely so, and in this
case the quantity to be used will be about as
follows : —
Quantity of Milk.
Temp, of Milk
iu the moruiug.
Sour Wbey to be
used.
200 gallons
63° Fahr.
R]
quarts.
200 ,
62° „
6
200 „
61° „
K'i
200 „
60= „
11
200
SM" „
14.1,
200 „
58° „
IS
200
57° „
221
200 „
58° „
27
This borrowed acidity assists the rennet in its
work, and the milk coagulates in less time ; hence
it must be cautiously employed. If, however, in
this case all the whey be removed soon after it has
left the curd, the cheese will be firm to the touch,
sweet and mild in flavour, rich in quality, and of
the finest texture. But if the whey is left for
some time resting on the curd, it is a matter of
the first importance that the development of acidity
be closely watched, for if it is allowed to go too
far, the cheese will never ripen as it ought to do.
And, indeed, whether acidity is generated by using
sour whey, or whether by steaming up to 100*^, it
is equally necessary to watch it very carefully, and
to draw off the whey as soon as the acid is per-
ceptible to the taste or smell. The formation of
acid may be easily seen by a careful watcher in
the changed appearance of the whey — not a change
of colour, but a sort of glimmer or brightness on
the surface. But the ordinary test is to take a
piece of curd in the hand, squeeze the whey well
out of it, and touch hot — not red-hot — iron with
it J if sufficiently acid, or if the "cheesing process,"
as it is termed, has advanced far enough, the curd
will adhere to the hot iron, and draw out in fine
threads an inch or so long. Whether these
threads indicate acidity, or a given stage in what
we may term the digestion of the curd, is a matter
not yet determined.
The Cheddar system of ehecse-makiug is, per-
haps, the most celebrated of all systems, and the
most universally useful ; and in that system acidity
is, perhaps, the most prominent feature. It is
brought about by what is termed slip-scalding—
not by heating up the whey and curd by steam.
But in the Cheddar system acidity is developed in
the curd alone rather than in the curd and whey
together ; and this, we believe, is the soundest
and safest way of employing acidity. The method
employed in the factories is what we may term the
American-Cheddar method, which is a modification,
though not necessarily an improvement, of the old
Cheddar system. The chief disparity between the
two lies in developing acid in the whey on the
factory system, and in developing it in the curd
on the Cheddar system. The only reasons that
can justify the former are — first, that in factory
cheese-making the milk is much more likely to be
tainted than it is in farm-houses, and acid cheeks
taint; and, second, that when the milk is very
fresh to liegin with, it is very tedious to develop
acid in the curd if the whey is dipped sweet.
These reasons may seem paradoxical, because they
are founded on two opposite states of the milk —
perfectly fresh and tainted milk ; they are, how-
ever, not by any means as paradoxical as they
seem, and milk that is neither very fresh nor
perceptibly tainted will produce a curd in which
acidity will develop even if the whey is removed
as soon as possible; tainted milk would also do
this, but in this case a stronger acid than would
develop in the curd alone is required to check the
taint, while in the case of perfectly fresh milk it
is difficult in the curd alone to develop the amount
of acidity that is desirable.
It is open to doubt whether on the factory
system the cooking process is not carried too
far — whether the end aimed at, acidity, could
not be better attained by the use of a small
quantity of sour whey and less steaming. But,
however this may be, there is no doubt whatever
that the practice of developing the required
acidity in the whey and curd together is a
dangerous one in the hands of a careless person.
We believe a better plan is to dip the whey sweet
— that is, before any acidity is perceptible — and
27S
DAIRY FARMIXG.
aftcivvanlH packin<^ the curd in tlio l)ot(oin of (lie
vat, and keeping it warm until the whey is out
of it and the acid is developed. This may be the
move easily done by piling the curd on raeks
in the bt>ttom of the vat, after the Cheshire
manner, and covering it up with a thick cloth
to keep it warm. The object of piling the cui-d on
raeks is to enaljle it to avoid being scorched if
it is found advisable to turn on a little steam
now and then to keep up the temjierature.
AVe are not advocating drawing off the whey
while the curd is still soft, but drawing it off IjfiJ'orc
ainj acid that can be eaa'ilif detected has formed
in it. This is coming very near to the pure
Cheddar system, and the system now employed
in the factories is midway between that and the
first modification of the Cheddar plan that was
adoi)ted in America. That first moditieatiou
consists in develojiiug all the acid iu the whey,
and then vatting and salting the curd at once
when the whey is dipped off ; the midway system
consists in developing part of the acidity iu the
whey, and the remainder iu the curd ; while
the pure Cheddar consists in developing all the
acid in the curd. But to return to the modus
operandi that is followed out in the factories.
When the whey is considered ready for dipping
— that is, when the acid is sufficiently developed —
the perforated strainer (Fig. 139) is placed close to
the lower end of the vat
and sunk to the bottom
of it, and the syphon,
also seen in Fig. 130, is
filled with whey, and one
end of it placed inside
the strainer, the other
end being outside the vat.
The syphon has, or ought
to have, a faucet at the
long end and a valve at
the other, thus prevent-
ing the whey from es-
Fig. 139.— .SVPHON AND
Stbaineb.
(•;iping when filled; by
])lacina: the valve end
in the strainer, which is
made of perforated tin,
the whey can be drawn off from any of fho
vats, :is it will immediately commence running
on opening the faucet. "When the bulk of the
whey has run oil', the lilncks of wood are
ri'inoved from undiTiicalh the two Icirs of the
vat at its lower end, and the vat tips on the
two legs in the middle, causing the whey to
incline to the spot where the syphon is at work.
As the whey runs off through the syphon it is
conducted away either to the whey-vats, where
it is allowed to remain until it has thrown up
its cream, or it j)asses directly away to the tank.
Meanwhile the curd adheres together and is drawn
to each side of the vat, leaving a space down
the middle, by which, as the vat is now tilted,
the remaining whey can drain oft' as it leaves
the curd. The curd is then cut into lumps,
which are piled on edge in the ujjper end of
the vat; the lumps are turned over occasionally,
as well to exjxjse them to the action of the
oxygen of the air as to facilitate the escape of
the whey.
After the curd has thus lain some time and the
whey has nearly all left it, it is ground to the
size of raisins and currants mixed, and. salted
at the rate of 2 j)er cent. — that is, 2 lbs. of
salt to 100 lbs. of curd, or per 1,01)0 lbs. of milk,
which comes to about the same thing. The mill
used is similar to Fig. 93, page 207, except that
there are studs in it instead of blades ; it is placed
across the milk- vat when iu use. The salt and the
curd are well mixed up together by hand, so that
the former may be equally distributed through the
latter. The curd is next measured into the press-
vats which are in use, and for a while at first is
put under a light pressure, so that the remaining
whey may leave the cheese without carrying away
with it too much of the solids. The grinding
crushes the curd to a degree that would, if possible,
be gladly avoided, and if a heavy pressure is put
upon it immediately afterwards the whey that
comes from it is quite white, with minute par-
ticles of curd. In the course of an hour, the
pressure having in the meantime been increased,
tile newly-formed cheeses are taken out of press,
bandaged, and put in again; but they do not
require " dry-clothing," like farm-house cheese.
The best press for factory use is the compound
press seen in Fig. 110, page 235. A heavy
pressure is now put on them for the night,
and next morning they are finally taken out
of })ress and taken to the cheese-room, weighed —
the weight booked — and put on the shelves to
ripen. Before being placed on the shelves, how-
ever, tiny have strong tissue-paper hot-ironed
on the Hat sides of them; this is done to jire-
SELF-TURNING CHEESE SHELVES.
279
vent cracking and to cxeliulc the air, but we do scarcely possible that the ripening, checked in
not consider it necessaiy for either of these pur- this way in the earliest stages, should ever be
poses, though it is, no doubt, useful
in assisting to "coat" the cheese —
the hot-ironing, that is, is useful.
The shelves used for cheese in
factories are self-turning. In each
frame are three or more "sets" of
shelves, each containing three rows
of cheese. Each of these sets is
turned separately, quickly, and easily
in about the time it would take
to turn a single cheese by hand ;
and they have the advantage of
allowing each cheese to rest on a
dry place every time the turning is
done. The sets are held in position
by a catch and carry-latch in the
end, and the strips of wood at the
back prevent the cheese from slipping
off. These self-turners are great
labour-saving contrivances, and they
offer no obstacle to a due examina-
tion of the cheese. Fig. 140 suffi-
ciently explains their general con-
. struction.
In several factories that we know, Fig. 140.— Self-tlkning cm:i:>i:-.siu:L\ i;s.
the cheeses are first placed in a
damp room on the ground flour; this-, we think, properly completed. It is not by any means an
is a mistake. "We have frequently seen the young uncommon thing, strange as it may seem, that
well-made cheese is spoilt in the ripen-
ing. But where the curing or ripen-
ing rooms are well adapted to the
purpose, dr}', well ventilated, and main-
tained at a temperature whose limits do
not exceed 75'^ on the one hand and
6.5° on the other; ^vhere the milk from
which the cheese is made is brought
to the factory in good condition, and
where the cheese has been carefully
made on the system we have described,
the results will be in all resjjects satis-
factory. Carefully made from good sound
milk, and as carefidly ripened, such cheese
w ill, at two months old, be covered with
the dark green coat that so much im-
proves the appearance of cheese, and
which may be generally taken to in-
dicate ripeness; the flavour and aroma
cheeses with a film of mould covering them, will be rich, delicate, and nutty, and the tex-
owiug to the dampness of the room, and it is ture flaky and compact— not waxy or soapy,
Fig. 141.— Grouxd-plan of Bkailsford Factory.
1, weighing-scale ; 2, milk-vats ; 3, steps to weigbing platform ; 4, stairs to curing-
room ; 5, office ; 6, cream-scalder ; 7. cheese-presses ; 8, pillars ; 9, vertical
engine; 10, boiler; 11, pump ; 12, chimney-stack ; 13, whey-vats ; 14, steps to
whey-room ; 15. slate-shelf ; 16, Hathaway's churn ; 17, steps to butter-cellar ;
18, wash-vat ; 19, water-wheel.
2 so
DAIRY FAinilXfi
but m 'How and salvy betweon tlic tbumli ami
finger.
In Fig-. Ill we g-ive a griiuiid-plan of llio
Brailsfoi-d cheese-factory, near Derby, which is
one of the best in the country, so far as con-
venience of arrangement and excellence of con-
struction are concerned. It is large enough to
make cheese from the milk of 700 to 800 cows.
In Fig. 112 is given a view of the interior of this
cin-k's liy training fanners to stricter commercial
ideas with regard to the business in which they
are engaged. The average yield which dairy-cows
return, or ought to return, to their owners, in
order to ensure a profit in cheese-making, is no
loTiger arrived at by hazy conjecture among those
who send their milk to a factory; the fiscal equiva-
lent of a gallon of milk has ceased to be a nelmlous
entity; the fpinntitv of milk required to make a
-HllAH.SFORD FArrOIiT 'iNTKIlIdTtl.
factory, s'.iowing the wcigliiiig-can and llie ]ii|K'
from it which conveys the milk to the milk-vats,
three of which are plainly and the fourth parlly
seen ; on the left are seen two of the lever-press(>s,
which are now iu general use; in ]']nglish factories
and farin-hous^'S alike.
Tliongh it is improbable, owing to the rapid
expansion of the milk-trade in this country, and
to the facility with which cheese can be ])roduced
in enormous quantities in America, that checse-
factorips will bocnine numerons in Cireat Britain,
their introduction lias done much good in daiivir.i;-
pound of cheese iu the diil'ercnt nioiitlis of the
season is understood with tolerable accaracy ; and
this educational process has brought in its train
a great deal of practical inipiiry into the most
economical methods of feeding dairy-cows and of
]iroducing at a minimum cost a maximum quan-
tity of milk. The commercial principle, in fact,
is being developed in dairy-farming, slowly and
fitfully, perhaps, but none the less surely.
W'c are decidedly of opinion that dairy-farmers
would do well to keep a record i>l' the milk their
cows produce per day.anrl of the clieese and Imtter
made from it. In an\' ease such a I'ccord would
WANT OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENT.
281
be a means of filiictitidii, and would be valuable This i'orni of Ijook-keepiu^', it is hardly needful
for reference, and for comparison with succeeding' to say, would, with few alterations, do equally
years. We do not advocate an elaborate system well for farm-house and for factory, for the land-
of book-keeping, because we know that such a owner on the home farm, and fur the lai"ge and
system would soon be thrown aside, but a simple small tenant-farmer as well,
account showing- at a glance the daily items and The sound eommereial principles and methods
Statement of Dairy Producc-
-Far
for the Month of_
_1S
Gals. qts. Gals.qts.
tuantity
■ of
Ullt.
Made
Butter.
Made
Cheese.
Consumed and
Butter. Cheese.
Sold and Delivered.
Milk. Butter. Cheese.
the monthly totals. In the annexed form Mr.
Jemmatt, the well-known agricultural accountant,
has given us a system which admits either of
minute details, or of general results only, being
recorded. An account-book, prepared somewhat
after this manner, would cost very few shillings,
and might save a great many pounds ; while, if
faithfully kept, it would be a graphic picture of
dairy operations one year after another, a picture
very instructive and well deserving of study.
just spoken of as so desirable are, perhaps, less
apparent in the selling of cheese than in any
other branch. The haphazard way still exists
of selling cheese at home, the seller being com-
monly taken at a disadvantage when a sudden
advance in the price of cheese takes place; and
the unwieldy cheese-fairs at the county towns
appear as yet to have a long lease of life to run.
We think exchange rooms and commission ware-
houses provide safer, quicker, and more equitable
282
DAIRY FARMING.
means llian the present eumlirous metliods ilo for
the tlisiiosal of cheese, and we should be ghid to
see them estabhslied in numbers. Yet it is pro-
bable that the need for them will gi'ow smaller as
the years pass on, for it is clear that the quantity
of cheese produced annually in Great Britain is
diminishing, and in all probability will continue to
diminish. Farmers do not watch the markets very
closely, as a rule; nor, indeed, have they facilities
for doing so at all times. They but seldom have
cheese to dispose of, say five or six times in the
year, so that they are not often enough in the
markets to master the fluctuations, and to save
themselves the loss of selling too early in a rising
or too late in a falling state of the trade. The
dealers, on the contrary, are alwaj's en ra2ipnrt
with each other and an fait with the tendency of
the trade and with the relationship between the
probable sup2)ly and the prosjjective demand ; they
have access to information from all parts of the
country, and of the world in fact, from which the
supplies of cheese are obtained, and they have
equal facilities for gauging the probable require-
ments of the public. Hence it follows that they
are constantly in a position to do a favourable
stroke of business, with the farmer for the victim.
AA'e know that the general lines on which the
business interests of a district or country are con-
ducted, however inconvenient or faulty they may
be, are difficult to alter; of slow growth, framed
from time to time to meet the growing wants of
the people, they do not easily give jilace to some-
thing totally different. We are, however, glad to
welcome the gradual rise of the commission system
in the sale of cheese, even among dealers ; and at
Derby there already exists a warehouse to which
farmers' and factory cheese is sent to be sold on
commission. Thus the commercial leaven is per-
meating our dairying districts, which may fairly
be said to have been the last to yield to its
influence, and it is doing the good which was to
be expected. It is not our object to set farmer
against dealer, but we wish to see dairy products
disposed of in a manner more in keeping with
modem practices in other departments of hunuui
industry, and so we venture to advocate changes
which seem to us to promise certain advantages.
Proportion of Solids in Mii.k.
The quantity of milk required to make 1 lb.
of cheese varies in dift'eicnt districts, in dillVrent
years, and at different times of the year. As
N\-ill have been noticed in the balance-sheets of
the Longford, Holms, and AVindley factories, the
average f<ir the season was a little over 10 lbs. of
milk for each 1 lb. of green cheese, and there is
every reason to believe that more curd is produced
from a gi\'en quantity of milk in factories than
in farm-houses. A neighbouring farmer, who was
opposed to cheese-factories, made a careful test on
the 7th and Sth of July, and from 715 lbs. of
milk he produced 61 J lbs. of green cheese; this
was at the rate of 11 lbs. 10 ozs. of milk per 1 lb.
of cheese. At an adjoining factor}' the average
weight of milk per 1 lb. of green cheese for the
same month was 10 lbs. O'-ll ozs., which was more
than 10^ ozs. of milk per lb. of cheese less at
the factory than at the farm-house. There was
nothing except difference of system to account
for the disparity of result in this comparative
test.
IMuch depends on the quality of the land and
on the breed of the cows. The year, also, has a
good deal to do with the result, for the milk
" 3'ields " better in some years than in others. It
will generally be found, however, that the longer
the cows have been calved, the richer in curd is the
milk. Still, this is not an invariable, but only a
general rule, as the following table will show. A
wet month, for instance, succeeding a dry one will
diminish the proportion of solids in the milk ; it
Mill, however, greatly increase the total quantity
(if milk, and in some measure the total quantity of
curd, and the result is more favourable, though
the milk shows a less percentage of solids and a
greater of liquid. For the table we arc indebted
to ]\Ir. John Nadin, the able and painstaking
secretary of the Hartiugton Cheese Factory As-
sociation. The figures in the table represent
the average weight of green cheese — that is,
cheese as it leaves the ))ress — that was jiro-
dueed, in each mouth respectively, from 1,000 lbs.
of milk : —
1876.» 1877.t
lbs. 11)8.
Ajiril ...
^Slh
... S^,\V,%
Jliiy ...
yi;ic5i:'l) •••
... 913^55?
Juno ...
y'lisr
... ioo„v^„v.
.July ...
09jif;s ...
... 101! ?M^ J
August
i02,Vrt'A -
... loonim
September
va\%m ...
... 107,«c»,Vr
October
112,Vt% -
... 112rYaW
• Orenc
1 Ap,
■il 3rd.
t Opei
10(1 April Sth.
JUDGING CHEESE.
283
Professor Boelokcr, with a view to arrive at
certain results, has analysed the milk of a healthy
cow at different periods of the day. The ])rofessor
found that the solids of the evening's milk (l."5
per cent.) exceeded those of the moruiug's milk
(10 per cent.), while the water contained in the
fluid was diminished from Si) per cent, to 80
per cent. The fatty matter gradually increases
as the day progresses. In the morning it amounts
to 2| per cent., at noon 3J per cent., and in
the evening 5 J per cent. The practical im-
portance of this discovery is at once ajjparent;
it develops the fact that while IG ozs. of morn-
ing's milk will yield but ^ oz. of butter, about
double the quantity can be obtained from the
evening's milk. The casein is also increased in
the evening's milk from 'Z^ to 2f per cent.,
but the albumen is diminished from ^Vu per cent.
tf> tVo per cent. Sugar is least abundant at mid-
night {-i-i per cent.) and most plentiful at noon (4|
per cent.). The percentage of the salt undergoes
almost ni) change at any time of the day.
Judging Cheese.
This is a matter which, when well done, in-
volves great nicety, patience, and system, par-
ticularly where the samples are numerous. The
following formula may be found useful : —
Scale of Points Jor Judijhiij Cheese on a Basis of a Total of 100 as Perfection.
DeFINITIOV of roSITIVE QUALITIES.
Flavour 2.5. — Agreeably, nutty, buttery, fine and full.
Keeping 15. — Preservation, inclination to slow changing,
retention of good qualities.
Quality 20. — Mellow, salv)', pasty, flaky, stoky, rich, soluble,
melting on the tongue.
Texture 1.5. — Solid, close, firm, compact.
Colour 10. — Pleasing, natural ; not appearing artificial, even.
Mahe 15. — Includes all not included under other points, as
100 use of rennet, proper manipulations, ripening
curd, salting, pressing, curing, perfect rind,
cleanliness, &c.
Definition of Negative Qualities.
Off flavour, strong, tainted, sour, bitter, rancid, vapid.
Rapid decay, early loss of good qualities, soon taking on
bad ones, inclined to rapid changing.
Tough, leather}-, curdy, sticky, dry, crumbly, insoluble, not
melting on the tongue.
Porous, spongy, loose, weak.
E.xcessively deep or pale, unnatural, uneven.
Improper use of rennet, uneven heating, handling and
ripening curd, bad salting, curing, imperfect i-ind, cracks,
skippers, uncleanliness, &c.
39
CHAPTER XIX.
BUTTER-MAKIXG.
The Formation of Milk— The Raising of Cream— Influence of Depth and Temperature— Scalding— The Swartz System of Cream-
Kuising— American Systems- Preservation of Ice for Milk-Cooling— Centrifugal and otlier Most Recent Cream-Extractors—
Skimming— Treatment of the Cream— Cliurning and its Difliculties— Washing and Worlcing the Butter— Various Butter-
Working Machines— Salting-Glacialine— The Aroma of Butter— Various Churns— Steam and Horse Power— JIarketing—
» . ,, — Carriage of Butter and Miscellaneous Appliances— Judging and Quality of Butter- Present Inferiority
V^ j '.'.''; \ of British Butter and its Causes— Devonshire Cream.
i^y^HE production of milk in the
' system of an animal is at
once one of the most neces-
sary as it is one of the most
1 curious processes in the eco-
nomy of Nature. That the
milk from which we make
butter comes from the cow we all know,
and we are equally familiar with the fact
that it is primarily derived from the food
\\hich the cow eats. These two facts
taken together place the cow in the j^osition of
a machine — a living one it is true, but still a
machine, which, receiving the raw material of
grass or hay or corn, transforms it into a pro-
duet which is indispensable to the welfare of
mankind. Or we may liken the cow's body to
a laboratory in which crude materials, some of
which would not be of any service in them-
selves in sustaining human life, are reduced to
a form in which they are of the greatest
possible service. It is v.'orth while to inquire a
little how this is done.
The most advanced investigations into the
structure of the mammal-gland reveal to us that
the interior of a cow's udder is composed first of
all of a wonderful ramification of ligaments and
tissue which, interlacing each other, support the
udder in position; about in this structure blood-
veins pass to and fro, and milk-duets, cavities,
glandules, lobules, and vesicles are distributed.
In Fig. 14:3 we have an illustration of the network
which is interwoven in the milk-glands of the
udder, and which sustains tliem i/i sllu. If we
pass a pliable probe up the inside of the teat it
traverses a du'l, or tube, which opens into a
reservoir comnuinicating with other reservoirs or
with ducts ; following one or other of these duets,
the probe filially comes to a small saccular cavity,
and it goes no farthei". Within this cavity and
its vesicles and cells the fats
of milk are produced, and
there are numbers of similar
cavities.
In Fig. 111. we have a
portion of the udder showing
the main ducts and the lo-
bules which are interplaced.
A microscopical examination
reveals that these cavities, or
loLules, themselves irregular
in size and shape, are com-
posed of vesicles which also
vary in the same particulars. Fig- 143.— C.m'hi.ahy Xet-
T TH- T I r • 1 WORK OK MlI.K-GLANU.
In Fig. 145 IS shown one „.^„ Funtcnhcy.)
of the lobules, which consists
of sixteen vesicles, and it also shows the cells
which the vesicles contain ; these cells are won-
derfully minute and delicate.
Now the fat of the animal is constantly being
supplied to these cells, and they, by a process which
may be likened to budding, throw it off in the
form of cream-globules. These globules or buds,
or fatty-pollen as we may term them, when per-
fected, drop off into the cavities, in which they
come in contact with and are taken charge of
by the water therein, which also contains casein,
albumen, and milk-sugar that have transuded from
the tissties; and they are carried along through
duct after duet into the acini, or milk-cisterns,
and finally they arc extracted through the teats.
The product is an emulsion named milk.
FORMATION OF MILK.
285
When milk is jilaced under a jiowerful micro-
scope the cream-globules in it, like the lobules
and vesicles in which they were formed, apjjear
Pig. 144. — Portion of Ufideb, showing Akh.ixgement of
Lobules and Main Dlcts. {Sturtevaut.)
irregular in size; their form, however, is always
rounded, having a rotund and not an angular
exterior. This evenness of exterior is due to the
semi-liquid character of the contents of the glo-
bules. It follows, then, that these cream-globules
have actually been part and jiarcel of the system
of the animal ; they will, consequently, always
partake in a measure of the nature, charactei-, and
condition of the animal by which they are pro-
duced ; and as cows differ greatly in the nature of
their organisation, so must there be differences in
the quality of the milk they give.
The subtle process of animal chemistry by
means of which the ordinaiy fat of the animal
is changed into the peculiar form of fat which we
are familiar with as butter, and the means by which
is obtained the no less singular odour and flavour
of butter, both of which differ so much from any-
thing else we know, are — and we assume must
remain — among the occult mysteries of Nature.
But it is evident that the milk-glands ai-e the seat
of a wondrous activity to supply the countless
myriads of infinitesimal globules of fat which
are found in milk ; and they are the no less
wonderful theatre of mysterious chemical processes
which jjroduce the singular and delicate flavour,
aroma, and colour of butter.
It will now be understood that milk is a com-
pound fluid, made up in a beautiful way of several
distinct elements, and as such is subject to physical
as well as chemical changes. We all know that
when milk is left at rest in a vessel for a time
the lighter portion of it rises to the surface ; this
lighter portion is called "cream," and is easily
distinguished and separated from the "skim-milk"
beneath. These cream-globules were first found
by Leeuwenhock in the year 1697 ; andFleischmann
in our own day has calculated that the largest of
them weigh about •00,000, OUi milligrammes, and
that a pound of milk, containing 4 per cent, of
butter, contains about 40,000 millions of them.
Yet for all this they are not so crowded as we
might think, and it has been discovered that
between each two of them in fresh milk there is
space enough for a third to pass without touch-
ing either ; this, as it affects the rising of the
cream, is an important matter. These globules
never all rise to the surface, no matter how long
the milk may remain at rest, because some of them
are so very minute in size that they have not
buoyancy enough to rise through the superin-
cumbent mass of milk, and we never find skim-
milk which does not contain a vast number of
them. Skim-milk, indeed, is distinguished under
Fig. 145.— Lobule of Milk-gland, showing sixteen Vesicles,
WITH THEIK Cells Indicated. {Sturterant.]
the microscope by the absence of the larger
globules, and by the lessened number of globules
in a given space. Cream-globules contain or
are composed of fatty matter, and fat is lighter
than milk, hence they may be regarded as tiny
2S6
DAIRY FARMING.
balloons wliich seek tlie jiositioii to wliich their
specific gravity entitles tlicm. Some of tliem,
however, are so tiny that the amount of fat they
have is not enough to float them to the surface,
not oven enough to sustain them in situ, so that it
has been noticed that instead of rising or remaining
in position, a few of them, being mere granules,
slowly sink toward the bottom.
The larger globules rise quickest atid iirsl, the
medium ones next, and so on. Three drops were
taken froni a vessel containing milk which had
been at rest for fourteen hours : the first from
the surface of the cream, the second from the
lower layer of the cream, and the third from six
inches below the surface. The difference in the
average size of the globules was found to be as
follows : —
In tho surface Jrop ... ... iVjo of an inch.
In the second drop ... ... ^rij i>
In the tliird dn.p j^'ot; „
If these different qualities of cream were churned
se]«irately, the first would be churned sooner and
easier than the second, and the second much sooner
and easier than the third, while the quality of
the butter would be found to vary with the size of
the globules. The average size of the globules
is largest when the cow has recently calved, and
the longer she remains in milk the smaller it
becomes. After a time the larger globules are
no longer produced in numbers, and so it follows
that the cream of old milk is slow to rise and
tedious to churn. It may be borne in mind that
cream-globules vary in size from mere granules
whose diameter is less than g,ioo of an inch,
to the comparatively large one of tsVo of an inch.
As the results of some experiments in churning
different qualities of cream. Dr. E. L. SturLcvant
gives the following : —
Averai^e size of globule.
Time of cburnin
■d^ inch
13 miuuU'9.
TTTTO ))
... 30
And corresponding results have been met with
in churning milk fresh from the cows, in which
the average size of the globules showed still
greater variations of quality ; the milk was cooled
to GO'^ Fahr., and churned in a Florence cask.
" These relations,'' it is said, " are too constant to
be accidental, and are useful as explaining some
of the actions of milk in the hands of the dairy-
maid. AVhen churning takes place the larger
gloljules are broken first, and, by being over-
ehunied, apparently hinder the breaking of the
smaller globules." AVhen the smaller globules are
not broken in the churning, many of them pass
away in the buttermilk ; the rest are either
retained in the butter, or are removed by wash-
ing it. Assuming that the globules have actual
shells, and that the shells consist of casein or of
albumen, it is a disadvantage to retain them in
the butter, for they decompose earlier than the
butter-fats, and so cause the butter to go rancid.
It is, however, as yet undetermined whether
or not the globules have shells at all, properly so
called, though a great many experiments have
been made with the object of deciding the
question. It is probable, still, that the enclosed
fats have a covering or protection of some kind,
for they are not dissolved when ether or other
agents which dissolve fat easily are added to the
milk, and they certainly would be dissolved in this
manner were it not that they have a covering
of some sort. In any case the globules, and the
shells which encase them, if shells there be, are
elastic in nature, for the fats will expand and
contract in varying temperatures without rup-
turing the rotund form, and it is only extreme
heat or cold that will cause them to burst. They
soon burst, however, by violent agitation of the
cream in a churn.
TiiE Raising of Ckeam.
Every one is more or less acquainted with the
natural process by which cream rises to the surface
of milk which is at rest for a few hours, yet there
are comparatively few who understand the delicate
and interesting theories wliich the process em-
bodies and the influences by which it is affected.
Among the more advanced dairymen of Europe
and America different practices in the setting of
milk prevail, and some of these are so diametrically
opposed to each other in their theoretical as well
as their practical aspects, that it is as difficult to
reconcile them as it is to ascertain which is really
the best. It is therefore expedient that we a]ipeal
to the natural laws which operate in the raising
of cream, in order to gain a clear \\c\v of what is
right and what is wrong in the matter. Professor
L. 13. Arnold, one of the leading authorities on
dairy matters in America, writes as follows : —
"The first prominent fuel in the separation of
TEMPERATURE AND CREAM-RAISING.
287
cream from milk is that it rises by reason of
having' a less sjiecific gravity than the milk willi
which it is mingled.
"The average specific gravity of milk is ahout
I'OSO. The difference between this and "tis.j
brings the cream to the surface; it is so little
that the cream makes haste very slowly. The
globules never all come to the surface. Other
circumstances being the sanie^ the largest ones rise
soonest, as they are specifically lighter, and in
rising meet with less resistance in proportion to
bulk than the smaller ones. Many of these never
make a start towards the surface at all. Neither
do the large ones always rise ; some of them settle
instead of rising. In placing in a glass tube
16 inches long milk on which the cream appeared
to rise perfectly, leaving a blue skim-milk, and
letting it stand twentj'-four hours, and then draw-
ing milk from the bottom of the tube, globules
of good size (yoVo of an inch in diameter) appeared
mingled with the smaller ones. As globules of
unequal size remained at the bottom, it is e\ndent
thev did so because of a difference in their com-
position which made them specifically hea\^er.
Those remaining at the bottom of a deep vessel
appear less oj)aque than those which rise to the
surface, those rising first being the most opaque.
Analyses of skim-milk show that about one-eighth
of the fatty matter never gets to the surface.
" The smaller the globules, the slower they rise;
and some of them dwindle down to such minute-
ness that they would not rise through 3 inches
in a week, if the milk could be kept sweet that
length of time. Cream will continue to rise till
the milk gets thick, be that time short or long.
The best part rises first. If milk is skimmed
every twelve hours, and the eream of each period
churned separately, the product of the first period
will be the highest flavoured and the highest
coloured, and the colour, quantity, and flavour of
each successive skimming will diminish to the
last, but the keeping qualities will grow better.
The fourth and fifth skimmings will be quite jjale
and insipid. Where a high-coloured article is
desired it is not advisable to continue the process
of creaming too long. What will rise in forty-
eight hours at 60*^, on milk 4 inches deep, is all
that is generally profitable to separate. What
comes up after that is so white and tasteless as
to do more injury, by depressing the flavour and
colour, than it can do good by increasing quantity.
"The second essential point is the fact that fats
expand and contract more than water with heat
and cold, and more than the other elements of the
milk. The difference of specific gravity between
milk and eream is varied by the circumstance of
temperature. It is greatest when hot and least
when cold, and this faet materially affects the
rising of the cream.
"As fat, of which cream is chiefly composed,
swells more with heat and shrinks more with cold
than water, of which milk is chiefly composed, it
is evident that, if other circumstances are alike,
cream will rise better in a high temperature than
in a low one, since the fat in cream, by swelling
more with heat, will be relatively lighter when
both milk and cream are warm than when both
are cold — the temperature in both cases neither
rising nor falling, but standing without change.
Most people seem to have the opinion that milk
must be cooled to make the cream rise fast, and
that the colder they get it, the faster the cream
will i-ise. The fact is exactly the reverse when
the temperature is stationary. The colder the
milk, the slower the cream rises, because there
is less difference between the specific gravity
of the cream and milk, and because the milk is
more dense and offers more obstruction to the
motion of the cream-globules. It does not rise so
fast at GO'' as at 160'^. In butter-making the waste
of butyraceous matter is confined almost wholly
to the minutest particles of cream. These rise
with great difficulty and very slowly. Those who
make butter from whey often heat the whey to 170'^,
when the difference in specific gravity between the
fat in the cream and the water in the whey be-
comes so great that the cream all rises to the top
in a short time. By cooling to 60*^, five or six
times as much time is required to effect the same
result.
" In noting the difference of exjiausion in water
and fat by var3ing the temperature, the fat in
rising from 60'' to l-SC^ swelled, as near as I
could determine by graduated tubes, twice as much
as water by the same increase of temperature.
Water expands unequally by an equal increase of
heat, according as the increase is made at a high
temperature or at a low one. Water rising from
iO'' to 50^ swells only one-tenth as much as when
rising from 80° to OO'', and in cooling, of course,
the same law is followed in the shrinkage. In
falling from a high temperature to a low one, the
288
DAIRY FARMING.
water in tlio milk s^hriiikiiiiy litllo and the f:it
much, the speeilic gravities come nearer alike, and
hence the fat rises more slowly at low temperatures
than at high ones when the temperature is un-
varying. Water is a better conductor of heat than
fat; hence, when the temperature of milk varies
either up or down, the water in the milk feels the
effect of heat or cold a little sooner than the fat in
the cream does, therefore the cream is always a little
behind the water in swelling with heat or shrinking
with cold — thus diminishing the difference between
the si)eeific gravity of the milk and cream when
the temperature is rising, and increasing it when
the temperature is falling. The difference between
the specific gravities of milk and cream when both
have the same temperature is but little; it is
barely enough to give a sluggish motion to tin;
cream. Where the difference in gravities is so
very small a slight increase or decrease is sensi-
tively felt, and the careful observer will have no
difhculty in noting the retarded ascent of cream in
a rising temperature, or its hurried ascent in a
falling one. The fact of a hurried rising of cream
in a falling temperature of milk has great sig-
nificance in butter-dairying ; but though always
0])en for recognition in every butter-making es-
tablishment, whether corporate or private, it has
failed of being recognised both by dairymen and
dairy-writers — perhaps because they have had their
minds intently bent on some ideal temperature or
depth as the sine quit iion.
"A further consideration is depth; other cir-
cumstances being equal, it must be evident that
it will take cream less time to rise through a
thin structure than a thick one — less time to
rise through 3 inches than lli. But depth in-
volves temperature, which makes the question of
dejith a complicated one. It cannot be con-
sistently considered alone, for there is no par-
ticular depth at which, under all circumstances,
cream rises better than at every other depth ; and
of temperature it may also be said that there is
no particular temperature at which, under all cir-
cumstances, cream rises better than at every other
tem])erature. Depth and temperature are some-
what correlative; in practice they affect each
other, and they should be considered in con-
nection. Further experiments are necessary to
note all the facts which result from the com-
bined influence of these two circumstances, but
a little exi)hnKition iiuiy hcli) t,o show Imw lhe.se
general statements arc connected with deep and
shallow setting.
" If two vessels of milk at 80^', and of the same
depth and quality, arc set in a room which has an
even temperature of 50" — one being cooled to 50°
before setting, and the other not — the vessel which
is cooled will not throw up cream so rapidly nor so
perfectly as the one which is not cooled before
setting, because the former will receive no benefit
from an increased difference between the specific
gravities of the milk and cream by reason of a
falling temperature. If, after the cooled milk has
stood at .J 0° until the cream ceases to rise, it is warmed,
and then set again in a room at 50°, or if, without
warming, it is set in a colder room, more cream
will rise, because of the falling temperature that
will in either case follow. The same results would
be obtained, but in a feebler degree, if the milk
which was not cooled before setting were treated
in the same way, provided it was set shallow, say
2 inches deep, in the first place. Bearing in
mind that the warmer milk is kept, up to a
certain point, the sooner it spoils, 05" is a high
temperature to set milk in ; yet milk set 2 inches
deep at 05° will throw up its cream quickly and
perfectly when it would not do so if set at 50°,
because in the latter case it would too soon fall to
the standard of the room and cease to derive any
advantage from a falling temperature. If we should
set warm milk in vessels () inches deep in a room
at 05°, it would take the cream so much longer
to come up through that increased depth, and it
would remain warm so much longer, that the milk
w()uld sj)oil before it had all risen. But let the
deep vessels be i)laced in a cold room, say 50°, and
the result will be altogether different. Unlike
the shallow milk in the cool room, the increase of
depth and bulk will so much ])rolong the time
of cooling that the cream will all, or very nearly
all, rise before the milk has dropped to the tem-
perature of the room.
" We can now see how the arguments of the
advocates of deep and shallow setting are derived.
An experimenter having observed a fact like the
last, in which the cream is i)erfectly raised in a
deep vessel, declares in favour of deep setting
as the best and only sure way to get all the
cream ; and another one, having set milk 2
inches deep at 05°, and accomplished the same
result, takes position on the other side, and be-
comes an advocate of shallow setting under all
EFFECTS OF TEMPERATURE.
289
cirpumstances. Each having' wuinliuil but half
tlie facts, his arfruments cover but half the g-round.
Had both investigated more thoroughly, they
might have been agreed in tlie position that all the
cream can be obtained by either deep or shallow
setting, if there is a proper adaptation of con-
ditions ; and they might go farther, and lay
it down as a rule that the warmer the room in
which milk is set, the less should be the depth
of the milk, and the cooler the room, the greater
may be the depth of the milk. By having the
foregoing statements well grounded in the mind,
and keeping in distinct remembrance the relation
between temperature ' and depth, especially the
important effect of a falling temperature, any
one can, with a little experience, be successful in
raising cream perfectly at auy temperature from
40° to 70°.
" It will become clear that, though certain
temperatures are desirable, they are not absolutely
necessary to obtaining all the cream. There is a
great deal of talk about an even temperature for
raising cream, and, so far as the dairy-room is
concerned, it is desirable that it should be uniform,
because it gives regularity to all the ojserations of
the dairy, and aids in securing uniform results ;
biit so far as the single fact of raising cream is
concerned, it is better that the milk should not be
kept at any one particular degree, but at a tem-
perature steadily falling as long as jiossible. It is
an important item in heating milk before setting
it that it gives a wider range of temperature for
it to fall through. Low cooling contributes to
the same result at the other end of the scale ; but
it is neeessaiy to observe that in using low tem-
peratures the depth and bulk of milk should be
graduated to the warmth, so that the rising of the
cream shall not be arrested by too soon bringing
the temperature of the milk to a standstill. If
the cooling is sufficiently rapid to prevent the milk
from souring before the cream is all np, the slower
the cooling the better, as the benefit of a falling-
temperature will be more fully availed of. This
is one reason why cooling milk in cold air is better
than cooling in cold water; the water, being a
better conductor than the air, brings the tem-
perature to a standstill too soon. But at the
beginning the rapid cooling will throw up cream
faster than slow cooling, but the slow cooling
jiroduces the best results in the end.
"The greater the number of decrees of tem-
perature through which milk falls while the cream
is rising, the more perfectly does it come up, other
circumstances being equal. Milk cooled from
80'^ to 60" in twelve hours will not throw up its
cream so rapidly nor so perfectly as when falling
from 80'^ down to 40° in the same time. Facts
like this have been noticed, and a wrong inference
drawn from them. It is suj)posed, because cooling
to 40" instead of 60° makes the most butter, that
cream rises better the lower the temperature.
But this inference is unwarranted and untrue, for
if a mess of milk is divided, and one-half cooled
to 60° and the other to 40° before the cream is
allowed to rise, and kej)t at those temperatures
respectively, the cream will rise more rapidly
and perfectly on the portion that is cooled only
to 60°. This fact may be easily verified by
experiment, and the general principle confirmed
that cream rises better at high temperatures than
at low ones iclien the temperature is unvari/ing.
The other experiment will prove to be a very
satisfactory demonstration of the faet in regard to
the influence of i-aising cream while the tempera-
ture is depressing. Particular attention is called
to these general facts, because some experimenters
who are regarded as authorities have fallen into
the error just alluded to. In effecting a separa-
tion between milk and cream, the influence of a
falling temperature has been long and entirely over-
looked.
"■ Another important faet that affects the
separation of cream is the growth of minute
organic germs in the milk, which up to a certain
point is greater the higher the temperature. In
all milk exposed to the air there are thousands of
germs that are ready to start up and gi-ow when-
ever the milk is warm enough for them to do so,
and by their presence hinder the upward passage
of the cream-globules. The sour-milk spores are
the principal obstructions in the way of raising
the cream ; they begin to form long before the
milk begins to appear thick. The growth of
other germs does injury by altering the flavour.
Organic germs are prevented from interfering with
the rising of the cream, either by retarding their
growth by cooling the milk, or by killing them by
heating it."
The theory of eream-raising, based on facts
supplied by experiment, is clearly enough set forth
in Professor Arnold's close reasoning, as given in
the preceding paragraphs. As he remarks, the
290
DAIRY FARMIXO.
question of temperature lias been wholly disre-
garded, or at all events very imperfectly under-
stood, by butter-makcre in the ])ast. It is, how-
ever, true that the practical facts connected with
temperature in a milk-room have, consciously or
iinconsciously, been worked out long ago in some
cases ; j'et, not being clearly understood, and there-
fore not publicly announced, they have not been
widely made use of until the present generation.
Some may think that Professor Arnold's theory of
a temperature falling through a considerable period
being the best for cream-raising is disproved b}''
the Swartz system of setting milk iu ice-water
whose temperature is not many degrees above
freezing-point, because by this method the milk
in a short time is cooled down to some d-O" or
42" Fahr., and therefore has not the benefit of
a slowly-falling temperature. It would appear,
however, that a rapidly-falling temperature does,
though somewhat differently and with a varying
result, the work of a slowly-falling one, for the
cream under the ice-water system rises very
quickly. The difference is this : the cream in the
ice-water system does not separate so ]ierfeetly
from the milk as it does in ordinary shallow-pan
setting — probalily, in part, on account of the
diminished surface of the milk — but it all rises
into the upper portion or layer of milk and remains
there intermixed with more or less of the milk — is
softer, more liquid, and thinner than cream that
has risen in the ordinary way. This appears to
be the usual result of deep-setting, whether the
milk be cooled in ice-water or notj and there
would seem to be little or no advantage in cooling
milk in ice-water in the cold weather of winter.
The advantage of such cooling lies in keeping the
milk quite free from sourness in the hottest
weather. The thinness of the cream in the deep-
setting systems is by some regarded as a disad-
vantage, and by others not ; these say that it
chui-ns the better for being thin, those that it
does not. For ourselves, we are in favour of
not having very much milk churned along with
the cream; and yet, where milk is churned, in-
stead of cream only, the supposed disadvantage
of churning the milk with the cream does not
appear to operate seriously.
The i-eason of the cream rising so nuicli quicker
when the milk is set in ice-water arises from
the fact that the cooling operates on the sides
and from below rather than on the surface of
the milk; the surface, in fact, being covered
over with a lid, is in a measure protected from the
cooling inlluence which is operating elsewhere,
because there is a space between the surface of
the milk and the lid which is occupied by air,
and the air is kept warm for a time while the
process of cooling is going on around the sides
and at the bottom of the can which holds the
milk.
This, however, scarcely holds good in the
deep-setting of the Cooley system of cream-rais-
ing, which resembles the Swartz system closely
in principle. In both the milk is set in deep
cans and in cold water, which, if not cool enough
of itself, is made so by the addition of ice or of
snow; the only difference of importance between
them is this : in the Cooley system the cold water
not only surrounds the can outside as high, at all
events, as the milk rises inside, which is the
practice observed in the Swartz system, but it
flows over the lid as well, and so the can is com-
pletely submerged. The water, in fact, is an
inch or two over the lid of the can which eon-
tains the milk, and so it follows that the surface
of the milk is cooled in a measure simultaneously
with the rest of it, for the air-space between the
milk and the lid is cooled by the water which flows
over the lid. And yet the cream rises quite as
quickly in the Cooley as in the Swartz system,
which goes to pi'ove that cooling the sin-face of
the milk does not retard the rising of the cream,
so long as the sides and bottom are cooled as
well.
For many generations, so far as we have
means of finding out, no change or improvement
worth speaking about took jslace iu the method or
methods of treating milk in butter-making. It
is only in our own day that many and great
novelties have been introduced, that improved
utensils have been invented, and that the rule-of-
thumb practice of the olden times has been reduced
to an intelligent and intelligible system. The
last twenty or thirty years have brought about
a thorough transformation in matters relating to
the dairy — a transformation, in fact, which is still
in progress, and not at present established every-
where. So far the improvements in dairy prac-
tices have made headway in America and in
scv('r;il countries on the continent of Europe
rather tlian in England ; and it is to those coun-
tries that we have to <ro in search of the most
MILK-PANS AND MILK-SHELVES.
291
advanced practices, and, in most respects, for im-
proved appliances. We shall try to verify this
statement later on.
From time immemorial butter-making' in Eng-
land has been a primitive, simple sort of business,
the principles of which have not been understood,
and until the second half of the present century
the utensils and appliances used in it were of
a simple and almost rude character. The vessels
in which the milk was set to cream were usually
of wood, and the milk-rooms were generally used
for a variety of purposes, and not kej)t specially
for the milk. Later on, milk-pans were made
of brown earthenware, which was glazed inside.
These earthenware pans were a great imjirovement
on the old wooden ones, because they were so much
easier kept sweet and clean j but they were cumber-
some and brittle. They were of different sizes, but
generally of one sli ipe ; the commonest size was
about 12 to 18 inches in diameter at the top and 8
or 10 at the bottom ; their sides were sloping, and
they were some 6 to 8 inches deep. In recent years
these pans have been to a great extent superseded
by others made of tin or of galvanised iron pressed
into shape, and last of all glass ones have in some
jJaces come into use. But for its extreme brittle-
ness, glass is about the best possible material that
can be used in the manufacture of small vessels
to contain milk, and when the art of making
malleable glass shall have been perfected there
can be little doubt of this material coming into
general use in butter-dairies. The chief merits
of glass are that vessels made of it do not become
impregnated with taints from sour milk, that they
are cleaned with the greatest ease, and that they
have no seams in which impurities can lodge.
In Fig. 146 is shown a milk-pan of modern
shape for shallow set-
ting of milk. As a
rule, these vessels are
made of wrought-iron,
pressed into form so
as to obviate seams,
and then tinned over.
But they may be made of glass or any suitable
material ; made, however, of the material indi-
cated, they are very durable, and are kept clean
without great difTiculty. The common practice in
England is to have them, when lilled with milk for
creaming, arranged on shelves running round the
milk-room. Some persons object to tin milk-pans,
40
141.1.— Milk PAN for
Setting Milk.
on the ground that they impart a flavour to the
milk, particularly when the tinned surface is worn
off, and the iron beneath is laid bare. This objec-
tion, no doubt, has some foundation in fact ; but if
the pans are well cleaned with hot water and soda
each time before milk is put into them, the objec-
tion may be dismissed. It is worth while, however,
to remember that no such objection can be raised
against glass or glazed earthenware ; and these ma-
terials, except for their weight and brittleness, may
be declared better than any others for milk-pans.
In Fig. 147 we give a cut of an ingenious set
of milk-shelves, copied from the American Agricul-
turist of March, 1876, which will be found very
Fig. 147.— Kevolving Milk-shelve.s for a Butter Dairv.
useful where space is limited and it is necessary to
make the most economical use of it. The whole
arrangement of the revolving shelves is so well
shown in the illustration that but little description
is needed. It consists of an eight-sided central
shaft, provided with an iron pin at the bottom,
which works in a socket in the floor beneath ; the
upjier p.'irt is carried through the ventilator in the
upper floor. Eight arms are mortised into the
shaft to support the shelves, of which there are
six. Strips are carried from the upper part of the
shaft over the edges of the shelves, as a further
support to them. The shelves, which are about
1.5 inches apart, are made of lattice-work, thus
furnishing ventilation to the bottoms of the pans.
The lowest shelf is 6 feet in diameter, and about
2 feet above the floor. The whole framework
zn
DAIRY FARMING.
revolves ujion the pin at the hottom, and is readily
moved around as the pans of milk are placed upon
the shelves. This arrangement makes a great
economy of space. The pans are not shown upon
the shelves, so that the structure may be seen.
Tlie whole of the shelves should be well painted in
pure white. Tiie two sets of shelves, one of which
is seen on either side of the room, are of the ordi-
nary kind, yet with the ends so formed that more
or fewer shelves can be put in them at will, and
the revolving shelves are designed as a supplement
to them where space is limited and it is desirable
to make the most of it. The revolving shelves, in
fact, may be placed in a corner anywhere, and
simply need to be turned in order that every pan
of milk may be skimmed with ease and celerity.
It is necessary to remember that milk-rooms
should alwaj's be kept scrupulously clean, well ven-
tilated with pure air, free from impure odours of
any kind, whether from within or Avithout, and as
dry as is convenient. Almost everything is cajwljle
of throwing off and absorbing efiliivia or vaporous
compounds, some of which are beyond the scope of
chemical estimation ; and it may sound strange to
some when we say it would be next to impossible
to devise a compound liquid more susceptible than
fresh milk is to effluvial inlluences. Nature never
intended that milk should be exposed to the air,
but to be taken direct from the body of the parent
to that of the offspring. This is clear enough ;
and the uses to which the requirements of civilised
life consign the great bulk of it are just as clearly
outside its natural functions. It is what chemists
call a transition compound, and as such is fickle
and transitory, and requires the most intelligent
and careful treatment. Being a quick and
powerful absorbent, it is expedient to keep it
far enough away from any kind of odour that
would taint it. An odour of any kind, be it
pleasing or nauseous, will surely taint the butter,
through having first been absorbed by the milk.
The odour of oil, for instance, of onions, of decay-
ing vegetable or animal substances — any odour
whatever, in fact, especially if it be of a pungent
character — will be absorbed by the milk which
comes in contact with it, and will be reproduced
in the butter. The milk-room, therefore, must be
kept perfectly clean ; floor and walls and ceiling,
windows and doors — all must be free from im-
purities of any kind. If milk is spilt on the floor
it must be carefully cleaned away, and not allowed
to decompose in the crevices between the tiles or
pavement. So with anything else that is at all
likely to emit an offensive odour. Ventilation is
no less useful than cleanliness, providing it can be
done with pure air. But if the air from the out-
side is likely to be tainted with inijjurities from
eess]iof)ls, farm-yards, or what not, it is better to
exclude it. And, lastly, it is well to keep the
milk-room dry, so that the gases from the milk
may pass off into the atmosphere, and so away,
rather than that the moisture in the atmosphere
should condense on the surface of the milk — a
thing it is apt to do while the milk is warm. It
must also be borne in mind that all vessels with
which the milk comes in contact must be well
scalded with boiling — not merely warm — water,
and well scrubljed with a hard brush after each
time of using, and especially so if they are matle
of metal or wood. Glass and glazed earthenware
will easily be kept clean with heated water with-
out the scrubbing. Sour milk has a great faculty
for tainting any vessels in whose pores or crevices
it can find a lodgment ; it decomposes there, and if
not removed will turn fresh milk sour in a short
time, so each time a vessel is emptied of its milk
it must be thoroughly cleaned before other milk is
put into it. If these matters are faithfully attended
to, the milk will throw up pure, sweet cream, and
the cream will produce butter whose flavour and
aroma will gratify the palate of an epicure.
A good deal of importance is attached by
many people to the practice of heating the milk
soon after it is drawn from the cow, and before it
is set for creaming, up to 1;5U° or llO'-', and there
can be no reasonable doubt that this pnicfiie, if
intelligently carried out, is a sound one. In the
first place, it will expel the animal odour, the
"eowy " smell, from the milk ; it will, for the time
being, checkmate all germs leading to decay that
the milk may naturally contain or that it may have
absorl)cd from the air ; and it will dissipate the
2ieeuliar flavour which some kinds of food — tnrnij)S,
for instance — imi)art to milk that is produced by
their aid. But it must be borne in mind that
milk at a high temperature will quickly go sour,
so that, especially in warm weather, and unless it
can at once be ])laeed in a very cold room, it
should without delay be cooled down again to
aljout 70*^ by means of cold water, after which the
cooling may be allowed to proceed more slowly
duriuir the time when the cream is rising. Whilst
THE SWARTZ SYSTEM OF RAISING CREAM.
293
it is being cooled from the high temperature it
should be kept in motion, or an albuminous skin
will form on the surface, and this will interfere
with the rising of the cream. This system of
heating, and then cooling, will enable the milk to
remain sweet a longer time than cooling without
heating ; and after the cooling has been done it is
a good plan to place a cover over the milk, the
more nearly air-tight the better, in order to keep
the milk from contact with the atmosphere. Only
a particularly pure atmosphere could do the milk
anv good at this period, therefore it is safest to
exclude it altogether. This system of scalding
the cow — about DS*^ — the butter-globules are not
perfectly Huid, but when it is heated to l-lo'^ the
globules which come in contact will unite, forming
larger globules. These enlarged globules not only
rise quickly, but by their superior attractive power
draw up, so to speak, the smaller globules, and
thus hasten the rising of all the cream."
The Swautz System of Ciieajiixc,.
In recent years a new system of raising cream
has spread throughout Scandinavia and Northern
Europe generally. It is known as the ice-water
system, and was discovered by Mr. Swartz, of
produces perfect butter; it prevents alike the
hasty souring of the milk in summer before the
cream has risen and the bitterness so commonly
developed by long standing in winter, but it is
a perilous system when left in the hands of
a careless or otherwise incompetent person ; for,
if carried too far, the delicate flavour of the
butter is liable to be dissipated, and if the after-
cooling is not carefully finished the milk is apt
to turn sour. The effect of scalding milk is de-
scribed by Dr. Hoskins in the following manner:
— " It is well known that large-globuled milk
throws up its cream quicker and more perfectly
than that which holds its fat more finely divided.
Now the effect of scalding is simply to enlarge
the globules by coalescence, or running together.
At the temperature of the milk when dra\\'n from
Hofgarden, near Wadstena, Sweden, whose name
is now associated with it wherever the system is
kno\vn. It has completely changed the character
of butter-dairying in many northern countries,
and the high reputation which Danish and Swedish
butters have won is owing to it. The system is
simple enough from beginning to end, and though
it may not have introduced any previouslv un-
known element, it has certainly reduced to a
system the best features of the various old prac-
tices. The salient idea embodied in the system
is that the milk is set in ice-water to cream.
This is really the foundation and the essence of
the system, and if tliere is anything new at all
in it, this it is that is new.
For cooling or "setting" the milk, tanks or
cisterns are used, whose dimensions are governed
294
DAIRY FARMING.
by the refniirements of each dairy. They are not,
however, as a rule, more than 9 feet loiigf b}' 3 feet
wide, inside measurement, and their depth is 24
inches. They are made of 2-incli i)lanks, and are,
of course, water-tight. In Fig. 148 is given a
top view of one of these tanks, showing the
arrangement of the milk-cans in it ; and in Fig.
14!) is given a section, which gives an idea of the
depth, and also shows the inlet and the outlet
water-pipes. It may here be explained that
wherever there is a constant supply of spring-
water which is cold enough for the purjjose, there
is no need to use ice at all to cool the water, and
by it the milk. If the temperature can be brought
low enough, say to 42° Fahr., it is no matter whether
ice or spring-water be the agent employed ; but as
it happens in so few cases that water alone can be
depended on for the purpose, it is much more
common to use water in which a large number of
small pieces of ice are placed, and in this case
there is not a stream of water coming into and
passing out of the tank, but the tank is filled to a
proper depth with water and ice, and so left. In
some cases the only fresh supply of water which
these tanks receive is that provided by the melting
of the ice daily, and the overplus of water simply
passes away by the outlet-pipe, which can be
raised or lowered to regulate the depth of the
water in the tank. The water is not, and has
no need to be, frozen at any time. Such a
temperature would be too low, and would do more
harm than good. From 40" to 45'-' is found to
be, as a rule, quite low enough, even in summer •
in winter this is easily
reached with a small em-
ployment of ice, and snow
is not uncommonly used
instead of ice. In Fig.
l.'JO is given one of the
milk-cans, which, when
nearly full of milk, are
placed in the tank, side
by side and about 3 inches
apart, as seen in Fig. 148.
Immediately after milk-
ing, the milk is strained
into the cans, and the
cans are placed in the tank at once, so that
the milk has no time to become in any degree
tainted, even in the hottest weather, because of
its own wannlli, and there is no time lost in
i
pii
loU .'\1 ILK CAN.
raising the cream. In Fig. 151 is seen a milk-
strainer which fits on one of the cans; and in
Fig. 152 is a lid which in hot weatlier, or at any
time when it is de-
sirable to keep the
milk from contact
with the air, is
used to cover the
cans. Two little
funnels will be no-
ticed, one at each
endof thelid: these
permit the escape of
thegasesand odours
from the milk in
the early period of
the cooling.
The milk-cans are made of iron or steel-plate,
and thoroughly tinned both inside and out ; their
form is oblong, because this shape has been found
to be the most eifective in cooling, and it admits
of the cream being easily skimmed off the milk ;
their depth is usually that of the tank, viz., 24
inches, aud they are filled with milk u\> to within
some 2 or 3 inches of the top.
In summer, ice-water is vised for cooling ; in
winter, snow-water, or water alone if it is cold
enough; in winter a stock of ice is stored away for
summer use. In the hot weather the water in the
tank is regulated so as to reach the same height
outside as the milk does inside the milk-cans,
so that the cream as well as the milk is kept
perfectly cool and sweet ; in the cold weather the
surface of the milk is usually allowed to be a few
inches above that of the water. Each can con-
tains from 2 to 3 gallons.
The temperature of the cooling-room is kept as
low as possible in summer, and the milk in the
cisterns is reduced to 40" or 42". In winter
the temperature of the room is not intentionally
allowed to fall l)elow bO'\ The time required for
the cream to rise dei^cnds on the temperature of
the water in the tank and of the atmosphere of the
room, especially on the former. If the tempera-
ture of the ice-water does not exceed 38" at the
time of setting the milk in it, and does not rise
much above that point during the cooling, the
cream may be skimmed twelve to eighteen hours
afterwards, for it rises quickly at this low tempera-
ture. It must be borne in mind that 35° is a
much lower temperature than is cither necessary or
AMERICAN SYSTEMS OF CREAMING.
295
advisable. If milk is set to cream at or a little
above freezing-point, tlie yield of butter will be
less tban if it were set five degrees higber, and
40° is low enough. In the old-fashioned way of
setting milk in pans, as shown in Figs. 140 and
147, the cream has not all risen in forty-eight
hours, and this is a dangerously long period
to allow milk to stand, unless in cold weather.
The great
merit of the
Swartz system
lies in the per-
fectly sweet and
fresh cream
which it pro-
duces, and it
is only from
cream in this
condition that
the finest-fla-
voured butter
can be obtained
— " gilt-edged "
butter the
American dairy-
men term it. It
is by some laid down as a rule from which there
is little deviation, that the fresher and sweeter the
crearn is, the more nearly perfect will the butter
be. Yet even in Sweden, where the system was
invented for the very purpose of producing such
sweet and fresh
ei'cam, the Swartz
system is in some
cases robbed of the
very benefits it is
designed to confer;
in these cases, as
Mr. H. M. Jenkins
informs us,* though
the milk-house has been altered to enable the ice-
water method to be pursued, yet the cream is still
kept to go sour, and the butter made on the old
system. Where the system is followed out in its
integrity the cream is not kept more than two
days during the warmer season, and three days
during winter, before it is churned. There is,
it must be admitted, much diversity of opinion
on the subject of sweet versus soiu' cream for
* Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, 1875,
p. 224.
Fig. 154.— JMlLK-P.lN DETACHED.
churning. A proper degree of souring, devehipod
as it ought to be, is probably a useful thing in
butter-making in some cases ; the danger lies in
having too much of it in the cream too early.
We shall return to this topic later on.
American Systems of Cre.uiixg.
Cxreat and intelligent attention has for some
time been paid
to butter-mak-
i n g in the
L'nited States;
ill farm-houses
the utensils and
appliances have
undergone great
improvement,
and more re-
rently large
"creameries'^
have been es-
tablished, after
the pattern of
cheese-factories.
Of the cream-
eries we shall
speak in a separate section. In Fig. 153 is seen
an arrangement of improved milk-pans for raising
cream, suitable to a considerable farm-dairy. It
will be noticed that two of the coolers have each
two pans, making in themselves a complete set,
of half the capacity
of the full set, which
may be used as such
in spring and au-
tumn, when milk is
not plentiful. The
two double pans, as
will be noticed in
Fig. 154, are con-
nected by a tube, so that in summer each
double pan may act as a single one, while in
winter it may, by stopjiing up the tvibe, be made
to act as two distinct pans. The four full pans,
made to order accoixling to the number of cows
whose milk they are designed to hold, are intended
for a creaming process of forty-eight hours' dura-
tion, if necessary ; or they may be made to answer
for a thirty-six hours' process, having in this case
one pan empty and ready to receive the next
" meal " of milk ; or they may answer as a double
296
DAIRY FARMING.
set for a twenty-four hours' process. These dif-
ferent periods will be governed by the rapidity
with which the cream can be made to rise ])y the
t'l.lOLEK DETACHEII.
cooling process. In Fig. 155 is seen the arrange-
ment of the interior of the cooler. Tranverse bars
of wood support the milk-pan, and direct the
course of tlie stream of water which is constantly
running through, in at one end and out at the
other. The water inlet is seen at a, the outlet
at B ; at c is a brass tube, passing through the
stuffing-box, and this can be raised or lowered, so as
to increase or decrease the depth of the volume of
water inside. At D is seen an opening, through
which, by means of a tube from the bottom of the
niilk-))an, the milk can l)e drawn off from beneath
I-'ii". l.'.i;. DkaNi.K I'l.r.NlV Jlll.K I'AN.
the cream, leaving the latter in a position which
admits of its being easily gathered, without the
ordinary process of skimming, and without any of
the " skim-milk" being intermixed with it. The
prices in America of complete set.s of these coolers
are as follows: — 10 cows, £li ; 9.0 cows, £10;
;3t) cows, i-Zi) ; 10 cows, tl^; 50 cows, £^7. The
Orange County milk-pan (Fig. 156) is a good
arrangement where room is an object.
Another American system is the " Cooley .sys-
tem," so named after ^Ir. Cooley, of Vermont, who
invented, or rather adapted it in 187fi. There is not
much — if, indeed, there is anything at all — that is
new in principle in this system ; it is based on the
Swedish ice-water system, which was discovered
by !Mr. Swartz many years ago, and which is now
almost universal throughout a great portion of
Northern Europe. The Cooley system we say is
based on the Swartz system, but it has one or two
features that are not commonly, if ever, found
in the latter ; and yet these features are not, if we
except one of them, wholly original — if, indeed, that
one is. The two features are : first, setting the
milk-cans in a lidded box or tank ; and second, in
completely sul)merging them, that is, allowing the
ice-water or cold sjiring-watcr to
flow over the tops of the cans ;
this last is the original feature.
The milk-cans, as seen in the one
in Fig. 157, are round and deep,
and have a lid fitting loosely over
the top ; they have also a tap in
the bottom, by means of which
the milk can be drawn away
from beneath the cream, thereby
obviating the necessity of skim-
ming the latter off the former.
To the tap in the bottom it will
be noticed a tube is attached ;
the tube is of india-rubber, and
of course flexible; at the other end of it is at-
tached a metal outlet, and this slides in a groove
which is graduated to correspond with the narrow
pane of gla.ss which is inserted in the upper por-
tion of the can, and which is designed to show
how many degrees of cream have collected on
the milk. By raising the outlet pipe in the
groove to corresjiond with the depth of the layer
of cream, the whole of the skim-milk can be drawn
off by the tap and tube, leaving the cream only in
the bottiim of the can, and so skimming is ob-
viated. In Fig. 158 is given a representation of
the box or tank, and inside it are seen two milk-
cans fastened down by means of bare of wood
placed a'cross the tup. The jiatentee sjieaks as
follows : —
l-".7.— CdOLEV'.S
JhLK-CAN.
THE COOLEY SYSTEM OF CREAMING.
297
"These engravings illustrate the new system
of setting milk in submerged cans. The cans are
20 inches deep and 8^ inches in diameter, the
covers are fastened down, and the air under the
rims of the covers prevents the passage of any
water into the cans. The cans are set in the
water-coolers, which are lined with metal, and
fitted with inlet and overflow pipes for using
flowing spring-water. These coolers are thoroughly
built, with tight-fitting covers, to exclude wiirm
air, and retard the melting of ice when used to
maintain a uniform temperature. A thermometer
Fig. 158. — The Cooley Che.vmeu.
is inserted in the front of each cooler, in order
that the temperature can be ascertained with-
out raising the cover. This ajiparatus is very
simple, disjjcnsing with costly milk-rooms, as
but little room is recpiired, and is the only sys-
tem that will produce uniform results ; and
until some uniform system is adopted there Avill
be as many grades of butter in the market as
there are makers.
" If the temperature of the water in the coolers
is kept at 40° to 50*^ in spring and summer, and
at 40" in winter, the cream will rise in twelve
hours, in which case only cans enough to hold a
single milking are required, or one-fourth of the
ca])aeiti/ needed with ani] of the i^atent open-pan
sydems of setting. By the submerged system of
setting milk we have sweet cream from sweet
jiiLK raised in the shortest possible space of time,
a uniform (quality and quantity of butter through
hot weather, which retains all the rich flavour of
new milk, possesses superior keeping qualities, is
firm in texture and uniform in colour, free from
casein or sour-milk specks, and possessing a pecu-
liarly rich flavoui", which imparts much pleasure
in eating. Gilt-edged butter can only be made
from cream taken from sweet milk."
Fiji'. 159 illustrates a convenient arrangement
Fig. 159.— Bexch fok Kinmm, JIilk irjm C \ns.
for running off the milk from the cans. It can be
made of pine boards, the bench about a foot wide,
the sides about 3 inches high. If desired, a pipe
can be arranged for conducting away the skim-
milk. This is an inexpensive thing, and a great
convenience — it saves lots of " slop.'"
INIr. Cooley's experiments were of an interesting
and practical kind. He commenced setting milk
at 100", maintaining it at that temperature until
the milk soured, noting carefully the quantity of
cream and the time it was rising ; he then set
other samples at 90°, following the same course as
above, then at 80°, then at 70", then at 60",
then at 55^, then at 50°, then at 45°, then at 40°,
and finally at 35°, this being as low as he could
carry the temperature by the use of ice.
By these experiments he found that the lower
he carried the temperature the faster cream would
rise, until he arrived at lO'', or the greatest density
of water, the best results being attained at bet\\-een
40° and 45"-', if the milk were cooled immediately
after being drawn from the cow. And he sums
up his conclusions as follows : — " If we want
cream to rise quickly, and in the best possible
condition for making a first-class article of butter,
we must cool the milk thoroughly, immediately
after milking, down to at least 45", and the
nearer we approach to this the better will be the
results."
298
DAIRY FARMING.
t'uOLEY's ChEjUIER.
In Fig. IPiO we give a section of one of
Coolcy's inilk-setting cans as it is in the box, with
the water flf)wing over it, and the cream gathering
on the top of the milk. It will be noticed that the
can is comi)letely sub-
-P merged, tlie water
flowing over the top
of it. The covers are
held iu position, as
will be seen in the
cut, by bars of wood.
])laced across them.
They are neither air-
tight nor water-tight,
}et the water does
not get into the cans,
because the air un-
der the rims of the
covers, acting on the
principle of a diving-
bell, prevents it. If
the milk were first of all aerated by forcing
through it a volume of air which had been filtered
through cotton-wool, or in some other effectual
manner, we think this system of milk-setting
would be as nearly as possible perfect; but if
the milk, directly it is taken from the cow,
is put into these cans, and hermetically sealed
in the manner described, it would almost seem
that the gases of the milk, being confined on
the surface, can hardly fail, particularly in hot
weather, to injure, however slightly, the quality
of the cream. Aerating the milk before sub-
merging it would remove all possible danger on
this score.
It is at the same time true that the rapid cooling
of the milk fills the office of a safeguard against
any dangi>r which may arise from the action f)f the
gases and odours peculiar to milk fresh from the
cow. That such sources of danger exist no one
who knows his subject will, we think, deny ; and,
especially in hot weather, when cows are gadding
about the fields, is this danger the more apparent
to one's sense of smell when his face is over a pail
of newly-drawn milk. These remarks, it must be
understood, Ix-ing applicable to milk from healthy
cows, are more decidedly so to milk from cows who
have fi)ot-aiid-mouth or any kindred disease. 15ut
in any case the cooling at once checks the activity
of the gases, and wc may reasonably assume tliat
the greater part of them become dormant, and
remain ;'// situ in the skim-milk, the risen cream
being comparatively free fi'om them. Notwith-
standing these things, the best safeguard is aeration
— an expedient so simple and cheap that to neglect
it is without excuse.
We are able to speak practically as to the
simplicity and usefulness of the Cooley creamer ;
it is, in fact, a great economiser of labour. The
cream rises perfectly in twelve hours, providing
the conditions laid down are complied with, and
so a minimum number of utensils are required
for raising the cream ; the cans, in fact, on being
emptied, are at once re-filled with fresh milk,
which, in its turn, is emptied when the cows arc
again milked; and so the system goes on, the
morning's milk taking the place of the even-
ing's, and the evening's of the morning's, and
so on the season through. The milk being kept
always sweet, by reason of the low temperature,
it is not often that the cans require even washing
out, and much seldomer scalding and scrubbing.
At the same time we would advise that they be
carefully cleaned two or three times a week iu the
hot weather ; in the cold this is a matter of
less consequence.
The Cooley system, indeetl, of all the various
modifications of the Swartz system, appears to
us the most likely to meet the wants of British
dairy-farmers. Ice is not necessary to it, pro-
viding enough cold water is at hand of a tem-
perature from 40° to 50°. The complete exclusion
of the air, by submerging the milk in water, is
no doubt a most valuable feature, no matter
whether or not there really is any objection to
it on the ground we have suggested ; and it is
owing to this perfect exclusion of the air that
the system answers jjerfectly, so far as raising
the cream is concerned, at a higher temperature
than ajjpears to be allowable in the Swartz system.
In the average of winters ice is not easily pro-
curable in many parts of the British Islands, and
so the ice-water systems are not applicable to
our wants ; but in most dairying districts springs
of water are available ; and where there are no
si)rings on the sm-face, there is water to be got
in >\ells below it, of a temperature which will
answer well for the Cooley system. In any case
wc may say that if this system will not meet
iiur insular wants, none of its rivals will meet
tliini. Tlu' system is introduced into this country,
and to the notice of British farmers, by Messrs.
THE HAKDIN SYSTEiM OF CREAMING.
299
Fig. 161. — Harijix's MiLK-
COOLEH.
Neel, Soiij and Anderson, of London, from whom
the apparatns may he obtained.
The Hardin System.
This system, like the foregoing- one — which is,
by tlie way, its junior in point of age — is based on
the Swedish system; but ice only, not ice-water,
is used as the cooling agent, and the cans, except
4 inches at the bottom, are under the influence of
cold air rather than cold water. In Fig. 161 we
gi\c a view of the
apparatus known
as the Hardin sys-
tem of creaming,
which was in-
vented by Mr. L.
S. Hardin, who is
regarded as an au-
thority on Ameri-
can dairying. The
cans which eon-
tain the milk may
well be identical
with the Cooley
cans ; and as in
the Hardin system they are not submerged in
water, the gases of the milk have free egress
from the cans. This may or may not be re-
garded as an advantage.
The inventor says of the system : — '' About
four years ago I started a butter-dairy near the
city of Louisville, Kentucky, in a climate hot and
humid, where animal substances decayed rapidly,
and where insect and parasitic life developed spon-
taneously and without limit. To spread the milk
out in the usual manner was to invite the enemy
I was most anxious to avoid. To overcome my
difficulties I began a series of experiments, be-
ginning with shallow pans in the open air, and
step by step I lowered the temperature and in-
creased the depth of my milk, until I reached
what is called the Swedish plan of setting milk,
in water at 40°, with cans 20 inches deep. I
found I had passed the profitable point, and had
to reti'ace my steps, until I decided upon 49"
as the best temperature for raising the cream per-
fectly, and made my cans 8 inches in diameter
and 12 and 20 inches deep. My butter was now
all I desired, but the use of ice in cooling water
that was in immediate contact with the hot air
was too expensive. I soon discovered that it took
less ice to cool a given cube of air than it did
to cool the same cube of water. It was equally
evident that it was a useless waste of ice to cool
off a whole roomful of air; and reasoning from these
premisses, I concluded to confine my milk and air
to the smallest possible space, in order to economise
the use of ice. I then built me a box with double
sides and close-fitting double door, putting a hood
or trap over the waste-water pipe, so as to entirely
exclude the surrounding atmosphere. As it is the
nature of heated air to ascend, I f)laced the ice-
shelf in the top of the box to secui-e a uniform
temperature. A space of 1 inch is left open on
each side of the shelf, to allow the air to pass
around the ice. The drippings from the ice are
utilised to the extent of 4 inches in the bottom of
the box. The cans are made with a perforated
rim on the bottom, to allow the water to pass under
them. The covers of the cans fit outside, so as to
shed the water and prevent any of the drijjpings
from the ice getting into the milk.^'
j\Ir. Hardin does not attach, nor does Mr.
Cooley, any importance to permitting the gases of
the milk to escape ; and he thinks that not only is
there no disadvantage on this score, but that if
there were it would be more than balanced by the
exclusion from contact with the milk of any foul
odours, or of parasitical germs or fungi which the
atmosphere may contain. Mr. Cooley argues the
point in the following manner : — " This objection
to the submerged system may be raised — ^viz.,
that there is no way for the ' animal odours ' to
escape, or no venfilafion ; to which we reply that
while new milk is deemed by everybody pure
enough to feed to infants, by some it is supposed
to be an impure thing, full of rank taints, when
they come to setting it for butter, and we hear
volumes of nonsense about ' animal heat ' and
' animal odours.' We do not care to set the milk
from sick cows, or from cows which consume
impure water or food ; such milk is unfit for
butter. In making butter, the light gases con-
tained in milk, called animal odours, are condensed,
as they will be if the milk is rapidly cooled to the
j)roper temperature, and remaining in the watery
part of the milk, are thus effectually disposed of.
On the other hand, when milk is set in open pans
every odour about the premises is absorbed by it,
every breeze which blows through the well ' venti-
lated ' milk-room, laden with the perfume of the
barn-yard, imjiarts to the cream flavours neither
800
DAIRY FARMING.
pleasant to the smell nor de]i<j;-htfal to the taste."
And Mr. Hardin sa^s : — " If the milk is set in
water," in open jians, " and thus kept cooler than
the air, it of course condenses the moisture of the
air into the surface of the cream, thus drawinj?
down into the cream all the impurities of the air."
Mr. Hardin claims that the cream raised by his
m^hod is firmer and solider than in other deep-
setting systems, because it is cooled mainly from
the top, the lumps of ice being on a shelf just
above the milk. If this claim be substantiated
it is no doubt a point in favour of his system,
for in the ice-water systems, whether the cans
be submerged or merely set in it to a depth
equal to that of the milk, there can hardly be two
opinions as to the cream being too thin — that is,
having too much of the skim-milk with it.
It appears to us that these two prominent
advocates of setting milk to cream in closed cans
are going just a little too far. If all dairy-cows
were kept in a healthy and tranquil state, and if all
the food they ate and the water they drank were
quite pure and good in all respects, then, perhaps,
the question of animal odours in milk might be
dismissed as a myth ; but as things are, and ever
will be, they cannot with impunity be ignored.
It is a fact, too, that perfectly sound milk has,
when it is taken from the cow, a sickly and
nauseating flavour and odour which many people
object to, and that this flavour and odour are to a
great extent disjiersed by simply aerating the milk,
without cooling it at all ; and if the milk is cooled
as well, and again heated up to blood-heat, the
animal odour is not in it. By cooling the milk
without aerating it the odour is converted into a
flavour. Either aerating or heating to 110° will
expel the odour. Now, this being the case, it
follows that the cowy odour and taste of new
milk cannot be any advantage to the butter, and
it cannot but be true that to facilitate the escape
of these offenders before the milk is set to cream,
wherever such can be done in a pure atmosjjhere,
will tend to the imjDrovement of the flavour of the
butter, though it may not affect its quality in
other respects. It may be here remarked that aera-
tion is the more effectively done if a gentle wind
blows away the gases as they escape fi-om the milk.
The essence of all these statements by the
advocates of deeji-setting in closed cans is, first,
that pure, sweet, fresh cream can with greater
certainty be obtained on the ice-water method, be
it the Swartz, the Cooley, or the Hardin method,
or any other, than can be obtained on the old
system of setting the milk in open pans, and
without any cooling agency; and, second, that
from pure, sweet, fresh cream only can the best
qualities of butter be obtained. These data are
strictly true ; still, it does not by any means neces-
sarily follow that fine butter cannot be obtained on
the o))en-pan system, for we know it can ; but to
attain this result it is needful to use more eai-e,
system, patience, scalding water, scrubbing-bi-ushes,
and soda than are used in 90 per cent, of the
butter-dairies of the kingdom. It is justly
claimed for the ice-water or cold spring-water
system that nothing is left to the accident
of chance, and that, being a correct system,
the results are in the highest degree satisfactory,
if the system is faithfully carried out. But in
England it is not always possible to lay up a store
of ice in winter, and in many places a spring of
cold water is not always at hand to use instead
of ice. Where neither ice nor cold water is ob-
tainable, the scalding system is no doubt the best,
coupled with the always indispensable care and
cleanliness. At a temperature about 60^, deep
cans will not do ; the milk will usuallj^ sour before
all the cream reaches the surface. When this
temperature is unavoidable, shallow and broad
pans will give the best results. When cold water
is abundant, and the means of keeping it at 50°
or lower are at hand, it will be found that cans
20 inches deep and 8 or 9 inches in diameter will
save much labour, and at the same time make
quite as much and better butter. It must, how-
ever, be borne in mind that butter made from
cream that has been raised in refrigerators will not
keep so well as if the cream had been raised at a
temperature near to that in which the butter will
be afterwards placed. If, for instance, the cream
is raised at 40", and the butter is kept at 55°,
decay will sooner set in than if the cream had been
raised at 50° to 55°.
The inventor of the cream-raising apparatus
shown in Fig. 102 has endeavoured to produce
a creamer which should possess all of the good
features of more expensive apparatus, with the
advantage of cheapness. The tank in which are
placed the milk-cans is made of plank, and has at
one end, near the top, a water inlet-pipe, and at
the other end an ojioning partly closed by a gate
(a) which regulates the height of the water. The
OTHER AMERICAN SYSTEIMS.
301
milk-eans (b) which stand in the water have per-
forated foot-riins, whic'h admit of a free circulation
of water under the cans, and weighted covers (c)
are provided which lit loosely and extend down-
Fig. 162. — Weldon's Cke.vji raisim; App.vr.iu's.
ward sufficiently to diji in the water and thus
hermetically seal the cans. A conical skimmer
(d) is used to remove the cream fi'om the milk.
It is carefully dipped, apex downward, into the
milk until the cream flows over its edges ; it is
then removed and emptied, and the operation is
repeated until all the cream is removed. This
apparatus is designed priiicipally for dairy use, and
is particularly apj)licable where natural flowing
springs are available. We cannot, however, see in
what respects it is superior to the Cooley creamer,
while in some it is in our opinion decidedly inferior.
The skimming, for instance, is done with the
" dipper," while in the Cooley system the skim-
milk runs out through a tap, so that no skimming
is needed, and much trouble and time are saved.
Yet another creamer commands our attention.
It is called the Bureau Creamery and Refrigerator,
and we give a cut of it in Fig. 163. It differs
£i-om the Hardin creamer chiefly in ha^'ing shallow
instead of deep setting of the milk. The inventor
contends that the best keeping butter is made from
cream that is more pierfectly separated from the
milk than is the case in the deep-setting system,
and which has " ripened " by remaining a longer
time on the milkj and he provides against air-
contamination by having his shallow pans ac-
cessible to only a limited supply of air which has
been cooled by contact with ice that is stored
above the milk. In the upper part of the biu-eau
is a i-ack for holding a supply of ice, and a metallic
pan with rubber tube attached, for conducting off
the waste water from the ice. Immediately below
the ice are four large pans, each pan having a
capacity for one w/iole mUkhig of a dairy. Ai-ound
each pan is sufficient space to admit of the free
circulation of cold air from the ice above. The
pans stand on suitable rests, and are each -pro-
vided with metallic castors, so that they may be
easily drawn out of the bm-eau, on two movable
rests, for skimming or drawing off; these rests
are very strong, and are easily attached. An in-
dependent door is provided for closing the bureau
while either pan is drawn out.
Below the pans is a closet or refrigerator for
cream and butter (d d) , with a capacity for several
tubs ; the doors to this closet are large enough to
admit a 50-lb. tub of butter. A cream-can (c) is
furnished with each bureau (two with the larger
sizes); this is used for warming the bureau in cold
weather, by filling it with hot water and setting
it in the closet at the bottom. Each end of the
bureau is supplied with four ventilators (a a) closing
with wooden slides and covered with wire screens,
for the exclusion of flies and other insects, dust
and dirt. These ventilators are for controlling
the temperatm-e and the circulation of air in the
bureau. The bureau is furnished with glass doors,
permitting a full inspection of its contents with-
out opening it, and also for the proper admission
of light, which experience has proved to be neces-
sary for the full development of the natural colour
The Bureau Creamery.
of the cream. A thermometer (b) is provided for
regulating the temperature. None but the best
material is used in their manufacture, and great
care is taken to have them made in the most sub-
stantial manner, and perfect in every particular.
There are several features in this creamer, but the
302
DAIRY FARMING.
need of icr is fatal to its employment in the British
Islands, exeept in isolated eases. Sueh, at least, is
our opinion.
Sxow .\ND Ice for Cooling Milk.
Professor Fjord, of Copenhagen, has made many
experiments in the storing of snow and iee for
butter-making, and finds that if snow is collected
at the time when thawing has commenced it can
easily be trodden into a compact mass, having all the
advantages of ice. Dry, newly-fallen snow, thrown
loosely together, was found to weigh 13-6 lbs. per
cubic foot; by hard treading the weight was
increased to 2G-:i lbs. Thawed snow thrown to-
gether without treading gave a mean of 3£-7 ll)s. of
dry snow per cubic foot, and when well trodden a
mean of 13"G lljs. per cubic foot. Ice thrown wit bout
special care into the ice-house weighed 3G to 3.S lbs.
per cubic foot. With extreme care in packing, so
as to fill all crevices, the weight may be raised tn
53 lbs., but with a moderate expenditure of labour
the weight will not exceed 45 lbs. the cubic foot.
The cooling of 100 lbs. of milk from 83"
to 36*^ will require S^.^lbs. of thawing ice, and
as the milk has not only to be cooled, but kept
cool from twelve to twenty-four hours, a further
expenditure of ice will be required. With a
properly-constracted cooler, in a room whose
atmospheric temi^erature is 50", 39 lbs. of ice \vill
be required for lOQlbs. of milk skimmed at the
end of twelve hours, and ibl lbs. of ice if the
milk is to remain twenty-four hours in the vessel.
If the cooling vessel has no double casiug, and is
not provided with a lid, the quantity of ice will be
increased to 44.'S lbs. for twelve hours, and to 57
lbs. for twenty-four hours.
In the case of dairies dealing with an average
quantity of milk amounting to 50 gallons a day,
in districts whose mean temperature for the year
is 50", the quantity of ice required for the year's
work will be about 2:10x365 = 80,300 lbs.— about
3(j tons. This would be the quantity required for
use, but as there is always waste in the ice-house, a
larger quantity than this must be stored, say 50 tons.
If we allow each cubic foot of ice or snow to weigh
43 lbs., the space required for storing 50 tons will be
2,000 cubic feet. Snow is best stored when it has
begun to thaw a little, because it can then be trodden
into a smaller space and a more solid mass ; and, so
far as England is concerned, in the bulk of winters,
snow would be easier than ice to store awa\'.
An ice-house may be constructed at a very
moderate cost and in a very simple manner. The
cheapest kind are those built partly underground,
in situations and subsoils that admit of thorough
drainage, not only of rain or sjjring water, but also
the waste water of the ice. Between the outer
and inner walls must be a space which must be
tilled with dry sawdust, or other non-conducting
material ; the space should be at least a foot wide.
The space within the inner walls may then be
compactly filled with ice, closely i)acked together,
and the whole should be surmounted by a shed
whose walls and roof are made non-conducting in
the same manner. It is not absolutely necessary
Fig. 104.— Section Of Ice-house.
that there should be an inner wall, for the saw-
dust may come into direct contact with the ice,
but they are much better kept apart, or the saw-
dust will become wet and so lose its non-conducting
property. The inner walls should if possible be
impervious to water, so that the sawdust may be
kept dry. The drain-j)ipe should be bent in one
place, the bent portion always remaining full of
water, and so forming a soi-t of trap by means
of which the outer air is excluded. Fig. 164
gives a general idea of the construction of an ice-
house, and on this plan it may be built either
above or below ground. The entrance to the ice-
house should always be above the level of the ice,
so that the stratum of cold air above the ice is
disturbed as little as possible.
It is a matter of little moment what the mate-
rials are of which the ice-house is constructed —
CENTRIFUGAL CREAM-EXTRACTORS.
303
wood, l)i'ick, stoue, eoucreto, or irou — so long as
the following requisites are secured : first, perfect
drainage, with complete exclusion of air below;
second, good ventilation above ; third, ample non-
conducting material around and above the ice;
fourth, total exclusion from the ice of all outside
water and air; and fifth, solid, compact packing
of the ice in the house when the weather is
dry and cold.
Centrifugal Cream-exthactoks.
The most recent and striking methods of
separating cream from milk come to us from
Germany. At the International Dairy Show, held
in Hamburg in March, 1877, we saw at work the
instrument of which we give an illustration in
Fig. 165. As will be
noticed, it consists of
two wheels in a stand,
one of which actuates
the other by means
of a belt. In the
upper wheel four glass
tubes, containingmilk,
are securely placed ;
the lower wheel is
then turned by hand,
giving the upper one
upwards of 1,000 re-
volutions per minute.
Whirling round at
this great speed brings centrifugal force to
bear on the milk in the tubes, and the cream,
being lightest, collects at one end and the cream-
less milk at the other ; the sejiai-ation is com-
plete and clearly defined, as in an ordinary
cream-gauge. The time required by the centri-
fugal machine to complete the separation of cream
from milk is from ten to thirty minutes, according
to circumstances. Larger machines are now made,
capable of dealing with as much as 200 quarts of
milk, and though they are not at present quite
perfected, there can be no doubt of their ultimate
success. By a later imjirovement the cream is
drawn off while the machine is still in rapid
motion, instead of stopping it and waiting for
the milk to settle down ; while still in motion a
quantity of skim-milk is caused to How in, and,
as the vessel was full before, the cream is crowded
out, and escapes through an opening provided for
that purpose. By means of this new invention
Fig. IbT — \_ HF m I \TR ICTOR
80 to 90 per cent, of the cream may be obtained
in less than half an hour.
A more recent machine, which is known as
De Laval's Centrifugal Cream-separator, is wholly
different from the preceding one in construction,
but acting like it by means of centrifugal force.
This new cream-separator was introduced to the
notice of the British public at the Kilburn Show
of the Royal Agricultural Society in 1879, and
since then it has become a tolerably familiar
object to those who visit the leading shows of the
country in which dairy interests form a special
feature. At the Kilburn Show, Dr. Voelcker
inspected the machine at work, testing the quality
of the milk used in it, and the cream and skim-
milk produced by it. Subjoined is his report
on these tests, as given in the Joiinial of the
Royal Agricultural Society : —
" The following is the composition of the milk
used in the Kilbuni trials on the 4th of July,
1879, and of a sample of the skim-milk produced
by Laval's cream-separator : —
New Milk.
Skim-milk
from
Laval's
Cream-
Separator.
AVater
Butter-fat
*Casein
Milk-sugar
Mineral matter (ash) ...
87 •72
3-15
312
511
•60
90-71
•22
3^31
5-12
-64
100-00
100-00
* Containing Nitrogen
•50
•53
" Milk well skimmed in the ordinary manner
contains on an average about | per cent, of butter-
fat, whereas the skim-milk obtained in Laval's
cream-separator did not retain quite \ per cent.
" Thus of the 3| per cent, of butter-fat (in
round numbers), 3? jjer cent, were obtained in the
cream, and only \ per cent, of fat passed into
the skim-milk, affording a striking proof of the
perfect manner in which the butter-forming
constituents are separated from milk in passing
through Laval's rotatory machine.
" Had the milk been set in pans and skimmed
thoroughly in the usual manner, instead of 'd\ per
cent, of pure butter-fat only 2f ])er cent, would
have been obtained from the new milk ; or, in
other words, by Laval's separator 93 per cent, of
304
DAIRY FAR]\riNG.
the butter-fat were obtained in the cream and 7
per cent, only left in the skim-milk, whilst by
the usual plan of skimming only 78i per cent, of
the butter-fat of milk passes into the cream, and
21J per cent, remain in the skim-milk.
" In another trial at Kilburn on the 8th of July
the sepai-ation of butter- fat from the milk was not
so perfect as in the first trial, as will be seen by
the following results, showing the composition of
the skim-milk produced : —
having been skimmed in the usual way, contained
in 1(10 parts : —
Water ...
... 90-49
Butter-fat
... 0-46
•Casein
... 3-01
Milk-sugar
... 5-31
Mineral matter
(iuh) '.'.'.
... 0-73
" In the second trial it will be seen nearly ^ per
cent, of fat was contained in the skim-milk.
" The cream obtained by means of the sepa-
rator had the following composition : —
Water
... 6612
Butter-fat
... 27-69
■Casein
... 2-69
MUk-sugar
... 303
Mineral matter (ash)
... 0-47
" Good cream obtained in the ordinary way of
skimming milk seldom contains as much as ^5 per
cent., and generally rather less, butter-fat; and
quite as much casein as was contained in the cream
from Laval's machine.
" The Kilburn trials thus show that cream from
milk which has been passed through Laval's sepa-
rator is richer iu butter-fat than that obtained in
the usual manner.
" On the occasion of the dairy show held last
October at Islington, I had another o]iportunity
of examining the skim-milk obtained by Laval's
cream-separator. This sample had the following
composition : —
Water
... 90-82
Butter- fat
... 0-31
JCasein
... 3-31
Milk-sugar
... 4-77
Mineral matter (ash) ...
... 0-79
" Another portion of the same milk, after
• Containing nitrogen, 0-48.
+ Containing nitrogen, 043.
J Containing nitrogen, 0-53.
Water
Butter-fat
§Casein
Milk-sugar
Mineral matter (ash)
89-25
112
3-69
616
0-78
10000
"According to these trials nearly fnur times as
much butter-fat was left in ordinary skim-milk
as in the skim-milk obtained in Laval's cream-
separator.
"I may state that in these experiments the
percentage of pure butter-Cat was determined with
great care, and the results were verified by ajjpro-
priate checks."
The Laval separator is shown in Fig. 166, and
in Fig. 167 is seen a section of it which shows the
arrangement of the interior. The action of the
machine is to cause the separation of the cream
from the milk by means of centrifugal mo-
tion ; this causes the heavier portion of the
milk to be thrown to the outside of the circle,
whilst the cream, being the lightest, gathers close
round the axis of rotation. The milk, while still
warm from the cow, is, if desirable, j)laced iu the
milk-can shown in Fig. 167, and runs through
an ordinary tap into the hollow tube a, which ter-
minates in a T outlet near the bottom of a spheri-
cal vessel of about 10 inches in diameter, which,
enclosed in a cast-iron casing (e), rotates at the
extraordinary velocity of 6,000 to 7,000 revolu-
tions per minute. The heavier portion, which is
known as skim-milk, is thrown to the outside of
the space in the vessel, and is forced up a bent
perforated pipe which communicates with the
open space c, and from thence is delivered to the
lower of two block-tin trays or covers, which is
provided with an outlet-pipe. The cream gathers
in a wall around the inlet tube, and rises to the
upper tin tray d, w-heuce it is delivered by an
outlet-pipe. The rotating vessel and shaft are of
forged steel, in one piece, which, for safety's sake,
is tested by a pressure of 250 atmospheres. The
rate at which the milk enters the machine must
be regulated according to the velocity at which
it is driven ; the greater the speed the more rapid
the separation of the cream from the milk. The
advantages claimed for the machine are : perfectly
§ Containing nitrogen, 0-59.
DE LAVAL'S CREAM-SEPARATOR.
:505
fresh cream can be obtained from milk warm from
the cow ; the butter is free from the taints whicli
commonly develop in milk as it stands to cream ;
the machine occupies but a small space in the
dairy ; and a great saving in pans and dishes for
milk-setting is secured. But whether or not the
machine, exceedingly clever and valuable as it
undoubtedly is, will supersede all the old systems
of cream-raising, is a pi-oblem whose solution we
leave to time. We think, however, that it will
bring: about somethins: akin to a revolution in
rated. Methods of preservation are made un-
necessary, and the danger of loss from souring
is reduced to a minimum. In the various cold-
water and ice or ice-water systems this advantage
is, however, more or less perfectly secured, but
in these there is need of a number of utensils
which are not required where the mechanical
Fig. 106. — Lav.vl's C'keam-sepaeator.
butter-making in most, if not all, large dairies
and creameries. The saving of time, and of the
large number of vessels that are required for
cream-raising in such establishments, will, in all
probability, pro'S'ide in itself enough inducement
to employ the centrifugal cream-separator. But
there are other features of merit in the invention.
In cases where the skim-milk is sold, or where
it is made into cheese, it is a matter of the first
importance to have it available for those purposes
while it is still quite fresh and sweet. In the
hot months this advantage cannot be easily over-
Fig. 167.— Section of Sep.\rator.
cream-separator is employed ; they require also an
elaborate supply of cold water or of ice, to secure
which is costly, and which again is obviated by
the separator. Motive power, however, is needed
to drive the separator, and for this reason it is not
well adapted to small dairies, where the cost of such
power would be out of proportion with the work it
had to do.
Skimming.
When milk is set in shallow vessels the cream is
usually skimmed after standing twenty-four hours,
and again twelve hours later. It is in some eases
306
DAIRY FARMING.
allowed to stand the whole thirty-six hours before
skimmiiif]!', but this is not considered a g;ood -prac-
tice. If fine butter only is required, the cream
skimmed after standing' twenty -four hours is used,
that risiufi^ later being of inferior quality. The test
of cream being ready to skim is when, after passing
the finger through it, it does not flow back behind
the finger and re-unite. In hot weather the cream
will need skimming earlier
than in cold, because the
milk is much more apt to
turn sour. In the depth of
winter it is sometimes left
for forty-eight hours before
skimming. In the case of
deep-setting of milk in water
whose temperature is about
40°, the cream remains softer
and contains more milk, is
less perfectly separated from
the milk, and is in a very
much deeper layer, than on the shallow-pan
system, and the finger-test as to time of skim-
ming is not applicable to it; this softer cream
is not "skimmed," but "dipped" instead with an
instrument of which we give an illustration in
Fig. 168, or with a deep skimmer, as in Fig.
169 ; the cream is too liquid for a shallow skim-
mer, as in Fig. 170 or 171. The skimmer. Fig.
169, is the one commonly used in the Swartz
system of creaming.
It is by some considered advisable, when skim-
ming, to take more or less of the milk along
Fig. 108.— .Mli.K-cdiu.EB
AND CRKAM-DIPPEK.
Fig. KiS. Fig. 170.
Fig. 171.
Skimming -DISHES.
with the cream; the reason fur this is, that if
cream only is churned, the grain of the butter is
injured by having too large a proportion of butter
for the quantity of liquid ; the butter-globules
meet with too much friction, and are apt to be
over-churned if there is a deficiency of liquid.
This, however, will depend on the kind of churn
used. And we may be allowed to doubt wliether
the su])posed advantage of having the cream in a
decidedly diluted condition in the churn rests on
more than a fanciful basis. At the same time we
freely admit that cream may easily, when raised
in the open-pan system, be too thick and clotted
to churn at all satisfactorily. In this as in many
other things it may be said that a medium state
is the best. In some large dairies it is the prac-
tice to churn the milk as it is without allowing
the cream to rise, and it is quite true that
excellent butter is made on this plan ; but it is
believed not only that there is no real advantage
in the system, but that the butter made on it is
somewhat less firm than that made from cream.
The milk \vi\\ churn the more easily if it is just
beginning to thicken with souring, and the butter
will be the firmer ; yet the fine flavour will be more
or less injured, according to the degree of sourness
in the milk. The butter comes out the soonei',
because acidity acts on the shells of the cream-
globules, making them more easily fractured by
agitation in the churn. The rule, in fact, is : the
sourer the milk, within limits, the easier it churns.
There would, of course, be a difficulty in preventing
the rising of the cream while the milk was souring,
unless the souring was accelerated purposely or
accidentally ; and we only mention the question
to dismiss it again, because it is not in the least
likely to become a .system to be recommended in
Imtter-making.
Different kinds of cream, from the milk of
different cows or of different breeds of cows, vary
greatly in butter-yielding capacity. Some kinds
will yield twice as much as other kinds, and
the best yielding cream is generally churned the
easiest. Fastidious butter-makers — and we con-
fess we have admiration for these — in some cases
go so far as to make two qualities of butter from
the same milk. That is, they take the first
skimming of cream for the best butter, and that
which rises afterwards is kept by itself and pro-
duces a butter somewhat inferior in colour and
flavour as well as in quality. This first skimming
contains the largest of the cream-globules — the
more highly-developed ones, that is; the smaller
ones, which rise later because of inferior buoyancy,
would seem to be inferior structures, having less
of colour, of flavour, of intrinsic quality, and being
of a lower order of merit in all respects. They
add, it is true, to tlio vnlunu' of the butter, but
THE MANAGEMENT OF CREAM.
307
they diminish its quality. They delay the churn-
ing because they are the longer in being fractured
themselves, and interfere with that i^rocess in its
application to the others. Hence it follows that
we have finer butter, though less of it^ and quicker
chui'uing without them.
Treatment of Cream.
There is nothing better than glass or glazed
earthenware jars to place cream in directly it is
skimmed from the milk, providing it is not wanted
for churning at once. It is by many people con-
sidered an advantage that cream should not be
churned until it has been skimmed at all events
twelve hours ; by standing this or a longer time,
according as the weather is hot or cold, it obtains
a sort of ripeness which is conducive to a larger
yield of butter. But it must not be kept until
it is bitter, or the flavour of the butter will be
injured; and if it is kept till it is more or less
sour, the delicacy of flavour will be gone. By
adding a small tea-spoonful of powdered saltpetre
to each 3-gallon jar of cream, the usual bitter
taste will be prevented. The question of sourness
is an important one in butter-maldng ; for if old
cream that is sour be churned along with fresh cream
that is sweet, the inequality in their condition will
cause more or less of the butter to be left in the
buttermilk. Sour and fresh cream that are in-
tended to be churned together should be well
mixed and allowed to stand for some hours before
churning, so that it may be all alike in condition ;
and the colder the weather the longer should it
stand, because the souring of the fresh cream will
proceed slower than if the weather were warm. The
temperature, however, may be artificially regulated.
While the cream waits for churning it should be
occasionally stirred, especially if it is exposed to
the air, or a thick crust of hardened cream will
form on the surface, and this makes churning
more tedious and uncertain ; it is the influence of
dry air which causes this crust to form, therefore
it is better to keep the cream covered up from the
air. Yet it is not advisable, even in cold weather,
to keep the cream more than half a week before
churning, though it \vill then keep sweet a much
longer time than it will when the weather is hot
and no artificial means of cooling it and keeping
it cool are employed. Good butter is of course
produced by churning once a week, or even once a
fortnight, in cold weather, yet it would be better
42
if churned oftener. And it may, indeed, be laid
down as a sound proposition that cream is tit to
churn as soon as milk is fit to skim.
Sometimes white flecks appear in the cream,
and are conveyed to the butter. They are usually
a result of a faulty condition of the milk, and are
often developed by the influence of light and air
playing on the milk. The surface of cream that
is dried and hardened by absorption into the air of
the moisture that is in that portion of the cream
will sometimes cause these flecks, but not often.
The general cause of them lies in the coagulation
of drops of milk by the action of germs in them,
and these germs will be developed sometimes by a
strong light falling on the milk, as in the case of
pans set near to a window ; sometimes again by a
current of air playing on the surface of the milk ;
the germs may be in the air, or they may be
latent in the milk ; in either case the air will tend
to develop them. Hence it is better to cover up
the pans, or set them in a darkened room through
which no current of air passes beyond what is
necessary for ventilation ; but the safer plan is to
cover up the milk : this keeps it alike from air and
light, neither of which it requires if it has been
properly treated beforehand. Flecks will not easily
occur in milk that has been scalded and cooled,
and afterwards covered up ; the scalding kills the
germs which are the cause of the flecks, and the
cooling and covering prevent their re-introduction.
Sometimes they will appear in one cow's milk and
not in another's, and they are commonest in the
autumn when the cows are being let dry and the
milk remains longer in the udders ; but judicious
treatment of the milk and cream will checkmate
them at all times. When these white flecks are
in the cream they may be separated from it by
running the cream through a fine wire sieve,
pouring on warm water at the conclusion, which
washes all the cream through, leaving the white
specks in the sieve.
In winter, especially, butter is commonly so
pale in colour that its value is lowered if the
colour is not restored by artificial means. This is
done in various ways, but the colouring matter
must always be mixed with the cream just liefore
churning — not with the butter after it. No kind
of colouring matter can be incorporated with the
butter after churning, without so much working
in that the grain of the butter would be injured ;
and none is yet known that will not injure the
308
DAIRY FARMING.
bultur hy coming into direct contact with it.
Some people use the juice of carrots, and this is
harmless enough except that, being a vegetable
matter, it soon decays, and so injures the keeping
property o£ the butter. Others use a preparation
of arnatto made specially for the purpose, and, so
long as the public demand high-coloured butter,
this is on the whole the best colouring material
to use — in moderation. In recent times, various
people have produced artificial colouring matters
for butter which are quite as satisfactory as any-
thing artificial can well be expected to be. So
clever, indeed, are some of these colours that they
give to winter-butter a rich, warm, golden tint,
which can hardly be surpassed by the natural tint
of summer. And so long as the public prefer a
coloured to a ])ale butter, we assume that these
artificial aids will continue to be employed.
Churning.
The temperature of cream is a matter not to be
overlooked at churning-time. It must needs vary
according to the state of the weather and the time
of the year. In the hottest weather it has no
need to be below 55°, or the labour of churning
will be increased without any advantage to balance
it; in winter it may without detriment be raised
from 60" to 65°, or even 70*^ iu very cold weather,
and when the cows are eating dry fodder, in order
to reduce the labour of churning ; but in summer
to have it above 60° will cause the butter to be
soft and spongy; 60° in fact may be regarded as
the normal temperature, to be varied from as cir-
cumstances may require. In raising or lowering
the temjierature of cream, the process should be
gradual ; the best way is not to pour hot or cold
water into it, but to place the cream in a tin
vessel and surround it with either hot or cold
water as the case may be. It is seldom, however,
that the temperature will need reducing at any
time, and never in winter. By having the cream
below 65° in cold weather, the labour of churning
will often be great ; and if it is below 60° it can
hai-dly be churned at all until the temperature is
raised. It is in winter, when the cows are on dry
food, that difficulty in churning is exj)erienceu ;
in summer, when thej' are on grass, the butter
forms rciidily in the churn. Cream that has
soured a little will churn easier and at a lower
tcmperatiu-e than sweet cream ; but care must be
t;iken that it is not veri/ war, or the labour of
churning will be increased, the quantity of butter
diminished, and its flavour ruined ; and in extreme
cases of souring, the cream may be so far injured
that the butter will not come at all in the churn.
A very good system of introducing the desirable
acidity is to pour a little sour buttermilk into
the cream, say a quart to 4 or 5 gallons, when
the latter is put in the chum. This system takes
away the bitter taste which butter commonly has
in winter-time, and it has the great advantage of
introducing the acidity at the right moment. Or
it may give to cream some of that ripeness which
is thought by some to be essential, by being added
to it a few hours before churning.
The question of sour versus sweet cream for
churning has been much discussed, and it is,
perhaps, quite as unsettled now as it ever was,
except in the minds of those who are definitely
committed to the one side or to the other. We
incline to the opinion that a little sourness in
butter-making, as in cheese-making, is really
beneficial when judiciously employed. The danger
in both lies in developing it too early and too
far. Sourness, in fact, may be regarded as an
incipient stage of ripening, but it is a stage
which should be held in check. Both cheese and
butter will be the firmer for a little employed
acidity, and have more of " character " about
them, but it should in both cases be emjiloyed at
the right time. We do not hold with cream being
allowed to go sour as it likes before churning, and
we think it would be far better kept sweet until
churning-time, or nearly so. The finest butter
we remember seeing — the firmest, having the
most "body," the clearest and richest in colour,
with a mild and pure flavour, and having a perfect
"grain" — was produced from sweet cream into
which a little sour buttermilk was mixed at
churning time. This butter was exhiliited at the
International Dairy Show in Dublin, iu December,
1879, by Mr. Patton, of Glasslough, who has on
several occasions carried off the highest prize for
butter in the leading shows of Ireland. He milks
only some fifteen or sixteen cows, and his daughters
make the butter. This is a fine example of the
success which may be attained by care, system,
and scrupulous cleanliness on a medium-sized farm
in Ireland.
When cream churns reluctantly — that is, when
the butter is slow in coming — it is customary to
use one or other of the various sorts of " butter-
CHURNING AND WASHING THE BUTTER.
309
powder" tluit arc in the market, some of wliieh
arc very useful. We have known refractory
cream, that refused to yiekl up more than a small
portion of its butter, quickly reduced to submission
by the use of butter-powder, and the second yield
of butter has been larger than the first. In winter,
especially, cream is apt to swell out very much in
the churn ; at such times it is well to put a little
dissolval carbonate of soda in the cream just
before churning begins. A little salt, too, pre-
vents the swelling, and helps the churning.
It may be laid down as a rule that the longer
it is since the cows calved, the longer time will the
churning occupy. This is owing to the average
size of the cream-globules being smaller than when
the milk is from cows that have been calved a
shorter time. Thus it is that the cream of the
milk of Jersey cows churns easier than most other
kinds — the cream-globules in it are, on the
average, larger ; and this is one of the chief
reasons why Jerseys are better " butter-cows "
than most others. Scalding the cream — that is,
bringing it nearly to boiling-heat — will diminish
the time and labour required in churning it ; and
the higher the scalding the easier it will churn.
Scalding the milk while still fresh has a similar
effect in abridging the time used in churning the
cream from it. In this case, however, the milk
must be cooled to 70" or 75° before setting it to
cream; and scalded cream must be cooled to 60°
or 6^° before churning it.
The object of churning is to denude the cream-
globules of their delicate membranes without inter-
fering with the structure of the tiny granules of
£;.t inside them. If these granules are broken up
too much by over-churning or over-working, the
" grain " of tlie butter will be destroyed. But if
the structure of the granules is left intact, a piece
of butter at 60°, if fractured, will show a clear
and distinct fracture like unto that of cast-iron,
and if seen through a magnifying-glass will :how
a granular appearance; whereas, if the grain is
destroyed the fatty elements are mixed up to-
gether, and the fracture will have little or none of
the granular appearance seen in the other ease.
If the grain of butter is destroyed, the flavour is
more easily lost, and the butter will not remain
sweet so long. In all the processes through which
butter passes, the grain should be specially con-
sidered and preserved; too much /rid ion either in
or out of the churn will injure it; therefore in
churning the process should bo riffifnfion, and in
working the hiittcr press)ire, wot friction in either
case. At the commencement of the churning the
motion should be slow, but when the cream is well
mixed together the speed may be gradually increased
until it has reached the rate for which the churn is
adapted, and when the cream begins to break into
butter the speed must be reduced again so as
not to " over-churn " or injure the grain of the
butter. It is not advisable in any case to subject
the cream to very violent agitation ; a moderate,
steady, and uniform rate of churning will make the
best and most butter; and in summer the rate
of speed must be slower than it need bo in winter.
Washing and Working.
It is advisable to stop the churn before the
butter is fully gathered; that is, while it is in
grains like wheat, and before it is compactly
massed together in a lump by the continued action
of the dashers. The reason for this is : that as
butter immediately after churning always contains
more or less buttermilk that must be removed by
washing and working, the separation is more easily
done before the butter is massed together than
afterwards. By pouring cold water into the churn
just at the time when the butter is about to gather,
and lowering the contents to 54° or 55°, the
butter does not mass together but remains in small
pieces like small peas, and the lower the tempera-
ture the smaller will be these pieces, while at
a temperature of 60° to 70° they mass together.
The cold water may be put into the churn at two
or three different times, aud the churning slowly
finished. The advantage derived from this method
lies in enabling the buttermilk to be washed out
without any of the ordinary working, and this can
be done by draining the buttermilk out of the
churn, putting water in its place, stirring the
butter carefully, and repeating the water part
of the operation until it runs out clear and free
from buttermilk.
Some object to the washing of butter, on the
ground that both the flavour and keeping proper-
ties are injured by it. This depends entirely on the
way in which the washing is done, and on the
kind of water used. If perfectly j)ure, clear,
spring-water is used, and if the washing is done
with care, the butter is improved, not injured, by
the process. In the absence of suitable water it
is of course better to get the buttermilk out by
810
DAIRY FARMING.
workino- instead o£ washing, Init where good
water is at hand it may be used to advantage.
Some think washing the butter washes out tlie
fhivour ; but this is not the case, for the flavour
of Initter consists in fatty matters that do not
combine with water at all, and therefore cannot
be washed away by it. But washing butter may
be made to remove the flavour — if impniities are
inirod tired to dexfro)/ it; and this is not un-
commonly the result of using improper water,
so that instead of the water purifying the butter,
the butter purifies the water. The keeping pro-
perties, again, are not injured but improved by
carefully washing the butter in pure water ; the
washing, in fact, removes the casein, which, being
acid. In hot weather, and in the case of using
water that is not quite what it ought to be, it is
better to use brine for washing out the butter-
milk ; by dissolving a portion of salt in it the
water is less liable to do harm to the butter, and
it will take u]) the buttermilk better than water
alone will.
For the making of butter, and without always
knowing the why and wherefore of the matter, a
dairymaid with cold haudu has been for genera-
tions past, and still is, preferred to one who does
not possess that peculiarity; a warm hand, es-
pecially in hot weather, is considered unfit to
manipulate butter, and some dairymaids have
a pail of cold water close by into which they
a nitrogenous substance, decomposes earlier than
the fats of birtter. Imperfectly washed butter,
indeed, turns rancid early, chiefly because of the
casein which is left in it.
Under the old system the butter is first of
all removed from the churn and placed in a tub
containing clear, cold water, and is washed there
in the tub; or it is placed on a sloping bench
or table, and water poured over it to wash out
the buttermilk. An improved plan is to use a
small watering-can which distributes the water
in a shower by means of a " rose," and, while the
spray is falling on it, to keep the butter stirring
about, not by hand, but by a flat wooden ladle made
for the purpose (Fig. 17-'5). In this operation the
butter is, or should be, used gently and turned
over lightly, and the water after falling on the
butter passes freely away, carrying with it more
or less of the buttermilk, milk-sugar, and milk-
frequentlj- dip their hands to cool them during
the time they are making the butter. These
simple facts in connection with butter-making
have, in some of the more advanced dairying
countries, led to the invention of mechanical
butter-workers, by means of which the butter can
be thoroughly washed, worked, and salted without
being touched by the hand at all.
It is well known, to come to the scientific
aspect of the question, that carbonic acid is con-
stantly being thrown oif from the pores of the
skin of the human body ; and it is no doubt trae
that this physiological process is less active in the
skin of a cold hand than in that of a warm one,
and so the cold hand will do less harm than the
warm one to the flavour as well as to the con-
sistency of the butter. In the more advanced
butter-making establishments of the Continent
of Europe and of America, the human hand, l)e it
BUTTER WORKERS.
311
cold or warm, is allowed to conic as seldom and as wooden instruments being used instead. In
little as possible in contact witb the butter. Dr. Pig. 176 we have a very handy butter-worker
Fleiscbmann, who is regarded as the first scientific and the method of using it : one end ol: it rests
authority of the day on dairy matters on the on the edge of a tub into which the buttermilk
Continent, considers that the varying states of drains, and the fluted roller passes backwards and
health to which the human frame is liable are forwards over the butter, which is occasionally
among the chief causes why butter varies so turned over. The butter in the trough is seen at
much in flavour and quality, and so he advocates
that such a delicate product should never be
touched by hand, but that butter-workers should
be used, and spatulaj for turning it over.
In Figs. 17:i, 174, 175, we give illustrations
of three different kinds of butter-workers suitable
a, and the fluted roller at h. An expert hand
can so manipulate the butter with the roller as to
scarcely require the use of a wooden pat ; if need
be, the butter will lick up round the roller, from
which it is easily disengaged in a lump, to be again
rolled out. This butter-worker is made by Mr.
for small dairies. These may be used by one Waide, of Leeds, and we can testify to its sim-
Fig. 17G.— BUTTER-WORKEE.
hand, while the other is employed in pourinc
water over the butter, or in turning it over with
the wooden pat or ladle, of which a cut is given
in Fig. 173.
There really can
l)e no two opinions,
in the minds of
thinking peoj^le, as
to the advantage of
using wood instead
of the human hand
for immediate con-
tact with butter in
the working of it.
Apart from the im-
portant fact that
the warmth of a
hand does more or less harm to the grain of the
butter, while emanations from the skin are not
calculated to improve the flavour of it, it is more
comely, as well as more profitable, that wood
should be used instead of the hands in the making
and mixing of butter. We do not for a moment
wish to insinuate that the finest butter cannot
be made without these modern wooden devices.
By observing the strictest cleanliness of person,
of utensils, and of dairy, and when the dairy-
maid's hand happens to be a cold one, it is no
doubt true that butter will be produced whose
condition is such as to leave nothing to be desired;
but this strictest cleanliness is too commonly
neglected in some point or other, and oftener,
we may say, in respect of the person than of
the utensils and of the dairy, while the cold
hand is a mere accident of nature. Consequently
we prefer that the butter should be touched
by the hand as seldom and as little as possible,
plicity and great usefulness ; it may be placed at
a greater or lesser inclination, to suit the taste of
the j^erson in charge. These different butter-
workers are, how-
ever, very sparingly
used in Englaml as
yet, though they
have been in com-
mon use for a long
time in various Con-
tinental countries
and in America.
In England we still
depend on the "cold
hand" of the dairy-
maid. Yet we may
state our conviction
that these handy tools need only to be tried to be
appreciated ; there is no difficulty Avhatever in
using them, and while they work the butter
thoroughly they do the least possible harm to the
grain of it.
The most recent, and perhaps the most useful,
butter-worker for large dairies is seen in Figs. 177
and 178; and though machines of this pattern
have for years been in common use in the United
States and on the Continent of Euroj^e, they have
only recently been introduced into this country,
and are not yet in any sense general amongst us.
This machine, of which the illustrations give an
excellent idea, consists of a round table with an
inner and an outer rim to it, which circulates
underneath the fluted roller that is seen in the
woodcut. The wheel by which motive power is
communicated to the machine is attached to the
axle of the roller, and they go round together.
To the same axle is also attached a cog-wheel.
312
DAIRY FAR.^^TNG.
whirli (ipcratc's on projecting' eo^s, and gives a
circular motion to the taljle; but the projectinp;
cogs, thougli shown in tlie engraving, are so pro-
tected as not to catch the dress of the attendant.
The butter is thus carried round repeatedly on the
— Rotating Botter-worker.
table, passing under the roller eacli time, and the
attendant turns it over with a small wooden pat
as it leaves the roller. It is prevented going near
or adhering to the inner and outer portions of the
table, as well as from getting under either end of
the roller, by two fixed scraper.s — one near the
jn
Fig. 17S.— Plan of ]',iiti:i! worker.
A, A, Guide-scrai>ers, for conducting the butter under the roller ; n,
semper for freeing the roller from butter ; c, c, groove for con-
voying the buttermilk to the pail.
inner and the other near the outer rim of the
table — and these, as it comes within their scope,
continually incline the butter in the direction of
passing under the central part of the fluted roller.
It will be noticed that the table is highest in the
centre, so that the buttermilk, or the water con-
taining it, runs toward the outer edge of the
table, whence it is conveyed away, by means of a
small gutter and a pipe, to a pail or a tub under-
neath. Fi<j. IT,) shows the niauncr td' working.
This excellent butter- machine maj- be used
efEectually for three purjwses : first, for getting
the buttermilk out of the butter by means of
water — and this is called " washing the butter ; "
second, for getting out the buttermilk by means
of working only, and without the aid of water;
and, third, for thoroughly ineoriwrating the salt
with the butter. It ])erforins these various offices
hy pressure, and without /'/vV-f'io//, so that the grain
of the butter is not injured ; and it is highly recom-
mended, by those who have it in use, as a most
useful and convenient addition to any butter-dairy
which has it not. It is made in different sizes to
suit the requirements of either large or small
establishments; for the latter, however, the imple-
ments shown in Fig. 174 and 170 are perhaps
better than any other kind, being simpler and
cheajwr, and more easily kept in order.
A large machine of the same kind suitalde for
butter-factories, or for large establishments where
different farmers' butter is worked up into one
uniform quality — a jiraetiee followed in France —
is seen in Fig. 180. This machine, it will be
noticed, is intended to be driven Ijy power or l)y
hand, and is capable of dealing with a large
quantity of butter. It is made by Mr. Edward
Ahll)orn, of Ilildesheim, who is well known in this
country as an exhibitor of improved utensils and
iinjjlements for the dairy. It is not probable
that these larger machines will be required in
England, though they may in Ireland, but the
smaller ones of the same type would be found
very useful in our larger dairies.
Sat.ting.
The object of working butter is threefold : to
get out the buttermilk, to get in the salt, and to
make the butter as compact as may be ; and the less
labour required to attain these results, the better
it is for the butter. Some butter-makers put a
little salt in the cream at the tii.'.e of churning,
and this not only helps the churning, but after-
wards assists the buttermilk to leave the butter.
Others get out all, or very nearly all, the butter-
milk by drawing off nearly all of it when the
butter has formed into grains like wheat, and
then pouring in a quantity of cold water, and
going on with the churning a little time longer
at a reduced speed ; the pouring in of water in
this way, previously drawing out the other, is
repeated two or three times, and butter washed
AVOUKING AND SALTING TIIK JUTTER.
313
in this manner is found to require very little suli-
se(|uent working to get out the water and with it
Fig. 170.— 'Working the Butter.
the remaining buttermilk. This done, the butter
should be spread out thin on a table, its weight
having been first ascertained,
and the requisite quantity of the
purest, whitest, and finest salt
obtainable scattered over it at
several times, and gently worked
in by pressure, repeatedly fold-
ing the butter up in a lump
and pressing it out flat again.
It should be worketl at this
stage as little as possible beyoral
what is necessary to get the
salt tolerably well distributed
throughout the mass. It should
then rest awhile, until the salt-
crystals are dissolved, after
which it may again be worked
a little to expel the residue of
the buttermilk that the salt
may have set at liberty, and
all surplus moisture. The quan-
tity of salt used varies greatly, and is too com-
monly applied by guess-work ; Ijut where system
prevails the quantity used will vary, according to
taste and re(iuiivnient, from i oz. to nearly or
quite 1 oz. of salt per lb. of butter. The best
makers seldom if ever
exceed | oz., while some
use only ^ oz. to the 11).
<if butter.' The following
is found to be a good
summer mixture : — Salt,
1 li ozs. ; saltpetre, one tea-
spoonful ; best powdered
white sugar, one table-
spoonful. This is used to
22 lbs. of butter.
Recently a new agent
for preserving butter has
been invented which will
do away with common
salt, if need be. It is
an antiseptic known as
" Glacialiue," and while
it is tasteless, odourless,
and perfectly harmless,
it will preserve butter
quite sweet for a much
longer period than com-
mon salt will. We have
tested this chemical salt in milk and In
butter, anil In both with the most satisfactory
Fig. 180.— Compound Butter-worker.
results. Used in winter - butter it entirely
removed the bitter taste, while common salt
entirely failed to do so. This in itself is no
314
DAIRY FARMING.
light merit, for winter-made butter commonly has
a bitterness of flavour which is given to it by the
nature of the food which the cows are eating.
Not only, therefore, is Glacialine an excellent jire-
servative, but it has the property of neutralising
taints and odours to which butter is sometimes
addicted. Used in milk it has the effect of pre-
venting the faintest approacli of souring, for at
least a week, in the hottest of weather, so that the
cream has ample time to rise, or the milk may be
conveyed long distances, no harm befalling it on
the way. Being tasteless and odourless, this new
preserving agent is not in the least objectionable,
nor can it in any sense be regarded as an adultera-
tion. With eggs and with flesh-meat Glacialine
is equally effective as a preservative. Eggs dipped
for an hour in a solution of it remain perfectly
fresh for months, and when used cannot easily
be distinguished from new-laid eggs. This most
useful article may now be obtained almost any-
where, or of the manufacturers, the Antitropic
Company, of Renfield Street, Glasgow.
Other butter-preservers are also being brought
out ; among these we may mention " Butyrosoter "
and " Ozonia,'" which are respectively introduced
to the notice of the public by the Aylesbmy Dairy
Company of London, and by IMcDonald and Co.,
of Dublin.
The Akoma of Butter.
I. R. Segelcke, Professor at the Royal Agricul-
tural College of Denmark, writes : — " Is the aroma
of butter due to aromatic principles pre-existing
in the milk, or not? According to the generally-
received opinion, the aromatic principles of butter
already exist in the milk as given by the cow,
and pass from the milk into the cream, and from
the cream into the butter, unless they be destroyed
by chemical decomposition during the process of
cream-raising or of churning.
" My experience does not confirm this opinion.
On the contrary, it puts it beyond a doubt that
the aromatic principles of butter do not exist in
natural milk, and that it is the decomiwsition of
the ])rinciples of this latter — probably of even
utterly inodorous principles — that gives rise to the
aroma of butter. If the tcniiieraturc of the milk
when set for cream be from lU** to 1;J° Centigrade
(50° to oS-G" Fahrenheit) or more, it decomposes,
forming lactic acid and several other new prin-
ciples, among them aromatic principles; and it
needs but to churn the cream to obtain an
aromatic butter. If, on the other hand, the
temperature of the milk at such time be near
freezing-point, the decomposition necessary for
the production of aromatic principles is held in
check, and, consequently, the aroma of butter
obtained from fresh cream is so feeble that it is
not perceptible to persons accustomed to butters
prepared as above indicated, in the same way as
French butters are made at jn'esent. But if it be
desired to obtain a more aromatic butter, all that
is required is to place the cream in circumstances
favourable for lactic fermentation, and a few
hours will produce the required result.
" In either case, the aroma formed may be
more or less agreeable; that all depends on the
fundamental principles of the milk, on the quan-
tity of the principles necessary for the formation
of aromatic piinciples that is present, and on the
method of manipulation emj)loyed.
" In either case, again, the appearance of aro-
matic principles is accompanied by that of lactic
acid. Whether the aromatic principles sought for
in butter are produced by lactic fermentation, by
a simultaneous general fermentation, or by several
fermentations combined, I do not know.
"In practice it will often be noticed that
lactic fermentation is accompanied by alcoholic
fermentation, and even by butyric fermentation.
What, then, is the chemical comjjosition of the
aromatic principle so much admired in butter?
Is it an alcohol, a compound ether, or perhaps
even a fatty acid, nauseous in a state of concen-
tration, but agreeable in a more moderate fonn ?
I know not. The fact that the valued aroma soon
becomes rancid, and that it is always met with
in conjunction with fatty matters, leads one to
suppose that there is some relation between the
fatty acids and the aroma. To solve this in-
teresting question, elaborate experiments would
be required; but meanwhile this is certain, that
wdhonl decompositivn there is no aroma — at least no
aroma in the ordinary sense of the word."
This is obviously a scientific problem which is
not yet solved, nor, perhaps, does it admit of
complete solution. That the aroma of butter
exists already in freshly-drawn milk, in a greater
or lesser degree, is, however, a fact which does not
admit of disj)ute, for Initter made from such milk,
by churning the milk, has the aroma in it, though,
we admit, iu a feebler measure than is found in
THE IIOLSTEIN VERTICAL CHURN.
815
butter lli:it Ims boon matlo from eroam of sovoral
days' a<^o. At the same time it is no doubt true
tliat a more pronounced aroma is
obtained if the cream is allowed to
" ripen " before it is churned ; and
unpleasant flavours are produced
in the same way, if the cream re-
mains too long without churning.
As in butter, so in cheese — par-
ticularly in cheese — it is obvious
that incipient docomjjosition, which
is but another term for ripening,
develops the flavours which we so
much admire ; and it is equally
obvious that these pleasant flavours
become unpleasant after a time, as
decomposition proceeds. Thus it
follows that a given degree of acidity
is useful in both cheese and butter
making, developing as it does the
Fig. 181. — HoLSTEiN Vertical
Chukn.
flavour and aroma; but if it is allowed to go too 181 is given
far it destroys both of them, or, rather, carries
them into a stage in
creaming ]>rovails, the Holstein vertical churn
is the most jmpular. In Fig. 181 we give an
illustration of one of these churns,
ol' a size suitable for use by hand;
and in Fig. 182 a larger one, suit-
able for horse, steam, or water
power, and for use in large estab-
lishments. Fig. 18;3 shows the
method of attaching this churn
to an ordinary horse-gear. In
the inside of these churns three
round-edged pieces of wood are
fastened in a perpendicular position
and equi-distant from each other;
the revolving beater-frame dashes
the cream against them, and they
cause the cream to return to the
centre of the churn, so that a
continuous and somewhat violent
agitation is maintained. In Fig.
a section of the churn showing:
this interior construction.
which they are no
longer attractive to
the palate. The in-
troduction of extra-
neous matter, also,
may easily induce a
sort of fermentation
or decomposition
which will develop
an aroma which is
foreign, or may pre-
vent the development
of that which we
should naturally ex-
pect to find in a
well-ordered article ;
and hence it is that
cleanliness and care of
the minutest kind are
neces.sary in handling
so delicate and vola-
tile a thing as milk.
Churns.
Fig. 182. — Holstein Vertical Chcrn,
A great variety
of churns are in use, most butter-making countries
having several very good and favourite kinds. In
Northern Europe, where the Swartz system of
43
The fixed dashers are
marked a, and the
revolving ones b,
while a thermometer
is seen at c. The
churns, being simply
constructed, are
easily cleaned when
the revolving beater
is taken out. The
larger ones are bal-
anced on axles, so
that they are easily
emptied when the
churning is com-
pleted, and as easily
cleaned, without re-
moving them from
their bearings. It
will be noticed in
the smaller one that
a fly-wheel assists in
the turning. These
justly celebrated
churns are manu-
factured by ]Mr. E.
Ahlborn, as also are
the rotating butter-workers which are illustrated
and described in the preceding jJages.
The old-fashioned plunge-dash churn (Fig. 185)
316
DAIRY FARMING.
1S4. — SliCTlu.N Of ]IuLSTliiN C'HUKN.
is still in use in many farm-houses, hut it has Fij,'. ]S6. To the hole in the centre of the "dash"
not much to rccommcud it except hoaiy anti<iuity. the uprii-ht liaudie is firmly attacheil, and the
motiiiM is an up-and-down one which is very
wearying' to
(lie person
employed in
cli u ruing.
That this
chum should
still remain
in use seems
verystrauge,
and it is
strangerstill
that any new
ones of the
same kind
should he
made in this
age of pro-
gress.
An excellent churn, superior in all respects to
the old jilungc-churn, is seen in Fig. 187. Churns
of this huild, made now-
a-days, ai'e excellent im-
j)lements; there are no
loose dashers inside them,
they run on anti-friction
wheels and are easy to
work, and they are
cleaned in the simplest
manner possible — by put-
ting boiling water into
them and turning the
handle for a minute or
two, as when churning.
The bung of the churn
under review is fastened
on the inside, and can-
not blow out in churn-
ing, and the joint is
seeui'ed by an india-
rubber washer, so that
there is no waste of
cream • the gases evolved
during the churning are
easily let out on touch-
ing the small valve seen on the right of the
It will of course produce good butter, but the bung. This chum is made by Mr. Waide,
rwpiired to use it is severe and monoto- of Leeds, and we can testify to its simplicitv,
The "dash" of this churn is shown in its ellicary, and its value. It is etpially well
li.MiREI,-CHl'KN.
lalx
nous.
BARREL AND STREAMLET CHURNS.
317
O'
Fig. 18G.— CniJUN Dash.
adapted for churn in<j^ milk or fream. In Fiji;.
188 we <>;ive a represeutatiou of a cluxm which
the same maker has receutly brought out. It is
called the Victoria churn. It will be noticed
that it is likewise
a Ijarrel-churn, but
that the motion is
an end-over-end
movement. The
hd occupies the
whole of one end of
the barrel, and is
attached hrmly by
four thumb-screws,
while all leakage is
prevented by an
india-rubber ring
which fits in between the end of the barrel and the
lid. There are no dashers inside the churn, as it
is claimed that the end-over-end motion produces
enough agitation without them, the cream being
dashed alternately against the lid and the bottom
of the churn ; we think, however, that a couple
of dashers would add to its efficiency. When the
lid is off, the churn, poised as seen in the engrav-
ing, admits of the butter being removed with
great ease and facility, and equally so does it admit
of cleaning the inside. The buttermilk is let out
by the plug seen
in the lower part
of the barrel,
while the butter
itself may be
easily pouretl, if
need be, out at
the end when the
lid is removed,
as there are no
dashers in the
way of it. This
churn is very easy
to turn.
In Fig. 189
is represented a
very old kind of
churn, revived in a somewhat new form. The
])rinciple, we are led to understand, has long been
applied to churns in Ireland, with a different
arrangement of d-ash. Oblong in shape, this churn
is divided longitudinally by a partition (a), which
rises from the bottom to the lid; in this partition
Fig. 187.— 'WAmE's Revolving
EjVKREL-CHURN.
-■Waide's Victoria
Chuun.
are two holes, in the bottom of it, one at each end,
as indicated by the letters li B, and the milk or cream
can freely pass from
one division of the
churn to the other.
In one of these
compartments the
" dash " revolves,
and it causes the
cream to rush round,
like water down a
mill-race, through
one hole in the par-
tition into the other
division of the
churn,and backward
through the other
hole in the parti-
tion, and so under the "dash" again. In the
other compartment is a transverse partition or mid-
feather (c), which slides up and down in grooves;
this midfeather is not allowed to go to the bottom
of the churn, but dips down an inch or two into
the cream. When the butter begins to form, the
particles of it floating on the surface naturally
collect in a drift against the midfeather, and they
remain, as it were, in still water inside the break-
water. It is, no doubt, an advantage when the
butter has begun to form that its particles should
not come again
under the
"dash," and in
this case they
adhere together
in the other di-
vision of the
churn, so that
the butter can-
not possibly be
over-churned.
This churn is
easier to work
than any other we are acquainted with, and a
child of ten would turn it for a considerable time
without being necessarily fatigued ; we cannot,
however, affirm that it possesses any other advan-
tage. It is made by Messrs. Eastwood, of Preston.
Mechanical Power.
In Fig. 190 we give an illustration of a small
but very convenient portable engine and boiler
Fig. ISO.— Streamlet Churn.
318
DAIRY FARMING.
coml>inc(l, Puit:il)lo for use in lar<^e dairies. This
one is made liy Messrs. NiehoLson, of Xowark, and
Fig. 190. — Nicholson's Portable Engine asd Boiler.
is well s\iit(d (o siiili work as eliurnin<^, while it
will do various other kiuds of work which helong
to dairy-farmiii<4', such as chaff-cutting-, pulping,
grinding, and the like. As a matter of fact, an
cngiiie of this kind is a valuaLle addition to a
modern dairy-farm.
A thoroughly good, simple, and eft'eetive one-
horse-)iower engine and boiler eoinbined, like that
192.— C'HnRNINO BV DOG-POWEB.
in Fig. 190, can be bought for £40, and, where
water-power is not available, such an engine and
boiler provide the cheapest power that can be
employed in large dairies. But where a horse or
pony is kept for general purj)oscs, and can always
bo had for churning when required, it may be
desirable to set up a small, handy, and cheap
horse-gear, as shown in Fig. 191. Such a gear
may be bought at £5 to £7 ; it is easily put in
position, and as easily attached to a churn. Ko
power, however, is so cheap as water, and a very
small stream
may be uti-
lised for such
a purpose as
churning at
a small ex-
pense ; and
where such
a stream is
available near
to a dairy it is
always advis-
able to make
use of it.
In some
countries large dogs are trained to do the churn-
ing, by means of such an arrangement as that
shown in Fig. 193. Still, as it will hardly do
to keep a large dog for only such a jiurpose as
churning, and as he could not actuate a large
churn, a water-wheel, a horse-gear, or even a small
steam-engine will be found to be cheaper in the
end, and, all things considered, more satisfactory.
The dog-power is on the endless-chain principle ;
it is so arranged that the dog, once started, must
keep going until some one stops the machine, and
so he may be left to mind his work. Where a
dog is kept for other purj)oses, he may be made
useful in churning also.
IMarketisg.
In l^ngland it is customary to
prepare butter for market by
weighing it into lbs. or half-lbs.,
and for the weighing no machine
is better adapted than one simi-
lar to that seen in Fig. 193. The
Square slab on which the butter is
placed should be either marble, or
glazed earthenware, or enamelled
After weighing, the butter is made up
lis, or is moulded in a circular form with a
stam])etl on the top. It is generally taken
metal.
RETURN BUTTER PACKAGES.
319
193.— Bltter-scales.
to mai-ket in ordinary baskets, packed in tliem in
layers with cloths between. On this plan the
butter is often much crushed and disfigured, and
as it is thus less inviting in appearance it has to
be sold for less
money. In such
a product as
butter appear-
ance counts for
much. There is
still a good deal
of crudity in the
way English
farmers sell their butter, as well as in the way
they prepare it for sale. It is not uncommon,
in some parts of the country, to make it up into
"|-lb." prints, weighing 9 or 10 ozs., and into
" lb." ones, weighing 18 or 20 ozs. Most farmers'
wives give 1 oz. in the lb. over-weight, with a
pennyweight added — this seems to be a common
practice at all events in the Midland counties —
and others we have known to give 2 or 3 ozs. more
for the sole and only reason of being able to sell
for a penny a lb. more than their neighbours.
In the City of New York fancy butter, sent out
in a neat and orderly manner, commonly commands
from half-a-crown to four shillings a lb. Sent
out carelessly, crushed and bruised by the way,
the same butter
would not fetch
much moi-e than
half the money.
In Fig. 194. we
give an illustra-
tion of an Ameri-
can return butter-
package, for carry-
ing " prints " of
the best butter to
market; the prints
are wrapped in
muslin cloths and
placed in the tins
on the shelves, and
the shelves are fastened down in such a manner
that no jolting of the butter takes place, and it is
delivered at its journey's end in perfect condition.
For sending butter in bulk to the retail
dealers, who sell it out in small quantities, various
kinds of tubs, casks, or jars are vised. In
Fig. 195 we give an illustration of a newly-
rj4.~AMERic,VN Iii;riER-
CAKRIER.
invented tub that is used for this purpose in the
United States. It is made of white ash, white
oak, or spruce ; the upper hoop is adjustable,
operated on by a malleable iron cam, and, when
Fig. 19').— Return Butter-tub.
closed, the head of the tub is as tight as the
bottom. In hot weather it is common to fill the
s]>ace between the tub and the butter with a
solution of salt and water, and, being free from
the air as weU, the butter is well preserved during
long journeys. In Fig. 196 we give an illustra-
tion of a return package consisting of a stone pot
or jar, around the top of which are projections
that serve as the threads of a bolt or screw, while
the tinned iron hooks on the wooden cover answer
the purpose of the threads of a nut. The cover is
grooved so as to shut down over and clasp both
the inside and outside of the top of the jar. Thus
adjusted, the jar is air-tight; a strong bail attached
to the cover greatly facilitates the handling of
this jar. This, together with the projecting
wooden cover, ensures it against all ordinary
Fig. 196.— Return Butteh-jak.
breakages. In Fig. 197 we give a cut of a crate
which holds twelve of these butter-pails, or it may
be made to hold any other number as desired.
The wooden butter-packages are prepared for use
by soaking them first in cold, then in scalding,
and again in cold water. They are then either
filled with brine and left so for twenty-four hours,
or the inside is thoroughly rubbed with dry salt
and left for a short time. The butter is pressed
320
DAIRY FARMIXG.
Fig. 197. — Cb.vte kor Bltter-pails.
together in them as solidly as possible, so as to
exeliuli- the air from the inside, while the outside of
tlie hiitter is protected from it by the brine, which
lills all the intervening^ spaces inside the cask.
If it is desiralile to send the butter to market in
rolls, a simple
and useful
mould for mak-
ing them is seen
in Fig. 198. It
may be made
of any kind of
hard wood, such
as box, yew,
lignum-vitae,
&c. ; and whilst in use it must be kept wetted
inside to prevent the roll sticking to it. Each half
of the mould being filled with butter, the handles
are brought together, and the butter is firmly
compressed into a solid roll. The rolls are best
wrapped in muslin and packed in a box, as in
Fig. 200. When the box is full the lid shuts
down and is looked, and, resting lightly on them,
keej)s the rolls in position. These appliances are
simple, efficient, and inexpensive.
DousET Butter.
In Dorset dairies the milk stands for twenty-
four or thirty-six hours, accoi-ding to the season
of the year, and in some eases is skimmed a second
time after having stood a second peri(xl ; the cream
is considered ready for churning immediately after
it is skimmed, and during the hot weather is
commonly churned every day,
while in cold weather the
churning is done only on
alternate days. To this prac-
tice of churning the cream
while it is quite sweet and
fresh is owing, in a great
measure, the reputation which
Dorset butter has long jws-
sessed ; the practice, indeed,
presupposes the strictest cleanliness with respect to
milk-inins and other vessels used in the dairy, for
without this primary condition tlie daily churning
would be practically valueless. The old-fashioned
barrel-churn, with improved beaters, is commonly
used in Dorset dairies, and aft<,'r the butter is taken
out of the churn the greatest care is taken to
wash out all traces of buttermilk, so as to avoid
Fig. 198.— BCTTEB-
MOULD.
the light-coloured streaks that commonly appear
in ill-made butter. The coldest and clearest
water that can be obtained is used for this pur-
pose, and the butter is rejieatedly turned and
pressed I)y the hand on a slab of wood ; a dairy-
maid whose hand is naturally cold always suc-
ceeds best in butter-making, all other things being
equal. It is seldom that the butter is salted
in a systematic manner : the dairymaid gene-
rally guesses the quantity of salt to be used,
and an experienced and careful pereon can guess
it with surprising accuracy ; it is, however, gene-
rally understood that the butter intended for
market is more sparingly salted than that for
home consumption. It is clear, however, that the
Dorset dairymaids have got into a better system
of butter-making than most of their sisterhood in
Fig. 199.— BUTTEB-BOX.
other parts of the country have done, for Dorset
butter has a popularity greater than the butter
of any other county ; and much butter, made far
enough away, is sold in London under the adven-
titious title of " Dorset butter.'' The name is
pirated, and the name sells the butter. This sort
of thing is at onee an honour and an injustice to
Dorsetshire.
Devonshire Cream.
^VIlcn the milk is brought into the dairy it
is at once strained into rather large and deep
pans, in which it is allowed to stand from eight
to twelve hours. At the expiration of that
period the pans are placed in a vessel containing
boiling water, and over a fire. In other cases the
milk is placed on the stove immediately after
milking, where it stands the prescribed time, and
the stove is then lit ; this method obviates the
carrying of the pans containing the milk, and re-
SCALE OF POINTS IN JUDGING BUTTER.
321
moves tlic cl;iTi<:for of disturliiii<i' tlic proam that has
formed on the surface. When the time for heat-
ing comes, the milk and cream to<rether are gradu-
ally warmed up to ahout 200'^ Fahr., at which time
there is a wrinkled circle of cream towards the edge
of the pan ; a sort of film overspreads the cream,
and little hlisters rise in it, but the cream is not
allowed to boil, and when the first bubble appears
the pan is immediately and carefully removed to
the dairy, or the fire is at once removed from the
stove. After the scalding the cream remains un-
disturbed for twelve hours longer, at the end of
which time it will be found of considerable thick-
ness ; this second period of waiting will vary from
twelve to twenty-four hours, according to the
weather. The cream is then removed in squares,
or oblong rectangular pats, an inch or more in
thickness, and in this state is neatly packed in
the cleanest straw and sent to market. In Devon-
shire this thickened cream is not uncommonly
churned into butter, by simjily beating it with
the hand iu a bowl, and by virtue of the process
it has previously gone through butter is quickly
produced in this manner. Devonshire cream is
too well known to need further description ; its
reputation rests on a basis at once so ancient and so
sound that it is not in any danger of becoming in-
conspicuous. A fame such as this does not easily die.
Judging Butter.
The judging of butter is a subject on which very
hazy opini(Mis prevail in many places. The neces-
sary merits and obnoxious demerits are not, as a rule,
definitely understood. Most peojile know when
they taste good or bad butter, and most judges
decide correctly between various samples, but very
few of these have so far reduced the matter to
a system as to be able to give definite reasons for
their judgment. The following formula may be
found useful : — ■
Scale of Points for Judging Butler on a Basis of a Total o/" 1 00 as Perfection.
Definition of Positive Qualities.
Flavour 25. — Agreeable, clean, nutty, aromatic, sweet, pure,
distinct and full.
Keeping 20. — Inclined to slow changing, indicative of stability
in retaining good qualities.
Solidity 10. — Stiffness of body, firmness, not easily melting or
becoming soft.
Texture 15. — Compactness, closeness of grain, breaking with
a distinct fracture like cast-iron, fat globules
unbroken and perfect, sticking little to trier.
Colour 15. — Pleasing, natural, not appearing artificial, bright,
even.
Make 1.5. — Includes all not included under other points, as
100 cleanliness, perfect separation of buttermilk,
proper handling of milk and butter, as churn-
ing, working, salting, skilful packing, &c.
Definition of Negative Qualities.
Strong, rancid, tallowy, cheesy, bitter, stale, insijud, too s;tlt,
too fresh.
Early loss of good qualities and assumption of bad ones, indi-
cating rapid change.
Softness of bod}', unable to stand firm, easily melting or becom-
ing soft.
Openness of grain, salvj-, greasy, sticking to trier or knife iu
cutting, pasty, not breaking with distinct fracture.
Excessively deep or pale, appearing artificial, dull, uneven.
TJnoleanliness, imperfect churning, or at bad temperature,
uneven working, salting, bad or massy handling, packing,
or moulding, &c.
As a general rule it must be confessed that the
English do not excel as butter-makers. We fail
to attach to the subject the importance it merits,
and we consequently do not take the pains we
ought. On the question of scruijulous cleanliness
we are often at fault, and we simply leave that of
temperature to take care of itself. The old prac-
tice of heavy and indiscriminate salting is still in
vogue, and we entirely lose the advantages which
come of using neatness and attractiveness in
regard to the way in which the butter is placed
before the public.
One thing is abundantly clear, that while the
marvellous improvements in facility of transit
have introduced a great variety of foreign butters
to the notice of British consumers, thereby edu-
cating our taste and fancy after foreign models,
English butter-makers have been at no special
pains to keep pace with the change of conditions.
Very large quantities of butter, much of which
is excellent in quality and delicately pure in
flavour, are annually imported into this country
from various countries on the Continent; and it
is simply impossible that, wherever this butter is
consumed, the taste of our people should fail to be
more or less influenced, modified, educated, and.
S22
DAIRY FARMING.
we will even add, improved ; for tliose foreign
butters are, as a rule, purer and more delicate in
flavour than our own. For a long ]>eriod certain
French butters, to wit the Brittany, have enjoyed
the leading reputation among the foreign butters
sent to us, as they no doubt were superior in
quality; but of late years Danish and Dutch
butters have greatly improved in qvialit^^ so that
they are now equal to any others ; and while the
former is largely sold in this country for Brittany
butter, which it equals in every respect, the latter
commands as high a price as our own Dorset,
which is commonly regarded as the finest butter
produced in the British islands.
We have given a short account of Dorset
butter-making only, because no other county or
district has gained a distinctive reputation for its
butter. The leading faults in our butter-making
are : want of system, of strict cleanliness of
utensils, of regularity in attending to times and
temperatures, of knowledge, and of pride in work.
The milk is kept in all sorts of unsuitable rooms,
and is skimmed at all sorts of irregular hours ; the
cream is kept — or is allowed to keep itself in the
best way it can — in vessels which are less un-
suitable than the rooms they stand in, and
it is churned many days after skimming, when
it has had time to become thoroughly sour, and
without reference to temperature or speed of
motion ; the butter is more or less imperfectly
liberated from the buttermilk, and is salted in
a haphazard manner. How then, Ave would ask,
is it possible to secure first-rate butter in this
way?
The simple fact of the matter is this : excel-
lent butter can be made anywhere, providing that
proper pains are taken with it; yet both flavour
and quality will vary more or less with change
of district, of cows, of herbage, and of climate.
Some of the worst butter on earth is made in
Ireland, which is capable of producing the finest.
In our own dairying districts the bulk of the
butter produced is of second and third rate (juality ;
and we are informed* that the manager of the
Midland Hotel, Derby, imjxtrts all his fresh butter
from Normandy, because he cannot get the same
quality in his own district, which is one of the
best in England. The superiority of Continental
butter over English arises from the greater care
which is taken in the management of it, and its
popularity rests in no small degree on the neat
and cleanly garb in which it is presented to
the British public. France, Holland, Denmark,
Sweden, all send us more or less of fine butter,
which is increasing in popularity amongst us.
This is not because their butter is really better
than ours in inherent quality ; much less that they
have a better raw material to work with than we
have ; but in their manipulation of it the various
excellences of the butter are perfectly preserved,
while in our own country, as a rule, they are not.
In no part of England has any general imjjrove-
ment, based on a recognised sj'stem, taken jilace in
butter-making, though there are many individual
cases in which the desired reforms have taken
place ; and in these instances as fine butter as any
in the world is produced. We wish to see these
cases lose their individuality in a common and
general adoption of the principles on which they
are conducted, or on others equally efficacious;
and in order to this we place before our readers
the best systems that are in vogue in this and in
other countries. The old days of heav}' salting to
keep the butter fresh until it reached the consumer
have passed away with the old coach and waggon
era, and what the public now demand is fresh
butter, with little or no salt, delivered to them
scores of miles away from the place where and
within a few hours of the time when it was made.
In hot weather it must be kept fresh by ice, or
by the exclusion of the air, and not by salt ; and
the greatest care must be taken, not only in the
making of it, but also with the garb in which
it is presented to the public.
* Joiirna! of the Eoyal Agricultural Society, vol. xv.,
p. H-2. 1879.
CHAPTER XX.
Artificial Butter.
Origin of Artificial Butter— The Process— Washing the Fat— Disintegrating— Melting— Pressing— Churning— Differences between
Oleomargarine and Real Butter— Merits of the Artificial Product -Tests for Adulteration of
^'\]^-^
'^^ — =s^v' > Jj}; history of artificial, or, as
!;> Y* it is strangely termed, " oleo-
-1 rnargarine " butter, unlike
"^ that of real butter, belongs
'^ wholly to modern times.
Its discovery dates back only
about a dozen years, and as
''W^^ it is not regarded as a very respectable
Y^ IW compound it has met with more enemies
than friends among those who have dis-
^ cussed it in public. It is an imitation
— professedly so — of butter, and it has
met with the hard words generally accorded to
such productions ; but as it is already a very ex-
tensive article of commerce, and likely to become
more so as time rolls on, and has really a purpose
to serve in the world, it is expedient that we should
give some account of it.
The discovery of a product which should form
a not unsuccessful substitute for butter belongs to
M. Hijjpolite Mege, of Paris. Aware of the grow-
ing scarcity and dearness of butter, this gentleman
conducted a number of elaborate experiments on
auimal fat, and on the 17th of July, 1869, peti-
tioned for a patent at the office of the Commissioner
of Patents in London, for the invention of " The
Preparation and Production of Certain New Ani-
mal Fatty Bodies," and it was granted to him on
the 1st of January, 1870.
The object of the invention, as stated by Mege,
" is to make neutral products new by their nature
and superior in quality. The invention is based
on the deduction of modern science, which proves,
first, that odoriferous colouring matters, volatile
and becoming rancid [aeres et rancissaiites), do
not pre-exist in the natural fats called suets
[graisses en branches) ; second, that tbey are de-
veloped by the action of the organised tissues
under the influence of fermentation, of heat, or
of chemical agents; third, that the fats of milk,
called butter, are only fatty bodies from fat modi-
fied, first, bj' its cellular tissue, and afterwards by
the organised tissues of the udder.
" In applying these facts industrially, there is
obtained from suet, first, a virgin fat, without any
smell or odour of fat, and like the best fatty
bodies ; second, a variety of true butter taken at
its source, formed as in ordinary lactation, and
superior to butter from milk by the length of its
preservation."
The two leading features in the manufacture of
this artificial product are :^First, the separation
from fat at a low temperature of a pure, s\^'eet oil,
free from disagreeable odour or taste. Second, the
churning of such oil with milk or cream for the
manufacture of artificial butter.
^Ir. H. A. Mott, E.M., Ph.D., writes as follows
on the manufacture of oleomargarine butter : —
" The first step to be attended to, when a good
product is to be manufactured, is cleanliness. I
start off with this most important point, to which
the strictest attention must be paid. The floor
of the factory, the tubs, the cars, the cloths, the
tanks, the hasher, the press, the press-plates, the
churns, and in fact every utensil used must be
the model of cleanliness ; with this understanding
we proceed.
"Washixg Process.
"The fat, on arriving at the factory, is first
weighed, and then thrown piece by piece into
large tanks containing tepid water, care being
taken to throw all pieces covered with blood into
a separate tank, to be washed and afterwards
added to the other tanks. The fat now in the
tanks should be entirely covered with tepid water,
'3U
r>Aii!v FAinriNG.
and left at rest for about one hour, when the
tejiid water should be removed and the fat
thoroughly washed with cold water, then covered
with fresh cold water and allowed to rest for one
hour lon<jer, when the water is again removed and
tlie fat thoroughly washed for the last time, with
fresh cold water, when it is ready for the next
operation.
" Disintegrating Piiocess.
"Tliis operation consists in disintegrating the
fat by passing it through a ' meat-hasher.' To
do this, the fat in the tank is removed by means
of a wooden car to the side of the hasher, where
it is cut with a knife into small pieces about
5 or 6 inches square. Piece by piece it is
introduced into the hasher, which, by means of
the revolving knife within, cuts the fat very
fine, and forces it through a fine sieve at the
opposite end, to which it is introduced, and
finally forces it out of the hasher in a disin-
tegrated state, when it is received in a tub, ready
for the next operation.
" Care must be taken not to introduce the fat
into the hasher too rapidly, as the sieve or knife
is apt to snap, for it requires considerable force
for the disintegration, which of course is accom-
plished by steam power.
" i\lELTiNG Process.
" The fat, now in a disintegrated state, is re-
moved to the melting tank, care being taken not to
introduce into the tank any of the water which is
forced out of the fat during the disintegrating pro-
cess. The fat is then heated by means of the water
surrounding the tank, until the temperature reaches
about IW Fahr., when the steam which heats the
water is turned off. The water surrounding the
tank, being much warmer than the molten fat, in-
creases the temperature of the fat to 122 — 124°
Fahr., when the fat completely melts. During
the whole operation, from the time the steam is
turned on until the melted fat is allowed to rest,
the fat must be continually stirred, so that an
even temperature may be maintained. The a<liiwse
tissue, or scrap, of the fat separates and settles
to the bottom, on leaving the melted fat at rest,
and a clean, yellow oil floats on top, covered by a
film of white emulsion of oil with the water con-
tained in the fat.
"When the scrap has cnnipKtcly settled, the
thin la^er of emulsion is baled off, and the clear.
yellow oil is drawn and received into wooden cars,
which, when fiiknl to within IJ inches of the top,
are removed to allow the oil to crystallise or granu-
late. Care must be taken in drawing off the last
of the oil not to allow any of the scrap to mix
again with it. It is better to receive the last
portion of oil and scrap in a small galvanised iron
cylindrical can and allow it to cool by itself, and
when cool to melt it over again by placing the can
in one of the wash-tubs and surrounding it with
water heated to about 12.j° Fahr., and thus
separate from the scrap all the oil that is pos-
sible. The scrap may then be sold. It sometimes
occurs that the scrap refuses to settle, and rises to
the surface, forming a layer on top of the dear
oil ; if such be the case, the melted fat and scrap
must be stirred up together for at least ten or fifteen
minutes, and then allowed to settle by standing,
which it will generally do ; if not, then it should
be stirred once more and allowed to stand ; if it
does not settle this time, which is rai'cly the case,
a quart or two of salt must be thrown on the
scrap, and the mixture stirred, when the scrap will
settle to the bottom on standing. (An acid solu-
tion of the active principle of the stomach of a
calf was used for some time, as proposed by Mege,
in the melting process. It was thought to co-
agulate the ' scrap ' and cause it to settle more
rapidly. Experiments have shown it to be un-
necessary, however.)
"The melting process, when conducted with suc-
cess, occupies about two or three hours. The oil in
the cars will require at least twelve to twenty-four
or more hours to granulate, and the temperature of
the room shoidd be about 70° Fahr. This is a
very important operation, and must not be hurried,
otherwise the stearine in the oil will not have time
to crystallise. The granulated oil is now ready
for the nest operation.
" Pressing Process.
"The car containing the solidified oil from the
melting tank (which, for convenience, I will call
refined fat hereafter) is removed to the press-room,
which is kept at a teni])erature between 8.^° and
00^ Fahr. The refined fat must not be so solid
that it cannot be worked with the fingers with
cMse ; if it i.s, it must be left in the )iress-room
until it softens.
"When in the right c<indition it is packed
in cloths, set in moulds to form packages about
ARTIFICIAL 15UTTKR.
3:^
4 inclioR wide, 8 inelies loiij;', 1 .|t iiiflies thick ;
these packages are then placed on galvanised
plates in the press at equal distances apart.
The plates with these packages are piled one
above the other in the press, until the capacity
of the press is thus utilised. The packages are
then suljjected to a slight pressure, which must be
increased very gradually, and only after the oil
is pressed out, or begins to flow very slowly, is
it taken off again. The oil is received in a tin
vessel, which, when fdled with oil, is replaced by
another.
"The pressing is continued until no more oil
can be obtained, at the temperature of the room.
The pressure is then removed, and the plates un-
packed, when cakes of pure white stearine are ob-
tained, having the dimensions of about 8 inches by
5 inches by \ inch. The stearine, after the removal
of the cloths, is ready for sale. The cloths are put
in one of the tanks containing hot water, until all
oil and stearine are melted off, when they are washed
in another tank and then hung up to dry. The
oil and stearine in the first tank are solidified by
means of cold water, collected and sold as soap-
grease.
" The oil obtained from the press is removed
to a cool place, until it assumes a temperature of
about 70'^ Fahr., when it is ready for the next
Of)eration.
"Churning Process.
" The treatment of the oil from now, on, is
conducted by my own process, and success in the
business depends on the result of this operation,
which is always successful in producing a good
product (provided the oil has been properly made) ,
where the following is closely adhered to : —
"The oil, now at the proper temperature (70"^
Fahr.), is removed to the churning-room. One
hundred pounds of the oil are introduced into
the churn at a time, with from 15 to 20 lbs. of
sour milk (just turned). About 3 or 2| ozs. of
annatto, to which has been added from | to
I oz. of bicarbonate of soda, may now be added,
and the whole agitated for about ten or fifteen
minutes, until milk, colouring matter, and oil
are thoroughly mixed together, when the whole
mixture is withdrawn from the churn, through a
hole at one end, and allowed to fall into a tube
containing powdered ice. As the oil flows on the
ice it must be kept in constant motion until the
tul) is filled with solidified oil, when another tub
is put in its place. Tlie ffraiii is liy this simple
process completely removed. The solidified oil,
which has a slight orange colour, is left for about
two hours in contact with the ice in the tubs,
when it is dumped on an inclined table, where
it is crumbled up so that the ice may melt and
leave it; it is then crumbled up fine by hand, and
about 30 lbs. of it at a time introduced into
churns, with about 20 to 25 lbs. of sour milk,
which may have been previously churned, and
the whole is agitated for about fifteen minutes.
During this agitation the solidified oil takes
up a certain percentage of milk, and with it
the flavour and odour which the melting ice had
w^ashed out of it before. It is then removed from
the chui-n to the working table, where, after stand-
ing and draining for a time, it is salted at the rate
of f to 1 oz. of salt to the lb. of butter, and it
is packed into firkins and is ready for sale."
This product is not buffer, however much it
may be ma<le to resemble it in taste, colour, and
smell. Butter is one of the most comijlicated fats
known ; it contains in varying proportions niue
different so-called fatty acids in combination with
glycerine, and it consists therefore of glyeeroids.
These glyeeroids are butine, stearine, palmatiuc,
myristine, caprine, capryline, caproine, butyrine, and
oleine. But artificial butter contains only three of
these, palmatiuc, stearine, and oleine, with a trace
of caprine. The stearine is not all removed in the
process of manufacture, for artificial butter still
contains 47 per cent, of it. The name oleomargarine
is taken from palmatine, which is sometimes called
margarine ; but of this particular substance arti-
ficial butter contains much less than it does of
either of the other two. By churning animal oil
in milk an attempt is made to introduce into arti-
ficial butter the six missing fats which are found
in real buttei', yet with very indifferent success, for
only a mere trace of one of them is secured. The
followino; table shows the difference between them :
Palmatine
Stearine ...
Oleine
Butyrine ..
Caproine ...
Caprine ..
Capryline
Butine
Myristine..,
Fats in
Eeal Butter.
Fats in
Artificial Butter.
20-33
22-32
42-77
46-91
27-71
30-42
32G
DAIRY FARMING.
The substances aV)seiit from artificial butter are
limited in quantity, but on them rest the sin<ijular
excellences of real butter; and it is their jirodue-
tion in the mammal glands that invests those
organs with so mueh interest — that makes them
one of the most wonderful of nature's laboratories.
Butter is a peculiar product, and its Havour, o<lour,
and eom]x)sition are found in nothing else in
nature in the same, or nearly' the same, combina-
tion. Animal fat, on the contrary, is not produced
by the mammal-glands but by other tissues of
the animal's body, hence it is not invested with
those peculiar properties on account of which
butter is at once famous and unicjue. It may be,
and probably is, as wholesome and nutritious as
inferior natural butter, but it is not butter any
more than chalk is alabaster, though in each
comparison there is a good deal of similarit}' ; yet
chalk has its uses, and so has oleomargarine
butter.
One thing is clear: the inferior kinds of butter
will have to succumb before oleomargarine, because
it can be produced so much more cheaply than they,
and because it is an infinitely more reliable article.
Common butter is made every shade of colour and
very irregular in quality and flavour; but oleo-
margarine is made imiform in appearance, inquality,
and in taste, and these qualities, being reliable,
will carry it over the prejudice which exists against
it at present. It is, in fact, a more desirable, a
more marketable, and a really more valuable article
than our commonest kinds of milk-butter, and very
much more so than bad whey-butter ; it is being
used — the better brands of it, that is — for ordinary
table use already to a very large extent, and in
course of time its consumption in this manner
will altogether su])ersede that of the poorer and
commoner kinds of natural butter. To say the
least, it is a great and dangerous rival to natural
butter ; and our dairy-farmers will have to bestir
themselves so as to produce the best possible butter
from the good raw material of milk, or the oleo-
margarine nuikers will run them very hard in the
competition for public approval ; for the item of
aost of production is very much in favour of the
artificial goods, as it is a heavy handicap) on those
who produce the real ones.
Artificial butter is being commonly sold under
the name of " buttcrine," and this is by far prefer-
able to oleomargarine as a commercial designation
of the article. Though the taste of it is not posi-
tively olijectionable, it is negatively so, for there
is a disappointing absence of flavour of any kind.
Comparatively speaking, it is both tasteless and
odourless, and while it can never find much favour
with those who have been accustomed to and can
.still obtain good milk-butter, it is sure to be pi'e-
ferrcd by those who have been used to eating the
inferior qualities of natural butter. The retail
dealers have every inducement to sell it to those
customers who have no particular objection to it,
because they can get a very good profit out of it ;
then, again, they can dejjend on a regular sui)ply
of an article that is quite uniform in quality,
colour, and flavour; and, in the commercial world,
these qualities are of great importance between
salesman and customer. But with all the inferior
grades of natural butter the ease is quite different ;
the dealers cannot depend on getting uniformity of
anything, and their customers are of course equally
uncertain. Then, further, the keeping properties
of buttorine are very much superior to those of
inferior butter, and this fact provides both dealer
and customer with cogent reasons for preferring
the former to the latter. It is only really good
butter that can compete with success against
butterine.
A good deal of oleomargarine is worked off
in adulterating real butter. The two are simply
mixed up together in a more or less thorough
manner, and then sold as the real article. In this
way butter is degraded. We consider that a law
should be made under which such ])ractices cjm be
dealt with in a prompt and special manner. The
sale, indeed, of oleomargarine requires a special
Act of Parliament for its control. None of it
ought to be allowed to be sold in any shape or
form, except under a designation which shall
plainly declare its real character, so that no cus-
tomer be deceived in buying it. If the jmblic will
then buy it from preference, there is nothing more
to say; but they have a right to protection against
being supplied with a spurious when they ask for
a genuine article. This artificial butter is an in-
vention of modern times, and its development
should be controlled by a law which is sufficiently
elastic to cover every phase into which the article
may enter. And this is the more necessary be-
cause the public, cannot detect butter which has
been adulterated with oleomargarine ; nor can
they, indeed, always distinguish between genuine
butter and its counterfeit rival.
ARTIFICIAL BUTTER.
327
Professor G. C. Caldwi'll writes as follows on
tliis topic : —
"The detection of olcomariiai-iiie in butter,
when the adulterating material is made, as it can
be, in a careful aud cleanly manner, is not easy,
nor certain, except by methods which only a skilled
chemist can execute. Several simple tests have
been given, but my own experience with them
has shown that they can be relied upon only when
the oleomargarine is poorly or carelessly made, or
when the butter consists entirely of oleomargarine
simply flavoured by the small proportion of cream
with which it is churned. Of these tests the
following has given the best results within my
hands : — Over a piece of good butter as large as a
chestnut in a wine-glass pour about twice its bulk
of ether; stir it up until the fat is all dissolved.
Let it stand for a few minutes till the undissolved
salt has settled to the bottom. Pour the clear
solution ofE into a table-spoon and set it aside for
an hour or two, or till all the ether has entirely
evaporated. Perform the same operation with a
jjiece of oleomargarine, and on comparing the
two fatty residues the latter will be found to have
a more or less distinct tallowy odour, which may
become more apparent if the spoon is held for a
moment in the hot steam from the boiling tea-
kettle. The residue from good butter has no such
odour ; but geiuiine butter may be adulterated
with half its weight of oleomargarine, and the
adulteration cannot be detected by this test. When
genuine butter is heated to a temperature of several
degrees above the boiling-point of water, it foams
much more than oleomargarine does when treated
in a similar manner. I have found that this test
enables us to distinguish genuine butter from
genuine oleomargarine, but it is no more service-
able than the other for detection of adulteration of
the one with the other. No one should place much
dependence on either of these tests without going
throvigh with the same operation with genuine butter
at the same time, or at least not until thoroughly
familiar with the different results given by the
two substances under the conditions of the test/'
CHAPTER XXI.
CoXDKNSKD MlI.K.
Usefulness of Condensed Milk— Its Nutritive Value— First Miinufacturo by Professor Horsford, of Massachusetts— Mr. Borden's
Experiments— He Discovers the Necessity of Protection from Atmospheric Influences- Adopts the Vacuum-Pan— Other Minute
Precautions Necessary— Cause of Ferment and Decomposition Mr. Dorden's Hules for Milk-Sellers
—Description of the Borden Apparatus and Process-Growth of tlie Trade in Condensed Milk.
r ^
~V
of our readers are
' doubtless acquainted with
condensed milk ; travellers
by sea are familiar with it,
and it is carried to dis-
tant parts of the earth for
use where it is impossible
fresh milk. As a rule its
consumption is at present for the most
part confined to those who cannot pro-
cure fresh milk at all, or cannot pro-
cure it regularly, and it is not commonly
usal to the exclusion of fresh milk where the
latter is available, unless in cases where it is
difficult to obtain a pure and genuine article
in the fresh state. It is probable that the
Adulteration Acts, under the operation of which
pure milk is now obtainable almost everywhere
in our towns and cities, have cheeked somewhat
the growing consumption of condensed milk; and
it is more than probable that it would by this
period have come to be very extensively used as a
regular article of diet in private families, if the
saj)])Iy of fresh milk to our urban populations had
remained in the unsatisfactory state of a dozen
years ago. But as matters now stand, fresh milk
of fairly good quality is almost everywhere obtain-
able, though not always at a moderate price, and
the vacancy which condensed milk would other-
wise have been called on to fill no longer exists, or
exists on a much diminished scale. But outside
the bounds of family use there is a very wide
demand for condensed milk ; for the army abroad,
the navy, the merchant service, for travellers
almost everywhere, for hotels and various large
public institutions, it is a most valuable adjunct
to the supply of food. In former times sailors,
soldiers, and travellers l)evouil the limits of
civilisation have felt severely the loss of milk,
which, jjrevious to the invention of the condensing
process, they were unable to take with them
except in the forms of cheese and butter, and it
is only in our day that the deprivation has been
removed.
Cheese is a condensed form of milk, and butter
consists chiefly of the fats of milk without any of
the casein; both are most excellent and valuable
• — nay iudisj^ensable — articles of food, and though
the former may be regarded as in most respects a
very tolerable substitute for milk in a dry form,
while butter is extremely valuable as consisting of
the carbonaceous elements of milk, neither one nor
the other can by any practical process be re-invested
with the projierties on account of which milk is
placed in the front rank of the world's food pro-
ducts. Condensed milk differs essentially from
cheese in this : the casein in it is still soluble, as in
new milk, while in cheese it is precipitated. It
differs again in this : it contains the whole of the
sugar of milk, the bulk of which passes off in
the whey in the process of cheese-making. But
the chief difference is the first mentioned, for,
when once precipitated, the cunl of milk cannot
be restored to its former condition. In cheese-
making, as in milk-condensing, the salient residt is
the removal of the bulk of the water which milk
contains, but in this it is done without precipita-
tion of the casein, while in that it is not; in this
also all the sugar is retained in the product, while
in that the bulk of it escapes in the whey. The
process of cheese-making is much simpler and less
ex]iensive than that of milk-condensing, but the
product in one case is totally different in character
from that of the other ; and while cheese cannot be
re-invested with the characteristics of the milk
from which it was made, cuiideiised milk, by the
CONDENSP^D ]\IILK.
o-2^
f;ini)ile additinn of a i^'ivi'ii ([uantity nf water, can
easily and quickly bo made to re-assume all the
character of, and to again become to all intents
and purposes identical with, new milk as taken
from the cow. Hence it follows that condensed
milk, as apjilied to certain purposes, possesses a
value which is not shared by any other producit of
the dairy.
America claims the first production of a satis-
factory, merchantable article of condensed milk.
Experiments in this direction began in that country
in 1816, and were quite independent of the efforts
in England and France ten and twenty years
before. To Professor E. N. Horsford, of Cam-
bridge, ]\Iassachusetts, is due the credit of the
first experiments which established the two points
of evaporation at a low temperature and the
requisite proj)ortion of sugar for preservation. A
chemical assistant of his joined some business men
and succeeded in making in Dutchess County, New
York, an article of solid condensed milk, which
was found practically useful in California as early
as l.S.5-2, and was proved by the Subsistence De-
partment of the United States Army upon the
plains in 1853-4. It was also tried on ship-board,
and orders filled from Liverpool. The same parties
prepared in 1856, for the Arctic Expedition of
Dr. Kane, 600 lbs. of condensed milk in solid
blocks, which was very valuable during that
memorable voyage. Professor Horsford has still
in his possession (1880) a little block of this very
lot in a condition of perfect preservation, although
protected from the air only by an envelope of loose
tin-foil during these four-and-twenty years. This
enterprise was not, however, a commercial success,
and the manufacture ceased.
In the introduction we stated that the credit of
being the first to produce a thoroughly successful
article under the name of condensed milk, which
was, to all intents and purposes, actual milk minus
the bulk of its water, is ascribed to the late Mr.
Gail Borden, of the United States. It is not
claimed by Mr. Boi-den's friends that he was the
inventor of milk-condensing, nor did he make any
such claim on his own account, but only that he
was the first to reduce the process to a thoroughly
successful and satisfactory form. Before he com-
menced operations at all, various kinds of con-
densed milk were being produced, some of which
were in a solid, others in a liquid, and others again
in a powdered form, each of which when re-mixed
with water rcjjrcscntcd milk witli more nr less
fidelity. Most of these require some extraneous
substance or other to assist in preserving them,
and sugar was, and indeed still is, extensively
employed for that purpose, so that much of the
condensed milk on the market was, and still is,
unpleasantly sweet. It is still necessary, even
under the best methods, to intermix more or less
sugar in condensed milk that is required to be kept
a considerable time before it is used ; but plain
condensed milk, intended for early consumption, is-
now successfully prepared without the help of any
foreign preserving agent, and Mr. Borden was
the first who made an article answering to this
description.
Thirty years ago Mr. Borden's attention was
directed to producing suitable food-supplies for
the use of emigrants and travellers across the vast
plains of America — food of a highly nutritive
character, and at the same time easily portable,
containing in a concentrated form food-elements
that could not with any regularity or surety be
obtained on the plains, and he produced a "meat-
biscuit,'" which soon became popular. From this
his thoughts turned toward the preserving of milk
for similar uses. His aim from the onset was to
accomplish the preservation of the milk by simply
removing the water, and to guard carefully against
any possible detriment from the time when the
milk was drawn from the cow until the process of
preservation was completed. He examined various
preparations of solidified and otherwise jsreserved
milk that were on the markets of England, France,
and America, and found in none of them a near
approach to his ideal standard of what condensed
milk ought to be ; the high price at which these
preparations were sold, their properties and qualities,
and the fact that most of them contained alkaline
salts and other foreign substances, prevented them
becoming popular, and Mr. Borden saw that there
was a broad margin between what these products
supplied and what the public required; this opening
he determined to fill.
He discarded from the first all thought of
condensing skim-milk, although scientific friends
warned him that he aimed too high iu trying to
retain, uninjured, all the butter in connection with
the remaining solid constituents of the milk; this,
they told him, could not be attained in practice,
however clear it might seem in theory, and they
advised him that the removal of a portion of the
330
DAIRY FARMING.
CR'ani would lie I'uuml iiwrssary as a first step;
but he " pushed ou regardless of the advice,
ix'rsevering- with characteristic euer<^y and deter-
mination until his object was attained."
After testinij the processes employed by others,
and carefully observing results, he became con-
vinced that protection from itijiirious atmospheric
influences during the process of evaporation was
an essential requisite to success; but he soon found
that serious difficulties stood in the way of graft-
ing this principle of protection on any existing
process of milk-condensing. The chief difficulty
was the adhesion, in the form of a crust, of the
albuminous constituents of the milk to the inner
surface of the vacuum-pan (this was at length pre-
vented by oiling the inner surface of the pan) ;
and the foaming of the milk under the lessened
atmospheric pressure was such that an experienced
sugar-boiler, whose aid he sought, pronounced it
sheer folly to persist in trying to employ the
vacuum method in the evaporation of milk, because
it was utterly impracticable. These and other
difficulties were, however, at length overcome, and
success was assured.
Mr. Borden's first application for a patent to
cover his marked improvements in niilk-eoudensiug
was made in May, 1853, but owing to technical
objections he did not obtain the grant until
August, 1856. In his claim he stated that evapora-
tion in vacuo was a leading feature of his process,
and in reply the Acting Commissioner said :
" You allege great importance to working entirely
in vacuum. This office does not have any faith
in such an allegation." Y'et while these learned
officers could see no advantage in evaporation in
vacuo over that in open pans, they did grant a
patent for "conveying the steam and flavour
arising from the evaporation of milk through
another vessel containing sugar, the purpose
being to thus distil milk and condense the
same in sugar to preserve the pure flavour,"
as if in the water and odours of milk lay all
its virtue 1 The importance of protecting the
milk from contact with the air was a point in
which Mr. Borden strongly believed, and which
he asserted in his apjilication for the patent;
but though the Examiners and Commissioner
admitted the superiority of his condensed milk
over that of other makers, they were.for the time
wedded to the belief that an equally satisfactory
result might be obtained under any other method
of evaporation, providing equal skill and care were
employed in the manii)ulation, and that it was
not due to any special superiority of ]\Ir. Borden's
ajiparatus. This objection was finally overcome
by scientific evidence to the fact that by no other
method could condensed milk of equal quality be
obtained, and the patent was granted.
Mr. Borden was not, at all events at the outset
of his experiments in the preservation of food, a
scientific man, though his mind had a decided
scientific tendency. He had no knowledge of the
germ theory, but he had a wholesome dread of in-
cipient decomposition of milk, and he hit upon the
scientific fact that if he could prevent its beginning
before and during the process of condensation, it
would be easy to secure the product against its
inroads. Hence the adoption of the vacuum-pan, by
means of which the milk, properly taken care of
previously, was completely protected from atmo-
si)heric taints whilst its water was evaporating at
a comparatively low temperature. This process
Mr. Borden made so completely successful that it
su])erseded all others in effectiveness, and it is
affirmed that all the brands of good or even of fair
quality now sold are prepared substantially under
the system originated by him.
At an early stage in his experiments he came
to the conclusion, from which he never wavered,
that milk could not be satisfactoril}' preserved in
a dry form, either as dessicated, or powdered, or
solidified, but must be left in a semi-liquid state.
It also became evident that to secure long-keeping
properties some preservative agent must be em-
ployed, and sugar was found to be the only proper
thing to use for that purpose. Without taking
from the milk any constituent except water, and
adding to it nothing excejit sugar, condensed milk
is now produced ; it is semi-liquid, of the consis-
tency of honey or molasses, and when re-mixed
with water is actual milk once more, possessing all
the characteristics and properties of fresh milk, and
differing from it only in so far as it is a little
sweeter. The preserved milks that are in a solid
or powdered state require to be di.ssolved in hot
water, but the condensed milk prepared under Mr.
Borden's system dissolves readily in cold water,
hence there is an essential difference between it and
them; for domestic purposes generally this dif-
ference places the semi-liquid condensed milk far
before the other forms in which milk has been
preserved, so far as value and convenience are con-
CONDENSED MILK.
331
eerned ; while, at the same time, it is practically
identical with new milk, when the proper quantity
of water is restored to it, and they are not.
The successful manufacture of condensed milk
demands the utmost and unceasing care during the
whole of the process, scrupulous cleanliness every-
where, and minute attention to details. To use
Mr. Borden's own words: — "The making of a
good article depends not so much upon the formula
in the best specification, as upon ike condition of
the milk lo/ien brought to the factory, and the care
and attention given to every part of the process,
from the washing of the vessels and the thorough
cleanliness which should be observed in every de-
partment. The success of the milk manufactured at
our three factories is due to the attention which we
give to the jjersonal inspection of every department
of the dairies on the farms, which is assigned to
one person at each factory, and to the constant
examination of every mane's milk, by samples taken
and subjected to tests as to cream, sweetness, and
the time it will keep after being brought from the
dairies. In short, there is nothing manufactured
that requires so much care and everlasting vigilance
and attention as milk. From the time it is drawn
from the cow until hermetically sealed in cans it
requires that everything sh<juld be done with the
utmost integrity."
]Mr. X. A. Willard, of Little Falls, New York,
to whose early and long-sustained efforts after im-
provement American dairying owes more than to
any other man, writes as follows on the subject of
condensed milk : — •" In Mr. Borden's early experi-
ments the nature and cause of a peculiarly bad
behaviour of milk from time to time were im-
perfectly understood. Under certain circumstances
and conditions the milk could be readily handled,
and gave no trouble in its manipulation. When
in this state, comparatively inexperienced operators
— men who simply followed a set of rules, with
little or no knowledge of principles — were enabled
to turn out a good product, whether it was con-
densed milk, or butter, or cheese. Sometimes these
conditions would continue for days, for weeks, or for
months; but there was no reliability on their con-
tinuing for a specified time, or, indeed, in different
localities during the same time. The milk might
be easily worked one day, and the next would
refuse to be controlled under ordinary treatment.
The fault was at first supposed to originate in some
want of cleanliness, either at the factory or among
45
those who produced and delivered the milk. Tliis
was a part, but not the whole of the trouble. The
importance of cleanliness, and of what seemed
to many to be 'an absurd fastidious neatness,^
became apparent to INIr. Borden at an early stage
of his investigations. He therefore instituted a
set of rules for the government of dairymen in the
care and management of milk; and as he bought
only such milk as would pass the closest scrutiny
of an expert, he was able after a time to enforce
an observance of his printed regulations. He
adojjted also the practice of cleaning and steaming
at the factory his patrons' delivery milk-cans,
because he feared, and with good reason too, that
this work might not be properly done at the farm.
But even when farmers had become educated, and
all his conditions of cleanliness had been observed
and carried out to the letter, milk not unfre-
quently came to his factories which, though appa-
rently perfect, or at least so perfect as to pass the
rigid scrutiny of his experts, was in a condition
that rendered it impossible to be converted into a
good product. The reason for this was not easy of
solution, and it has been the cause of heav}' losses
and the closing up of factories which were not
under Mr. Borden's immediate supervision.
" It may be observed here that good condensed
milk is more reliably clean and healthy than most
milk that goes to the city consumer. Dirty milk,
foul with the drippings of the stable, cannot be
condensed into a clean-flavoured product. The
success of the condensing factory depends entirely
upon the ability to put a fine-flavoured, perfect
article upon the market. The milk must be uni-
formly good. An inferior condensed milk is more
readily detected than an inferior article of cheese ;
at least, imperfections in cheese may be tolerated,
and the article may find a place in the market, but
a factory sending out imperfect or badly-flavoured
milk must soon cease to be remunerative, and must
inevitably close its doors. To obtain any success
in this business there is an absolute necessity for
clean healthy milk in the first instance, and it may
be well to warn those who propose to enter upon
condensed milk manufacture that more than ordi-
nary difficulties lie before them."
Microscopical investigations by various scien-
tific men have revealed the nature of the active
agents which bring about the decomposition of
milk, changing it from its attractive and palatable
form to one that is repulsive and unwholesome.
33a
DAIRY FARMING.
The processes of decomposition are v.arious, accord-
ing]^ to tlie nature of the ferment applied and of
the substance acted upon. The f^erms of decay
exist in the air, sometimes in <j;'reat plenitude, and
are ever ready to seize on substances whose inhe-
rent life-principle does not for the time protect
them. The air we breathe, which is indispensable
to life, contains the germs which disinteg'rate
org'anisms whose life has departed, or substances
which have become detached from the organisms
which produced them. Some substances are sub-
ject to much more rapid decay than others are,
because they are composed of ingredients on which
the decay-germs feed with greater avidity. Few
things are more liable than milk to early and
rapid decay if it comes in contact with air that
is charged with the germs of ferments — some of
which are easily perceived by the offensive odour
which they emit.
Professor G. C. Caldwell, of Cornell University,
writes as follows on " Organised and Unorganised
Ferments " : —
" Within these last ten years the line
of demarcation between organised and un-
organised ferments has been more plainly laid
down. Fermentation in general, inclusive of
putrefaction, is now defined to be a chemical
change, in which an organic body, some product of
vegetable or animal life, is modified in a certain
way i;nder the influence of another organic sub-
stance, which is likewise some product of vegetable
or animal life, and is called the ferment. The
products of the chemical change produced in the
first body are formed exclusively at the expense of
that body ; thci-e is no union of the ferment with
the fermented body, or with any product of the
decomposition of that body, to form a new
chemical compound. One of the most striking
features of this process of fermentation is the great
power of the ferment, manifested in the decomposi-
tion of many hundred or thousand times its weight
of the substance attacked by it.
" Now we find that in certain classes of cases the
ferment is not only organic — that is to say, some
product of vegetable or animal life — Ijut also
organised, itself a living being, either vegetable or
animal, and the fermentation is accomplished in
some yet unexjilained way in connection with the
o])eration of the vital processes of the living being.
The form and structure, and in many cases the
movements, of these living beings are made out
with the aid of the microscope, and often without
the use of very high magnifying powers.
" An eminent writer on this subject has lucidly
stated the difference between the two kinds of
ferments. 15oth ferments, he says, are derived from
living organisms ; the one, the uuorganisetl ferment,
or the soluble ferment, as it is sometimes called,
can act indeixjndently of the living organism
which is necessary to produce it; but in the other
ease the living organism itself must be in the
fermenting liquid in the actual performance of its
vital processes, growing and multipljnng there.
" In some cases these unorganised ferments
will withstand quite high temperatures without
the permanent loss of their fermenting power, as
compared with the organised ferments. Pepsine, one
of these ferments, Inis been heated to 2'ii)'-' Fahr.
without destroying any of its fermenting power ;
the ferment found in the pancreatic juice which
brings about certain changes in the albuminoids
and fats of the food that it meets in the intestines
has been heated to 320° without the entire de-
struction of its power, and to 225'' for half an
hour and to 208° for five hours without the loss of
any power.
" In some cases we find several of these fer-
ments in one and the same liquid, as in the
pancreatic juice of the animal, where there is one
ferment that alters the albuminoids, another that
breaks up the fats, and still a third that converts
the starch into sugar; and these ferments may
be in a measure separated from one another by
treating the pancreatic glands with solutions of
different salts, one salt serving to extract one fer-
ment only, and leaving the others. A solution of
roehelle salt or of nitrate of ammonia will extract
nothing but the ferment that acts on the
albuminoids, while the one that converts the fats
is taken up by bicarbonate of soda.
"There are other points of difference be-
tween unorganised and organised ferments, some
of which furnish us with quick and ready means
of determining whether in any given case we
have to deal with the one kind or the other; a
brief consideration of these reactions will serve to
bring out in a still more striking manner the
strong line of demarcation between the two kinds
of ferments. When an organised ferment is ex-
jiosed to the action of oxygen gas under pressure
it is killed; an unorgani.sed ferment is not. Cer-
tain chemicals which stoji alcoholic fermentation.
CONDENSED MILK.
33;3
or any othor kind oh' fernu'ntation of a siniihir
character, havu no elfect at all on the action of
diastase : these are prussic acid, alcohol, ether,
chloroform, and oil of turpentine; on the other
hand, citric and tartaric acids, which hinder
alcoholic fermentation but slightly, stop the action
of diastase completely ; borax stops the action of
the soluble but not of the organised ferments.
Acids in general hinder the action of the soluble
ferments ; carbolic acid, which is, however, not a
true acid, has but little effect upon them ; no
organised ferment will work in a solution contain-
ing more than 0'5 per cent, of carbolic acid, while
a soluble ferment like pepsine continues its action
without hindrance. Another and an important
point of difference between the two kinds of fer-
ments is found in the difl'crent kinds of chemical
changes which they produce ; the change produced
by the organised ferment is much more complicated
than that produced Ijy the unorganised."
Contact with impure air quickly communicates
to milk the elements of decay, and it would appear
that the ferments given to milk in this way are
chiefly organised ferments, or fungi of one kind or
another ; but whatever they may be, and whether
they act by souring the milk or by tainting it,
their action proceeds to decomposition and decay.
When deposited on substances rich in nitrogen, as
milk is, and if the temperature is suitable to their
propagation, these ferments usually multijsly at a
wonderful rate, causing a rapid destruction of the
substance in which they operate. Some of them
pass through a variety of forms as they develop,
multiplying in number at each stage, and the
course is finished in a very short time. At a tem-
perature of only bO° to 60" the fungus Peiicilliiim
crusfaceum (blue mould) runs through its course in
forty-eight hours at the most. The spores of the
fungus are extremely minute, and each one of them
produces, in the time named, several hundred other
spores, and these again multiply at the same rate,
and so on. Under different conditions, at least
six different kinds of spores are produced from
those of PencilUiim, each one representing a dif-
ferent kind of decomposition ; these are only so
many different stages in the development of the
original fungoid spore, and under proper conditions
these new and different spores are just as surely
re-converted into PencilUum spores as they were
in the first place produced from them. Thus it
is that putrefactive ferments act, feeding on and
destroying a ]>reviously sound and fresh substance,
and converting it into the same decomposed
elements as those from which they sprang them-
selves.
Milk will ([uiekly absorb any kind of taint that
may happen to be in the air to which it is expcjsed,
whether it be a putrefactive taint or not. The
taint may consist of germs thrown off by some
adjacent animal or vegetable substances in a state
of decomposition ; it may arise from cesspools
reeking with a hideous mixture, or from manure-
heaps and liquid-manure tanks ; or it may not be
a decay agent at all, but simply an odour thrown
off by various liquids or substances, as paraffin,
asphalte, &c. &e., and the odour itself agreeable
or otherwise, as the case may be. These can only
be expelled by immediately heating the milk to
about 15U'^. There are few if any odours, how-
ever mild, with which milk will not become im-
pregnated, if they have access to it, and in extreme
cases the milk will have acquired the intensely dis-
ao-reeable property of tadiiig like the smell of the
odom- it has absorbed. Once acquired, this pro-
perty cannot easily be got rid of, and whatever is
made from the milk, be it cheese, butter, or con-
densed milk, will be more or less injured accord-
ingly ; and, strange to say, the extent to which the
property is acquired seems to depend less on the
volume of the milk and of the infectant odour
than on the quantity and quality of the cream in
the milk. The food, too, and the treatment of the
cows, as we have seen in another part of this work,
have a great deal to do with the condition and
quality of the milk, and by these means alone,
without the help of extrinsic influences, milk may
be much reduced in value.
Such, then, are the enemies with which the
maker of dairy products has to contend, and the
condensed-milk producer is affected by them in an
especial manner. Suspecting this, Mr. Borden
was led to locate his factories in favourable dis-
tricts for obtaining good milk, to select as milk-
suppliers persons whose long experience in furnish-
iuo- milk for city consumption had instilled habits
of care and cleanliness to a degree which is uncom-
mon among dairy-farmers in general, and to frame
for his own security and for guidance of the sup-
pliers of milk the following set of rules :—
"1. The milk shall be drawn from the cow in the most
cleanly manner, and strained through wire-cloth strainers.
"2. The milk mast Le tlioruuyhly cooled, immediately
334
DAIRY FARMING.
after it is drawn from the cow, by placing the can in which it
is contained in a tub or vat of cold water, deep enough to come
up to the height of the mUk in the can, containing at least
three times as much water as there is milk to be cooled ; the
milk to be occasionally stirred until the animal heat is expelled,
as below.
" 3. In summer or in spring or fall, when the weather is
wami, the biith shall be spring water, not over .52° temperature
(a day or night after a heavy rain excepted), constantly
running or pouring in at bottom, necessary to reduce the
temperature of the milk within forty-five minutes to below
58° ; and if night's milk (to remain in such batli until the time
of bringing it to the factory) to below 55°. Tho morning's
milk not to exceed 60° when brought to the factorj'.
"4. In winter or in freezing weather the bath shall bo
kept at the coolest point (it need not be running spring water)
by the addition of ice or snow suCScient to reduce the tempera-
ture of night's milk speedily below 50°.
" 5. In spring and fall weather a medium course will be
pursued, so that the night's milk shall be cooled within an
hour below 50°, and morning's milk below 55°.
" C. The bath and su]iply of water shall be so arranged as
to let the water flow over the top to carrj' off the warm water.
The can in which the milk is cooled shall be placed in the
water immediately after the milking, and shall remain therein
until the process of cooling shall be finished.
" 7. The night's and morning's milk shall be separately
coolotl before mixing.
" 8. Js o milk shall be kept over to deliver at a subsequent
time.
" 9. The milk shall be delivered on the platform at the
factory every day, except Sunday.
" 10. Suitable cans of proper dimensions to transport the
milk from the dairy to the milk-works shall be furnished by
the seller, and the cans shall be brought full.
"11. The Company shall clean and steam the cans at the
factory free of charge, but milk-suppliers shall keep the
outsides clean. The pails and strainers employed shall be by
the seller thoroughly cleaned, scalded in boiling water, and
dried morning and night.
" 12. Immediately before the milk is placed in the cans
they shall be thoroughly rinsed with clean cold water, and
great care shall be taken to keep the cans and milk free from
dirt or impurities of any kind. When the cans are not in use
they should be turned down on a rack, with the tops off.
" 13. All the stoppings as well as the first part of the milk
shall be brought. No milk will be received from a cow which
has not c,^Ived at least twelve days, unless by consent of the
superintendent or agent, who may determine its fitness sooner
by a sample of the milk.
" 14. The cows are not to be fed on turnips or other food
which would impart a disagreeable flavour to the milk, nor
upon any food which will not produce milk of standard rich-
ness.
" 15. It is further understood and agreed by the parties
hereto, that if the superintendent or agent of the Company
shall have good reason to suspect, either from evidence
furnished or from the state of the milk itself, that water has
been added, or that it has not been cooled as provided, or that
it has been injured by carelessness, he shall have a right to
refuse to receive such milk, or any further quantity of milk,
from the person so violating these directions and stipulations."
The issuing of these ehiLorale rules — which,
by the way, are apjilic.ihle to the produt-tion and
trealniont of milk that is devoted to other \>m-
poses than that of milk-eondensin<j — proves that
their author was alive to the necessity of pre-
servin<j milk with the tjreatest care from injury
by lilth, from the absorption of ferments, and
from carelessness ; but the most effective thin"
in connection with them is the strictness with
which they were enforced. Such rules are all
very well, but unless they are scrupulously
obeyed they are not worth the paper on which
they are printed.
There are various methods and reci])es for con-
densing and preserving milk, among which the
following may be mentioned : — (1) Add sugar ;
evaporate to one-fourth ; solder in cans, (i) Add
carbonate of soda and white sugar; evaporate to
dryness; cut into cakes. (^) Add sugar and alkali;
evaporate to dryness ; crush, powder, and bottle.
(■i) Evaporate to one-half ; beat up white of egg ;
simmer, skim, strain, and boil. (5) Carbonate of
soda one-half drachm, water one fluid ounce ; dis-
soK^e ; add fresh milk one quart, sugar one
pound ; reduce to syrup in a steam bath, and
finish the evaporation on plates in an oven. In
many milk-condensing factories the milk is first
cooled to GO'^ and then heated in a hot-water bath
for about half an hour until it has reached 160*^
to 180*^, when it is poured into the large con-
densing-j)an, directly above which are two large
fans that are kept in motion by machinery ; the
fans carry off the water from the milk, forcing it
through ventilators out of the building as fast as
it is formed into vapour. In this way 75 per cent,
of the bulk of the milk is carried off in about seven
hours.
In Borden's method, which is protected by
patent, nothing excej)t sugar is added to the milk,
hence its superiority over most of the others. It
is obvious that the addition of carbonate of soda,
however useful it may be in preserving the milk,
cannot but detract more or less from its value and
attractiveness when it comes to be used as food ;
while sugar alone affects it in no other way than to
make it more or less sweeter than new milk. The
process in question is described by j\Ir. "Willard as
follows : —
" The factory at Brewster is an immense estab-
lishment, and every part of the business is con-
ducted with the regularity of clockwork. The
building is located on a small stream where there
is a 7-foot fall, and the water is thus utilised for
MILK CONDENSING.
335
niniiiiig' tlio pumps, wliieli is a considerable saviiio^
(lurinjjj the j-ear hy way of fuel. The factory has
two vucuum-paus, one of which is a 6-foot pan
with two coils of pipe, and 2,000 quarts of milk per
hour is the usual rate of condensing. Mr. Borden
believes in doing the work rapidly, and says the
sooner you can get the milk from the cow into
a condensed form the better. There are two
boilers of S.j horse-power each for supplying
steam to the pans, and the average pressure of
steam in the pipes, at the pan, is 55 to 60 lbs.
to the square inch. The evaporation goes on best
in clear dry weather ; in damp, foggy weather
it takes a little longer to get the water out of
the milk. About 10,000 quarts are being con-
densed per day.
" The milk as it is received goes into squ:ire-
amount of sugar is calculated for the given quan-
tity of milk, and then turned into a movable tank
or well, where hot milk is poured upon it till it is
thoroughly dissolved. The hot sugared milk is
drawn up last into the pan, and mingles there
with the milk that has been partially condensed.
The sugared milk must be eliminated of more
water than plain milk, since the addition of
sugar partially liquefies the mass — a curious fact.
Three pints of milk make 1 lb. of sugared con-
densed milk. The best quality of white granu-
lated sugar is used, in the proportion of l;^lbs. of
sugar to the gallon of milk.
" The milk remains in the vacuum-pan for
about three hours, during which time about 75 per
cent, of its bulk in water is eliminated, when it is
di-awTi off into cans holding about 40 quarts each.
Fig. 20O.—M11.K Condensing Factory at Brewster, N.Y.
like boxes or va<s, the receiving-room being 4
or 5 feet higher than the bath and heating-room.
The bath-tubs are circular, aud have a coil of steam
jiipe at the bottom; they are filled within 6 or
8 inches of the top with water. The heating
wells are of copper, egg-shaped, and stand opposite
the bath-tubs, a raised platform running between
the two. The milk is drawn through a hose from
the receiving-tanks into copper cans setting in
the bath-tubs, each can holding about 40 quarts,
and here it is heated to from 150° to 175° ; it
then goes to the heating wells, which have a
jacketed bottom for steam, and is heated up to
the boiling-point; it is then immediately drawn
into the vacuum-pan, into which a stream of milk
is kept flowing about as fast as the evaporation
goes on, or at the rate of about 2,000 quarts per
hour. When the sugared milk is to be made the
The cans are only partially filled, and are then set
in a large vat containing cold water, the water
being of a height equal to the milk in the cans.
Here it is stirred until the temperature of the con-
densed fluid is reduced to a little below 70°. It is
then turned into large drawing-cans with faucets,
in order to facilitate the filling of the small cans.
The drawing-cans stand in a room set apart for
the purpose, and around the outside of which runs
a table or work-bench. Here the milk is drawn
from the faucets into the small tin cans, holding
1 lb. each, when they go to the table, and are
immediately soldered to exclude the air. The cans
next have the proper labels pasted upon them and
are ready for market. The work of filling the
cans, soldering the tops, and labelling is usually
performed by females. A number of small solder-
ino' furnaces are located along the tables, where the
336
DAIRY FARMING.
f^irls, oneh witli a Sft of sulilfring' irons, seal llio
caus as fast as they arc brought forward l)y the
fillers."
An article called " Phiiu Condensed Milk" is
now made in cousiderahle quantities, and in llie
American cities it is daily retailed to customers
after the manner of fresh milk, in preference to
which it is bouf^ht by many jieople. It consists
of milk from which the bulk of the water has been
evaporated, and to which no preserving agent
whatever has been added. It is, therefore, made
for comparatively early consumption, though it
will keep sweet for a considerable time when
scaled up in cans. It is in this form more
easily portable than new milk, and becomes new
milk to all intents and purposes when water is
added to it. In its condensed form, however, it is
convenient to use in the place of cream, and its
consistency may be regulated at will.
The building is 16 by 50 feet, witli verandah, or
shed, 4 feet wide on two sides. The ground-floor
is divided into four dej)artments : the first to the
right is the can-washing-room, 16 by 16 feet,
containing the hot-water washing-tank, with coil
of steam-pipe, the hot-water sink and scalding
jacket, the cold-water sink and platform for clean-
ing cans. The steam-pipe leads from the boiler
to this room.
The next is the receiving, condensing, and
delivery room, 16 by 16 feet. It contains the
receiving and cooling tanks, the heating vat, and
the vacuum-pan. Then comes the engine-room, 7
by 16 feet, containing dujalex engine and pump,
with steam-pipes leading to the other rooms. The
rooms to the left are the coal-shed and boiler-room,
9 by 11 feet, where is situated the boiler (60 horse-
power) and the boiler-j)ump. Communication is
easy from one department to the other by wide
doors, and the whole is arranged for convenience in
.loing the necessary work.
Formerly vacuum-pans were made of copjcr,
but the high price of that metal tempted peojjle to
make them as thin as possible, and the collajise of
the ])an, owing to external atmosiiheric pressure,
was a not iinf requent occurrence. The use of cast-
iron instead of copper has obviated these disasters,
and cast-iron pans arc nciw successfully used for
milk-condensing and lor other purjioses. The
illustration (Fig. iJUl) shows the construction of
one of these vacuum-pans.
The pan A is 10 feet 6 inches in diameter.
and is cast in four pieces ; B is the dome, con-
nected by the \apour-pii)e c to the catcher
D, the latter being a cylindrical vessel, divided
part way by a partition or apron D^, against
whicli, in case of boiling over, the liipior would be
dashed and would gather in the bottom, where the
amount can be seen at the glass gauge d^, and,
if necessary, emptied into the pan by means of the
faucet and pipe d. From the top of the catcher
D the vapours are conducted by pipe e to the
condenser E*, which is jilaced 33 feet above the
water-level in the basin o, to which the condenser
is connected by the stand-])ipe F. The water rises
in the latter to about 30 feet, more or less, accord-
ing to the amount of vacuum, and is held therein
by atmospheric pressure on the surface of the
water in basin G, tlie condensing water added
flowing off from G by overflow ff. The water
enters the condenser at E^, falls over the sieve-
plates e e, and comes in direct contact with
the vapours, which have to pass also through the
openings in the sieve-plates e e, by which ar-
rangement the greatest condensation is produced
with the least amount of water.
At E^ the vacuum-pump, in this case a dry
one, is connected. To prevent the condensing
water from being drawn along with the vapours to
the pump, the opening E^ is guarded by an apron.
11 is the pipe through which the liquor enters the
pan. I is the drop-valve, composed of a rubber
disk between two plates on the end of a lever —
a sim])le and most effective construction, the pres-
sure of the outside air holding the valve perfectly
tight ; 1^ is a semi-globular casing which prevents
the liquor from spreading too much when it is dis-
charged. On the end of the valve-stem is fastened
a scrajjcr, intended to break any crust of crystal-
lised sugar that may have formed, as any such
crust, unless removed, would of course obstruct the
exit of the liquid.
The regular mountings of the pan consist of a
man-hole; a thermometer (l), the tube of which is
enclosed in a pipe, and reaches to the centre of
the boiling liquor; a vacuum-gauge (m) ; a glass
gauge (k), by which the quantity of liquor in the
])an is observed; a butter-cup (n), butter quieting
the liquor if it shows a tendency to boil over ; an
eye-glass (o), opposite to which is another similar
glass through wjiich a lamp gives light to the in-
terior of the pan. Q is a light glass on the top of
the pan, tlirongh which tiie entire surface of the
MILK C'ONl)ENSlN(i APPARATUS.
n.xl/orm
Fig. COl. -Ai'i'AiiATUs AKii Gkound-plan ok BriuiiNr, nou foNiiENsiNo Mji.k.
333
DAIRY FARMING.
lj()ilin<^ li(mnr may be illuniiiuiti'd, ;iiul R is the
fester, by wliieh ]>roofs are drawn to see how far
the process has advanced.
Heat is applied in the following manner : — The
bottom of the pan is double, and steam is admitted
thereto by the pipe P, the uj)per shell which forms
the heating- surface being generally of copper. The
steam also passes through one, two, three, or even
four coils, according to the size of the pan and the
amount of water to be evaporated in a specified
time, p is the steam-branch. The pipe s leads
to the bottom, s^ to the lower coil, s* to the
upper one. As fast as the steam is condensed, the
wat«r is led by the pipes u u from the bottom
and coils to a steam-trap.
It might at first sight be supposed that cast-
iron would fail to resist the coiToding action of
solutions, but the results of practice show that the
scale, which in every case covers the metal, protects
the pan completely; and as the liquor is in all
cases charged to some extent with lime, the pan
speedily becomes covered with a fine scale, or fur,
which effectually prevents all injurious action.
This is especially the case if the pan be worked
continually, but if long stoppages are made, copper
possesses decided advantages over cast-iron.
Under ordinary circumstances, however, the
cast-iron vacuum-pans answer every purpose, and
they can be constructed in such a perfect manner
that one similar to that described will retain a
vacuum of 29 inches for a space of twelve hours
without losing more than one inch.
Under the most promising conditions, however,
it is probable that no condensed-milk makers will
be uniformly successful ; because no system of in-
specting the milk on its arrival at the factory can
at all times succeed in detecting all the faults to
which it is liable, and, after all, the result depends
in a great measure on the milk-suppliers, who are
not all as careful as they ought to be.
Mr. Willard fitly sums up this part of the
question as follows : — " Under the best manage-
ment and most careful examination losses will
inevitably occur from time to time on ac-
count of imperfect milk, and a certain per-
centage must be allowed in making up an
estimate of expenses to cover this item. But
unless there be some reliability for obtaining good,
clean, healthy milk, it would not be advisable to
enter upon condensed-milk manufacture. To this
end the character of the country where the milk is
])r()du('cd should be studied. The pastures should
be u]i()n high, undulating, or well-drained soils j
the farms should have an abundance of clear,
sweet, running water;, while extra attention must
be given to the care and management of herds,
never over-driving in hot weather, milking with
regularity and with fastidious neatness, together
with absolute cleanliness in dairy utensils and
dairy buildings."
It is evident, therefore, that cleanliness of the
most scrupulous and comprehensive character is the
first requisite in milk-condensing. The milk must
not only be sound, produced bj' healthy cows from
sound and healthy food and under generous and
thoughtful treatment, but it must be kept scru-
pulously clean afterwards, and perfectly free from
the influence of taints and ferments; to th-'s is
added careful watching of the ])roeess and atten-
tion to details. Lacking these precautions, first-
class condensed milk cannot be produced, and the
attempt will be a failure. They are equally neces-
sary to the production of first-class cheese and
butter; their neglect is the explanation why there
is such a large proportion of third and fourth-class
cheese and butter in the country.
During the year 1879 there have been ten or
twelve milk-condensing factories in operation in
the United States, the largest being in New York,
Connecticut, ISIassachusetts, Pennsylvania, Mary-
land, and Illinois. The Borden patents have now
expired, and the right to manufacture is free to
all. But a pretty large capital is required for
establishing and maintaining a factory; favourable
surroundings are necessary; also skilfully trained
managers ; and so the business remains in a few
hands. The largest factories are still controlled
by members of the Borden family. It is certain
that well-conducted establishments yield a large
profit ; for while within a few years the price paid
for milk at the factories has varied from six to
twenty cents per gallon, the selling ])rice of the
condensed article has changed very little. So
quietly do the proprietors manage their affairs,
however, that the data are very meagre for es-
timating the extent or the profits of this manu-
facture in America. It is known that the factory
at Elgin, Illinois, uses from 3,000 to 4,000
gallons of milk a day, and the one at Brewster^'s,
in New York, a quantity as large. The total
product of condensed milk in America may be
roughly placed at 10,000,(100 lbs. a year. The
MILK CONDENSING IN ENGLAND.
339
following is a statement of the aumial value of
Domestic Condensed Milk exported from the
United States during the eleven years named : —
1869 81,758 dollars.
1870 HU.O'J'J
1871 91,U24
1872 86,808
1873 94, .38.5 „
1874 ... 79,018
187-5 123,565 „
1876 118,549 „
1877 123,801 „
1878 128,118 „
1879 119,883 „
Various milk-condensing factories have been
established from time to time in the British Islands,
but they have not, as a rule, been successful. The
price of milk, wages, and general expenses are too
high in this country to enable our condensed-milk
makers to compete on even terms with those of
foreign countries. In Switzerland, for instance,
plenty of milk can be bought for 4d. to 5d. per
gallon, whereas in England it is worth 7d. to 8d.,
and in the winter even more than that. Only in
summer-time, when milk is most cheaply produced,
is it likely that milk-condensing in England can
be successfully carried on, generally speaking, and
there are obvious disadvantages in having a factory
closed during one-half of the year. In this case
it eould not be well done except in connection
with large iirms in the milk trade, whose outlet
for milk in winter is so profitable that the supply
then must be kept up, even at the expense of having
to convert a considerable quantity into condensed
milk in summer, and in this way to keep the
farmers going all the year round.
We do not, in fact, expect to see milk-con-
densing factories established and permanently
successful in England, because, however low a
price milk may be at in this country, it must
of necessity be still lower in the countries where
the manufacture is at present carried on ; and
as condensed milk is so easily portable, it is
just the thing we maj' expect to import from
foreign countries, in the place of its equivalent in
cheese or butter. America appears to us to be the
country, jmr excellence, where the manufacture
of condensed milk has the most promising future,
because she is bound for a long time to come to
export a large proportion of her dairy products
in some form or other ; and if so, why not in part
as condensed milk ? Clearly cheese-making, from
several causes, is on the decline in this country ;
whether or not milk-condensing is a business
which will take its place is a problem whose
solution we leave to time.
C n AFTER XXII.
The ]\riLK Tkadk.
Recent nrowtli of the Milk Trade-Consequent Changes in Dairy Farming-Milk-Trains-Refrigerators-Cans-Diffloulties with
City Salesmen -Prices -Town Dairies -Recent Changes-The Cows— Improved Stalls and Sheds-
-*^^/ . Holland Park Farm-Thc Aylesbury Dairy Company-Other Jloderu Examples of London Milk Dairies.
■■'r-.
^1^ M^
? S we have previously stated, the
\ trade in country milk to our
A cities and towns has expanded
% greatly in the past fifteen years,
and has now attained enormous
dimensions, though it is not pos-
mMc to obtain exact statistics about it.
In many dairying districts throug-hout
tlie entire country, wherever there is a
contiguous railway, cheese-making has succumbetl
to the milk trade. Entire parishes which but
a few years ago were wholly devoted to cheese
and butter making now scarcely produce any
cheese at all, and very little butter. The
change is striking and complete. In other
parishes, too — one side only of which is, per-
haps, within sufficiently easy reach of a rail-
way— the revolution is making its way. The
farms lying nearest to the railway commonly
send off the whole of their milk the year
round, while those on the other side make cheese
in the summer and autumn months. But when
winter approaches and milk becomes scarce, when,
in consequence of colder weather, it can be de-
livered in town in better condition, the demand
for it increases according to its scarcity, and the
farmers who are constantly engaged in the milk
trade hunt up the milk of those who are not, in
order to supplement their own deficient winter
production. During at least five months of the
winter season the price of milk is such that
cheese-making farmers are glad to dispose of all
they can possibly spare, and the milk-selling
farmers are equally glad to buy it and collect it
from the outlying farms, sending it off to town
alou"- with their own. And they have two great
reasons for doing so. First, it follows that he who
can send to the city salesman the largest winter
supply — for milk is never too plentiful in winter —
will be the better able to dispose of his summer's
milk on favourable terms ; the salesman, in fact,
is always willing in summer to hold by the former
who can send him most milk in winter, and thus
the winter's milk in a sense sells the summer's.
And, secondly, as it is much more costly to pro-
duce a large quantity of milk in winter than in
summer, it follows that it is much to the ad-
vantage of the milk-selling farmer that he should
buy all the milk he can in winter from his neigh-
bours, even if he pays for it a price which leaves
him but little direct profit ; and his neighbours, in
their turn, cannot do better than sell it to him
at the price he can afford to pay.
It follows then, on this system, that many
farmers are in a sense milk-dealers, but they buy
in a retail and sell in a wholesale way, and that
only, or chiefly, in the winter-time. We know
cases in which farmers have bought up the winter
milk of the patrons of one or other of the cheese-
factories. The patroTis deliver it at the factory, as
a central depot, and the farmer fetches it away.
This arrangement is about as good as any that
can be thought of for profitably and conveniently
disposing of the small quantities of milk which
cheese-making farmers usually produce in winter.
The plan, in fact, may Ix' adopted so early in the
autumn and continued so late in the spring as
the price at which milk is selling may suggest.
AVhen, for instance, the milk is only worth 7d. a
gallon for cheese-making, and sells at 8d. to the
trade, then should cheese-making cease for the
time. A comparison of values will thus go hand-
THE MILK TRADE.
341
in-liand with the law of supply and ilemaiiil in
the milk trade ; and in this is provided a basis on
which dairy-farming will henceforth be conducted.
Tiiese influences are now changing the asiiect of
dairy-farming throughout the length and breadth
of England. Numbers of farms which were at
one time devoted to the one speciality of cheese-
making — farms whose every operation was de-
signed to be subsidiarj^ to this one thing chiefly —
are now devoted to a greater variety of pursuits,
and their eggs are no longer all in one basket.
Though they are themselves too far from the rail-
way to adapt themselves to the milk trade, they
yet contribute no insignificant quota to that trade.
Cheese-making is followed, of course, but less ex-
tensively than it used to be, and butter-making
has in some measure taken its place. But the way
in which these outlying farms contribute to the
milk trade is in producing autumn and winter
calving cows, which are sold when on note to the
milk-selling farmers, and in order to keep up
the supply a maximum number of young stock
are raised. Thus it follows that even on farms
that cannot, by reason of distance from a railway,
cultivate ths milk trade profitably, except in the
indirect manner already spoken of, cheese-making
has greatly diminished, and it is probable that
there is at least one-third less cheese made in the
country than there was ten or a dozen years ago.
The milk trade is, of course, a ponderous affair,
for milk is a heavy and bulky product. A man
who milks thirty cows sends his half-ton of milk
away, day by day, scores of miles to be consumed.
Without railways this could not have been done.
Stephenson was greater than Macadam, and the
iron road is doing what the turnpike must for
ever have left undone. Ten miles of turnpike
place an effectual bar on the milk trale, hut one
or even two hundred miles of railway do not,
and it is possi])le that some day Scottish and even
Irish milk will find a daily market in the metro-
polis. As the matter already stands, the counties
of Derby, Stafford, Nottingham, Wilts, Hants,
Gloucester, Somerset, and many others, are largely
employed in feeding London with milk. We have
not, however, as yet advanced so far as to have
special milk-trains, as they have in America,
running hundreds of miles, with milk only, or
milk chiefly, as freight ; but to most of the fast
long-distance morning and evening trains a milk-
van is attached, and we learn that a train, mainly
loaded with milk, runs daily from the Cheshire
di.strict to Liverpool. The distance, it is true, is
not great, but once the principle of milk-trains is
adopted we shall expect to find it spread to the
distant counties whose milk custom is in London.
During the warm weather the farmers always
aerate and cool the milk before sending it away,
generally in one of Lawrence's refrigerators, a
cut of which we give in Fig. 20-Z ; and even in
Fig. 202.— Lawrence's Refrigerator.
winter it is a good thing to gel the warmth
and odoiu" of the cow out of it. The warm milk
is poured into the receiver a, and after running
in a thin stream over the outside surface of the
series of tubes, from b downwards, is collected
at the bottom, and has its exit at c. The cold
water enters by the pipe d, and passes upwards
through the inside of the tubes, finally emerging
at E, so that the descending milk passes last of
all over the tube which contains the coldest
water. The matter, indeed, is so arranged that
the water at its warmest comes in contact with
the milk at its warmest ; and as the milk descends,
cooling as it falls, it comes last in contact with
the water where both are at their coldest; thus
the cooling is gradual. As the milk flows over
the tubes it is thoroughly aerated, so that the
two processes are completed together. Various
patterns of refrigerators suitable for cooling milk
have been invented, but they have all given way
before the one we have illustrated ; of this pattern
it must be understood, however, that there are
several nnxlifirations, though the principle is iden-
342
DAIRY FARMING.
tical in all of them. On the continent of l"]urope
this valuable machine has been copied, with more
or less fidelity and success, the deviation consistinjj
chiefly of a difJerenee in the shape of the tube,
affordintj more surface for cooling. At the Inter-
national Dairy Show in Hamburg in 1877 we saw
one of these coolers, whose efiiciency was even
superior to that of Lawrence's cooler, against
which it was tested in our presence. The prin-
ciple was, however, the same in both, and the
German was but a copy, perhaps a piracy, on the
English invention.
The milk-cans, or " churns," as some i)Cople
awkwardly term them, do not deviate much in
general i)atleni, but some of them are more
strongly constructed than others, and consequently
more serviceable ; the best of them have the
f<!west possible seams in which the milk
can lodge, and the lids are so made as to
be easily attached
and detached. The
best railway milk-
can we have ever
seen is the one
shown in Figs. 203
and 204, and made
by Mr. Alway, of
London. This can is
made of two pieces
only, so as to have a
minimum of seams;
the bottom hoop is
double the ordinary
strength, and is put
inside instead of
outside the body, as
shown in the cut ;
the cover or lid is
also made of one
piece only, and the
method of fastening
and unfastening it
is very simple, while
the whole structure is so substantial that the
liability to breakage is very small.
One of the chief annoyances to the farmer
in the milk trade is the knocking and smashing
which the cans undergo en rouie. They are
treated with no tenderness at all by the railway
officials, whose carelessness is soon imitated by
the servants of the farm. It is chiefly the empty
Fig. 203.— Railway Milk-can.
Fig.
Lid ok Milk-can.
cans which suffer most; the full ones, being heavy,
cannot be tumbled about so easily, and they may
not be turned topsy-turvy, or the milk would be
lost. But the empty cans are pitched here and
there with all the contemjDt which comes of
familiarity; the lids and the rims are smashed,
the sides are crushed in, the paint is knocked off,
and it is not easy to imagine a more forlorn-looking
object than a railway milk-can of six or eight
months' service. From this cause the farmer's loss
is heavy, because the cans usually are his property ;
it is therefore necessary to use only those cans that
are made in the best manner and of the strongest
material.
Another cause of annoyance and loss is found
in the bad debts which the farmers too often
contract with the city salesmen. A few years
ago this evil was more frequent than now, for
at that period too many men of straw went into
the milk trade — men who had nothing to lose,
and whose commercial morality was much feebler
than their acumen. At the period when the trade
began so rapidly to exj^and, numbers of new sales-
men in the towns sprang up, and farmers were
not awake to the dodges of the trade. Hence
many of them were let in smartly at times by
means of bad debts. Time, however, has purged
the trade of the greater part of this unpleasant
feature, and it is settling down into business-like
and trustworthy channels.
Again, the London demand for milk fluctuates
day by day, unless the weather remains fine and
bright ; in wet cold weather it falls off instantly.
Now the city salesmen have to watch these
fluctuations closely, or they will often have a
quantity of milk on their hands which they cannot
dispose of, and which is commonly wasted ; and
when they see symptoms of a falling off in the
demand, they at once telegraph to the farmers
to hold back one or two meals' milk ; thus the
farmer has the milk thrown on his hands, and
he must at once make either butter or cheese
of it. Another and a less satisfactory dodge of
the salesmen is to keep back the empty cans, so
that the farmer cannot, if he would, send his
milk ; this is worse than a telegram, for the
farmer is uncertain what to do, and thinks it
j)ossible that the cans have gone astray en
route, which they sometimes do; he tries then
to borrow cans, thinking the salesman is want-
in<r the milk all the while, and his own cans
TOWN DAIRIES AND THE MILK TRADE.
343
are probably standing in the salesman's yard all
the time.
The wholesale price of milk varies with the
season, though the public seldom gain the benefit
of a reduction. The farmer usually sells his milk
by the " barn gallon," as it is termed — that is, 17
pints to the gallon, or half a pint over-measure at
each imperial gallon. Many of them are not
aware that it is illegal to sell by such measure,
and we would refer them to the Weights and
Measures Act, 1878, 41 and 42 Viet., eh. 49,
sections 15 and 19. The selling by a barn gallon
is, of course, an old custom, in which the extra
pint was thrown in — for the same reason that
extra lbs. of cheese are thrown in at the ewt., and
extra ozs. of butter at the lb. — in order to improve
the bargain to the buyer. At first these additions
were part of the bargain, but they soon became a
custom. Other farmers, again, sell their milk at
so much " a dozen " — that is, a dozen quarts ; this
custom is not illegal, but it is rather clumsy. A
few sell l)y the standard imperial gallon, which,
we think, is the best.
Milk is generally cheapest in the months of
April, IVIay, and June, when the price the farmer
receives, less the carriage, is IGd. per barn gallon.
In the following three months he gets 17d. ; in
October and November 20d. ; in the next three
months 2]d. ; and in March 20d. These are actual
prices contracted for by one who has been in the
trade many years, but they are subject more or
less to variation in different eases, in different
years, and in different localities. The carriage
from the midland counties to London is usually
2d. per barn gallon, the empty cans being returned
free of charge.
Town Dairies and the Milk Trade.
The condition of town dairies, particularly in
London, has greatly improved during the past
twenty years ; they are cleaner, hotter ventilated,
more commodious, and as a rule much superior
to what they formerly were at the other end of the
jieriod named. The rate of progress, which has been
marked in most departments of human industry, has
not 25assed by the cow-sheds in our cities and towns ;
the spirit of improvement has inHuenced most
things greatly, and one prominent feature is seen
in the better and more comfortable and healthier
accommodation which has been given to live-stock
of most kinds, and, among bovine stock, to dairy-
cows in particular. They are now housed, for the
most part, whether they be in the country or in
the town, in buildings of an altogether superior
class, less crowded than they formerly were, better
fed, and better attended to in all respects. The
principles of hygiene are better understood, and
are more widely applied to the keeping of cows,
whose prolonged imprisonment is made as tolerable
as it possibly can be in the absence of green fields
and hedgerows. It does not and cannot be made
to ajipear that the existence of a cow in a shed in
the heart of a city, or even in the suburbs, is a
desirable thing in comparison with that of a cow
in the country, but everything that can be done to
make the disparity as small as p)ossible is done
with assiduity and regularity. We may now
fairly say that dairymen in towns have well learnt
the lesson, not only that cleanliness and kindly
treatment is no small aid in averting the outbreak
of disease among their cows, but that their reward
is found in an increased quantity and an improved
quality of milk. Kindlier treatment is of com'se
necessary in urban cow-sheds, but necessity has
not in the past been always found to contain
sufficient reason to bring it about, and we wai-mly
welcome all kinds of amelioration which can be
brought to bear on the condition of so useful, so
indispensable an animal as the cow.
The suburban dairyman has several advantages
over his urban confreres. It not uncommonly
happens that he is so situated that he can
frequently give his cows a turn-out in the fields, or
in some park, during the summer — a convenience
which cannot but be regarded in the light of a
great advantage; his cow-sheds have no need to be
underground for want of room above it ; his cows
are, at all events, where they can have plenty of
air, which circulates more freely and is compara-
tively pure ; and he is always nearer to the source
of his supplies of forage, which, particularly in
summer, is a matter of great importance. The
spread of railways, however, and the facilities
which they afford for the rapid conveyance of
all kinds of produce that need early consumption,
have materiall}' lessened the prominence of the
last-named advantage ; the first, wherever it exists,
cannot well be over-rated, and the second is no
mean factor in a dairyman's success. Yet the
suburban dairyman has one or two disadvantages,
at all events in London. Unless his milk is
absorbed by a strictly local demand, he is further
344
DAIRY FARMING.
away from his customers ; ami in any case lie is,
as a rule, further away from some portions of the
cattle food which he extensively employs, to wit,
brewers' grains, and foreign feeding-stuffs whicli
lie at the docks or at the railway termini. Yet
again, the railways do much to obviate such dis-
advantages. In any case the labour of bringing
in the forage and taking out the exuviaj of the
cows in the city sheds is an enormous work, which
is obviated only by the advent of country milk ;
and, look at the question almost how we will, it
would appear to be a mistake to keep cows within
the purlieus of a large city.
But the sources of our towns' and cities' milk-
supply arc not where they formerly were, except
to a limited extent. It is hardly too much to say
that twenty years ago no appreciable quantity of
milk was sent into town by rail, except over
short distances; and it is equally pertinent to
remark that the cities of the kingdom, and many
of its towns, now receive the greater portion of
their milk from the country districts, brought,
in many cases, long distances by rail. This new
order of things had begun to recommend itself to
the milk-salesmen some time before the advent of
the cattle plague, or rinderpest, had destroyed so
many town dairies in a wholesale manner, and so'
created an extraordinary demand for country milk.
Many of the cow-sheds that were ruthlessly
emi)tied by the plague in ISGf> were never filled
again, and so the country milk trade sprang at one
bound into a prominence which has since gone on
and promises to go on increasing.
There are, however, still many milch-cows kept
in the cow-sheds of our large towns, specially in
London, and many more are kept in suburban
dairies, within easy reach of the thickest po]nilatcd
districts. In some instances very large herds are
kept, containing hundreds of cows ; but there are
also many herds of medium size, say of forty or
fifty cows, while others are small. It is, as a
matter of course, quite a common thing for a man
to start as a dairyman with tw'o or three cows,
gradually increasing the number as funds and his
trade permitted. In many cases where large herds
are kept, it will be found that the business has
descended from father to son, in some instances
through several generations.
Just before the advent of the dreadful rinder-
pest the number of cows in the metropolitan
district was estimated to be ^l',000; and the quan-
tity of milk bro\iglit in by the different lines of
railway in the year ISCJ.'J was upwards of S,OO0M)0
imperial gallons, whicli in two years' time had more
than doubled. This enormous and rapid exjiansion
of the trade in country milk was due chiefly to
the cattle plague. To provide London with milk
would now, on the old system, require a much
larg.n- numbsr of cows than in 1S65; and if this
increased number had been provided for within
the metropolitan area, the danger in time of con-
tagious diseases would have been proportionately
increased. Happily, however, the tendency is to
keep fewer cows in London and its suburbs, and
to obtain a larger supply of milk from the country.
Most of the London dairymen are required to
keep up a supply of milk which is fairly constant
the year through. This holds good in all the
metropolitan districts e.\cept the West End. In
the last-named district the demand for milk is
greatest during the "season" — that is, in the spring
and summer months, when London is full ; in the
remaining districts the population does not migrate
to anv marked extent, and so the quantity of milk
required is fairly regular the year through. The
dairymen in these districts, then, need to be buy-
ing calving cows almost all the year round, but
mostly in the spring and autumn, iu order to keep
up the flow of milk. These fresh relays of cows
on note were, and are, of course derived from the
country, and the farmers of many districts lay
themselves out to provide them in the periods when
they are most in demand. In times gone by these
cows were usually milked for a few years in the
farmers' herds, until they had arrived at full ma-
turity, aiul in many cases until they were a little
past their best. During this time they calved
regularly in the spring of the year, but when it
became expedient to sell them off, they were kept
barren for six months longer than usual, and timed
to calve in the autumn, at which period good prices
were realised for them ; or cows that failed to be
in-calf for spring, even though it had not been in-
tended to dispose of them so soon, were then timed
to calve the following autumn or winter, and sold
off a year or two earlier than they otherwise would
have been. The system in these cases was to milk
them on through the winter and spring and part
of the summer, when they were let dry, and allowed
to get into good condition by the time when they
were wanted b}' the city milkmen ; and if a heifer
turned out on llie farm to be an inferior milker,
LONDON COW SHEDS.
345
the same system was pui'sued witli her; indeed, the
same system is carried out still, ou an extended
scale, but not so much to be sold to city milkmen
as to those dairy-farmers who make the supply of
milk to city salesmen a speciality.
In former times o-i-eat numbers of Dutch cattle
have been imported to till the metropolitan dairies,
but they are so inherently liable to pleuro-pneu-
monia th.at the practice has been almost discon-
tinued, and now those dairies are filled, many of
lated to promote the development of a latent
malady ; and it is equally necessary to avoid such
fitting's as are likely to perpetuate a disease, once
it has taken possession of the premises. The old-
fashioned wocxlen stalls, racks, and feeding'-troug-hs
would retain the germs of a contagious disease for
a long time, in a manner which almost placed
disinfecting processes at defiance; the germs
would get into the poi-es, or interstices, or
joints, or worm-holes of the woodwork, and
Fig. 20.5.— Interior of Improved London Cow-shed.
them, with high-qiiality Shorthorns, and among
them other British breeds. The Dutch cows, having
for generations been specially cultivated for that
end, are extraordinary milkers, but their liability
to disease detracts greatly from their value, and
they do not so well as British cows bear transplant-
ing to the close confinement of a London cow-shed
— it induces the disease which too commonly is
latent in the system.
It is oljvious that with cattle wdio are pre-
disposed to disease it is highly expedient to use
every precaution against it, when they are placed
within the iufiuonce of conditions which are calcu-
there they would defiantly stick, only to com-
municate the disease again and again. Hence it
has become the practice to use iron and earthen-
ware fittings, wdiieh afford but scant lodgment for
contagion, and admit of being thoroughly cleansed
and disinfected ; the roof-supports, too, are of iron,
and the roof itself is designed to diminish infection.
Of such a modern cow-shed we give an illustra-
tion in Fig. 20.5. It will be noticed that the interior
of the shed is spacious, and that there are ample
means of ventilation. Such arrangements are not
only easy to clean, but easy to keep clean, as they
afford but little opportunity for dirt of any kind to
346
DAIRY FA U:\I1XG.
oiillcft, ami where no dirt is, there is but little fear
of contaf^ion, providing due outside precautions are
taken. Yet, sliould the premises become infected,
tiiev admit of being so perfectly disinfected that it
will be safe to bring other cattle into them after a
reasonable time.
Many of tlie London dairymen obtain large
quantities of milk from the country to supple-
ment what their own cows produce, particularly in
the seasons when milk is scarce. Others, again,
in addition to their cow-sheds in town, have a
farm or farms in the neighbourhood of the metro-
polis, where they produce a quantity of milk as
may be required, cultivate the necessary forage,
roots, and green crops for town consumption — pro-
viding they cannot more chea])ly purchase them,
raise their young stock, rusticate their town
cows that are dry for calving or are out of health,
and, in fact, perform a number of operations, all of
which are, of course, subsidiary to the one great
speciality of milk-production for town consumers.
And it cannot be doubted that such arrangements
are beneficial in many ways ; the dairyman feels
that he has a reserve and an opening to fall back
upon to meet the exigencies of his trade ; it is no
longer a hand-to-mouth system, depending wholly
on the markets for a supply of newly-calved cows ;
and he is relieved from the necessity of selling off
his cows as they begin to fail in their milk. Other
dairymen, who have no farm to fall back on, who
have to buy all their cows as they want them or
can get them, and all the food they eat as well,
are bound under an inelastic system, which admits
of no variation; and it is their practice to feed
their cows to the utmost of their ca])acity, pi-acti-
cally fattening and milking thcni all the while, so
tiiat when a cow falls off in her milk, is infectc(l
with a contagious disease, or meets with an acci-
dent, she is at once ready for the butcher. They
cannot in fact, as a rule, for want of accommoda-
tion, allow their cows to calve again on their hands,
and milk them on through a second or a third
])eriod ; consequently, however good a milker a cow
may be, she commonly goes to the butcher soon
after she ceases to yield a paying quantity of milk.
We do not find fault with the system of fattening
a cow as far as may be done while she is giving
milk, for we consider it a good system to pursue,
when, on accoimt of age or for other reasons, it
is considered that her career as a milk-cow is no
longer desirable to prolong, and because in case of
an accident which requiies that she be killed, she
is not in any sense a dead loss to her owner; but
we certainly object to a system which inexorably
sends to the butcher a cow which is still in the
prime of life, and would pay well in milk for a
year or two longer. This necessity does not hamper
the dairyman who has a farm in the country.
Holland P.\rk Farm.
We select this suburban dairy-farm for de-
scription, because it is the best and completest we
have seen. It is to all intents and purposes a
suburban farm, for Mr. Tisdall, the owner, has
70 acres of land close by his premises, consisting
mainly of the park, which is still attached to the
renowned Holland House, once the residence of
Charles James Fox, and it is situated in Kensing-
ton, one of the most beautiful suburbs of Londoc.
In F'ig. 206 we give an illustration of the interior
of the premises, which are very pretty and con-
venient, choicely ornamented with Mintons' tiles
and with evergreens, devoted wholly to the retail
sale of milk, and very attractive iu all respects ;
and in Fig. 207 we give a ground-plan, which will
convey a clear idea of the arrangement of the
cow-stalls as they were until recently. Before
the cows were removed they could be seen from
the interior of the shop, standing in rows, the
folding doors having large panes of glass. There
are yet other premises adjoining, where the milk-
cans are cleaned, the cream raised, and the vehicles
stowed away at night. The premises we illustrate
were devoted to the cows themselves and to the
retail sale of milk ; and as a description of ihe
business as a whole we cannot do better, with a
few additions and excisions, than quote from a
writer in the Lire Stock Journal of November 1,
1.S78 :—
" We will enter by the handsome building,
which is practically the 'shop'' of Messrs. Tunks
and Tisdall, a firm which is of a hundred years'
standing as suppliers of milk and other dairy pro-
duce to the iidiabitants of the old Court suburb.
The firm began its business on freehold premises
just opposite Lord Holland's gates in the Kensing-
ton Road, but in 1S.J2 took the Holland paiks
and the adjacent fields, and has held them ever
since. The ' shop,' as we call it, is built on
ground which formed a corner of HolTand Park,
and is a prominent object in the great western
road out of London. All the details of the build-
TIIK HOLLAND PARK IWTRV.
31.7
inr; avo siifrgestive of its use. Outsiilo it luis a whose pedij^Tces sliall iippeav in llio Herd Book
line of tilos, made specially by MintonSj each tile and wliieli are bred entirely for their milkin<
1„ JOi iMHiidU cjt 11 ii\\nl\ii I)ur\ (1 ri ui Dpimimint)
containing'
important
centre tile
a portrait of a cow, representing some qualities. It will be seen that Mr. Tisdall thinks
strain of the Shorthorn breed. The that the breed which does so much as a meat-
contains the portrait of a magnificent bearer is also the best milk-producer, and that by
3NV1 HyVd QNVTIOH
f^ELBURV ROAU
Fig. 237.— Ground-plan, before Removal of the Stalls.
bull, which is the present lord of the Holland Park
herd. Mr. Tisdall looks at his dairy-farming as a
business, and he has made up his mind that the
liest animals for his purpose are Shorthorns, and he
restricts himself to the use of that breed. He is
fast making his herd one of jmre-bred Shorthorns
careful selection of sires and dams he can the
sooner reach his object in dairy-farming.
" Entering the ' shop,' we find it admirably
cool and sweet. The floor is tiled, the windows
are filled with plants and flowers. On each side
are couches, and near arc marlilcd-toppcd tables, at
318
DAIRY FAK:\IINC!.
which ladii'S out for a loiin<^e, or who arc f'ati<;'ucd
with their shopping, can have a dainty glass of
mili'C, or can rest while they give their orders for
the same article for home use. In the centre is a
fountain, which seems to send up its column of
spray jierpetually. There are chairs distributed
l)lentifully about, and in each of the two farther
corners is a marble-topped counter, at which
lemonade, soda-water, milk, and dairy produce
generally are served out. We should not omit to
mention that in each corner there is a statuette,
the four representing the four seasons. These sta-
tuettes are the work of j\Ir. Pa])worth, the sculptor,
and interested many of the visitors of the Inter-
national Exhibition of 1802. Round the walls
there is, as outside, a line of pictured tiles. Those
inside represent almost every conceivable subject
associated with a farm, and are all from special
designs, and made at the famous pottery of
Mintons' at Stoke.
" Right opposite the entrance are glazed doors,
wliich open straight into one of the cow-houses,
and there the cows are to be seen standing, some
there to-day being prize-\\-inners at the late Dairy
Show. The an-angements are noteworthy; and
we may mention that the chief cow-house is
modelled upon the late Emperor Napoleon's dairy
at Viucennes, but here there are improvements
introduced. The cows stand head to head, and
over the head of each is her name-tablet. Down
the centre is a passage, and on each side of it a
row of stone mangers at which the cattle feed and
drink, a clear run of water going from end to end.
All that could be thought of to secure cleanliness
has been done ; and an idea of the purity of the
atmosphere may be gathered from the fact that
the many hanging plants which depend from the
roof thrive well. Here, again, the floor is tiled.
Each cow has a sej)arate stall. At the far end of
this cow-house, and separated from the cows by a
covered yard, the lord of the harem has liis separate
and very roomy residence. He is a magnificent
specimen of the Shorthorn breed, and, according
to Mr. Strafford, comes from the best tribe of
Shorthorns for milking purjioses — the well-known
Princesses of Mr. Cheney, of (laddesby Hall. IIo
figures in the Herd Book as Karl of Leicester \l.
(No. .•38,^:30).
" From the cow-house we go into the jjarks,
anil think how fortunate Mr. Tisdall is to have
such a lovely place for tlie |)asture of his cattle.
Taking Ibjlland House as its centre, and dcsiiing
for a moment to enter and look at its historic
treasures, we pass from point to point, at every
step finding some new beauty or some suggested
association with one or many great names. Then
the parks, with their walks and drives, and the
studied displa}' of landscape art, make one wonder,
and feel certain that the great world which teems
and tumbles just outside does not dream of the
paradise from which it is shut out. At this point
and at that are portions of the herd, each adding to
the many attractions of the place.
" Then we go back, chatting with the owner
about his views of dairy-farming. We have
already spoken of his preference for Shorthorns.
This is the result of long study, not of caprice,
or for the sake of being in the fashion. The cows
are kept largely on grass, which up to July is cut
and carried to them in the houses ; still, they have
a run outside of a few hours daily. After that
period they are out at pasture, with the additional
help of hay, grains, and meal, always being
milked in the houses. The winter feed is mangel-
wurzel, hay, grains, and meal. In breeding Mr.
Tisdall's aim has been to get hold of the principal
tribes of milkers and to develop and perpetuate
their best qualities. In some cases these qualities
are almost obliterated through want of care. He
ado])ts the belief of an American writer, that
milking quality is lost by fattening for show pur-
poses, and instances two eases of dams which were
grand milkers, and had young which, being fatted
for show, have been practicallj^ useless since.
" One means of testing the value of the plan
adopted here is that of keeping a strict account of
the milk yielded by each cow. Each milker's lot
has a separate record, and from time to time Mr.
Tisdall collects these, and makes entry of them
in a book kept by himself. His overlooker has
instructions to see that these records are kept
regularly and properly. The information thus
obtained is, of course, of great value, and aids
in the object of improving the lierd. We have
seen these records, and, congratulating Mr. Tisdall
on his method and exactness, make use of the
privilege of extracting some of the entries. Take
one instance. There is the cow Charmer, milked
by James Justice, a man grown grey in the ser-
vice. She was bought of a good breeder ia
Buckinghamshire for 10 guineas, and is the
i-hcapcst cow the owner ever bought. She
MODERN LONDON DAIRIES.
319
ealvod at tlio end of Ni)Vcinbor, 1875, and was
in milk for twelve months, that is until De-
cember, 1876. She g'ave 1,368 gallons in that
time, being an average of 15 quarts of milk a
day over the whole period. She calved again at
the end of February, 1877. She was again in
milk for twelve months, and yielded 1,531
gallons, or an average of 16'91 quarts daily.
She calved a third time in the beginning of
May last, and she has since yielded an average
of 18 quarts 1 pint a day. A second case is
that of a pure-bred cow, Venus, bred by Mr.
Hobbs, of Maisey Hampton. Last season she
gave 10 quarts daily, being 910 gallons in the
year. The year before she gave 12 quarts daily.
Another, Infant, a cross-bred cow, with one cross
of Shorthorn, last year averaged 1025 quarts
daily, the total record showing 935 gallons; and
the year before the yield averaged 12 "63 quarts
for eleven months, the total being 1,095 gallons.
These Holland Park farmers are careful to show
us their failures as well as their successes. For
instance, there is the record of the doings of
INIaj'flower, a grand roan cow, prize-winner at
the Bucks Show of 1874, and daughter of one
of the best milkers in the herd, Meatlowflower
14th. She calved a fine bull-calf 21st Feb-
ruary last, and is now quite dry, having lasted
in milk only full six months, and during that
time the yield averaged only 3" 75 quarts per
day. Then there is Miss Pearl, a beautiful de-
scendant of a favourite milking tribe. She calved
a red-and-white cow-calf (since dead) on the 23rd
December last, kept in milk till August, and
yielded only an average of 2"78 quarts a day for
seven months. In these two cases the results are
meagre, and neither cow returned the cost of her
keep. It says something for INIr. TisdalFs at-
tention to his business to say that he has kejrt
these careful records for nearly thirty years.
" Dairy work is carried on by a daily system
of churning, which, although more troublesome,
is considered more desirable by Mr. Tisdall, to
secure freshness of product, and to prevent the
decomposition of the cream. He thinks the fewer
changes permitted in the composition of the cream
the better will be the butter. The system of
weekly churning admits of such changes in the
cream as are not favourable either to the flavour
or the keeping qualities of the butter. In the
method of cooling the dairy Mr. Tisdall has
departed from the orthodox plan. The walls are
made double, and the air is permitted to circulate
between them. Thus the inner wall is m\ich
cooler than the outer. In place of a cornice to
the milk-setting room a perforated pipe is placed
there, and being connected with a huge cistern
in the baru adjoining, the walls can be made
to resemble a sheeted waterfall at will. In the
centre of the room, in place of a chandelier, is
a depending pipe, fitted with a boat-shaped finial,
and from this, day or night, a perfect shower-bath
of cold water can be made to descend on the closed
milk-cans below. In order to aid in the pro-
cesses of the dairy there is a steam-engine with
a large boiler; by means of this the food is
prepared, and the cans and churns used in the
conveyance of the milk cleaned rapidly by being
placed over jets of steam.
" We should say that the firm has also two
large farms at Epsom, worked on the same system
as that at Holland Park, and that from the
various sources of supply they obtain nearly 300
gallons of milk daily. Messrs. Tunks and Tisdall
have invested no less a sum than £1,650 in plant
for the mere distribution of milk — that is, in
carts, cans, fee.; and they supply regularly 1,200
families in the West End of London, besides
hotels, clubs, and other public institutious.''
The Aylesbury Dairy Company also sup-
plies a great number of families in the West
End of London with milk from the country. This
milk is chiefly produced in the western counties,
and comes to town by the Great Western Rail-
way; it is, however, derived from other districts
too. The Company have built a receiving-house
and cheese-factory at Swindon, in Wiltshire; here
a great number of farmers deliver their milk,
under very stringent terms of agreement as to
adulteration and freshness of the milk, cleanliness
of the milk-cans, hours of delivery, &c., and in
many cases the Company provide their milk-sup-
pliers with refrigerators, so that in hot weather
the milk may be cooled and aerated immediately
it is drawn from the cows, when it will travel
without injury and arrive in good condition.
From this receiving-house the milk is sent to
London — as much of it, that is, as may be
wanted ; the rest is set to cream, for there is a
great demand for cream in the West End of
London, and the skim-milk is made into cheese,
which finds a ready sale at a moderate price in
S50
DAIRY FARMING.
lli« South Wak-s Colliery districts. By ineaus
of the reeeiviiin-house and the various arrauye-
ments connected with it, the Comiiany are
enalded to ret^ulate their supply of milk to the
business in town according to the demand there
is for it, a demand which is liable to fluctuate
more or less day by day ; and so loss, arising
from overplus of milk, is avoided, such overplus
being diverted to other uses.
We need not cite a more favourable instance in
the milk trade of London than that of Mr. Col-
linson Hall, of Brentwood, in Essex. We have
here a farmer of some 2,000 acres, milking his 700
cows, and delivering his milk direct to his cus-
tomers without the intervention of a dealer or
middlenian. It would be diflicult to find a better
example of successful farming, either in the milk
trade or out of it. The cows are kept at the
farms, but they are stall-fed the year round, re-
ceiving grass and a variety of green crops in tlie
summer, and in winter roots, brewers' grains,
chaffed forage, cake, and other feeding-stuffs ;
cake and corn, in fact, are freely used in summer,
when grass and otheK green crops stand in the
place of hay and roots and grains. Thus the
soiling system is carried out thoroughly, and
there can be no doubt that, in connection with
a milk business of this kind, it is the system from
which the most profit can be obtained. The use
of large quantities of purchased feeding-stuffs
greatly enhances the quality of the farm-yard
manure, Avhich in its turn increases the bulk
while it strengthens the quality of the various
crops of the farm. There is, in fact, no better
way of improving the land than by the liberal
consumption of purchased feeding-stuffs l)y the
animals kept on the farm ; indeed, we may go
so far as to say that this is the best way
of all.
Another most favourable instance of successful
suburban dair3--farniing is that of Mr. Stapleton,
of Brookland Dairy Farm, Stoke Newington,
though it differs in one essential feature from
those of Mr. Tisdall and Mr. Hall. The difference
is this : IMr. Stapleton's cows are kept quite away
from the farms which support them, and instead
of taking the milk from the farm, the forage is
taken and the manure returned to it. In this
there is more labour ; but there is, as a set-off,
the convenience of having the cows kept in the
midst of the people whom they suj)ply with milk.
We incline to the system of keeping the cows
at the farm, because there is less labour and less
waste involved in it; it is easier to convey the
product than the machinery.
Several attempts have been made to enable
farmers at a distance to sell their milk to Lon-
doners without the intervention of middlemen,
who i^ick up a handsome profit between the pro-
ducer and the consumer. It seems feasible enough
to establish co-operative milk-supply companies,
with the j)roducers and consumers only as share-
holders, but as yet no such scheme has taken root.
And, indeed, even were such companies to be
formed, we have reason to fear that the shares
would eventually gravitate into the custody of
directors and mere speculators in stock. The
time will, however, come when the producers and
consumers will have direct intercourse, without
the aid of interlopers who are mere distributors
of produce, who reap the lion's share of the
j)rofits fur the lamb's share of pains ; and there
can be no doubt that such intercoin-se will be
an immense gain to the community at large.
We speak now not in respect of milk only, but
of most other products of the farm — of cheese
and liutter, beef and mutton, poultry, eggs,
and vegetables.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Villa Dairying.
neral Character of tlic Villa rtairy-Suitable Kinds of Cows— Importance of a Good Jlilkcr— Stalls and Shedding— Land Ucqiiired-
i , ^ J\ ^ Method of Management for a Villa Dairy.
c'lLLA dairyin<r is usually sujj-
posed to be amateur farmiug
on a small scale, and generally
the supposition is correct, but
not always so. It is not un-
fair to conclude that a man
who lives in a villa, and beguiles
some of his non-business hours wth the
details of a miniature farm, can hardly
]>e a practical farmer in the tnie sense
of the word, and yet he may be, and
often is, intensely practical in a way.
He IS usually a ct)untry gentleman, a professional
or a business man, who delights in a country
home and in the possession of a small but select
variety of domesticated animals, and fowls as
well. His agricultural education, as a rule, has
been derived from books, and he has served no
apprenticeship to the somewhat monotonous plod-
ding after the plough, lacking which no farmer's
training is complete. He has never done any
ploughing and sowing, or reaping and mowing,
and he has not in his youth been initiated into the
intricacies of live-stock management, as it is con-
ducted on a farm. No doubt he has read Jethro
TuU and Arthur Young, more or less, as all
cultured Englishmen who love a country life must
have done ; he may have waded through a disser-
tation on the theory and practice of under-draining,
have studied the laws of animal-reproduction and
the mysteries of plant-nutrition, and he has surely
wandered through the delightful " Chronicles of a
Clay Farm ; " but these studies, however nsefid
they may be and are, are not enough to make a
man a farmer, and the practical part is never so
well learnt as in youth.
At the same time it is a mistake to suppose
that farming can only be made remunerative by
those who have been brought up to it from thuif
childhood. It is no doubt true that many — the
great majority — of amateur farmers lose money
by the business; but there are exceptions to the
rule, and instances are not far to seek in which
men who were bred to other occupations, and fol-
lowed them for a time successfully, have turned to
farmiug and made it pay. Others, again, while
still engaged in mercantile or professional pur-
suits, have done great service to agriculture by
]X)inting out other tracks than the old beaten ones
of many generations — paths which those who are
actively engaged in a business cannot always so
quickly see as an outsider can, one whose habits
of life and thought lie in the direction of reforms
and discoveries.
As a rule, however, villa farming, in which
dairj'ing is almost always a conspicuous because a
necessary item, is not undertaken with a view to
profit so much as to convenience combined with
pleasure. Yet to make it pay adds much to tlie
pride of it. To most city men who can afford
it, a home in the country has many charms, and
such a home comes not up to the owner's taste
unless a little dabbling in farming can be had
along with it. This is all as it should be — if kept
to a small scale. What so natural as to keep a
cow, a pig or two, and a pony, where a few acres
of land can be had, and the premises are, or can be
made, suitable for the purpose ? One's own milk
and cream and butter, jjroduced by a petted cow
who is fed on the daintiest bits that can be had,
are always better than we can buy, or at least we
fancy they are — which is much the same as being
so, whether they are or not. And what, again, is
so choice in the way of pork and bacon as those
fed on the premises ? The milk and cream and
butter, the pork and bacon, may each and all cost
DAIRY FARMING.
more than wc could buy them for, but the jjleasure
of prochiciiijj them is worth more than the differ-
ence in cost. The butter, it is time, may not always
be a success on so small a scale as one cow, and
particularly so when part of the milk is used
as it is; but the cream is delig'htful and simple
to raise, and the skim-milk comes in well IV.r
the ])i<j.
Take her for all in all, there is no cow so
suitable for villa dairying as the Jersey or the
Ayrshire among our British breeds; next, we
should say, comes the hardy little Kerry — the
Irish cottier's cow. The other breeds are cither
inferior milkers, or they are too large individually.
We may, indeed, take it for granted that large-
framed cows, even if they are proportionately deep
milkers, are not well adapted to villa dairying;
they are too unwieldy, and there is a self-evident
disparity between them and the office they are
designed to fill. For purely dairying or milking
purj)osos, large cows are not desirable, particularly
on land that becomes sticky in wet weather and
treads up into mud ; on such land small cows, by
virtue of their lesser weight, do less harm in a
wet time — they waste less grass by treading it
underfoot and pressing it into the softened soil.
Quantity and quality of milk are the first points
to be sought for in a cow that is kept at a villa,
and these ought to be considered in relation to the
size of the animal. It may be true that larger
cows give more milk than smaller ones, as a rule,
but they do not give so much in proportion
to the size of the animal — at least, it is very
seldom they do. Again, small cows, as a rule,
give richer milk than large ones — richer, that is,
in the fats of milk — and so they are better butter-
cows, which is an important point in villa dairying.
This is accounted for in the relative size of the
animals : the smaller cow moves about with less
exertion, so there is less respiration and a smaller
consumption of fat in the process, the balance
going into the milk; less fat, too, is needed to
maintain the heat of the cow's body, because her
body is smaller. The rate of eonsum])tion of fat
in the animal economy, and the (piality of the
milk, have a direct relation to the amount of
exercise a cow takes in the search for food or
otherwise : these are well - ascertained facts.
Again, the cow which an owner of a villa
should keep ought to be a pretty, graceful sort of
cow, for ornament added to utility is not to be
overlooked; and no man Wduld like to see a big,
ugly cow about his premises.
We will not discuss the question of size in its
bearing on beauty in a cow ; but there can be no
question that the Jerseys are the most elegant, the
most graceful, and the most feminine-looking cows
we have, ])articularly in their beautiful deer-like
countenances ; their fawn-like colour of skin, too, is
more pleasing in the distance, and so is more orna-
mental, more park-like, more in kee))ing than any
other with the surroundings of a gentleman's resi-
dence ; and to these qualities we may add the great
docility of the Jersey cows — a virtue that cannot
be too highly commended. It must, however, be
borne in mind that the Jersey is not a hardy cow-, and
so is not at home in a cold and barren district. Her
island-home is warm and sunny, and for many
generations she has been treated with great tender-
ness, so that she has become somewhat delicate in
constitution, and needs the kindliest treatment if
she is to make the best return to her owner.
Given these conditions, there does not exist
a more profitable cow than the Jersey. Her
milk is richer than that of most, if not all, other
kinds of cows, the average size of the cream-
globules in it is larger, and the butter has a deeper
and richer colour. For these reasons she is
essentially a butter-cow ; her milk or cream churns
with great ease, because the fat-globules are
comparatively large, and her butter is of that deep
primrose — almost marigold — colour which is so
highly prized by connoisseurs and epicures.
But for cold districts, where the land is none
of the richest, the Ayrshire or the Kerry would be
more suitable than the Jersey ; and it must not
be supposed that they are suitable only to such
districts, for their productiveness is increased on a
richer soil and in a warmer climate. They are not so
ornamental as the Jersey — this must be admitted;
but they do not require such tender treatment, and
they are better able to shift for themselves. So
far as form is concerned the Ayrshire is almost per-
fect as a milch-cow, and she is not too big, and,
though she is often very pretty, her colour is not so
aristocratic as that of the Jersey. Villa farmers not
uncommonly have a keener eye for the ornamental
than for the useful in the tout enwmhle of a cow's
looks, and the Jersey is more a j)atrician than the
Ayrshire, while the Kerry is quite plebeian in
character, though eminently useful as a milker. A
practised dairy-farmer will almost tell by the look
THE cow FOR TIIK VILLA.
.35:5
of a cow's face — certainly by the sweep of her
outlines — whether or not she is a good milker, or a
better beef-maker; and no build of a cow comes
nearer than the typical Ayrshire to what a deep-
milker ought to be, and generally is, in most of
the best dairy breeds.
Hence the choice, in our diiiiiiim, lies between
the Jersey and the Ayrshire for the villa, within
the limits we have spoken of. Yet are there many
who will fancy the Kerry cow, because she is
small and very useful ; yet others will have a
Welsh, a Devon, or a Shorthorn as the case may
be, and not a few there are who chose the quaint
little Brittanies. The choice will be the result of
taste, or of convenience where no taste is. In
any case the cow of the villa usually has a good
time of it; she is well fed and well tended, and
though not always well milked, is usually a good
milker, because of the generous treatment she
receives, and the comparative retirement of her
life. Where one or two cows only are kept, they
almost invariably milk better than larger numbers
do — the result of tranquillity and of kindlier treat-
ment.
There is yet another breed, an English one,
which we think well suited to this purpose,
chieHy on account of one surpassing merit that
very few breeds of cows possess : this is the
Norfolk Polled cow; and the merit we allude to is
the absence of horns. As a milker she is not equal
to the Jersey or the Ayrshire, yet she is a goud
milker; and she is larger than either of them,
w'hich may or may not be a disadvantage in the
estimation of the amateur farmers of whom and
for whom we are now writing ; her colour, too, is
usually a bright red, which, though more con-
spicuous, may not be regarded as so ornamental
as that of the Jersey, or even that of the Ayrshire,
which is generally a pale red with many patches of
white, or white with many patches of pale red. But
while the Ayrshire is rather pugnacious, the Nor-
folk Polled is a quieter cow, and this is jsrobably
owing to the absence of the weapons of war. As
a cow can do much mischief with her horns when
she is so inclined, it is certainly better that she
should have no horns to do mischief with, and it is
no loss in any sense that she should not possess
them. As with a knife in the hands of a boy, so
with horns on the head of a cow : the weapon is
there; if used at all, it is used to injure some-
thing; the ability suggests the temptatiijn, which
in its turn is a sure prelude to the act. To those
who are not used to her, a hornless cow seems odd
at first; a hornless bull seems yet more odd, but
the oddity in this case is of the character of a
pleasant surprise. Soon the odd feeling wears off,
and then the polled cattle are seen to have a kind
of beauty all their own.
An important matter in villa dairying is to
have a man who understands the management of
cows, and who is a good milker. We have pre-
viously expatiated on the importance of good milk-
ing, and we recur to it because where only one
or two cows are kept it is less a speciality than
in dairy-farming proper, and is consequently very
often imperfectly performed. The man who milks
the cow is commonly groom and gardener too,
at a villa, and it is hardly to be expected that
he should excel in every detail of his duties ; but
it is important that he should be a good milker,
for we have known cows spoiled under such
conditions, and we are persuaded that this is a
common fault in villa dairying. When such
is the case, the cow falls off in her milk, and is
so far a disappointment to her owner, who has to
change her for another more frequently than he
would otherwise need to do. And another fault
lies in this : as there is only one or perhaps two
cows, the milking is known not to be a heavy
duty, and it is therefoie often done at irregular
hours, just as it ha2:)pens to suit the convenience
of the milker ; this irregularity is a thing we wish
to protest against once more. Cows should be
milked pretty quickly, always cleanly, and at
regular hours.
We consider cows should be kept apart from
horses in the buildings. They may, of course, be
under the same roof, but there should be a di\4sion
wall between them, so that they cannot see each
other, otherwise the horses would disturb the cows
too much ; and as cows are ruminants they like to
be where they can be still and quiet. A cow-house,
we think, should be spacious overhead, and it
should always be well ventilated, though never
cold and draughty. It is not necessary that the
house should be open to the roof, for a loft over-
head is useful to store forage in, and for other
purposes, but the space from floor to floor should
be 8 or 9 feet ; this, with proper and efficient
ventilation, will provide ample breathing-room.
Nor should the stalls be too wide or too long; if
too wide, the cows are ajit t<i turn mund in them.
:iU
DAFHV FARMING.
unci tlioy somofimo^! jj^ct hiin<^ in doiiiLj sd — wlu'ii
they cannot Imn back a<jain ; and it' tm) long-, tlie
excreta do not fall into the channel, clear of where
the eows have to lie. A space 0^ feet square is
sufficient to accommodate two moderate-sized cows,
say two Ayi-shires, and it is usual to have two cows
in one stall, one tied to either side of it, vvitl) a
smaller division between them, which serves tlie
useful i)urpose of keeping each cow's food separate
from tlie other's.
• In Fi<ij. 208 we give an illustration of a stall fur
two cows. In this jiaftt'rn it will be noticed that
the fodder-racks are arranyed vertically instead of
overhead, whit'h enables the cow to cat her food
cows cannot get tii'ir heads together. Projections
against which the cows might iiurt themselves
are carefully discarded. Tiie floors arc either
paved with stone or cement, or with tiles firmly
set in cement, and they slope slightly — veiy
slightly — toward the channel. A strong course
of freestone, we think, ought to be next to the
channel, for the cow's hind feet to stand upon, and
tile channel itself should be about 2 feet wide, so
that the solid will not prevent the liquid exereUi
from passing away into the drain which leads to
the liquid-manure tank. We assume that there is
such a tank, for it is almost a necessity in premises
that are always required to l)e ke])t dean and in
Tig. 208. -Stall fob Two Cows.
as she lies — a thing wliieh some cows rather like
to do. There are also troughs for chaffed food or
for water, as may be required. There are many
different jiatterns of cow-stalls, made by such firms
as Musgrave and Co., and the St. Pancras Iron-
works Company. In some of them a water-trough is
so ])]aced that the cow can easily drink out of it; it
does not communicate with the other cows' troughs;
it may be filled by hand or by Jiipes, and the food
is not apt to get into it. The stalls are made
of wrought and east iron throughout, combining
strength with elegance of design. The cows arc
secured by chains round their necks, and the chains
themselves are usually attached by rings to a bar
which is fixed to the side of the stall in each <ase ;
the chains slide easil\- uji and down the b n-, and llu'
nice order ; yet if the land slopes away from the
buildings, the drain may be laid to carry the urine
direct on to it ; but for all this a tank is useful,
and its contents may be more useful in the garden
than on the land.
The area of land required will depend chiefly
on its quality, and on the way in which it is used.
The cows may be ke])t indoors all the year round
and the grass cut and brought in to them, by which
system less land will do, for none of the grass is
wasted by depasturing the land. A plot of early
rye or vetches, to Ik cut green, for use before there
is grass fit to cut, will be found very useful, and
enough land .should be meadowed for winter forage,
and the cows niav just as well eat the aftermath
where it grows. Or, if the meadow I'aii be irri-
FEEDINC THE VILLA COW.
gated, a dressing of artificial manure applied to the
meadow as soon as the hay is savfed, and washed
into the soil by irrigation, providing there is not
rain enough for the purpose, will be found to pro-
duce an early and abundant crop of aftermath,
which may, if preferred, be cut and carried to tlie
cows, while a portion of it may be made into hay
in the autumn. By judicious management, a few
acres of land may be made to do a "good deal of
business this way. "There iu such a thing, how-
ever," says tiie author of an interesting work on
the dairy, " as applying liquid manure too strong,
in which case it surfeits the growing crops ; land
may be manured to sterility."*
In the winter a small supply of hay may be
made to serve, if a part of it is chaffed, mixed
with brewers' grains, and improved by the addition
of meal of one kind or another — maize, rice, pea,
palm-nut, or any other kind that happens to be
cheap in the market ; and the mixture should be
damped and allowed to slowly ferment for half a
day or more, to soften the fibre and make it more
easily digestible. For butter-making, cows should
always lie fed, when fed this way, on food that is
rich in starch and fats, as meals usually are, and is
easily digested ; but they should always have a
little hay as it is twice a day, because it helps
i-umination and so prevents maw-bound.
In villa dairying it is better, we think, to churn
milk instead of cream, because sufficient cream
cannot, as a rule, be gathered whilst it remains
sweet, and because fewer milk-jxins will be needed.
The "streamlet" churn, a cut of which is given
on page 317, will be found a veiy good one for
churning milk ; and milk that has turned sour may
* " Dairy Farming." By Euricola. Lovell Eeeve, Covent
Garden, LonJon. 1856.
be churned, yet the butter will 1)0 iiifciii.r. ]\Iilk,
however, yields more butter, and is easier cliuriied,
when it has turned a little — just a little — sour,
than when it is quite fresh; and either milk or
cream yields more butter and churns easier when
the cows are liberally fed on good food.
No food, we think," equals good grass in the
month of June for butter-making ; and, in fact,
grass from the beginning of May to the end of
September — providing it is grown in a good sound
soil, and the cows ean have a weekly change of
pasture, so that their food is repeatedly fresh to
them — is calculated to produce pleasanter butter
than any kind of winter food will j^roduce. At the
same time it is true that a little dry concentrated
food is a good thing along with the bulky succu-
lent grass; it keeps the cows stronger, and gives
a tone to the system. A change of food — even a
change of pasture — will, as every dairy-farmer
knows or ought to know, be of use to the cows,
and the result of it will be found in the milk-pail.
Winter butter often has a bitter taste and a some-
what pungent odour, both of which may be greatly
mitigated, if not entirely prevented, by treating
the food in the way we have recommended, for to
make forage more easily digestible is to remove
the chief part of the cause of unpleasant butter;
but if this fails, scalding the milk up to ISO'^ will
drive off the volatile oils to which the unpleasant
taste and odour are owdng, and scrupulous cleanli-
ness is necessary both in winter and summer,
particularly in summer, for it is then that putre-
factive ferments are most active. The use of a
little sour buttermilk in the cream at churning-
time will neutralise the bitter taste and smell of
winter butter ; and glacialine used instead of salt
will remove it.
48
CIIAPTKR XXIV.
Dairy Farming in Irei.axc.
Number of Small Farms in Ireland— Primitive Character of the Management— Letting Cows to Dairymen— General Want of Care
and Cleanliness— B'raud in Manipulation— Small Co-operation and its Evils— Butter Companies- Little Cheese made in Ireland-
Statistics of Cork Butter Market— Mr. Bence Jones on the Facilities for Dairying in Ireland- Mr. Barter's Syslem of Manage-
ment-Need of Improvement in Irish Practice— Mr. Barter's Code of Rules— Ireland the Finest
Butter-making Country in the World.
, ,L AIRYING in Ireland is pursued
on a large scale chiefly in the
province of Munster, where we
occasionally find as many as 60
or 70 cows in one dairy. It
forms, however, an important
object of industry amongst the small
farmers in the province of Ulster, many
of whom do not possess more than three
or four cows. Over one-half of the total number
of niileh-cows in Ireland belong to occupiers whose
holdings do not exceed 50 imperial acres in ex-
tent. These men are therefore the great rearers
of young cattle ; that is, they breed the calves,
which they sell at six months old, or as yearlings,
to graziers, who carry them on until they are fit to
be transfeiTed to the fattening pastures in Leinster,
or the stalls of the large tillage farmers in Ireland
or in Great Britain. Large numbers of year-
old cattle are also purchased from the breeders by
dealers who export them to England and to Scot-
land. This trade is carried on extensively from
Ulster.
In many in.stanccs the winter management
of dairy-cows, at least in the south of Ireland,
is conducted in a very primitive manner. It con-
sists simply in allowing the cows to graze upon
the bare pastures night and day. In very bad
weather some hay, usually of an inferior kind,
is shaken down upon the surface of the field.
ThosL> who follow the system consider that it is
" unlucky " to house cows during winter, alleging
that housing causes abortion ; which may be the
case, o\ving to the extremely filthy state in which
the cow-houses arc usually kept. Of late years
more attention has been given to the winter treat-
ment of cows. They are regularly housed at
night, and arc fed .upon straw, or good natural
meadow-hay, a few roots, some bran, ground oats,
or Indian corn. When the cows are fed altogether
on hay, about 30 cwts. of it are consumed by each
cow. Several farmers use furze (gorse) as winter
food for cows with manifest advantage. The furze
is bruised or prepared by passing it several times
through a chaff-cutter. When cows giving milk
are fed liberally on furze, the milk is rich, and
the butter has as good a colour as gra.ss butter.
Vetches are given to the cows in autumn, also
second cuttings of clover, and cabbages in the
end of autumn and early part of winter.
Cows are rarely house- fed all the year round,
even in Ulster, where house-feeding was at one
time more generally practised than it is at pre-
sent. The cows are, of course, practically house-
fed, but that system is now followed in com-
bination with partial grazing. Wc have known
a system of house-feeding carried out on a farm
in Ulster under close cropping, the cultivation
of forage and root crojis being a prominent
feature in the management. The farm to which
we refer was between 70 and 80 imjierial acres
in extent, and a stock of 40 to 45 cows was
regularly kept, besides pigs and horees. The
juirehased food consisted chiefly of distillery
grains, sufficient to give one meal j)er day to
each cow. The milk w\as chiefly sokl A\arm
from the cow.
We have mentioned that some dairy-farmers
in the south of Ireland consider that it is
" unlucky " to house cows during winter, and the
idea that "luck" is an element in dairy manage-
ment is rather prevalent. When anything goes
wrong in churning it is set down to the in-
terference of some evil-dispo.Kcd person who is
DAIRY MANAGEMENT IN IRELAND.
357
supposed to have the power to take the " luek "
from the cows. We have heeii told by some other-
wise well-informed persons that they have watched
their wells on the first morning in ]May, to prevent
any one from skimming the water, the result of
such skimming being supposed to be the abstrac-
tion of the butter from the milk of the cows on
the farm during the succeeding summer. Other
beliefs of a similar nature exist amongst the
peasantry.
In the south of Ireland it is common for the
owners of a herd of dairy-cows, who object to the
drudgery of dairying, or have not skilled assistants,
to let their cows, for the year, to men whose wives
and daughters are competent for the work. The
annual rent of a cow is from £9 to £11 or £12,
and the gain to the dairyman who rents the cows
is, in ordinary years, about £3 per cow. The
owner of the cows supplies hay and litter, and
allows the dairyman a piece of ground to grow
potatoes, and sometimes a patch of wheat or oats ;
and the dairyman is also allowed to feed pigs on
any spare sour milk or other refuse he may have.
The year begins on the 1st of January, and each
cow for which the dairyman pays rent must calve
before the loth of May. The usual season of
calving is from the 25th of IMarch to the 1st of May.
In the case of average dairy land it requires fully
3:^ imperial acres to graze a cow during summer
and produce hay for her winter keep. In some
poor dairy districts we find that fully 3 Irish
acres, equivalent to 5 acres imperial measure,
are requii'ed to keep each cow.
The annual yield of milk on good pastures is
estimated at 500 to 700 gallons per cow, but on
poor pastures the yield does not exceed 350 to 400
gallons. Milk of fair quality will produce 1 lb. of
butter from 12 to 13 quarts of milk. This de-
pends, however, on the period of lactation ; the
longer it is since the cows calved the richer is the
milk in solids, and the more butter per gallon will
it therefore yield. Depreciation of value, casual-
ties, &c., or wear and tear, are estimated at about
£2 per cow per annum.
In the south it is chiefly cream which is
churned, but in the north the whole milk is used
for that purpose. The churns chiefly in use are
the ordinary barrel-ehunis, which are driven by
power on large farms, the " power " being gene-
rally a mule or pony. The firkins into which
butter is packed are supposed to weigh each 1-t lbs.,
but from the clumsy manner in wliich they are
made they sometimes weigh as much as 1ft lbs.
The firkins in which Irish butter is too commonly
packed are, in fact, so rude and uninviting as to
actually depreciate in the market the value of the
butter within them. It cannot be denied that the
garb in which an article is presented for sale has
an influence, for good or ill, on the price which the
article commands ; and in the case of so delicate a
thing as butter, which is, or ought to be, one of
the most comely and cleanly of the adornments of
the festive board, this consideration has unusual
weight with the buyer. But the clumsiness of the
firkins is not all we complain of ; the railway and
shipping companies, and the farmers too, do not
take pains to keep the firkins clean on the outside;
too commonly they are rolled about on the muddy
quays or along the streets, when they ought not to
be allowed to go near dirt of any kind. If we
notice the neatness and cleanliness of firkins from
France or Holland, Germany or Denmark, those
from Ireland suffer painfully in comparison. We
desire to press this point on the notice of our Irish
friends, knowing as we do that the present state
of things is detrimental to their interests ; it is,
moreover, an evil whose presence is gratuitous,
and the result of sheer carelessness.
In preparing mild-cured butter about 3 pints
of salt are used to the firkin of 70 lbs. of butter,
but in preparing heavy- cured butter 6 pints of
salt are used. Over-salting is a common fault in
Irish butter, the alleged inducement being that
the extra salt sells at the price of butter; but that
is a short-sighted reason, because butter which has
been over-salted will not fetch as high a price as
butter of equal quality moderately salted. High
salting was more necessary when the means of
transit were slow and uncertain, but it is not
required now that Irish butter can be placed in
the English markets within twenty-four hours
after it leaves the dairy where it was made.
The want of proper accommodation for keejiing
the milk until it is fit for churning is a very com-
mon defect in the case of Irish dairy-farms, espe-
cially amongst small farmers. In such cases the
milk is usually kept in the barn, and becomes
sjjoiled from the dirt which falls into it from the
roof. The clay floor also absorbs spilt milk, which
sours and gives forth offensive smells. In many
cases milk is set in dishes which are placed in the
sleeping compartments of the family, where it
358
DAIRY FARMING.
si)i'cdily becomes taiutc.l by absurlniin' iiniiiKil
odours. Even in cases where the niilk-ioonis are
tolerably well eonstruetcd, the benefit is lost from
the ])roximity of the ajiartmeut to the farm-yard
duii<>'-hill. On some estates encouragement is
j^iven to the tenants by the proprietors for the
erection of improved daiiy accommodation; but
even with such encouragement there are some
serious defects per])etuated in the construction or
arrangement of the building, and we are of oj)inion
that the dairy should be erected by the landlord,
who could charge a reasonable percentage upon the
outlay. It would be necessary, of course, that the
builder should work under proper speciKcations,
and it is by no means essential that the building
should be of an expensive nature. The chief
points to be observed are — (1) a proper aspect and
situation ; (3) internal cleanliness, as afforded by
])lastered walls and ceilings, and especially by a
well-laid door of stone or tiles ; (8) ventilation ; (l)
floors, &c., constructed of non-absorbent material.
For this purpose there is nothing equal to Caith-
ness pavement, which can be obtained sawn to
any dimensions for floors or shelving.
Inferior quality of butter, caused by imjjroper
accommodation, is not directly a fault of the maker,
but the case is altogether different when butter be-
comes deteriorated from fraudulent manipulation.
This is the case in a class of butter known to the
Cork trade under the title of "cocks." These
consist of butter into which a large proportion of
\vater has been introduced during the process of
manufacture. From 81bs. to lUlbs. of water are
frequently worked into 60 lbs. of butter. Butter
adulterated in this manner, if sent to market when
newly made, will stand as first quality; but af ten-
it has been kept over for a week or ten days it
deteriorates so much that it will scarcely rank even
as fourth quality. This dishonest practice, in
which some dairywomen are very exjjcrt, of course
injures the character of the Cork or other market
butter; because if sent to England with a brand of
first quality it must bring discredit on that brand,
as by the time it would reach the consumer its
(|uality would have fallen greatly in comparison
with that assigned to it at first. It must not be
su])posed, however, that the owners of dairies in
which " cocks " are manufactured are aware of the
fact in all cases; for it is well known that dairy-
women, who have the sole charge of dairies, fre-
(|Uently iiraclise it for Iheir own private advantage.
Of lad' years a system of co-operation in
butter-making has sprung up amongst small
farmers — that is, two or three join in filling a
firkin. The different contributions are mixed toge-
ther and worked up so as to produce a firkin of
l)utter tolei'ably even in quality ; but the system is
not calculated to improve the manufacture, as each
contributor is ])aid out of the general proceeds
according to the quantity he contributed, without
reference to its quality. In fact, if the quality of
one lot is sui)erior to that of the other lots, the
maker of the best contribution loses all the benefit
of the superior quality of his butter, which goes to
improve the inferior lots.
Various plans have been suggested for raising,
the character of Irish butter in the English market,
but the most practically useful system set on foot
for that purpose is the system carried on by the
"Golden Vein Mild-cured Butter Com])any,"
which has been established at Mallow, County of
Cork. The distinctive name of the Company is
derived from a rich tract of pasture which traverses
the counties of Tipperary, Limerick, and Cork,
and has long been known as the " Golden Vein."
The premises occupied by the Company at Mallow,
an important junction on the Great Southern and
Western Railway, are admirably adajited for the
purpose, having an ample and unfailing sujjply
of pure spring water, a large cool cellar, and
otherwise commodious premises. A refrigerating
chamber is about to be constructed. The sui)j)lies
of butter required by the Company are procured
from dairies, properly constructed, kept scrupu-
lously clean, and under the ins])ection of the
Company's officers. No milk is allowed to be set
for more than twenty-four hours, and the butter
is sent twice a week to the Company's stores, or
as it is churned, the subsequent operations being
performed by the Company. The managers are all
practical dairy-farmers, and the managing director
is Mr. James Byrne, J. P., Wallstowu Castle, an
extensive and experienced dairy-farmer.
The butter is packed in casks which cannot be
rolled about or dirtied, which is a great nnitter,
and the butter is preserved from injury by means
of a covering of thin muslin placed inside each
cask. In adilition to the jn-eparatiou of firkined
butter, the Conqiany intend to open a trade in fresh
rolls suitalde for the London market. The Company
also intend to try the maiuifacture of canned butter,
on the Dauisji and American plan, and, in short.
THE MILK TRADE AND THE CORK BUTTER MARKET.
359
lo lenve no stone unturned with a view to enlianee
the cliaraeter of Irish butter. Hitherto the Com-
pany lias found its principal market in London,
where the butter has held its ground against all
comers.
Dairy-farming in connection with large towns
consists chiefly in supplying fresh milk to the
inhabitants. The owners of these dairies also
make a certain proportion of butter, which is
sold slightly salted. The buttermilk finds a
ready market, but it is usually much adulterated
with water, nor have any efforts been made, e.xecpt
at Belfast, to prevent the atlulteration. The
adulteration of new milk, either with water or
with skim-milk, is carefully watched in Dublin,
and various dairymen have from time to time
been heavily fined by the police magistrates, on
the evidence of the City analyst. One or two
dairy companies have been formed for the purpose
of supplying pm"e milk at reasonable j)riees, and
these companies have been fairly successful. In
the city dairies the cows are pastured in fields
adjoining the city, within a radius of six or seven
miles, the milk being brought into town morning
and evening. During the winter the cows are
kept in yards within the city, aud fed upon hay,
brewers' grains, Indian meal, &e. Some of these
yards are kept in a very crowded and filthy state,
but it is hoped that the new Act will effect some
reformation in their condition. The price charged
to the consumer is 4d. to 5d. per quart for new
milk, aud the trade is evidently a profitable one.
ililk is a favourite article of food amongst all
classes in Ireland, especially the middle and
working classes, and there is ample room for
developing the sale of the article, if supplied in
a genuine state.
Cheese is not generally used in Ireland as
an article of food. It is regarded as a luxury
rather than a necessary of life. Hence the
manufacture of cheese forms no part of Irish dairy
management. A few persons, who are either
Scotch or English, occasionally make cheese,
cluefly for their own use, but there are com-
paratively few farmers who make it a speciality
in their system of dairy management.
In conclusion we would remark that all who
are interested in the matter should strive by every
possible means to improve the make of Irish butter,
and so enhance its character in the British markets.
Butter-making appears to be a point in which we
can hold our own, if so disposed, against foreign
competition, as regards cjuality ; but to do so effec-
tually every obstacle, such as want of proper ac-
commodation, must be removed, and means taken to
diffuse sound instruction regarding the details of
manufacture amongst the oi-dinary class of farmers.
This should be done by a system of practical in-
struction by travelling instructors, similar to that
carried on with reference to the introduction of
roots, &c., after the famine years, under the aus-
pices of the Royal Agricultural Society of Ireland ;
and at a later period to extend a knowledge of
the cultivation and preparation of flax for the
market.
The extension of dairy-farming may also be
urged on the ground that rearing calves and store
cattle generally is a very profitable undertaking,
and likely to continue so, as it is not likely to be
seriously affected by importations from America. In
carrying out a system of this kind it is essential to
breed a generally useful class of beasts, and to
ensure this there is nothing equal to thoroughly
well-bred Shorthorn bulls. In furtherance of this
the owners of purely-bred herds should encourage
those families which evince marked qualifications
for the dairy, for it is indisputable that a bull
descended from a line of females noted for their
milking powers will transmit similar powers to
his female offspring.
Cork is the great emporium of the Irish butter
trade, and the following are some statistics of the
trade at that market, which have been kindly
supplied by Mr. Egan, Secretary to the Committee
of Butter Merchants, Cork.
During the five years from 1SG4 to 1868, both
included, the average number of firkins, &e., which
passed annually through the weigh-houses was
;37S,7(j5 ; during the five years ending 1873,
the average number was 358,349 ; and during
the five ending 14th of April, 1878, the annual
average was 401,083 firkins, &c.
The class position of quality for the year last
named was as follows : — •
First quality
Second „
Third „
Fourth „
Fifth ,,
Sixth „
13.5,044 firkins.
181,608 „
102,961 „
13,537 „
1,153 „
65 „
434,358 firkins, &c
Butter is also largely exported from Dublin,
3!)0
DAIRY FARMING.
Waterford, Wexford, Dundalk, Belfast, Dorry, and
Sligo, to Liverpool, Bristol, and Glasgow.
R. O. P.
Mr. W. Bence Jones writes : —
" Very little cheese is made in Ireland. Many
landowners have brought over skilled cheese-
makers from their own farms, or as tenants, and
fairly good cheese has been made, but none that I
have ever tasted or heard of that was of really
superior quality, and the attempts to make it have
quietly died out. It is probable that either the
soil or climate of Ireland is not suitable for
cheese.
" The very ojiposite, however, is the case with
butter. Both soil and climate are thoroughly suit-
able. In the southern half of Munster, especially
Cork, Kerry, much of Limerick, Tipperary, and
"\^'aterford, the climate (as can be seen from any
rain map) is the wettest in Europe (except some
small spots, mountainous and other), and besides
rain, there is a constant dampness of atmosjihere
\erY favourable for the growth of grass. IMuch
of the soil, too, being a light useful loam, with
the rock not far off, this moisture is the very
thing needed ; there is a constant fresh spring of
grass and very few hot days, than which nothing
could be better for cows and butter. Probably
nowhere can better butter, in all respects, be pro-
duced. And the reason why so much inferior
butter is made in Ireland is wholly from the
habits of the people. Carelessness and slovenli-
ness, and often scheming, are the root of the
evil.
"In some districts the whole milk is cliurned.
In INIunster the cream only is used. Many, how-
ever, have a bad way of letting the milk stand
till it thickens or sours before it is skimmed. It
is more than doubtful if more butter is produced
this way, though people think there is. On large
farms feeding 20 to 50 cows, excellent butter is
often made, which brings the best price in the
markets, to which it is sent in firkins of G5 lbs. to
70 lbs.
" In spite, liowcvcr, of dct'cfts — Ihe li;iil in-
fluence of market detects, as well as those from
neglect in making the butter — it is certain that in
the south of Ireland dairying is much the most
jirolitable way of dealing with land, and accord-
ingly the number of cows kept constantly increases.
Of course, if land is out of condition, its condi-
tion cannot be got up by cow-keeping, though.
from the goodness of the climate for grass, land
out of condition will seem to improve for some
jears under a dairy. Farmers who look far ahead
know a very different plan is needful to imj)rove
the condition and make the nmst profit. But
whether the laud is in good condition or bad, if
the liest return at once with least outlay is wanted,
as it is with nineteen-twentieths of all classes con-
nected with land in Ireland, no mode of farming
can compare with dairying. Since the famine, the
practice of letting cows to a dairyman has greatly
increased. The owner provides cows, utensils, and
liouse and land for potatoes, to be manured by the
dung of the cows. The dairyman is allowed to
keep two or three sheep and a horse or donkey,
according to the size of the dairy. If he has
money he pays part of the rent at once ; for the
rest, or if he has no money for all, he gives
promissory notes with two thoroughly solvent
securities. From the habit of the country there
is no trouble in getting excellent security. The
rent is quite safe. About 4 acres of ordinary land
are allowed for each cow. The rent is £10 to £11
per cow.
" Winter feeding is little thought of. The
climate gives a little growth of grass often in
winter. There is a little straw from the oats
grown after the previous year's potatoes, and per-
haps a cock of hay ; and if there is any rough land
or waste on the farm, there is some winter jiick-
iug from it. Not only landowners adopt this
plan, but also numbers of tenants, who let their
cows to dairymen, instead of getting their own
wives and daughters to do the dairy work. There
is no doubt the cows thus pay them much better.
Very few tenants make anything like £10 a cow
from those they do not let. It is a sort of mystery
how dairymen manage to pay; yet not a few
make money. It is probably partly from no other
stock being put on the grass, and to its not being
over-stocked. The rest arises from more industry
and effort towards a single end, in the dairyman,
tlum in the tenant."
Mr. Richard Barter, St. Anne's Hill, gives us
the following record of his dairy operations : —
" My farm is situated 8 miles from the city of
Cork, and consists of about 700 acres, principally
light land, red sandstone foundation. Two hun-
dred acres have been drained, rocks removed,
and subsoiled under the Board of Works, and I am
at present engaged in draining SO acres of flat
GENERAL DAIRY MANAGEIMENT.
.'501
alluvial bottom resting on o-vavcl, which I ex-
pect will turn out well. I grow about 25
acres of green crops each year, the larger portion
mangels, which are always a heavy crop, and
5 acres of forage crops. I manure the green
crops with 30 loads per acre of farm-yard manure
made in a covered shed (one load of which I
consider equal to two of manure made in the
ordinary way, exposed to the open air), and
(5 cwt. of superphosphate made as follows : The
bones are bought whole and the labourers break
them by contract, on wet days and winter
evenings, into half-inch bones, which are after-
wards dissolved in sulphuric acid. The stock
consists of -too Shropshire sheep, 100 head of
dry cattle, and 40 dairy-cows. The dairy-stock
consists, principally, of three-parts pure-bred
Shorthorns, a few pure-bred ditto, and three
Kerrys ; the latter give milk neai-ly as rich and
as highly coloured as that of Alderneys, and
they have the great advantage of being extremely
hardy. The dairy is in connection with St. Anne^s
Hill Hydropathic Estaldishment, and a large
quantity of fresh milk and butter are recjuired
all the year round. In order to keep up the
supply of these articles, some of the cows calve
in autumn and winter, but the greater propor-
tion in spring. They are fed as follows : —
" Sjjriiiff. — On the pastures by day, housed at
night, getting each day 6 stone of mangels per
cow, with a fair allowance of hay, and every even-
ing a mixture of 2 lbs. decorticated cake, 1 lb.
crushed Indian corn, and 1 lb. bran, made into
a mucilage with boiliiig water, and given warm.
"Summer. — On the pastures day and night; one
feed of green food each day, as the successive
crops of rye, vetches, or trifolium come in.
"Autumn. — By day principally in the after-
grass, by night in the pastures ; each evening a
feed of cabbage, and the cows on full milk a
mixture of cake as above.
" Winter. — Same as Spring.
" Great cleanliness is observed in the dairy
management ; the milkers are obliged to wash their
hands, and the herdsmen to sponge the cows'
udders before each milking.
"Each cow is numbered, and the milk accu-
rately measured once a week ; 20 have completed
their season's milk to January 1st. The average
of milk per cow has been 6S2 gallons ; the highest
903 gallons — from a thrce-parts-bred Shorthorn,
ten months' milking, bred on (he farm ; the lowest
503 gallons — from a half-bred thrcc-year-old heifer,
nine mouths' milking, purchased as a yearling.
The average percentage of cream has been l-i"
when getting cake, 11" not getting cake; highest
percentage 17°, from a three-year-old three-parts-
brcd Shorthorn. It was found in general that
the larger the quantity of milk given, the lower
was the percentage of cream. The average yield
of butter has been, for each 100 gallons of milk
set, 35 lbs. for spring and winter, and 30 lbs. for
summer and autumn; the milk is set in galvanised
iron vessels for 24', 36, or 48 hours, according to
the season of the year — generally 36 in summer,
except in very hot weather, and 48 in winter. In
cold weather the dairy is heated by means of a
small furnace and flue placed under one comer of
it, and is kept at a uniform temperature of from
48° to 50". The cream is warmed to a tempera-
ture of 54" before being put into the churn, and
the agitation of churning brings it ujj to 62", at
which the best results are obtained. Experiments
were tried during the late cold weather, and it was
found that the heating of the dairy and the cream
before churning increased the return of butter
fully 20 per cent. ; the quality was better, and it
took a much shorter time to churn than when put
in cold. The churn used is an 80-lb. barrel-chum,
turned by hand ; 40 minutes is the general time
taken in churning. The butter is handled as little
as possible in the Avashing ; about 1 lb. of salt is
put to 50 lbs. of butter for the roll butter. A
considerable quantity of butter is sent to Dublin
every week in 1-lb. rolls; each lb. is folded in
muslin, and packed in trays in a wooden case. In
]\Iay and June, when the butter is plentiful, some
of it is firkiued for the Cork butter-market, when
3 lbs. of salt are put to the 70-lb. firkin ; it obtains
the term " supertine quality," which is a new brand
established within the last two years in the Cork
butter-market. This quality is a careful selection
from the best of the mild-cured, and commands
about 2d. a lb. over the price of the first quality.
The merchants tell me the demand for it exceeds
the supply."
Greater in Ireland even than in England is
there need for improved dairy-utensils and more
careful treatment of milk, cream, and butter;
yet it is true that many of the moi-e advanced
Irish dairies will compare not unfavourably with
corrcsiionding ones in England, so far, that is.
302
DAIRY FARAriXG.
as successful practice is conceriicil, and in tliis lies
the cliief merit of such places. It is at the small
farms, and among the cottiers who milk only one
or two cows, that the dairy accommodation and
eijuipmcnt may he deserihed as deplorably bad ;
sanitary matters <';enerally are at a low ebb; the
cow-sheds and dun<^-heaps are absurdly close to
the door and windows of the house ; the milk is
too often kept in tlie general living-room of the
family, or in a closely adjoining one into which
the reeking smoke from the peat fire has the
greatest freedom to enter; and the general sur-
roundings are anytliing but conducive to clean-
liness.
There is, however, in the present day a wide-
spread and earnest effort being made by many
prominent men, who deserve well of their country,
to educate the rising generation, and all others
who may care to learn, in the art and science of
improved systems of dairy management ; and it is
satisfactory to know tliat the result of these efforts
is already seen in a marked improvement in the
average quality of the butter of some districts
in Ireland. We trust this reform will go on
spreading and deepening, until the habits of the
])eople have become imbued with a spirit of
friendly emulation, and the production of first-
class butter is the rule and not the exception in the
Emerald Isle.
In the re-arrangement of the jMunster IModel
Farm provision is made for a thorough and
practical course of instruction in both outside and
inside dairy management. The training of the
male p\ii)ils will extend over two sessions of four
and a half months each, at the very moderate fee
of .€7 U)s. per annum, for which sum the Board
of Education provides the pupils with everything
except clothing. In the months of January and
July, at which jieriods no male pu])ils will U>
resident at the institution, farmers' daughters and
dairymaids will be admitted as ]nij)ils at an
e(nially moderate fee, and j)laccd under the care of
a matron w'ho is distinguished as a maker of prize
butter. We hope to see other institutions of this
kind rising up in various parts of the country,
because we are assured their influence for good
will be enormous. Meantime, for the guidance of
those who are so situated that they cannot avail
themselves of the advantages which are offered by
the Munster Dairy School, the following hints on
dairy management, over the name of Mr. Barter
of St. Anne's Hill, have been freely and widely
distributed : —
"The following hints on dairy management
are chiefly intended for the guidance of small
farmers who may not have the means or thj
opportunity of availing themselves of new and
expensive appliances. The real secrets of success
in butter-making are scrupulous cleanliness and
the closest attention to every detail. If Irish
farmers will believe and act on this, they need
not fear any foreign competition; as good butter
can be made in Ireland as in any country in
the world. The following extract is from the
Lit^e Stock Journal, writing on the Dublin Dairy
Show : — ' Our friends in Ireland have set to
work wuth a will to improve the condition
of the dairy husbandry of their country ; and
the hearty earnestness which they display is a
good assurance of the success they will gain.
Properly attended to in all its stages, Irish butter
will become, take it for all in all, ///'' Jiiif.st. in llie
worlil.'
" Cows, both before and after calving, should
be kept in good condition. The milk of cows in
poor condition w'ill ' be found deficient both in
quantity and in quality. This can easily be tested
by a cream-gauge (a small glass, price 2s.), which
will be found very useful in showing what jiasture
and what kind of food gives the best return of
cream. In cold weather a tepid drink at night
after milking, made with about 4 lbs. of meal and
bran mixed, or, better still, 3 lbs. of bran and 2 lbs.
decorticated cotton-cake, in half a bucket of water,
materially assists the flow of milk. Turnips ought
not to be given to dairy-eows ; but if the use of
them is unavoidable, they should be given im-
meiliately after milking, never at any other time,
and in this way a stone of white turnii)s may
be given in the day, with very little risk of the
butter being tainted. Cows should have free
access to fresh, pure water ; and they should
always be treated with gentleness, and never
driven fast. It has been proved that the milk of
a cow that has been driven fast, or been hunted
by dogs or tormented by Hies, will injure the
whole setting. They should be kept very clean.
The cow-sheds also should be kejit perfectly clean ;
they should be well floored, well drained, and well
ventilated, as if cows or cow-shwls are kept in a
dirty state, the milk will inevitably be tainted.
Before milking, the cow's udders should l)e .sponged
HINTS OX DAIRY AIANAGKMENT.
3G;5
with warm water, ami allowed to dry; and
milkers should always wash Iheir hands without
soap before milkinj]^. Cows should be milked
quickly and gently, and as nearly as possible at
reg^ular and equal times. If they are milked
slowly, or any of the strippings left, they will
soon go baek in their milk, and more loss is
sustained in this way ihan most people are
aware of.
"Mil/; should be carefully strained ; if hair or
any particles of dust or dirt remain in it, they will
spoil the butter. Milk should be set in summer
in shallow tinned pans, as souring stops the rising
of the cream, which is a very slow process, and the
great object should be to get as much eream to the
surface as possible whilst the milk remains sweet.
In winter, deep setting in earthenware pans is
better, because they retain the heat in the milk
longer, and the gradual coolin:^- of the milk to the
temperature of the air assists the rising of the
cream, the fatty portion retaining the heat longer
than the milk or watery portion. ]\Iilk should
always be skimmed before it gets sour, as after
that any eream that rises is only of the poorest
description, and the slight addition in quantity
will not compensate for the inferior quality of the
butter. The perforated tin skimmer is mucli the
best, as it allows any milk that may be taken up
with the cream to run through.
" Dairies should be kept perfectly sweet and
well ventilated, and be separated by a partition
Avail from the dwelling-house. No door or window
should look out in any yard or place where smells
of any kind could come from. The floor should
be flagged, tiled, or cemented, so that it can be
frequently washed ; an earthen floor, damp and
dirty, is most unfit for a dairy. Any sjslashes
of milk should be immediately wiped up, as, if
allowed to remain and turn sour, they will taint
the milk. The windows should be arranged so
that no streaks of light or sun could shine upon
the milk, as they produce flecks in the cream,
which always show in the butter. Dairy utensils
should be cleaned by first washing them in cold
water, then scalded, and again washed in fresh
cold water. The temperature of the dairy is most
important ; it should never be allowed to go under
50" or over 55". Keeping a dairy heated to the
proper temperature will largely increase the return,
and will well repay the trifling expense of a stove.
Cheap stoves to burn either coal or turf can be
49
had, which will keep up the necessary heat even in
the coldest night.
"The cream for churning slmuld not be kept
too long. Slight ripening is good for the butter,
but it shoulil never be allowed to become very
sour, and in winter should be churned at least
twice a week, and in summer more frequently ;
it should be kept covered with muslin, both to
exclude particles of dust and also to prevent the
air acting too much on the surface of the cream
and produce unequal ripening. In adding a fresh
skimming the contents of the crock should be well
stirred, so as to mix all well together, and no fresh
cream should be added for twelve hours before
churning, as it would not have time to equally
ripen, and would take longer than the other cream
to churn, so that the churning would be stop]ied
before the butter came on the fresh cream. The
temperature of cream before churning should
aUvays be carefully tested with the thermometer.
It has been proved that 57° is the best temperature
to churn at ; and the cream in cold weather should
be warmed to this by placing it before a fire or in
a tub of warm water, or in hot weather cooled by
placing it in cold water. The churn also should
be rinsed out before churning in winter with hot
water, in summer with cold.
" The chui'n should be turned slowly at first, so
as not to break up the butter globules too much,
and the churning should be most carefully listened
to and stopped the moment the butter comes, so as
not to allow it to collect in lumps. The grain and
firmness of the butter are thus preserved, and the
buttermilk can be easily removed. After removing
the buttermilk the butter should be washed in the
churn, three times in fresh spring water and twice
in pickle, made by placing some salt in a piece
of muslin on top of a can and pouring cold water
over it. If the butter is at all soft it should
be allowed to stand for a couple of hours in the
churn in very cold water. In making the butter,
handling should be mo.st carefully avoided. By
the use of a butter- worker and butter-slices, butter
can be made without ever touching it with the
hands, and this is the plan adopted in the best
dairies in England and on the Continent.
" The firkins, before placing the butter, should
be perfectly clean and sweet, and care should be
taken to send them clean to market. A very good
plan to sweeten firkins, and remove the taint
which even the best oak firkins will have, is to
364
DAIRY FARMING.
]Hmi- boilinp;' ])icklo into thorn and !rt it stanl
ill tln'iii for twenlN -t'liur liuuis ; tlu'ii linse in
fresh cokl water."
It is to he expected that only such samph's as
arc ri'ckoued to be of superior merit are, as a rule,
sent for competition and exhibition at the agvi-
cultural shows. No maker of decidedly inferior
butter, unless strangely infatuated, would exhibit
his (foods at all j he would hardly care to jniblish
to the world the fact that he was less skilful than
his neighbours, nor would he enjoy seeing his butter
compared with much suiJtrior samjdes. It follows,
therefore, that the samples exhibited are good ones
in the makers' estimation, or in that of their
friends, and equally representative in different
countries, though it does not necessarily follow
that all the best samples of a given district are
attracted to the show. As a rule, however, we
may take it for granted that the best and second-
best qualities of butter which the district is able to
produce are fairly well represented by the samples
present. These premisses granted, we may venture
to draw a comparison between the butters of Ire-
land and of other countries, based on the various
exhibitions we have seen.
In the first place we may say that the butters
of Ireland, as seen at the leading shows, will not
suffer by comparison, all things considered, with
those of England, or of the countries of Northern
Europe. That there is a larger proportion of
inferior butter made in Ireland than in any other
country which reckons to be a dairying country at
all is probalil}^ true, but it is cc[ually true that
some of the best butter in the world is made there.
It is merely a question of care and cleanliness. At
any rate a collection of Irish butters shows more
body, substance, and general quality than we have
found to be the case in other countries. At the
same time we must admit that they are less skil-
fully made and less neatly finished off and \>rc-
sented than, for instance, the butters of Denmiirk
or of Finland. Possessing an inherent superior
quality, they lose the advantage in not being so
skilfully made. With one of the finest climates
on earth for dairying purposes ; with a soil and
herbage which are not easily equalled; with a
breed of cows excellent in many respects, and still
improving ; and with milk pre-emincutl}' suited to
butter-making — more so, perhaps, than the milk
of any other country in the woidd — the Irish
people are provided with the first requisites for
becoming the lea<ling butter-producing nation in
Europe. But to attain this jiosition requires, in
our opinion, the untiring industry, the scrupulous
cleanliness, (he intelligent thought, and the pride
in work which are conspicuous among the Dutch
and the Danes.
With English butters those of Ireland compare
still less unfavourably than they do with those of
the Continent. It is true that English butters are
more cleanly though scarcely more carefully inatle
than the Irish, but they are "weaker," and arc aj)t
to " go off " earlier. Nor, indeed, are English
butters at a show as uniform as the Irish — so far,
that is, as our observation has gone ; but we admit
that, in the general run of the butters of the two
countries respectively, and not confining ourselves
to show-butters, there is a greater disparity in the
quality of the latter than in that of the former,
and a wider interval between the best and the worst
we could find. Irish butter-makers have a great
future in store, if they mind what they are doing.
CHAPTER XXV.
The Daikying oi' America.
. ^
^^-^4
General Facts— Magnitude— Statistics— Dairying Regions Described— ranadian Dairying— Climate and Soils-
Grasses and Forage Plants.
^isMERICAN
dairying is chiefly
remarkable for its rapid growth,
the proportions attained, its re-
hitive position among the agri-
140,000,000 lbs. of cheese, together valued at
18,000,000 dollars.
The Americans are the greatest butter-eaters
the world, but consume veiy little cheese.
^"^vL *^^'1*^'"'"1 industries of the country. Figures illustrating these facts are uncertain, but
J and the associated or factory sys
tem, which originated there and has
become so generally adopted.
Like everything else in America, the
dairying is comparatively new. It was without un-
usual features until 18^30, and the great growth
has occurred since that time, within fifty years.
Then, with a population of 1 ■3,000,000 there were
less than 4,000,000 milch-cows, and their annual
products had a value not exceeding 100,000,000
dollars. Within twenty-five years these figures
were more than doubled. In 1880, 49,000,000 of
people own 13,000,000 cows, and the dairy pro-
ducts of the year exceed 400,000,000 dollars— 300
per cent, increase in production in half a century.
An eminent author says : " The dairy business of
this country has developed with such rapidity and
to such a degree of importance, with the aid of the
highest intelligence and the application of the
most consummate skill, as to be regarded as one
of the highest triumphs of modern agriculture.^^
It exhilnts the greatest progress ever made in any
branch of agriculture.
The foreign trade in products of the dairy has
grown much faster than the total production.
Exports of butter and cheese were first made in the
last half of the eighteenth century, but were so in-
significant as to escape the official reports until 1820;
that year the exports of butter reached 1,000,000
lbs., and of cheese 750,000 lbs., the whole valued
at 190,000 dollars. In the year ending June 30,
1880, the exports were 44,000,000 lbs. of butter.
the best authorities estimate the jjer cap/fa con-
sumption of butter in the United States at 15 lbs.
per anuum, and that of cheese at 4 lbs. or less.
Local tests show the highest rates of consumption
to be in dairy districts producing large quan-
tities and the best quality, and reach in some
instances 25 lbs. per capita of butter, and 9 lbs.
of cheese.
For the statistics of the dairy interests, the
United States census, taken every ten years
(1790 to 1870 inclusive), furnishes the best
general data, but the figures there found are not
altogether trustworthy.* Farms were construed
as three acres or more, and the enimieration
of cows not on farms was omitted (although
estimated), making discrepancies between the re-
turns of State officials and those of the United
States for the same years ; similarly, tlie repiorts of
jiroducts in some places indicate the total jjroduc-
tion, and in others rejiresent sales only, home con-
sumption being disregarded. Therefore the State
enumerations, made in several States in the years
1875, 1865, &e., and in some cases with great care
(New York and Massachusetts in 1875, for ex-
ample), the annual report of the United States
Department of Agriculture, with estimates and the
very creditable publications of the leading dairy-
men's associations, are all valuable adjuncts in
* As these pages go to press the tenth census (1880) has
been taken, hut its compilation is not suiBcientl}- advanced for
the results to he embodied in the te.\t. They will, however,
bo given in a subsequent appendix.
SC6
DAIRY FARMING.
compiling statistical information on American
dairjnufj. It' this term be broadened so as to in-
clude the dairy in Canada, the census of the
Dominion, taken in I'^Tl, must be added; it is a
work prepared with much care, under the super-
vision of the Minister of Agriculture.
The growth of American dairying, and its
extent and relative importance in 18^0, can be
appreciated only upon an examination of the
general development of the country. For this
purpose the superintendent of the census of 1870
divides the States and territories into three groups :
the first consists of the original thirteen and thice
otiiers afterwards organised from their territory;
the second, of those States which were settled
between 1790 and 181-5; and the third group
includes the remainder. The accompanying table
(No. 1) is made upon this plan, showing the area
of settlement at different dates, the density of
population, and the number of cows owned, per
square mile.
This gives a view of the advance of dairying;
it will repay study, and from it may be easily com-
puted the population and the whole number of
cows in these three sections at the different periods.
(The figures for ISSO are partly " semi-otRcial '•"
returns and partly estimates.) As each group,
however, has a varied geography, the sections
where the dairy is most prominent can be seen
better in Table No. 2, in which each group is
geographically arranged. This table exhibits
many interesting facts as to the increase of
dairv-cattle in the several States, and the ratio
of these animals to the population in different
parts of the Union.
Table No. 3 is still more comprehensive,
giving the statistics of the general agricultural
progress of the country, and a com])arison between
the values of the most imjiortant agricultural
products.
It is here .seen that the corn crop (maize) alone
exceeds in value the annual dairy products; but
Indian corn and hay are both, in a considerable
degree, accessories of the dairy. Hence it is not
erroneous to assert that dairying is the greatest
single agricultural interest in America.
The location of the dairy industiy of the
United States is a difficult matter to explain.
For years it was claimed by prominent writers
that the profitable dairying of the country would
always be monopolised by p district couilned
within certain narrow geograjjliical limits. Then
a "dairy belt" was discovered, and the opinion
generally prevailed that the only territory adapted
to dairying la}' between tlie 40th and 4-5th degree
of latitude, and was to be found in distinct
separated sections occupying about one-third of
the area of this belt, from the Missouri River
to the Atlantic Ocean. These ideas have been
thoroughly exploded; it has been abundantly
shown that good butter and cheese can bo matle,
by proper management, in almost all sections of
North America between the 32nd and 50th
parallels. Generally speaking, good butter can
be profitably produced wherever good beef can.
Even the influences of climate, soil, water, a'ul
herbage are lai-gel}' controlled, and what is lacking
in the natural conditions is supj)lied by tact and
skill. But of the territory named within which
dairying is practicable, a very small fraction
contains the bulk of the dairy interests of the
country in ISSO; great natural advantages easily
account for certain sections being the conspicuous
dairy districts, although these no longer aspire
to be the exclusis'e producers of butter and
cheese.
The best idea of the dairy regions as they
were in 1870 can be obtained from the map
of dairy products in the volume of " Indus-
try and Wealth,'' in the ninth United States
census, and also in General Walker's " United
States Statistical Atlas, 1S72." This chart is
herewith reproduced on a somewhat different
scale.
The giadi'd tints gra])hically illustrate the
distriljution of this interest in the country,
sliowiug the variation in the value of the annual
dairy products from 5 dollars to 40 dollars
and over per capita ; the four grades of tint
represent a production of (IV.) 40 dollars and
over, (III.) 20 dollars to 40 dollars, (II.)
10 to 20 dollars, and (I.) 5 to 10 dollars,
per capita, llie territory where the annual pro-
duction does not reach 5 dollars to each person
is not tinted. The fourth grade is confined to
))ortions of New York, Ohio, "S^ermont, and Cali-
fornia; the third is found in those States, and
also in ]\Iassachusetts, Connecticut, Penn.sylvania,
and New Jei-sey ; the second occui-s in spots, and
the first prevails throughout the New England,
the Middle, Northern Central, and North- Western
States, and California. There is no tinted space
AMERICAN DAIRY STATISTICS.
307
Ko. 1.
-Gruwlh of lite United States, hi/ Decades, in Area of Setlleuient, Densit/j of Population, and
Niinitjer of Milch Cotv-i.
1 GitotJP I.
Gnonp 11.
jnonp m.
Date of SUtistics.
A.O. 1
Area Settled.
Population
No. of
Area Settled.
Populiitiou
No. of
Are* ?ettl3d.
Population
No of
Sq. miltiS.
Sq. mile.
Cows.
aq. miles.
S-i. mile.
Cows.
Sq. MUes.
per
Sq mile.
Cows.
17S0 i
200,000
15-7
17!10
1
224,685
17-0
—
1.5,250
7 '2
_
ISOO
260,208
18-5
—
39,500
98
1S20
312,173
23-8
—
196,144
11-3
1840
353,137
30-1
8-1
438,355
14-5
4-4
15,800
47
1-4
1850
1
359,692
36-7
9-3
493,757
18-4
5-4
12.5,800
7 1
2 8
1860
361,141
43-8
10-4
519,957
24-3
6-9
313,656
9-5
4-4
1870
358,546
50-1
11-5
527,627
23-5
70
386,066
12-9
5 8
1880
360,000
55-
12-
530,000
40-
9-
500,000
19-
8-0
Group I. includt-s tlie Original Thirteen (13) States, a^d Maine, Vermont, nnd West Virginia.
Grvup II.. Keiitucl^y, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama,
Group III., Wisconsin, lowii, Miijiiesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, the PacUic States, and all the Territories.
No. 2. — Milch Cows ill the United SfateSy hy Slates, in 1S50 and 1878^ with ratio of Cows to
Pojynlation, and Number of Cows to 100 Persons.
Gitonp I.
Gkoup II.
Gboop III.
1S50.
1=78.
Stot^^s.
1830. 1 1878.
States.
1850.
1S78.
States.
^■
^
^
^
Cows.
s
Cows.
^
Cows.
5 Cows.
s
Cows.
'S
Cows.
s
m
M
^^
M
45,704
M
m
Maine
133,556
23
165,800
26
Ohio
544,499
28
707,000
23
Iowa
24
632,000
39
New Hamp.
94,277
30
95,200
30
Indiana ...
284,554
29
4.39,200
26
Wisconsin..
64,339
21
450,300
35
Vermont ...
140,128
47
217,800
o9
Illinois ...
2J4,671
35
688,600
23
Minnesotj, .
607
u
249,800
35
Mass.
130,099
13
151,600
y
Michigan ...
99,670
25
375,600
29
Nebraska...
—
—
93,700
37
Rhode I. ...
18,698
13
21,000
9
Kentucky..
247,475
25
2.52,000
18.'.
Kansas ...
—
—
265,000
44
Conn.
85,461
23
112,000
19.',
Tennsssee..
250,456
25
248.200
19
Colorado ...
—
—
55,000
no
New York...
931,324
30
1,-104,100
29
Missouri ...
230,199
34
506,100
25
Nevada ...
—
—
10,500
17
New Jersey
118,736
24
149,200
15
Arkansas ...
93,151
45
182,200
33
California..
4,250
05
389,500
47
Penn'a ...
530,224
23
836,800
21
Florida ...
72,876
83
70,700
33
Oregon ...
9,427
71
102,200
85
Delaware ...
19,248
21
23,200
19
Alabama ...
227,791
30
205,000
20.',
, Texas ...
217,811
102
550,000
00
Maryland...
86,856
15
101,500
13
Missi sippi.
214,231
35
186,900
22',
1 The
Vir-inia ...
317,619
22
240,600
19
Tiniiisiana...
105,576
20
112,000
15
Territories
10,309
—
250,000
6o
"\V. Virginia
Inc.inV'a
221,799
25
126,700
230,000
21
19
N. Carolina
S. Carolina
Georgia ...
193,244
334,223
29
37
130,000
273,100
19
22
United States
0,385,095
271
11,300,100
24
1850.
1878.
Totals ...
1850.
1878.
Totals ...
1850.
1878.
Totals ...
3,361,492
4,278,600
2,665,155
3,973,500
3.58,447
3,048,000
Note. — Tbe figures for 1650 are taken from tne Uuited states census,
Agriculture at Washington.
I'i those for 1878 from official estimates by tbe Department of
No. 3. — Growth
of Agriculture in the
United States,
and Relative Value of the CI
ief Products.
1840.
1£50.
I860.
1870.
187a
Population, Uniteil States
17,069,4.53
23,191,876
31,443,322
38,.558,371
47,983,000
In Agriculture
2,717,750
2, 400, .583
3,221,574
5.922,471
7,000,000
Number of Farms ...
—
1,449,075
2,044,077
2,65 ,985
3,500,000
Average size
.. Acres
—
203
199
153
150
No. of Milch Cows...
4,837,043
6,392,044
8,585,735
10.023,000
12,000,000
Value of Cows
72,555,000
127,840,880
264,643,375
324.179,093
312,000,000
Dairy Products
Dollars
120,926,075
166,193,144
240,,00,.580
360,828,000
408,000,000
Indian Corn Crop ...
197,.531,.S75
2il6, 1)35, .552
439,0.58,774
478,275,900
475,000,000
W,218,108
96.870,494
172,202,152
351,717,035
325,000,000
Wheat Crop
82,012,161
100,485,944
188,301,270
290,411,820
375,000,000
Cotton Crop
82,865, 2,'<7
98,603,720
207,267.812
288,300,000
230,000,000
10,791,225
15,755,087
22,700,104
40,040,954
50,000,000
Tobacco Crop
.. ,.
15,252,208
13,982,686
30,701,909
25,901,421
28,000,000
36S
DAIRY FARMING.
south of Viij^-inia, Kentucky, and Missouri, or
west of the 99 th meridian, excejjt in California.*
New York is thus presented, as it is par ex-
cellence, THE dairy State. One-eiglith in vahie of
the whole dairy product of the country lielongs
to it. More butter is made annually in New
York than in any two other States, and more than
one-third of the cheese-crop of the Union. Here
is a comparative statement.
Annual Yahie of
Dairj* rroducts
Value of vVnnual
Product per Cow
Value of Product
per capita
Dollars.
50,000,000
Dollars. Dollars.
18,.500,000 20,000,000
Dol'ars.
7,000,000
Rein<j without large cities or manufacturing'
communities, Vermont shows a greater product in
jiorportion to her population, and a rather higher
rate per cow, but otherwise the predominance of
New York is apparent. In a large part of this
State the natural conditions are very favourable
to dairying : high undulating surface, a loamy soil,
inclining to clay, and running into shale; nume-
rous springs of soft water, clear streams with
gravelly beds ; sweet natural herbage ; freedom
from drought, and snow enough in winter to protect
the roots of the grasses. The two most noted
dairying counties of New York are Herkimer for
cheese and Orange for butter. In 1795 a young
man from New England built among the black
slate hills on the Mohawk River, and estab-
lished the first dairy of which there is record,
in Herkimer County. Five years later cheese-
making was quite common, and became general in
the county before 1825. The herds were small,
however; a few containing 40 cows were regarded
then as very large. About 1825 cheese-making
spread into the atljoining counties, the increased
product sought new markets, and in 18;}1 Harry
Burrell, of Herkimer, made the first shipment of
cheese from that county to England — 1U,0()() lbs.
An account of cheese-makinsj in Herkimer in 1S'"55
• It may be expected that a .similar map compiled during
the year 1S81 from the returns of the tenth United States
census will show very marked changes, and especially an
ext(^n8ion of the territory of greatest production, embracing
some of the North-western States.
states that the herds were milked in the open
yard or pen, the curds worked in tubs, and pressed
with log presses ; it was not considered fit to use
till fall or winter, and was then packed in rough
casks, and pciltlied at 5 to 8 cents a lb., wherever
a market for it could be found. Tliere was no
order, no system. Forty years later the associated
sj'stem, originating in 1851 in the atljoining
county of Oneida, almost supereedes the private
dairy; 100 cheese-factories in the county turn out
more than four-fifths of the annual product. This
county has about 15 cows to every 100 acres,
ranking first in the State in this respect, and its
annual cheese product is 10,000,000 to 12,000,000
lbs., besides over 1,000,000 lbs. of butter. Little
Falls, in Herkimer County, was for j-ears the
largest cheese-market in the United States — pro-
bably the largest in the world — but latterly the
sales at Utica have been still greater.
Orange County has long been famous for its
butter, and such has been the reputation of the
same that the name alone attached to the article
has sold many a package from distant parts of the
State. This county begins on the Hudson River,
near New York City, and is the eastern portion of
a belt of territory ranging from 25 to 50 miles in
width, and extending north-westerly 100 to 125
miles into the heart of the State, all of which
is peculiarly adapted to dairying. The Catskill
range of mountains, with its many branches, makes
a broken and even rough country, but the hills
are well covered with soil, and afford the best of
pasturage, even including the summits of all but
the highest. Abrupt hills, rolling lands, valleys,
and streams give great diversity of soil, sandy and
gravelly loams, light and heavy clay loams, and
rich alluvial bottoms. Along the streams the
deej) black earth, vegetable mould collected from
the hills, carries a sod in many places unbroken for
a century. The natural grasses of these meadows
are the blue-grass, fowl meadow, meadow fescue,
red-top, wire-grass, and in moist spots the sweet-
scented vernal-grass. Timothy, orchard-grass, and
the clovers have been added, and flourish. The
common weeds are also found, the ox-eye daisy,
the thistle, and the golden rod. The hills, and the
grasses that grow upon them, which are by many
considered sweeter and more nourishing for cattle,
are ;is highly valued as the valleys. It has been
remarked that this territory was once a region of
great hemlock forests, and some of the old settlers
DAIRYING IN NEW YORK AND OHIO.
3G9
believe that the parts which carried tlie heaviest
hemlock growth are now the best dairying sections.
Croshen is the county seat, and an active butter-
market. Goshen and Orange County butter be-
came famous in the old days of private dairies,
but associated butter-making has largely replaced
the old system. The first butter-factory in the
country was started in Orange County, the Walkill
Creamery Association at^Goshen being the pioneer
of the new system. Orange County ranks next to
from that time; the figures for ISTo are from tlie
State census. The statistics are added of four of
the best dairying counties, also from last census.
The number of cows to every 100 acres of farms
in the State in 1875 was 8 J, and the average
annual yield per cow 1,500 quarts of milk,
or r25 lbs. of butter. The dairy associations and
markets are very active, and the dairy lands ap-
preciating in value more than any otliers. In the
re-assessment of the lands of the State in 1875,
No. 4. — Dairy Slafistics of New York and Ohio, United Stales of America.
State
New York.
Oluo.
Yeak
1850.
1860.
1870.
1875.
1870.
1875.
Poimkfon ...
3,097,304
3,880,735
4,382,759
4,698,958
2,065,260
3,000,000
In Agriculture
313.<I80
370,853
374,323
351,628
397,024
400,000
No. of Farms
170,621
196,090
216,258
241,839
195,9.53
200,0(X)
V:ilue of Farms
bol'ars
554,540,642
803,343,503
1,272,857,766
1,221,472,277
1,054,465,226
1,000,000,000
.. Acres
112
106
103
105
111
100
No. of Cattle
1,877,639
1,973,174
2,045,324
2,250,170
1,4.'36,217
1,570,178
No. of MUch Cows
931,324
1,123,634
1,3.50,661
1,339,816
6.>J,300
758,500
Milk sold ...
..Galls.
—
—
2,430,019
41,511,599
22,275,:«4
2.5,112.000
Butter made...
.. lbs.
79,766,004
103,007,280
107,147.526
111,087,486
50,266,372
48,41.5,570
Cheese, Dairy
»
49,741,413
48,548,289
22,769,964
7,778,413
8,169,486
5,446,324
Cheese, Factory
,,
_
—
78,006,048
90,956,759
15,984,390
27,C77,.55fi
Cheese Factories
.. No.
—
818
1,139
195
375
DAIRY COUNTIES IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK (FKOM CENSUS OF ISTo).
Cows to
each 100
Whole No. Cow's Milk
of 1 sent to
Cows. Factories.
No. of
Fac-
tories.
Factory
Cheese.
Dairy
Cheese.
Butter.
Mlk Sold.
Herkimer ...
Orauge
St. Lawrence
Dutchess ...
14-9
13-8
12-8
6-4
44,237
44,287
90,949
23,909
34,070
12,852
30,786
2,412
88
23
47
1
Ib^.
9,212,428
824,515
4,023,053
25,000
lbs.
1,940,367
3,300
411,101
5,999
lbs.
1.076,747
1,448,146
8,832,079
1,283,289
OeIIs.
119,538
13,530,709
70,515
5,101,610
Herkimer in the ratio of cows to land, and stands
first in the list of counties in the annual butter
product per cow. Proximity to New York City
and facilities of transportation have caused a
falling-off in the butter product of the county, and
an increase in the shipments of milk to market;
the last census gives the annual sales of milk
from Orange County as 13,500,000 g.illons, more
than twice as much as any other county in the
State.
The cows in the State of New York were first
counted in 181-5, and found to number 999,490 ;
the value of the dairy products was then placed at
20,000,000 dollars a year. A table is here inserted,
showing the growth of dairying in New York
the valuation of King's County was decreased
37,000,000 dollars, while that of Oneida, a dairy
county, was increased 7,000,000. The mean
temperature of the State of New York is ■17'^
Fahr. Frost generally appears late in Sejjtember,
and the first fall of snow on an average is the 5th
of November. The city of Utica, Oneida County,
22 miles west of Little Falls, is another very
large and active dairy market ; over 300,000
cheeses are sold there annually.
Ohio bids fair to rank next to New York
among the dairying States, if, indeed, that position
has not been won already. From 1838 to 1802,
and especially from 1814< to 1852, this branch of
agriculture was very active. Then wuol-growing
370
DAIHV FARMING.
took the lead for a few years. Since l^(i7 the
dairy interest has been the most important in the
aorieultnre of the State. Ohio has no mountains,
hut the fj-ri'ater part of its surface is elevated table-
land, from 900 to 1,'100 feet above sea-level, in-
tersected with many streams flowing' either into
Lake Erie on the north or the Ohio River on the
south. The mean temperature of the State is 52",
and the average rainfall 3S inches. In 1820 four-
fifths of the area (10,000 square miles) was covered
with forests, and the dairy lands are almost entirely
cleared territory. The best portions, known as
the Western Reserve,* lie in the north-eastern
corner of the State. The soil is better adapted to
the growth of nutritious grasses than anything
else, and dairying is the leading business of the
farmers. The first factory for the purchase of
milk and making of cheese was established in
Geauga County, in 1S55, by Anson Bartlett ; in
1880 the associated system prevails, and the
number of factories in the State is estimated at
400 ; three-fourths of them in the twelve counties
of the Western Reserve. The average number of
cows fo each factory is 320, and the season, com-
mencing about the 7th of April, continues eight
months. Wellington, iu Lorain County, is the
great dairy market of the Western Reserve and
of the State. It has a Board of Trade, and its
shipments of cheese alone exceed 10,000,000 lbs.
annually. Next in importance as a dairy centre
is Garret Isville, in Portage County; a Board of
Trade was organised there in July, 1878. A State
census is taken every three years, but the agricul-
tural statistics are not so full and reliable as the
activity and enterpi'ise of the agricultural and
dairymen's societies would lead one to expect.
^V'ith the Table for New York some comparative
figures are given for Ohio.
In Pennsylvania the best dairying counties are
those which border upon New York and Ohio,
and some lying in the south-eastern portion of the
State. Philadeljihia, the second city in America,
is about 100 miles inland from the sea on the
west bank of the Delaware River. The Pennsylvania
counties of Delaware, Chester, jMontgomery, and
]?ucks, immediately adjoining Philadelphia on the
south-west and north, are peculiarly adapted to
• So named because wlien the territory of Ohio, claimed by
o'der States, was ceded to the United States to form the North-
Wist Territory, 4,000,000 acres were retained by Connecticut
and known as its Western Hescrve.
dairying, and are largely devoted to that iiuhiptry,
producing great quantities of butter and I'uniishing
the city with its chief supplies of milk. Phila-
delphia butter has long been noted for very de-
licate flavour, and this characteristic is attributed
by many to the sweet-scented vernal-grass, which
is one of the most common of the grasses upon
the natural pastures of the counties named. This
seems to he substantiated by the fact that the high
aromatic flavour of the butter, especially notable
in May, continues during the development of this
grass and declines with the maturing of its seeds;
the stems then become hard and dry, the leaves
wither, and the cows push the plant aside to obtain
fresher and greener herbage. Nearly all the
butter of this section is put up in pound lumps,
circular in shape, with some suitable figure
stamped upon the top, and hence the name of
" Philadelphia ixnmd j)rints." The quality of
this article is of a high average, and the
best has long commanded prices beyond those
obtained elsewhere, with rare and very limited
exceptions; 60 and 75 cents have been usual
prices, and the product of certain dairies has
readily sold for one dollar, for long periods. Tliis
butter is generally made iu private dairies of
medium size, many of them retaining the old-
fashioned but satisfactory spring-house sj'stem ;
the milk-room, usually of stone, is built over a
living spring, whose waters flow through a cooling
pool.^
Two hundred miles west of Philadelphia, ad-
joining the State of West Virginia, is the county
of Somerset, almost exclusively a butter-making
district. In the north-west corner of the State,
350 miles from Philadelphia, are Erie and Craw-
ford Counties, containing seventy or eighty cheese-
factories, and producing a million dollars' worth of
cheese annually; nearly all of this goes to Great
Britain, by way of New Y'ork City. IMeadville, in
Crawford County, is the chief dairy market of this
region, has an active Board of Trade, and is also
the head-quarters of the Pennsylvania Dairymen's
Association. A factory at Venango, in the same
county, took the diploma and medal for the best
American cheese at the Centennial Exhibition in
1876, and the second honours at the Chicago
Dairy Fair of 1877. Tiie counties of Bradford,
Tioga, and Susquehanna, in the northern jiart
of the State, produce large quantities of butter;
this district is very hilly, but the water and
DAIRYING IN MASSACHUSETTS.
371
grasses are of the must suitable kind. All these
dairy districts are reached by the world-renowned
Peiin.sylvania railroat.! and its branches, which
altord a quick means of transit for their products.
Fifty-six other counties in Pennsylvania contain
much territory well adapted to dairy inji', but yet
undeveloped. The mean temperature of the State
is 48'"^ and the average rainfall 4U inches.
State, but the dairy is an important feature of
her husbandry, and the statistics are so complete
that a table (No. 5) has been prepared exhibiting
those of interest in this connection.
The following facts from the State census of
1875 are not included in the table : — Oi the
3,2.'j.j,479 acres in farms, about one-fourth is non-
productive, so that 71,U0(J persons in the State
No. i).— Statistics of the State of Massachusetts.
1850.
1355.
1863.
1SG5.
1870.
1875.
Population
904, .514
1,132,369
1,231,066
1,207,031
1,4.57,351
1,051,912
Engaged in Agriculture ...
5S,082
57,031
64, .50 J
67,.5.50
72,810
70,945
No. of Farms
34,009
34,820
35,001
40,904
45,000
44,549
Average size of Farms ...
.. Acres
99
96
94
79
80
70
Total Value of Farms ...
Dollars
109,076,.'?47
—
123,255,948
152,940,058
180,000,000
18-2,603.140
No. of Neat Cattle
2.19,994
231,521
280,914
224.008
219,0.52
224. -.'.58
No. of Milch Cows
130,099
148,509
144,492
143,280
138,000
120,034
Average Value of Caws . . .
Dollars
25
26
2;l
38
5.?
48
liutter, lbs. made
8,071,370
8,116,009
8,237,936
6,606,80"
7,866,252
7,92-2,431
,. Average market price
.. Cents
19
21
25
.-i(!
36
35
Cheese, lbs. made
7,038,142
5,702,776
5,294,090
3,852,.592
4,131,309
3,087,017
,, Average market price
.. Cents
8
9
10
16
15
13
Milk sold
... Calls.
—
3,203,665
—
10,038,372
15,284,057
35 098,1.59
A alue Dairy Products ...
Dollars
2,100,611
2,898,096
3,603,893
5,161,920
6,-20L',.586
9,(I.S7 ,S42
ITay Crop
... Tons
051,807
648,010
065,331
593,185
597,4.55
071.144
Average price per ton ...
Dollars
13 00
13-42
14-50
19-46
18 00
15-88
•
STATISTICS OF THE COUNTY OF FEAN-KLIN, MASSACHUSETTS.
It50.
1855.
1800.
1865.
1870.
1875.
I*opulation...
30.870
31,0.52
31,434
31,.340
32,635
33,090
In Agriculture
5.321
5.249
5,532
5,497
5,043
.5,778
No. of Farms
2,.537
3,145
2,739
3,.533
2,840
3,950
A^alue of Farms Dollars
6,033,281
7,12.5,019
7,509,223
8,04.5,751
9,241,187
11,3.52.503
No. of Cattle
23,434
22,672
26,247
18,235
23,029
22,192
No. of Milch Cows
9,812
9,501
9,349
8,022
8,779
10,271
Value of Cows DoUara
347,420
345,786
308,515
362,124
395,055
415,398
Butter, lbs. made
883,080
884,307
931,539
S18,.535
996,543
1,285.048
Cheese ,,
335,005
233,337
230,654
100.484
75,375
63.711
Milk sold for use . . . ... ... Galls.
—
—
—
.50, 198
47,493
1,093.209
Value Dairy Products ... DoUars
203,464
215,.547
256,.550
345,040
394,373
635,145
Hay, acres cut for
45,057
43049
48,738
43,304
58,294
57,805
,, tons made ...
52,766
49,349
.58,905
44.434
63,4.50
61,115
„ value of, in dollars
554,043
528,716
678,097
699,044
921,840
893,230
In the adjoining States of New Jersey and
Delaware, dairying is a prominent industry ; large
cities and to5vns furnish markets for great quan-
tities of milk, and an excellent article of butter
is produced.
No statistics of the dairy can be found
gathered by State authority in Pennsylvania,
New Jersey, Delaware, or any one of the New
England States except Massachusetts; the United
States census is the sole dependence for these.
Massachusetts is far from being an agricultural
50
live from the products of farms averaging 56 acres
of arable land valued at 70 dollars per acre. The
average net income from each farm is 511-30
dollars per annum, or 9-31 dollars per acre. The
farmer also gets the rent of his home, estimated
at 109 dollars, making really an annual income of
620-30 dollars. 50,OG2 males in the common-
wealth, earning wages in nine hundred occupations
other than agriculture, average an income of
483-73 dollars per annum. So the farmers of
^Massachusetts fare well by comparison. The
872
DAIHV FARMING.
dMirv-cMttlc oi" tlio State avo of a lii^'li ordor, and
tlic (lairvintf o-enerally niana<>vd with intclligT-nce
and ])rolit. The cows in ^lassachiisetts avera<jc
l/JUU quarts of milk a year, and the gross product
is worth 72 dollars per cow, these figures being far
above tliose of any other State.
For various reasons the county of Franklin,
in Massachusetts, is as good a selection as can
be made of a small representative dairy district in
the older parts of the Ihiited States. It is on
the northern line of the State, on the Connecticut
River, its most fertih; lands lying in the valleys of
that stream and tributaries to it. The county was
incorporated in the year 1811, an area of (ioO
square miles, divided into 20 townships. The
aspect of the county is broken and mountainous.
There are ranges of red sandstone extending along
the bank of the Connecticut, and the western
towns lie upon spurs of the Green Mountain
range. Every town in the county has its fair
projiortion of hills. Originally forestjclad, the
hills are now cleared, in many cases even when
rising almost to mountains. In some instances
the farmers have placed their houses on the sum-
mits, and have around them cultivated and ])ro-
ductive fields. But the hills and mountain-sides
arc usually devoted to pasturage, micaceous-slate
formations being common. The rocks of the
county are chiefly granite and trap, although red
sandstone is abundant, and there is more or less
slate and limestone. Springs abound among the
liills and form little streams of the purest water,
so numerous that almost every farm of any size is
well supplied. This description implies soils of
varied kind and quality, from light sand and clay
dei)osits to the deep alluvial meadows of the
valleys ; a rather light loam of fair fertility is the
prevailing medium. The mean temperature for
thirty-five years was 47*^, the average annual
depth of rain or melted snow 41i inches, and tlio
dejjth of snowfall 53 inches. The first agricul-
tural survey was ordered by the State in 1810.
That and subsequent returns give this division of
the lands : —
Cultivated
TJniniproved ...
In Woodlaml
In Towns, Uoads, and Water
Pasturage and Wild
60,256
80,H29
64,452
1.5,244
188,616
18G0.
65,721
78,347
62,600
17,524
l'Jl,345
1875.
Acres.
67,431
74,!>56
63,127
18,280
191,703
The dairy-stock of the county is b:i.«cd upon
"natives," with a large admixture of Durham
blood, which dates back to 1835, or earlier. Much
attention has been given to improving the cows of
late years. About 1^55 importations of choice
Jersey cattle were made, and the blood of this
breed has since had a marked effect uj)on the
dairies of the county. The annual county show of
cattle is regarded as one of the best in the New
England States.
The county is crossed by one line of railroad
north and south, and by another cast and west, the
junction at its shire town, (jreenfield; and the
facilities of transportation and courses of trade are
such that the case is an unusually good one for
verifying the figures of production and consumj)-
tion, as given in the census, by examination of
the market records. Numerous manufacturing
villages furnish a good home market for dairy
products, and the surplus, almost all in the form of
butter, is sent by railway to Boston, 100 miles
eastward. Franklin County butter has long had a
good name in the Boston market, commanding the
best prices aside from those termed " fancy.'' The
general statistics of the county, from the State
and National census, are given in connection with
those of Massachusetts (see Table No. 5). The
following additional facts are from market re-
cords : —
Shipments of Bulte;
Avera^je
Price.
Tear.
(•om
Eauge of Prices,
Franklin County.
lbs.
Cents.
Conts.
1875
511,313
20 to 45
33i
1876
519,071
18 „ 43
.32
1877
530,171
17 „ 38
29
1878
584.804
12 „ 35
22
1879
002,389
9 „ 35
20
ISSO
769,041
9 „ 35
22
The steadily increasing sales, with no decrease
in home consumption, with about the same number
of cows, and ujion a " falling market," indicate
the rate of improvement in dairy-stock which pre-
vails throughout the county. Some herds have
produced over 300 lbs. of butter per cow, and
yielded from 100 to 150 dollars per annum per cow,
for several successive years. The figures show an
average annual product of 1,800 quarts of milk
and KM lbs. of butter per cow for the county,
and a consumption of 23 lbs. of butter per capita.
The latter is jjrobabl}' as accurate a computation
of the cmsiiniptiou of butter in America as has
CiROWTir OF WESTKHN DAIRVlNd.
37;5
I'vur boon voachod, ami oxoooJs tlio g-oiioral avoniy^o
in the oounliy by I'roni 5 lbs. to S lbs.
Although no satisfactory statistics can bo jiivcn
for the other New Enylaud States, dairyini;- t'ornis
the most inij)ortant branch of agricnlture in all
of thorn. Maine and Vermont particularly have
active organisations of dairymen, and these States
are rapidly jirogressing' in the quantity and quality
of their productions. In Maine cheese is largvly
made, there being a number of factories in success-
ful operation, and the annual butter erojj reaches
12,0UU,0UU lbs. Vermont, as already shown, is
specially a butter-making State, the greater part
of the surplus product hnding its way to Boston.
St. Albans, in the north-western part of the State,
is one of the oldest, largest, and best known butter
markets in the country. In New Hampshire the
dairy is less jn-ominent, but almost as much butter
is made as in Massachusetts, and the southern part
of the State supplies large quantities of milk to
the many mannfacturing towns and cities in that
section and in Eastern Massachusetts. Connecticut
contributes largel}^ to the New York City milk
supply, besides making as much buttpr and cheese
as jNIassaehusetls. Associated butter-making is
beginning to be popular and stiecessful in this
State, and one of its creameries received the first
l>remium for butter made in New England at the
International Dairy Show at New York in 1878.
Rhode Island has 19,000 cows, which are about
equally divided between the production of milk
for eonsumjition by the people of that densely
populated little State and the manufacture of an
excellent grade of butter; cheese-making is almost
unknown there. As a whole. New England is a
good dairying section, and its farmers find that,
with bttter cows and imjiroved methods, the dairy
is their surest source of profit.
The North-western States have rapidly deve-
loped excellent dairy districts since ISlo. For a
](jng time there was much prejudice in the Atlantic
States against the butter and cheese of the West,
and Eastern people were incredulous as to the
dairying capabilities of that section. For years all
"Western-made butter was classed as " grease " in
the New York market, and this continued up to
about the year 1870. But Iowa butter received
the highest award at the Philadelphia Exhibition
of 1876, and the same year the dairy products of
the North-west began to command equal prices in
New York with the best Eastern articles ; since
that time Wo.-^torn creamery buttrr has stimd at the
head of the list. Up to ISGi) Chicago merchants
obtained their sup])lies of cheese from the East; in
1S79 over 100,000,000 lbs. passed through that
city from the West on its way to the New York
market, and ;J00,000 packages of butter and cheese
were also exported to Europe direct from Chicago.
One of the causes of disbelief in Western dairy-
ing was the idea that the prairie pasturage was
unfit for milch-cows. But it has been abundantly
proved that there is no better dairy feed than the
native prairie grasses, so long as they keep green ;
this, however, is only about four months. It
apj)ears that butter from cows feeding upon the
wild grasses of the West keeps longer than almost
any other in the country, and when well made
cannot be surpassed in quality. The yields also
are large ; two cases are on record in Illinois of
Devon cows on prairie pasture, one of which gave
double her weight of milk in thirty-five days, in
May and June, and from the other 423 lbs. of
butter were made in a year, the winter feed being
prairie hay. In 1851 a grade Durham, owned
by a pioneer prairie farmer in Iowa, gave over
50 lbs. of milk a day for several weeks ; this cow
had never been in a barn nor tasted tame hay.
Among the advantages of the West as a dairy
district are the low prices of land, lumber, and
staple articles of food — good land, improved, 20 to
40 dollars per acre ; cows, 30 to 50 dollars each ;
hay, 10 dollars, and often much less, per ton;
Indian corn, 50 cents per bushel and less, some-
times 30 cents; wheat, SO cents. The prairie
farmers naturally prefer to ship dairy products
East, for while corn brings but I cent a pound,
wheat IJ, pork 3 or 4, and beef 8 cents, butter
is usually 18 to 20 cents, and cheese about equal
to beef, and the cost of sending these articles
to market is about the same, pound for pound.
The most condensed farm products are thus the
most profitable to the farmers who dcpeutl upon
distant markets.
In Michigan the best dairy counties are those
in the south-west corner of the State, bordering
upon Ohio and Lake Erie, ranking in about this
order in importance — Lenawee, Oakland, ^Vayne,
Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Jackson, Monroe, JIacomb ;
also Kent in the central part of the State.
Indiana has 400,000 cows very, evenly dis-
tributed over the State, but although the dairy
products are large in the aggregate, there
874
DAIRY FARMING.
are no localities in wliicli this industry is
specially prominent. Tiie counties of <i^reatest
])roduction are Allen, bordering on Ohio, with
Fort Wa^aie as its business centre, and Lake
County, in the extreme north-western corner of
the State, on Lake Michigan. Indiana has but
twenty cheese-factories, while the neighbouring-
States of Michigan and Illinois have fifty and
one hundred respectively.
Illinois has an imjyirtiint dairying district,
including eighteen or twenty counties, the
northern fll'tli of the St.ite, with an area
of about 10,000 s(|uare miles. This is one of
the most fertile and well-developed agricultural
regions in the United States. It is almost level,
here and there relieved by a gently-rolling surface.
The grass is mostly tame, and the entire distrii't
is abundantly watered. The water here, however,
as in all this region, is in streams of good size,
springs being comi)arativcly few in number; and
many farms depend upon pumping from wells for
supply of stock and domestic uses. For this
purpose windmills arc much used, and the country
throngliout the level portions of the north-west is
dotted with them. There are several excellent
American patterns, one of which is here repre-
sented (Fig. 209). The most productive dairying
counties are Cook, Kane, La Salle, Will,
McHenry, De Kalb, and Lake, all in the north-
eastern part of the State. The City of Chicago
is in Cook County, 1,027 square miles in area,
with 30,000 cows and a population of G00,000.
In Kane County is Elgin, the great dairy
centre of the \Vest, a fine town of 10,000 in-
habitants, situated on the Fox River, 40 miles
west from Chicago. It is the head-quarters of the
State Dairymen's Association, founded in 187-1,
and has a vigorous Board of Trade, organised
in 1872, in the dairy interest. In the imme-
diate neighbourhood of Elgin are about thirty
factories and creameries, and seventy more make
this their market. The Board of Trade sales
include about 10,000,000 lbs. of cheese and
2,750,000 lbs. of butter annually, amounting to
over 1,500,000 dollars in value. There is also
at Elgin a condensed-milk factory, managed by
one of the sons of Gail Borden, which uses the
milk from 2,000 cows. The first shipments of
butter from Elgin were made in 181'7; in 1802
the first cheese-factory was built. The first
dairymen's organisation in the North-west was
formed at Elgin in 1863. The activity of the
dairy interest in this region can be judged from
the fact that Kane County, with an area of 510
square miles and a population of about 50,000,
has more than 2,000 milch-cows. At South
Elgin, St. Charles, and Huntley, in Kane County,
are located three of the largest cheese-factories
in the country, costing from 10,000 to 12,000
dollars each, and using at times over 30,000
lbs. of milk apiece daily. At Marengo, in
INlcIIenry County, is the famous butter-factory
of Israel- Boies and Sons, elsewhere mentioned,
which in the year 1874 produced an average of
311 lbs. of first-class butter from its 100 cows.
Rockford, in Winnebago County, not far from
the Wisconsin boundary, is the centre of the test
d;iiry-butter business of Illinois. Freeport, in
Stei)henson County, is also a large butter market.
Wisconsin has large dairying interests, and has
t.iken front rank as a cheese-making district.
Cheese-making began at Fon-du-Lac, on Lake
Winnebago, in 1850; at that time there were but
three or four dairies in the State. The era of
cheese-factories developed the dairying resources
of Wisconsin, and followed soon after the rapid
growth of this industry in Northern Illinois. The
first cheese-factory in the State was built in 1801,
THE WESTERN STATES.
873
ami within twelve years tliere were 150 established.
AViseonsiii cheese was shipjietl directly East before
that of Illinois : it has a special reputation for
]<ee]niig and for quality, and as an export article
commands in the New York market prices equal
to New York State cheese. A particularly tine
display of Wisconsin cheese was made at the In-
ternational Dairy Fair at New York in 1878, and
several special prizes taken. Wisconsin took most
of the cheese prizes also at the Chicago Fair in
1S77. This State also won the very highest
honours for butter at New York in December,
1879. The Illinois and Wisconsin Dairymen's
Association, formed in 1867, soon became the
North-western. In 187:i the Wisconsin State
Dairymen's Association was organised. The best
daily district is the south-eastern quarter of the
State, extending up Lake Michigan to Green Bay,
and across the southern border cf the State almost
to the Alississippi River. The land and water are
of the best. There is a large proportion of Ger-
mans in the population. The following counties
each have more than 10,000 cows, and in the
importance of the dairy rank as named — Dane,
Dodge, Fon-du-Lac, Grant, Rock, Jefferson, Green,
Waukesha, Sheboygan, and La Fayette. The
centres of the trade are at Sheboygan Falls, and
at Fort Atkinson, Jefferson, and Watertown, the
last three in Jefferson County.
Iowa is likely to become the foremost dairy
State of the North-west, and in butter-making
assumed the lead in 1878. It was organised as a
Territory in 1838, became a State in 18-16, and
has had a very rapid growth. Its length, north
and south, is 200 miles, and its width, between
the Mississippi and ^Missouri Rivers, about 300
miles. The country is very level, no mountains,
or even considerable hills ; roUing prairie is the
rule. The general elevation above the sea is from
800 to 900 feet, and there is a gradual slope of the
whole State from north to south of one foot to the
mile, as well as eastern and western drainage-
slopes towards the two great rivers, from two
to five feet to the mile. This State contains a
greater proportion of tillable and fertile land than
any other in the country. There are three kinds
of soil : the first is formed of the surface part of
tlie drift or diluvial deposit, a dai-k loam, moderately
stiff, from one to three feet deep, which prevails
on the prairies ; the second, the surface portion of
the bluff deposit, very fine, with less clay than the
first, drier, as fertile, and deeper ; the third is the
alluvial of the river-bottoms, as rich, durable, and
productive as any soil in the world. The climate
is very uniform, with a difference in the growing
season of about ten days between the extreme
vegetation, north and south ; the average annual
temperature is 48*^ Fahr., and the rainfall 4-Z
inches. The number of milch-cows owned in the
State more than doubled between ISGO and 1870,
and doubled again between 1870 and 1880; the
number for the last year is placed at 730,000.
Dairying in Iowa began to be prominent in 1801 ;
the State Dairymen's Association was formed in
1875. All parts of the State are about equally
adapted to dairying, but the eastern portion, a belt,
100 miles wide, along the Mississippi River, is the
oldest, and leads in the industry. The counties of
greatest production are Clinton, Cedar, Jackson,
Clayton, Delaware, and Dubuque ; Manchester, in
Delaware County, is the chief centre of the trade.
The factory system is largely followed in butter-
making. Butter from Iowa factories and creameries
took the highest honours at the Centennial Show
in 1876; and at the International Dairy Fair at
New York in 1S7S a large share of the special
prizes and the sweepstakes, " the best butter of
any kind made at any time and place." This was
the product of a factory at iMonticello. At the
second "International," 1879, of the highest
thirty-two prizes for butter, open to all the
States, fifteen were taken by Iowa.
ilinuesota is a still newer State, but very ex-
tensive, growing rapidly, and with large dairy
interests already (1880). The south-east corner
is the largest butter-producing region, and most
attention is given to this branch of dairying. But
Minnesota has the same natural conditions with
her neighbour Wisconsin, and with Canada, still
further east, and only needs a market to produce,
like those districts, an article of cheese of superior
keepingqualities. The State Dairymen's Association,
at its yearly meeting in 1878, made this one of the
leading topics of discussion. The State is without
mountains, but its general elevation gives it the
characteristics of a mountainous region ; the yearly
mean temperature is 44° Fahr., and the atmos-
phere very dry. Limestone drift, clay, and trap
are the geological divisions of the soil ; the latter
generally appears dark in colour, fine in texture, and
abounding in organic matter ; it is highly fertile.
In 1858, of its 5,000,000 acres but 30(1,000 were
S7G
DAIRV FARMING.
uikKt cultivation; in 1S7^, 3,0110,1100. In 1858
there were 30,000 cows in the State, and •^50,000
in 1878, yielding about lo,000,000 lbs. of butter.
An intelligent farmer in Sherburne County,
70 miles north-west of St. Paul, states that
he keeps ten cows, good common stock, some with
a little Shorthorn 1)lood, and makes an average
of 1^5 lbs. of butter per cow^, from calf to calf.
Tile butter for several years was sent to St. Paul,
and averaged 'Zi cents a pound, 20 cents in 1878.
The cows are pastured from the 15th or 20th of
Slay till the middle of September, and the natural
grass pastures are sufficient ; they remain out till
October loth, but this last month must be fed to
prevent loss of milk, the ])asturage suffering from
frost. Seven months of stall-feeding follow. For
hay, selected meadows of natural wild grass are cut,
often requiring hauling for two or three miles; the
hay thus obtained costs about 3 dollars a ton at
the barn. ^Vheat, bran, and shorts can be obtained
in any quantity at very low rates at the uumerous
flouring mills.
Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri have together
about 1,000,000 cows, and their dairy products
are large, although beef-production receives more
attention. In 1879 and 1880 a good deal of
cheese reached Chicago and New York from those
States ; one lot from a ranche on the North Platte
River in Nebraska, on the eastern edge of " the
plains" region, was ranked as first-class. Large
dairy-herds are kept there, and a cheese-factory
has been built. A few factories were in suci-essful
operation in Kansas as early as 1^07.
IMaryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and Ken-
tucky have within their borders exceedingly line
districts for dairying, but these are not generally
developed, the famous blue-grass pastures being
devoted more to the production of beef than of
butter anil cheese. The dairy products of this
socticm are large, however, and the same is
true of North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas.
These seven States have 1,2.50,000 cows, about
18 per cent, of the popvdation, and although
they are not as good dairy animals ;is those
in the more northern sections, they just about
su|i]ily the local demands for milk, butter, and
cheese, the cities excepted. The other Southcra
States have a still larger proportion of cows,
and of a still less value for the dairy; so that
although, Texas excepted, the cows number over
20 per cent, of the jiopulafion, the large Southern
cities are constant buyers of Norlhern dairy pro-
ducts.
Texas is an exceptional State. It had iu
1880 two cows to every five inhabitants, besides
4,500,000 other cattle, but its cows are almost
all breeders, the dairy products being inconsider-
able. To illustrate — the following are the tiguros
of the census of 1870: Pojmlation, 8ls,()(i0;
C0W.S, 428,000; other cattle, 3,0()(i,000 ; butter
made, 3,700,000 lbs. ; cheese, 34,000 lbs. ; milk
sold, 03,000 gallons. This is about 100 quarts
of milk ])er year devoted to the dairy for every
cow in Texas.
The Southern and Southern-central States, as
a whole, may be regarded as a great undevelo]ied
winter-dairying region. Below the blue-grass dis-
tricts natural pasturage is not general, but the
other facilities for successful dairying are very
great, except during the season of excessive heat.
There is but a small portion of the South where
the climate is such as to materially interfere with
dairying during the greater part of the year. Good
pasturage is easily made and available during
months when the cows of the North and Fast are
closely housed. With a little care the best of dairy-
cattle are acclimatised, and the Jerseys are becom-
ing favourites in this section. In 1875 Virginia,
North Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee had
together a dozen cheese-factories, but beyond this
there were no establishments for associated dairy-
ing. The private dairies of the South are generally
small, and the old and excellent spring-house system
is preferred. Since 1875 private dairies in dii'-
ferent parts of the South have introduced then-
products, esjiecially winter-butter, not only to the
markets of Southern cities, but in Louisville, Cin-
cinnati, Baltimore, and Washington. It cannot be
long before the Southern States will be su])plyiiig
to the North and East large quantities of grass-
flavoured butter all through the winter. This will
develop the dairy districts not only in Virginia,
Kentucky, and Missouri, North Carolina, Ten-
nessee, and Arkansas, but iu the higher parts of
the Gulf States. Dairies are in successful opera-
tion among the old cotton-fields of Central Missis-
sippi, and one is known in the high lands of Florida,
at lat. 31°; but south of the 32nd parallel, as a
rule, dairying will lu'ver amount to nuu'h iu the
Uniteil States.
Between the valleys <if the Mississijipi and
Missotu'i Uivi'rs and the Koekv ^lountains there is
THE COT.ORADO DTSTIUCT.
377
a v;ist aiva, (Hifo kinnvn as "the Groat American
Desert/' wliich lias l)ee<inie a l)eet"-]iroclueing sec-
tioiij and niay jet, it' need be, contriliute its (juota
to the dairy produets of Ameriea. jMention h;;s
already been made of successful dairying in Kansas
and Nebraska.
The Rocky Mountain ref^ion itself has most
unexpectedly develojied excellent dairying districts.
This is especially true of "the Centennial State"
of Colorado. Nearly a parallellogram, 380 miles
long by 280 broad, this State is crossed near the
middle, from north to south, by the Rocky Moun-
tain system, whose snow-capped peaks form the
watershed of the continent. The system consists
of two or more ranges, their courses presenting
undulating lines which in Colorado alternately
separate and unite, forming the wonderful series
of " parks " which extends across the State.
Some of these are small, being little valleys at the
sources of single streams, or the beds of small lakes ;
others equal in extent some of the principal
Eastern States. The most important are the
North Park, jMiddle Park, South Park, and San
Luis Park. These high valleys are apparently the
basins of former lakes, upheaved and de])rived of
their waters by volcanic agency, with their original
shape and situation at the foot of high mountains
undisturbed, and having now an elevation of from
6,000 to 11,000 feet above the level of the sea.
The surface of these parks is alternately forest
and meadow, the soil particularly fertile, and
vegetation very little affected by the great eleva-
tion. Luxuriant pastures of nutritious grasses are
found here 11,000 feet above sea-level. East of
the mountains, to the boundary of the State, is
the plains region, high, rolling prairie, watered by
the South Platte and Arkansas Rivers and their
tributaries. The soil of this section rests uj)on
calcareous rocks, and is principally alluvial, con-
taining elements of great fertility. Near the
streams a large proportion of vegetable matter
enters into the composition, united with ashes and
sand ; on the plateaux the soil is sandy loam and
friable clay. About one-third of the State is good
agricultural land, and the abundance of nutritious
grasses indigenous to the soil on park and plain,
good water, and an even, dry, healthful climate,
make Colorado an excellent grazing and dairy
region. The range of temperature in the parks
is from 20° to SQ" Fahr. The grasses which
once supfiorted vast herds of buffalo jsrove to be as
good for donioslic cattle; tlu-y ripen and dry Ujidu
the stalks, forming hay equal to that prepared by
the most careful curing of the tame grasses of
the Eastern States. The winters are so mild tiiafc
not more than one year in five is there any
necessity for sheltering or feeding cattle. A
dairyman near the centre of the Slate states that
he has kept an average of over 30 cows for 1(>
years, and during that time he has not expended
a hundred dollars tov any feed beside pasturage.
Colorado ceased to import dairy products in 1871,
and became an exporting State in 1877. The tirst
cheese-factory was started in the spring of 187(3,
and in 1S7S seven large establishments were in
operation. The pioneer factory was built by C R.
Gwillem, a Welshman, who is still the largest
producer in the State; in 1878 he made a success-
ful shipment of 10 tons of cheese to Wales, a special
freight rate being obtained of 2 dollars per ewt.
from Denver City to Liverpool. This cheese
was examined in the factory, and pronounced by
so good a judge as Mr. Gardner B. Weeks to be
entitled to rank as strictly fine in the New York
market, and to excel in quality most of the chesso
made in the North-western States. This factory,
during the season of 1878, was in operation from
early in IMay until November ; it received the
milk of 37 dairies, numbering about COO cows,
tlie largest single day's receipts being 8,300 lbs. of
milk. One dairy contributing milk was 14 miles
distant, and several were from 6 to 10 miles from
the factory. A notable feature of the dairying of
Colorado seems to be the remarkable richness of
the milk made from the natural herbage. At the
Gwillem factory it required a little less than 9 lbs. of
milk to make a pound of cheese, on an average, for
the entire season of 1878 ; this is 10 per cent, below
the required average according to the best New
York factories. On a trial on the 10th of Septem-
ber, 1878, Mr. Gwillem from 6,000 lbs. of milk
made 819^ lbs. of cheese as it came from the press ;
the shrinkage in curing was 5 per cent. The ratio
of milk to cheese therefore was 7'32 to 1" green,
and 7 '.7 to 1" cured. This is an extraordinary
result, even for the best of September milk.
Reports show much attention to the improve-
ment of the dairy-stock of Colorado, the Swiss
cattle and Jerseys being the favourites. The
latter predominate at the shows, and this youngest
of the States even claims one of the cham])ion
cows of America in a Jersey at Boulder City, which.
37S
DAIRY FAiniTXa
on native pasturaijc only, made 3 lbs. of Lulter a
day, on rcjicated trials.
The Pacific Railway was opened in 1S(!9, and
fifteen car-loads of butter formed a part of one of
the first freig'ht trains westward bound, shij)j)ed
for consumption in the mountain territories and
uix)n the Pacific Coast. Within ten years these
territories became self-supplying as dairy districts,
and Utah and the State of Nevada even exporters
of butter.
Montana is one of the most remote territories,
lying; u\H>n the northern boundary of the United
States between latitude ib^ and I'J''. The nature
of the country is implied by its name ; within its
limits are the sources of the Missouri River. It
was settled as a mining country, but wool-growing,
cattle-raising, and dairying have become leading
industries, induced by the fine pastures of the high
valleys. One of the favourite spots is Smith River
A'alley, having about the same latitude with the
City of Quebec, but an annual average temperature
of 17" Fahr. This valley has an area of 800 square
miles in luxuriant grasses, capable of sustaining
1,0110,000 head of cattle. A young man, raised as
a dairyman on the Western Reserve of Ohio, after
trying mining for several years in Montana,
located in the valley named, in 1871', /ilreil 21
cows, and started a cheese-dairy. At the end of
the first season he purchased his cows from his
profits, added to his stock, and in the season of
1S77 made 100,000 lbs. of cheese. This readily
sold at 20 cents a pound in the mining settle-
ments. His dairy has grown to a completely-
equipped establishment ; his greatest difficulty is
in finding competent assistants, although he J)ays
40 dollars per month and board for common milk-
men. As to the cattle, Mr. Proctor says : " I
turn them out in the autumn, cows, calves, and all,
and let 'em rustle ; I find them all fat in Maj\
I only have to work half the year, and call this
the best dairy district in the world.'' A dozen
miles distant is an extensive butter-dairy; the
owner puts up large quantities of " gilt-edged "
butter in 10-lb. tin cans, and by holding till mid-
winter, when the prices are highest, gets usually
one dollar a pound. Good butter sells at an
average of 40 cents a pound the year through.
Yet cows in Montana cost only from 25 to 50
dollars each, and it does not cost as many cents a
year for keejiing.
California has already been named as one of
the few States in parts of which, in 1S70, In' the
census, the annual value of the dairy products
exceeded 40 dollars per capita. The original
American settlers in this State were of wandering
frontier habits, and regarded the country, aside
from occasional river-bottoms and a few small
valleys near the coast, as sterile and without agri-
cultural value. Walled in between the Sierra
Nevadas and the Coast Range of mountains, the
great interior valleys and plains, producing im-
mense quantities of wild oats and indigenous
grasses, were considered oidy fit for supporting a
poor race of half-wild cattle, whose only value lay
in their hides and tallow, sold to the few trading
vessels that yearly visited the coast. So ignorant
were Californians of the agricultural resources of
their State, that as late as 1852 it was the general
opinion of the people that, although immensely
rich in minerals, it would always be impossible to
support her then existing population of 200,000
without importing the greater part of the ne-
cessaries of life. See the following statistics of
dairy development : —
No. o! Cows. I
1S.50
KS70
1S78
4,280
205,407
104,093
350,000
3,095,035
7,909,744
12,000,000
Cheese made.
Ibj.
150
1,313,«S9
3,395,074
5,000,000
3,fi93,02l
5,000,000
The increase has been so rapid that the estimates
fur 1878, based upon State authorities, are believed
to be considerably below the true figures.
California has an extreme length of 700 miles,
and an average width of 260 miles ; its soil and
climate therefore vary greatly in the different
sections. Tliere are four great natural divisions
of the State, as follows : — The North Coast dis-
trict includes the valleys from the Coast Range of
mountains to the ocean, north of Point Conception
in Santa Barbara County (lat. 31i° N.), and is,
on an average, 40 miles wide ; San Francisco is
near the middle of this district. Lying directly
upon the Pacific Ocean, this district has a peculiar
climate, the winters free from excessive cold, snow
rarely falling below an elevation of 3,500 feet,
and temperature seldom below 30*^ Fahr. Winters
are frequent when no snow falls, and there are only
slight hoar frosts in December and January. The
first hay-crop is gathered in April ; the general
temperature from April to November ranges from
DAIRYING IN CALIFORNIA.
379
55° to 70'^, and diirinp; this period stronj^ north-
west winds prevail all along the coast. These
blow with great regularity from noon to sunset,
day after day, and are often attended by dense
fogs, which continue from 4 p.m. to 8 a.m. A
large amount of moisture is thus precipitated upon
the hill-sides and valleys next to the coast, keep-
ing the grasses fresh until late in the autumn.
This gives the north coast peculiar advantages for
dairying, and the greatest production in the State
is within this district, principally in the counties
of !Mariu and Sonoma, north of San Francisco,
and San ]Mateo, Monterey, and Santa Clara, south
of that city.
The South Coast district is without the summer
moisture described, but has instead periods of
burning weather, not frequent, but occurring so
often as to seriously affect vegetation and prevent
dairying.
The Interior district is composed of the Sacra-
mento and San Joaquin Valleys, extending north
and south hundreds of miles, one being virtually a
continuation of the other. The valleys are named
from the two principal rivers, and the counties of
the same names, with those of Yolo and Merced,
neighbouring, do most of the dairying in this
district. The summers are too long, too warm,
and too dry to be favourable to this industry,
except in small well-watered valleys among the
mountain-sides.
The Sierra Nevada district comprises the hill-
sides and valleys in the mountains of this name,
which form the eastern boundary of the State.
There are really two parallel ranges of moun-
tains, with numerous narrow valleys lying between
and along their sides ; these are very fertile, with
excellent natural grass lands to an altitude of over
G,000 feet. The winters of this district are quite
mild, although there are deep snows in places
above an elevation of 3,000 feet ; ice seldom forms
over an inch in thickness. During the summer
the days are temperately warm and the nights
as cool as desirable; vegetation remains green
throughout the season in the higher portions. In
this district a system of dairying has been estab-
lished resembling tliat of the Alps, and which is
thus described : — The migratory dairymen of the
Sierras have winter residences and the real homes
of their families in the foot-hills, at about the
altitude of Folsom, Latrobe, Jackson, and Oroville,
and not far from these well-knowTi places, within
51
100 miles of Sacramento City. Their summer
homes and really active dairy-farms are high uj) on
the summit of the Sierras, on the elevated ])lains,
watered by living springs gushing out in secluded
vales, and on the shores of the numerous lakes
that abound in those regions. The foot-hill home,
nestled in one of the cosy and i>ictures([ue locali-
ties so frequent in that section, forms the base of
supplies and operations. In the early days of this
mountain-dairy business, the establishment con-
sisted of a plain, cheap, pioneer ranche house, with
few, if any, outbuildings ; a corral served to con-
fine the stock at night, and they ran at large in
the daytime, there being no crops to damage.
Now the home generally shows thrifty enterprise
and frugal prosperity. The early-day ranche has
been succeeded by a well-cultivated farm, sub-
stanti.ll farm-house, spacious hay and stock barns,
with yards and feeding-sheds. The barren-looking
hills bear rye, oats, barley, and such other products
as will turn off the most food for the dairy-cows.
The family vineyard and fruit orchard, with orna-
mental trees and shrubbery, make up the charac-
teristic dairy villa of the Sierra foot-hills. The
cows are generally from common stock, the Ameri-
can " natives " rather than the Spanish race, and
now often show the good results of Shorthorn,
Jersey, and Devon sires ; the Devons are favourites
in these establishments. The cows have their
calves between February and the middle of April.
The promising heifers are raised, all others turned
off for veal. Until early in May, some of the
dairymen make butter, and others cheese. About
the middle of May, all things being in rea^liness,
the dairy, including cows, herders, milkers, butter-
makers, and all the necessary dairy tools and fur-
niture, are started for the mountains. The owner
and such of his family as intend to spend the
summer with the dairy accompany them. Arrived
at the place of destination, the spring is just
opening, and the grasses are tender, luxuriant, and
in great variety. Red clover, white clover, and
the various California wild clovers, also nearly all
the natural grasses of recognised value as forage
plants, such as timothy, red-top, wild rye-grass,
orchard-grass, bunch-grass, are found in abun-
dance. Water for stock is pure and plentiful
everywhere. The weather is cool and delightful,
healthy and invigorating. The summer residence
and the butter-house are put in order, and the
business of the season commenced at once in
880
DAIRY FARMING.
earnest. Under such conditions the milk comes
up to the utmost capacity of the cows, tlie cream
rises rapidly and completely, the butter " comes "
readily, and is of the very best quality, if from
good makers. The milking begins at 4 a.m., and
again at 6 in the evening. The churning is done
every other day, usually in large rectangular boxes
hung in frames at opposite corners and turned over
and over by a crank. The butter is packed in
kegs of white fir, which impart neither taste nor
smell to their contents. The location is a most
fortunate one, not only as a producing district, but
for markets as well. Being on " the divide "
between the mining settlements of Nevada and
California, steady demand for the butter exists on
either side. The bulk of the butter is sold as fast
as made for immediate use, the surplus generally
packed and delivered upon contract for winter
consumption. The season lasts from May to
November, when the campaign closes, the cows
are driven down before the snow begins to fly upon
the mountains, and the party goes into winter
quarters. The cows are generally allowed to go
dr}' when thus brought in, and so remain till about
February following. They are kept upon the dry
feed of the meadows and stubble till the rains set
in, when all are fed on hay and other forage till
the early grasses make their appearance after the
first rain.' These grasses, and such green crops as
are often provided in addition, help materially in
wintering the cows, and bringing them out in fine
condition for the operations of the next season.
The fii-st experiments in this new enteq^rise were
made about 1S70. These proved so successful
and profitable that they were followed up by the
enter])rising pioneers of the business, and others
followed suit, until in 1880 the migratory dairies
of the Sierra foot-hills and summits are not only
numerous but extensive, and their owners are
among the wealthiest dairymen in California.
These dairies are most numerous in Lassen County,
although they are scattered northward to Siskij'ou
and southward to Mono, a region 300 miles in
length. All along are numerous small lakes, kept
full by the melting snow from the high peaks
around them, and from which flow the many rivers
and creeks into the valleys below. The borders of
these lakes and valleys of the streams constitute
a district unequalled for grandeur and beauty of
scenery, elasticity of climate, variety and ex-
cellence of vegetation. As a imle each dairy
occupies a little valley of its own, surrounded on
all sides by high mountains covered with fir
and yellow pine forests, and of a size suflicient
to support a herd of from SO to 1^0 cows. In
Lake Valley on the shores of Lake Tahoe, on
a tract 15 miles long and 8 miles wide, are
thirteen dairies of about 150 cows each, having
one owner, but leased separately by the season, at
from 20 to 30 dollars ]ier cow, depending on the
quality of the stock and the comi)leteness of the
dairy equipment.
The Interior district of California contains
large areas of a swampy nature, fresh-water tide
lands and such as are periodically overflowed by
the mountain torrents, and so remain for some
time. These are known as the Tule lands, and are
largely of a peaty formation. Their moisture
ensures a natural verdure during nine or ten
months in the j'ear, including eleven different
kinds of native clovers and nutritious wild grasses;
and about as many more of the well-known culti-
vated grasses, including alfalfa, have been success-
fully tried for permanent additions to the dairy
pastures. By inconsiderable outlay for sheds and
dry sleeping-places for the cattle, and provision for
feeding ten or twelve weeks in the year, these tule
lands become available for dairy purposes. The
trials have been so satisfactory that at some points
extensive woi'ks are in progress, combining systems
of dykes, reservoirs, and irrigation, intended to
utilise these apparently waste lands, and estab-
lish successful dairies within very short distances
of many large towns and cities.
The North Coast district was the scene of
the first dairying operations in California, the
pioneer establishments being started in Marin and
Sonoma Counties about the year 1855. Some of
the early proprietors have enlarged their business
until the magnitude attained is something re-
markable. In Julj', 1857, the firm of Steele
Brothers was formed; they first bought 200
"American'" cows at from 75 to 125 dollars a
head, and established themselves on the peninsula
of Point Reyes, in Marin County. There they
secured an annual average money yield of 6i
dollars per cow. In 18G3 the firm sold out at
Point Reyes and moved to San ]\Iateo Coimty,
established the Pescadero ranehe of 15,000 acres
and stocked it with 1,500 cows; 1,100 of these
were bought at 15 dollars a head, delivered at the
ranehe, and the rest in Sonoma at 11 dollars a piece.
DAIRYING IN CALIFORNIA.
381
Two years later, Kniglit's Valley rauelie of 7,000
acres, in Napa County, was added to their pos-
sessions; and in ISOG, g'oiug 150 miles farther
south into San Luis Obispo County, they pur-
chased Corral de Piedra, a tract irregular in shape,
some ^0 miles in length, and averaging 3i miles in
width, an area of about 45,000 acres. The herds
of this acquisition included 5,000 cows. The
Messrs. Steele still hold these estates, and they are
mainly devoted to dairying. Similarly, Messrs.
Howard and Shafter, present ownere of the Point
Reyes tract, are projirietors of 100,000 acres of
dairying property in Marin County, upon which
they keep in all at least 6,000 cows. The estate
is divided into dairy ranches, located at convenient
distances for the pasturage and care of stock, and
subsist on an average 180 cows each. These ranches
are leasal for a term of three years, the owners
furnishing cows, buildings, dairy fixtures, and
lime, lumber, &c., for repairs. For some years
prior to 1S79 the usual rental was %1 dollars
per cow. The tenants also contracted to raise
annually one heifer-calf for every five cows, and at
expiration of lease to make good any loss in cows
received ; then, if there were any surplus animals
raised by the tenant, he received 10 dollars per
head therefor, and they remained on the ranche.
The tenant may raise forage for his team, roots
for the cows, fruit and vegetables for his family,
and poultry for home use or market. The income
of tenants making butter alone, and converting the
skim-milk into pork, has been estimated at from
75 to 80 dollars per cow, in gross — the price of
butter reckoned at 38 cents for the year. One of
the most successful tenants on this estate has
been a Swede, who managed two ranches, in-
eluding 500 cows, and made both butter and
cheese, getting 10 cents for the skim-cheese in
San F\-ancisco when eight days old.
Cheese-factories succeed as far south as Los
Angeles, in the South Coast district, but the
locality most noted for the excellence of this pro-
duct in California is Santa Clara Coxmty. The
" Bloomfield Factory," near the town of Gilroy,
is a type of several in that vicinity. It is upon a
ranche of about 1,000 acres, 675 acres in pasture,
43 in grain for hay, 30 in sowed maize, 15 in beets,
and 15 in squashes, or pumpkins. The dairy is
of 225 cows. The soil is rich, and the growth of
green feed unsurpassed in its season. Aside from
the pastm-e, many acres partake of the moist
character of the valley lands, and give immense
yields of the crops named, grown for extra feed
for the cows. The arrangements are such that at
no time is it necessaiy to use dry feed alone. The
cows come in mostly in January ; from this time
until March the pasture-grass is so wet and rank
that one feed of hay is given. From March till
July the pasturage is perfect. In July sowed corn
(maize) is fed, and in some cases the milk from
100 cows has been thereby increased 360 lbs. a day ;
this constitutes the extra feed till August. Then
beets are added, and in September hay also. -From
September to January, hay, cured maize, beets, and
pumpkins. A barn, 162 feet long and 40 feet wide,
has stanchions for 100 cows, the animals remaining
in it only while being fed and milked; there is
also ample storage for cm-ed fodder. The factory
buildings are of the usual pattern ; the season com-
mences in February and runs to September; the
cheeses made weigh from 24 lbs. to 30 lbs. each,
which is a favourite size in California.
At Bruno Station, in San Mateo County, there
is a milk farm of 2,300 acres in one body, stocked
with Jerseys, 600 in number, including the grades ;
the proprietor ships an average of 750 gallons of
milk daily to San Francisco, and from a city depot
of his own delivers directly to the consumers. In
different parts of the dairpng sections of Cali-
fornia, herds of 100 to 400 cows in the hands of
one owner or lessee are very common, and land
being abundant, 6 to 12 acres are allowed to a
cow. From the first settlement of the State until
1878, the prices of dairy products ranged high ;
good butter sold at from 1 dollar down to 50
cents a pound, and cheese at from 50 cents to
20 cents. In 1878 the retail prices in San Fran-
cisco, for home products, fell to 40 cents for butter
and 15 to 18 cents for cheese.
The following is a curious instance of the
profits of dairying in the early days of the
mining excitement in California. In December,
1851, a shrewd Yankee at Ophir, in the Sacra-
mento Valley, procured two American cows at
a cost of 400 dollars, and set up business. The
cows averaged 24 quarts a day for two months,
which he readily sold at 50 cents a quart; income
for the two months, 720 dollai-s ; total cost of keep-
ing, 100 dollars. The next two months the yield
fell off somewhat, but the cost of feed decreased
steadily also, and so the profits continued about the
same several months.
DAIRY FARMING.
In the years 1877 and 1S78 a beginning' was
made in establishin<j a market for the dairy pro-
ducts of the Pacific Coast in Siam, China, and
Japan ; altliougli the exports thence were not large,
they steadily increased. There were received at
San Francisco,during the year 1877, ll,927,2001bs.
of butter and 7,00S,;i liJlbs. of cheese, and ex-
ported, 2;i 1,400 and 193,000 lbs. respectively.
California has thus been given a prolonged
description ; but it must be recollected that this is
a great State, larger than the combined areas of
all tlie New England and Middle States, almost
equal in extent to France, and with natural
resources commensurate with its territory.
Far-distant Oregon must not be omitted from
the list of the dairy districts of America. As jet
comparatively undeveloped in this industry, the fol-
lowing figures show a growth which, if continued,
will command greater attention in the future : —
Tears.
1850.
1860.
1870.
1875.
Population ...
Cattle (No.)
Hay ...(tons)
Cheese (lbs. )
Butter (lbs.)
13,294
41,729
373
36,980
211,404
52,46.5
154,131
27,986
10.5,319
1,000,157
90,923
170,197
75,457
70,333
1,418,373
104,920
276,466
161,433
190.984
1,555,208
The milch-cows enumerated in 1870 were
48,32.5, and in 1875, 76,100. The estimate for
1880 is 120,000 cows, population 175,000. The
State has an area of 95,000 square miles, a mean
temperature of 52°, and a large proportion of
valuable agricultural lands.
Canada may be properly included among the
dairy districts of Americi, although tliis industry
is prominent in only a small portion of the whole
territory of the Dominion. Ontario, the most
fertile and most densely populated province,
resembles some of the best dairying regions of the
United States in soil and climate, and is the scene
of the most active and successful Canadian dairying.
The statistics show a considerable manufacture of
butter for 30 years, and no remarkable increase
therein ; yet it is noticeable that while between
1852 and 1871 the increase in the number of cows
in Canada was 77 per cent., the butter product in-
creased 131 per cent. Cheese-making has been the
branch which has experienced l;he most wonderful
development. In 18t51 less cheese was made than in
1852 ; the census shows 4,500,000 to 5,000,000 lbs.
to be the annual crop during that periixl. In lS71
the cheese product exceeded 22,000,000 lbs., and
the 1880 crop is estimated at 60,000,000 lbs. !
Prior to the j-ear 1805 Canada consumed largo
quantities of dairy products from the United
States, importing cheese by the million lbs. In
1880 the exports of cheese from the Dominion
will reach 45,000,000 lbs. The abrogation of the
Keciprocity Treaty seems to have given the first
impetus to Canadian cheese-making, particularly
in Ontario. Under the patronage of the Hon.
Robert Read, the first cheese-factory w;is built at
Front-of-Sidney, and began operations in 1866.
The census of 1871 reported 353 such establish-
ments in the Dominion, and in 1879 the number
was placed at 800, three-fourths of them in the
province of Ontario. These are mainly joint-stock
concerns, although some are proprietary, where the
cheese is made at a fixed rate per lb. from any
milk brought to the factory. In 1868 the Canadian
Dairymen''s Association was formed, and three or
four years later, in the eastern part of the province,
they organised the Ontario Dairymen's Associa-
tion. These two organisations were consolidated
in 1873 and became the Dairymen's Association
of Ontario, meeting in turn, twice at IngersoU
and once at Belleville. This arrangement did not
prove advantageous, and the union was dissolved
in 1877. Since that time Eastern and Western
Ontario have had separate associations, with head-
quarters at the two places named. Both organi-
sations hold annual conventions lasting two or
three days, including shows of dairy products ;
both issue annual roports, and each receives a
Government grant of 1,000 dollars a year.
The first president of the united society was
Thomas Ballantyne, jNI.P.P., of Stratford, Ontario,
who won the first honours for Canadian cheese at
the Philadelphia Show of 1876, and at New York
in 1878. Mr. J. Carruthers Hegler, of Inger-
soU, has proved an indefatigable secretary to the
Western Association from the start, and among
the most active members have been Messrs. E.
Ciiswell and C. E. Cha<.lwick, of IngersoU. The
Eastern Association, during its separate existence-,
has found efficient officers in Messrs. K. Graham,
of Belleville, P. R. Daly and Ilarlbrd Ashley, of
Foxborough, and II. Farrington, of Norwich.
Harvey Farrington, formerly of Herkimer County,
New York, was one of the pioneers in associated
cheese-making in Canada, and performed invalu-
INFLUENCE OF PASTU11A(JE.
383
able service; lie died in Deeenilier, 1878. At the
annual meeting in Februaiy, 1870, the subject of
butter-making was the specialty considered, and
a practical result was the establishment of the
first butter-factory in Canada, the same year, at
Hungerford, Hastings County, Ontario.
The St. Lawrence River is the natural out-
let for the surplus dairy products of Canada, and
the Montreal market an interesting point. The
receipts of cheese for the four years beginning with
lS7:i and ending with 1875, in boxes averaging
03 lbs. each, were as follows : 195,031; 375,903;
383,7~1; 5-42, 1-IO. This shows an increase of
22,500,000 lbs., or 178 per cent, in four years.
During the same period the receipts of butter
increased from 142,350 packages in 1872, to
157,097 in 1875, or 24 per cent., the average
weight of butter packages being 100 lbs. The
discrepancy between the above and the larger
figures previously given for the total Canadian
productions may be accounted for by the fact that
during some of the months when trade is quite
active the St. Lawrence is closed to navigation,
and large shipments go to Portland, Maine, by the
Grand Trunk route, while more or less is always
forwarded from Western Ontario over the railways
of the United States.
There is, however, a steady tendency towards
direct shipments from Canada to Great Britain.
When the Dominion ceased to import dairy p.'o-
ducts and began exportation, most of the butter
and a large part of the cheese went to the States.
In 1808, of 10,500,000 lbs. of butter exported by
Canada, nearly 6,000,000 lbs. were sent to the United
States, and of 6,000,000 lbs. of cheese, more than
one-eighth also went there. But in the year
ending June 30, 1880, of 19,000,000 lbs. of
butter exported, the United States received only
561,000 lbs., and of 43,000,000 lbs. of cheese, but a
little over 1,000,000 lbs., or about one-fortieth. A
full table of Canadian dairy exports is given later.
Climate and soUs have been incidentally men-
tioned in the foregoing description of dairying
districts, and about enough said on those topics.
In general terms the dairying of America is carried
on between the isothermal lines of 45° and 62° Fahr.,
the mean temperature of the best regions being
about 50°. Excepting the Pacific Coast and the
Southern States, the average annual rainfall in
the same districts ranges from 40 to 47 inches.
A dozen conspicuous points of observation, well
scattered, show the following results for a term of
years: Boston, 44 ; New York, 45 ; Philadelphia,
43 ; Washington, 40 ; Cincinnati, 47 ; St. Louis,
•12; Charleston, South Carolina, 48; St. Augustine,
Florida, 32; Mobile, Alabama, 61 ; New Orleans,
51 ; Portland, Oregon, 39; San Francisco, 23. In
the primitive modes of dairying, climate, water,
and soil had a controlling influence upon the
quality of the products, but with the varied arti-
ficial means brought into use natural deficiencies
are often made good. The only obstacle to dairy-
ing in America now regarded as insurmountable
is intense and long-continued heat, for although
this may be guarded against, so far as the care
of the milk is concerned, the effect during its
secretion and before it is drawn from the cow
cannot be reached. Such heat, however, as already
noted, is experienced in a very small portion of the
territory of the United States.
Grasses have also been incidentally referred to,
but they require more attention. Of the several
thousand varieties of grasses known to botanists,
about twelve hundred are found in the United
States, and of these, again, nearly two hundred in
the older dairying districts. But not more than
twenty-five varieties are known to the agriculture
of the countr3', and hardly a farmer uses or recog-
nises on his farm more than half a dozen kinds.
With variety so desirable for the permanency and
value of the pasture and the quality of hay, it
would seem that the American dairyman might
well consider the introduction of new grasses, and
the domestication in parts of the country where
they are now unknown of some of those wild
varieties which are found thriving in other sections.
Some of these are believed to be of great value.
The grasses in most favour with American
dairymen are nearly all well known to the agricul-
ture of Great Britain and continental Europe.
Among these are the following varieties, some of
which are elsewhere treated of in this work : —
Timothy [Phleiim pratense), Red-top [Jgrotis
viilfjaris), Blue-grass [Poa pratensis), Perennial
and Italian Rje-grasses {Lolium, Perenne, and
Italicvm), Orchard-grass {Dacii/lis glomei-a1a).
Rough-stalked Meadow (Poa trivialis), Fowl
Meadow {Poa serotina), Sweet-scented Vernal or
^lay grass [Anthroxanthum odoratum), Meadow
Fescue [Fesluca pralensis) , Tall Oat-grass [Arrhe-
iiatherum avenaceum) , Meadow Fox-tail [Alopecurus
pratensis), Reed Canary {P/ialaris aruudinacea).
384
DAIRY FARMING.
T5Ine Joint Grass [Culamagrostis canadensis),
Velvet Meadow-grass [Holcus lanatiis), Annual
Spear-grass {Poa annua), and Wire-grass {Poa
conipressa) .
Timothy is very generally the mainstay in
those sections where the hay-crop is of importance.
It is cultivated with ease, and on strong and rather
moist soil has been known to yield four tons to the
acre of the best quality of hay. It enters largely
into almost all mixtures on American dairying
lands for pasturage or mowing.
Red-top, Fine-top, or Fine-bent is almost as
commonly used as Timothy, but good judges
believe that its value is overrated in America.
(The name Ilerd's-grass is applied to Red-top
in Pennsylvania and States farther south, while
Timothy is known by this name in New England
and the ^liddle States.)
Orchard-grass, or Rough Cock's-foot, on the
other hand, although generally a favourite with
those who have tried it, is not as largely used as it
deserves to he. Properly treated, it has proved a
success in almost all parts of the United States.
It is one of the most abiding of the cultivated
grasses, palatable to stock of all kinds, makes
excellent hay, is two weeks earlier than Timothy,
and preferable to it for growing with clover,
because ready to cut at the same time, endures con-
siderable shade, resists drought (which kills Blue-
grass and Timothy), is one of the best grasses for
soiling, for pasture gives an earlier bite in the
spring than any other grass except the Meadow
Fox-tail, affords an amount of aftermath exceeded
only by the Kentucky Blue, and continues to send
out root-leaves until very late in the autumn.
One author, in writing of the surprising rapidity
with which it springs up after mowing or close
cropjjing, remarks that these circumstances verify
Virgil's description : —
" Cool dews restore, beneath niglit's transient lioura,
All that the herd each livelong day devours."
In fact, five or six days' growth in summer
suflices to give a good bite. Its disposition to
grow in tussocks is easily remedied by proper
treatment, one satisfactory method being to use
with it' a mixture of blue grass and red clover.
It flourishes upon a variety of soils, over an
extensive territory, and with its long list of virtues
may safely be placed among the most valuable
of grasses in American dairy districts.
The Sweet-scented Vernal-grass is regarded
of special service as an element in dairy pastures
because of the line flavour it imparts to butter.
In some sections, as for instance around Phila-
delphia, the high reputation of the butter is
believed to be largely due to the abundance of
this grass. " The ripe harvest of the new-mown
hay gives to the air a sweet and wholesome odour"
just about in proportion to the presence of this
variety among the grasses cut. It is also de-
sirable for its specially early and late growth.
It finds a place readily in any pasture, occupying
vacant spaces, but never crowding other grasses,
and its seeds retain their vitality so long in the
soil that once introduced it spring's up whenever
it is given a chance. Although not classed among
the highly valuable grasses, this variety is prized
in the Eastern and Middle States for these special
attributes. Yet it is unknown to many of the
dairying districts of the United States.
Only one other of the grasses named in the
list needs special mention. The Poa praiensis
of the botanist has obtained a very wide repu-
tation as the Kentucky Blue-grass, and Itxl many
into the mistaken belief that it was a peculiarly
American grass, confined to the famous pastures
of the region whence it derives this name. On
the contrary, it is one of the most common grasses
in nearly all parts of the country, being variously
known as June-grass, Green Meadow-grass, Com-
mon Spear-grass, and Rhode Island Bent-grass.
And it is the well-known Smooth-stalked ^leadow-
grass or "Greensward" of England (Plate -3,
Fig. 7). There is no grass which accommodates
itself to any given locality with greater facility,
whether it be the ]\Iississippi Valley, New Eng-
land, Canada, the shores of the ^Mediterranean, or
the North of Russia. It is found thriving upon
gravelly soils, alluvial bottoms, and stiff clay lands,
in the permanent pastures of Missouri, and along
the roadsides of Minnesota. Soil and climate
cause great variation in its size and appearance,
and this protean habit accounts for the various
names by which it is known. It probably attains
its highest luxuriance and perfection as a pasture
grass in its apparent home, the far-famed blue-
grass district of Kentucky, and it may be well to
describe it as seen there : —
" Surely you have hoard
f)f the fair plains -n-hcre the sweet gr.asscs grow,
Just grass, naught else ; and where the noble herd
Of blooded cattle graze, and horses bred
KENTUCKY BLUE GRASS.
3S5
For victory — the rare Kentucky speed that wins the race ?
The lovely rolliiig land of the blue-grass,
The wild free park spread out liy Nature's hand,
That scarce an English dukedom may surpass
In velvet beauty — while its royal sweep
Over the country miles and miles awa)',
Dwarfs man-made parks to toys ; the great trees keep
Their distance from each other, proud array
Of single elms that stand apart to show
How gracefully their swaying branches grow ;
While little swells of turf roll up and fall
Like waves of summer sea, and over all
You catch, when the straight shafts of sunset pass,
Lighting up all the lances of the grass,
The steely glint, the blue of the blue-grass."
Tlie central part of Kentucky, an area of
15,000 square miles or more, over limestone for-
mation, seems to be the richest portion of the
blue-grass country. There its seed-stalks are 2
to 3 feet high, with several long parallel-sicled
•blades to each plant, and radical leaves often
numbering thirty to a stalk. The stems are
slender, smootli, and round ; the flower-clusters
often have five or seven bunches from the same
point, and the spikelets are one-tenth to one-sixth
of an inch long, three to five flowered. The root
is perennial, and throws off numerous and long
creeping root-stocks, enabling it to form a dense
matted turf. The general appearance of the plant
is shown in Fig. ^10, also the form of the
spikelet, magnified. The chief reputation of
the Kentucky Blue is as a pasture grass; the
sod is easily obtained and very enduring, there
being no such thing known as its running out on
good land. Pastures sixty years unbroken afford
their owners an annual profit of at least ten
dollars an acre. It starts very early in the spring,
and grows rapidly after being grazed off ; it will
furnish more late feed than most grasses, and no
amount of pasturing is sufficient to utterly destroy
it. Eaten until no appearance of it is seen on
the ground, the earth in a few days is again
covered with the soft green foliage. It endures
th-e frosts of winter better than any other grass on
the continent, and therefore pushes its way north-
ward into the Arctic Circle ; if allowed to grow
rank in the fall months, it will turn over and hide
beneath its covering luxuriant croppings, often
available in the mild winters of Kentucky and
Tennessee. An eminent cattle-breeder in Ken-
tucky wrote : " Whoever has limestone land has
blue-grass ; whoever has blue-grass has the basis
of all agricultural prosperity; and that man, if he
has not tlic iinest horses, cattle, and sheep, has no
one to bhime Imt himself." Severe droughts injure
blue-grass, yet it grows as far south as the hilly
jjarts of Georgia and Ahdjama, and in Arkansas ;
not, however, as vigorously as farther north. In
seasons of drought it is usual to leave it nn-
pastured or but lightly cropped, where fully
exposed to the sun dining the months of July and
August. But the grass thus left, although it
Fig. 210. — Kentucky Blue-grass.
often becomes dry enough to burn, is greedily
eaten by stock ; it dries full of nourishing pro-
j)ertiep, and cattle will fatten upon it, unless it
has been drenched with rains. It makes little
growth during the hottest weeks, unless there is
an unusual amount of moisture in the soil, but
the 1st of September a strong second growth com-
mences, which continues till the ground is frozen.
Blue-grass exerts a truly wonderful power on the
animals that feed upon it. The exact causes that
produce these striking results are not traceable.
According to the tables of analysis, several other
886
DAIRY FAIJMIN'G.
grasses sliould be more vahial)le, l)nl the fort-e and
the uniformity of tlie operation of bhie-grass
feeding are matters of experience, and their exist-
ence cannot be questioned. When used for hay it
is cut just as the seed begins to ripen, and if well
cured it then makes excellent feed, and is highly
relished. Blue-grass cannot be recommended for
the meadow, as it is hard to cut and difficult
to cure; the foliage is too short and too light
after being dried. It is an excellent grass for
lawns, as it makes a dense, uniform mat of ver-
dure, and sends out but one flowering stem a year ;
for this purpose it is thickly seeded and kept closely
mown. The lands most productive of blue-grass
are calcareous. Lime seems to be a natural stimu-
lant to it, and it flourishes best where this is
abundantly sui)plied by nature. In a pasture that
has an occasional outcropping of limestone, the
sprigs of grass surrounding the rock are found
more luxuriant than anywhere else. But it is far
from true, as sometimes asserted, that blue-grass
flourishes only in a limestone country ; in parts of
Ohio, where the geological formation is the same
as that of Central Kentucljy, the blue-grass does
not do as well, while in other parts of Ohio it is
as luxuriant as in its best estate, and yet the
bedded limestone there lies beneath 100 feet of
drift. And pasture lands abound in all the States
adjoining Kentucky, especially Ohio, West Vir-
ginia, Virginia, Tennessee, and Missouri, which
carry a magnificent blue-grass sward.
From the foregoing it will be luulerstood that
in the older parts of the country, where American
dairying was first developed, and throughout the
sections mentioned as most actively engaged in
this industry, up to 18S1, the climate in general
is such as to jiermit the adaptation of those species
of grasses which are known to the agriculture of
England and Europe. But for a large part of
America, different species are necessitated by the
climatology of the country; those of English
origin, at least, and those best suited to the
Northern and Eastern States, cannot go into the
plains and arid districts of the West; and they
generally fail in the humid climate of the South,
when the mean temperature of the summer months
attains to 80'^.
For the West, such species, new to agriculture,
have been abundantly provided, and the American
interior presents an interesting Held for gramineous
study. The native species of the prairie districts
of the States bordering on the ^Mississippi
River include many of value, w-ell adapted to
this intermediate climate. The turf of this
prairie growth is very strong, enduring in its
native state, and made excellent dairy pasturage
during the period of settlement. But most of
these grasses give way at the ajiproach of cul-
tivation, and will hardly be domesticated, the
"tame" varieties generally being substituted.
Between the Rocky Mountain ranges and the
Missouri River lies the great plains region. Of
the grasses indigenous to that region 143 species
have been named, belonging to 57 genera; 91
varieties extend across the Missouri River, some
of them eastward to the Atlantic, but 52 species
properly belong to the plain and mountain dis-
tricts. Some of these are singular in all respects.
The larger jiart of these 52 species could be dis-
pensed with without material injury to the
grazing interests of the country ; some are en-
tirely worthless, and many of little value compared
with others. On " the Plains " three species far
exceed all others in value ; these are Finger-spiked
Wood-grass {AndrojMgon fiircatufi), the Purple
Wood-grass or Broom-grass (^Andropogon scopanns),
and the Indian-grass or Wood-grass (Sorghuiii
Hiifann). "In all the eastern portions of this
district they comprise at least three-fourths of the
grazing resources. Next to these in importance
is the Strong-scented Vilfa [Sjiorobulus hefero-
lep/s). This sjiecies is peculiarly palatable to
cattle, and they are seen roving over rich pas-
ture of other sjiecies in search of it. This is, in
a great measure, the winter forage species in
Kansas, where it abounds. It flourishes chiefly
on the moister portions of the plains, and many
local areas are almost exclusively occupied by it."
These are specially sought after for dairy locations.
All four of these species are found eastward as far
as the Atlantic, but are regarded as of little value
east of the Mississippi, even classed as " remark-
ably worthless " by eminent writers, while in
the prairie and plains country they not only
predominate in pastm-age, but are the chief de-
pendence for " wild" hay.
In the Rocky Mountain region the three
species of wood-grass named above are exceeded
in quantity and value by but one, the Sheep's
Fescue [Fcstuca ovina). This is common to
mountains and plains, extending north-eastward
to New England, but varying much in form
Till'] Bl FFALO-CJKA.SS.
387
accorJhifj to locality, and often li;ivin<>- such hir north as the IJritish possessions, rarely, if ever,
sensitive constitutional qualities as to make arti- east of the 98th meridian, and extends indefinitely
fieial treatment impossible. In the mountain south-westward. This little plant, insio-nilicant
region it is the most valuable of the abundant in a sing-le specimen, was the favourite herbage
grasses, and esteemed highly nutritious, notwith- and chief subsistence of the immense herds of
standing the hard wiro-like appearance of its buffalo in former years; but with the disappearance
leaves. It there
grows chiefly in
bunches with erect,
•stiff culms, attaining
in favourable places
a height of 2 feet.
Equal in value is
the largest and best
of the " Gama " or
" Gramma " grasses
peculiar to this re-
gion J it is known
r,s Mezqiiit in Texas
and Mexico, and as
Perennial Bunch
Grass in Montana.
It is the Boiitelona
oligostackya of the
botanist, and desir-
able only for grazing,
as it grows too thin
and too short for hay.
The nsual height
is from 8 inches to
1 foot. It grows
in small bunches,
close and fine, has a
solid stalk, and the
bead is well filled
with small, firm, nu-
tritious seeds. It
shoots from the root
very early in the
spring, is unaffected
by frosts and frequent
rains, and when exposed to the hot sun it eoon
ripens, is cured thoroughly in early autumn, and
then affords an unharvested forage which unites
with all the desirable qualities of good hay the
fattening principles of grain. The A. fiircafns,
A. scnparins, and the S. nutans are also im-
portant grasses among the Rocky Mountains.
The noted Buffalo-grass {Buchloe dacfj/loirhs
of those animals, and
tlie advent of civili-
.sation, the grass has
receded westward,
being found at its
eastern limits in
small, distinctly out-
lined patches a few
feet in diameter. An
excellent representa-
tion of this interest-
ing grass is herewith
given, of its natural
size. For a long
time it was a puzzle
to botanists. Abun-
dantly provided with
runners as a means
of spreading, and
with no seeds visible,
it was thought to
have only abortive
flowers. Then male
and female flower.s
were found on sepa-
rate ))lants, and these,
so unlike, mistaken
for different species.
In its best estate,
however, the same
plant produces both
male and female
flowers, although as
distinct as the tassel
and ear of maize.
The growth is low, dense, and tufted, attaining
a general height of less than 4< inches, except
the male flower-stalks, which often run 2 or 3
inches above the leaves, terminating in a few
flat spikes, as shown in the engraving. The
female flowers are clustered close to the earth,
and surrounded by a leafy covering, wdiich, as
the seed ripens, becomes hard and shining. The
also called " Small Gramma," is common to both roots are strongly interlaced, all near the surface;
plains and mountains of Western America, found as the leaves narrow, and after the growing season
52.
Fig. 211. — BCFFALO-GEASS.
38S
DAIRY FARMING.
curled and twisted into a cloHcly matted mass,
forming a compat-t turf which withstands excessive
drought. The plant seems to require moisture only
during the growing season, and this varies with
the climate. It thrives, therefore, in all parts of
the south-west, where there is a rainy period at
any time during the year. Upon a very thin, poor
soil, and one saturated with alkaline matter, it
flourishes as well as upon better food. Through the
dry season it remains in the curled, dry form, but
preserving all its nutritive qualities ; in the winter,
an examination shows the stolens to be still gi-een.
So, where the ground is scantily covered with these
Fig. 212.— Berui'da-guass.
brown, crisp bunches, to all appearance useless, the
cattle feeding thereon are sleek and fat. Wiiether
the Buffalo-grass can be utilised in the South-
eastern States, is an important question not yet
determined, and it must be done soon, if ever. In
experiments it has been successfully cultivated east
of the Mississippi, and flourished finely for a time,
but, unable to compete with stronger intruding
neighbours, it was overrun and disappeared. As
an instance of its tenacity of life, it withstood the
treading of the animals in a farmer's feed-lot, when
every other green tiling had been destroyed.
The Southern States, by their climate, water,
and other natural facilities, tend toward the de-
velojiment of a winter dairying region. And the
condition of Southern agriculture demands the
incorporation of .•;onie feature in their system, by
whicli (■ni])s for the impnivement nf the soil shall
receive as regular attention as crops for .sale. First
among such crops are the artificial grasses. Both
these causes stimulate a search for grass2S fitted
for the humid districts of that section. That the
greater part of the South was once covered with a
carpet of nutritious grass, as Texas is still, is
beyond a doubt. Contain grasses were then natural
to Southern soil, but nearly all of those have disap-
peared, the result of continual, injudicious grazing,
and of an exhaustive system of cultivation. Under
favourable conditions, the standard English and
Northern grasses can be used to some extent in
the Southern States ; the habits of
the plants are changed, however,
and winter becomes their growing
season. But winter grasses alone
will not answer, and, as a rule,
success does not attend the intro-
duction South of grasses from colder
and drier climates. Southern agri-
culturists seeking grasses that will
live and grow all the year round,
naturally turned their attention
towards semi-tropical sources, and
have received the greatest encour-
agement therefrom.
Bermuda-grass [Cpiodon due-
ii/lon) has proved the most satis-
factory in the South for all soils
and difference of humidity and tem-
perature. Regarded as a pest at one
time, because of its powers of rapid
spreading and tenacity of hold when
once established, it has come to be regarded as a
blessing. It was the terror of cotton-planters ;
where it took possession the owner found he
must raise live stock or abandon the land. But
the grass was found to improve worn soil, the
animals helped still more, a little watchful care
kept the cotton-fields freCj and thousands of
acres have been therefore stocked with it in
(ireorgia and the Gulf States. The aecompanj'-
ing sketch, about half the natural size, shows
the form of the plant and its habits of growth.
The most striking thing about Bermuda-grass is
its strong stems, or runners, which extend upon
or just below the surface in every direction; single
shoots run 10 feet in a season on good soil. It
has been known to throw its runners over a rock
(i feet across, and soon bide itself from view. The
OTHER PASTURE GRASSES.
389
joints in the stems are about 3 indies apart, and
at every one roots are put out and stems thrown
up which bear the foliage and flowers. The up-
right stems are slender, the leaves narrow and
delicate, and produced in spikes which radiate from
the top of the stalk. Seeds are rare, and not an
article of commerce. The plant is propagated by
cuttings, is sometimes chopped up, the pieces
scattered broadcast and then rolled, and sometimes
sod is cut into small pieces and planted in hills
like potatoes. It will live on land so poor as to
be incapable of supporting other grasses of value,
although its worth is as the soil it grows on.
Left uncut and uupastured below the moun-
tainous parts of the Southern States during the
summer and autumn, although the ends may be
nipped by frost, there is sufficient green grass
underneath to feed stock during the winter. In
the moist bottoms of Louisiana, on the dry plains
of Texas, among the sandy hills of Virginia, the
Carolinas and Tennessee, it seems equally at home
and indestructible. It has the capacity to with-
stand any amount of heat and drought, and in
months that will check blue-grass, if not kill it,
the Bermuda keeps up its pale-green colour, despite
the burning suns. It grows luxuriantly on the
top of Lookout ISIountain, at an altitude of over
2,000 feet, where the winters are excessively cold
for that latitude. Cattle and horses are very fond
of Bermuda, prefer it to clover, and thrive upon it,
and hogs feed upon its succulent roots. No other
grass will, in the same climate, yield as much
grazing, and for this purpose, taking the whole
year into account, it stands unrivalled in the
Southern States. On rich land it grows tall
enough to cut, and makes hay of the very best
quality in large quantity. At a State fair in
Georgia, the premium bale of hay was made from
Bermuda-grass. At Greensboro^ Georgia, in 1S73,
one acre of Bermuda, good soil but not manured,
made 5 J tons of hay, which sold for 114 dollars.
At another place in the same state, there is authen-
tic record of 16 tons of Bermuda-hay being pro-
duced from an acre by the use of nitrates and
alkalies. It is said that one hundred pounds of the
grass, as cut, afford over fifty of hay, and five tons
of hay per acre is regarded as the regular crop.
The plant will take hold upon the sides of the
steepest gulley and stop its washing ; hence it is
advantageously used to bind the levees on the
banks of the Mississippi, and also the embankments
of railroads. It does not thrive in the shade. It
is a native of the West Indies, and was introduced
from Bermuda into South Carolina and Mississippi,
early in the present eentuiy.
Among other foreign grasses which arc found
desirable in the South are the Guinea [Sorglitim
viil(;are) and the Tall Meadow Oat-grass [Arrfie-
vatherum areiilcitm) ; and of the natives which
serve a useful purpose, the Wild Rye [Elj/mus
Virglniciis), Crab-grass [Paniciim saiigninale), and
the Broom-grass or " broom-sedge " (Andrupogon
scojoarius) .
The standard grasses of the Northern and
Eastern States are available for the northern
portion of the Pacific Coast, and the mountainous
territories. The Red-top is very much at home in
Utah, Nevada, and Montana, grows luxuriantly
on alkaline soils, and upon land never broken
yields enormous crops. In the southern part of
the Pacific slopes, and especially in California,
valuable native grasses exist. The bunch-grass
{festucd) is abundant on the upland slopes and
valleys, and is there, as everywhere, of great value.
The gramma and similar grasses also abound. In
the lower plains and valleys, oat grasses and
annuals form a larger share. Several varieties of
the .\lfal fa family [medicago] are indigenous to this
section, being generally known as " the Californian
clover." The tendency of the climate is towards a
less permanently perennial character in most of
the grasses of this section, and they often assume
graminaceous forms. Some writers describe deposits
of seed upon the ground in parts of California, so
abundant that animals can feed upon it, like
threshed grain.
Wherever in America grasses are valued and
cultivated, the clovers are also used and valued.
White clover [Trifolii(m repens) has always had
many enemies, but the general verdict is that it is
one of the most indispensable of the pastm-e plants,
in all parts of the country. It seems especially at
home in the Blue-grass region, and well to the South,
being an excellent companion of Bermuda-grass.
Red clover [TrifoUum pratense) was introduced
to America late in the eighteenth century, appear-
ing first in Pennsylvania. Its use is now almost
universal, and in some sectit ns it is regarded as
the corner-stone of agriculture. It does not
succeed as far South as the white clover, but
flourishes wherever wheat can be successfully
390
DAIRY FARMING.
Alsike clover [Tri/oliiim lii/liridum) has been
received with favour in some of the dairy districts,
chiefly as a soiling crop, but it is not extensivel}"
used.
Alfalfa or Lucerne [Medicago mliva) proves iu
America its orig'in as a child of the sun, and revels
in a heat destructive of all other species of clover
and of most jjnsses. Cultivated for green fodder,
this plant is destined to be a <:^reat blessing to the
agriculture of the Southern States, and in the arid
districts of California it is largely used and highly
prized. It has been grown successfully also in
different jiarts of Canada.
The hay crop of the United .States was com-
pared with other staples iu Table No. 3. Some
additional facts may be interesting. The annual
hay ])roduct of the country has been reported by
the census as follows : —
Years.
1840. 185J. 1860. IS?). 1S79.
Tons ... 10,248,108 13,838,642 19,08.3,896 27,310,048 40,000,000
The figures for 1879 represent the estimate of
the United States Department of Agriculture, and
the general average given is 148 tons to every 100
acres of mowing. The hay crop of the United States
is worth over 300,000,000 dollars, and the grass con-
sumed green full as much more. Six hundred and
fifty million dollars is a fair estimate of the value of
the annual grass crop of the United States. Seventy
million dollars may be added for that of Canada.
The Indian Corn [Zea 3Iu//k) constitutes an
important adjunct to the dairying of America, and
may be properly noticed here, both because of its
classification among the true grasses, and of its
very general use throughout the United States as a
forage plant, independent of the value of its grain.
In North America this plant is cultivated from
the Gulf of Mexico to the valleys of the St.
Lawrence and the Red River of the North, and,
excepting districts of great elevation, a<.'ross the
Continent, from ocean to ocean. " The varieties of
Indian corn are veiy numerous, as its flexibility of
organisation makes it easy of adaptation to dif-
ferent climates and soils, and they are constantly
changing in character and in number, from the
shrubby reed on the shores of Lake Superior to
the giant stalks of the Mississippi Valley ; the
tiny ears with flat, close, clinging grains of the
Canada; the brilliant, rounded little j)earl ; the
blight-red grains and white cob of the Haematite ;
the swelling ear of the Gourd-seed of the South."
Thus, within the limits of the United States, the
mature plant may be found of all sizes, from
18 inches to over 20 feet in height, bearing from
one to ten ears, and the ears from 2 to 15 inches
long, with from eight to thirty-six rows, some-
times with less than a hundred grains and some-
times one thousand grains upon one cob. The
average for the country is an ear of twelve or four-
teen rows, with from 35 to 50 grains in a row,
and two ears to each stalk ; and the ])lant from
5 to 12 feet in height, according to climate and
variety. The plant matures in from 70 to 210
days from the seed, and the grain product is from
10 to 200 bushels per acre, with an average of
about thirty bushels. As a rule, two bushels of
ears make one of shelled corn, the standard weight
<if a bushel being 56 lbs.
Since 1800 there have been over 40,000,000
acres planted in corn annually in the United
States; since 1876 over 50,000,000 acres. This
has given a grain crop of from 1,000,000,000
to 1,500,000,000 bushels per annum. But
attention is here specially invited to the im-
mense quantity of forage which this vast
acreage produces. Each acre of com yields from
two to three tons of diy fodder, and every portion
of the plant is available for food, after the grain
matures, except the hardest joints and hciiviest
butts of the stalks. In many j)arts of the country
corn fodder or sinrer is the main-stay for long
forage, and although some farmers strongly oppose
its use as food for milch-cows, it is difficult to see
how its value can be questioned. In the ex-
perience of the writer, the blades of the maize,
stripped from the stalk and cured in bundles, have
been found as good feed for cows in a butter dairy
as the best of hay, pound for pound. The usual
method of harvesting is to cut the stalk just
above the ground, tie in bundles, and set up in
stooks to completely cure ; then shuck out the ears,
leaving the husks upon the stalk, and put the fodder
in stacks or ricks till wanted. Another way is to
remove the ear, in the shuck, before cutting the
fodder. Again, the part of each stalk above the
u)i];er ear is cut off, while the grain is still soft,
and this " top fodder,'' well cured, is highly
valued; after gathering the ripened corn, the
butts are cut close to the ground. In 1877 one
acre on Waushakum farm was found to yield
by actual weight, besides a large crop of grain,
INDIAN CORN AS FODDER.
391
2,613 lbs. of cured tops and 5,5;30 lbs. of dry butts,
or over tour tons of stover. Careful experimenters
feeding for milk, find five tons of well-cured stover
equivalent to three tons of good hay. With hay
at 20 dollars a ton, the corn fodder, at this rate,
is worth 12 dollars, but it is usually valued at
about 8 dollars per ton.
The corn plant is largely used by dairymen
as a green-crop, to feed during the weeks of
dry pasturage in July and August. For this pur-
pose it is grown thickly, in drills, heavily manured
and cut before the ears form ; from thirty to
seventy tons of excellent green fodder may be
thus obtained from an acre. By careful treat-
ment, the surplus may be cured and made into
superior winter feed. The practice of preserving
the fodder in a green and moist state by ensilagiii;/
in silos is also coming into favour, but is yet
(ISSO) in an experimental stage in America.
The Southern white and sweet varieties of corn
are preferred for fodder. Thus, in its various
forms, w.th and without the grain, maize is
one of the commonest and most valuable of
American forage plants. H. E. A.
CHAPTER XXVI.
The Daiuy Cattle of Ameiuca.
History of AiucTican Ciiltlo— Br
:'7/UK first iloiiH'stic cattl
(ling and Jlunapcnicnt Cross bred Buffaloes— Produce of American Dairy Cows-
rrici-s of Calllc.
America were broug'ht over
by Columbus on his second
voyage in 1493. The Portu-
guese introduced neat cattle
into Newfoundland and Nova
Scotia in 1553, and voyagers
I'ouiul them plentiful there thirty years
later. At the opening of the seven-
teenth century, French cattle were
brought into Canada. The Virginia
colony received its first im])ortation of
cattle from England in 1608 or 1609, and cows were
obtained from the West Indies in 1610; the next
year Gates brought over 100 cows, and these
estimates are founl of the neat cattle in the James
River settlements— 500 in 16^0, 3,000 in 1630,
30,000 in 1610, and 40,000 in 1650. The first
cattle for New England arrived at the Ply-
mouth cohmy by the ship Chantii, in charge of
Agent Winslow, in 1624', and were probably of
Devon stock, three heifers and a bull ; in 1626
twelve cows were brought to Cape Ann, and 150
head of cattle reached Massachusetts in 1629
and 1630. In 1636 cows were worth £25 to £30
in New England, and the prices of products were,
milk Id. per quart, butter 6d. per lb., and cheese
5d. Cattle were brought to New York by the
Dutch in 1625, by the Swedes to Delaware in
1627, and by the Danes to New Ilamjwhire in
1631. Wade Hampton imported English cattle
for the Cariilinas about 1670. Travellers found
domestic cattle in the possession of the Indians
on the Red River in Louisiana in 1690, doubtless
the increase of some of the earliest Spanish
arrivals.
Among the early colonists there were severe
restrictions upon the killing of domestic animals
for food, but at the same time great losses
occurred from neglecting to care for them. The
"Virginia Historical Register" gives these state-
ments as aiitheutic : — " All the inhabitants give
their cattle in winter is only the husks of their
Indian corn, unless it be some of them that have a
little wheat straw, neither do they give them
any more of these than will serve to keep them
alive; by reason whereof they venture into the
marshy grounds and swamps for food, where many
are lost." ..." They neither housed nor
milked their cows in winter, having a notion
that it would kill them." Even as late as the
middle of the eighteenth century, in the com-
paratively mild climate of Virginia, it was gene-
rally expected by each farmer that enough cattle
would die of privation during the winter to
furnish the annual supply of hides and leather
for the plantation. In sections where the climate
was more severe, somewhat better care was
neeessitat<?d, and very soon cattle were handled
with special reference to the dairy, and valued
accordingly. As early as 1750, there were farms
in New England where 100 or more cows were
owned and kept mainly for dairy purposes ; there
is a record of about that date in Rhode Island,
where seventy-three cows produced 10,000 lbs.
of butter in five months, an average of nearly a
pound a day.
From such varied sources came the progenitors
of the greater part of American cattle as they now
exist. There are authentic accounts of trading
and interchange of live st<ick among the colonists,
and the consequent amalgamation resulted in the
common, or, as it is called, native stock of the
United States. These " natives " cannot properly
be compared with any race or distinct breed of
cattle; they have no distinctive character, are
A:\rEiacAX dairy cattle.
:W3
of all possible sorts, colours, shapes and sizes,
average much better in some States than in
others, but, as a whole, they form an excellent
basis of hardy stock on which to build.
It is only within the nineteenth century that
systematic attempts have been made to better t!ie
g-eneral stock of the country by infusing the blood
of improved breeds, and the dairj- cattle of the
United States and Canada may, in the year 18S0,
be stated at but 1 per centum thoroughbreds, li
per cent, grades, and 85 per cent, natives. The
dairy cows from this common stock produce less
than three times their weight of milk per annum,
and, as a rule, they are bought and sold without
reading or study, almost at random, little care
or attention being given to the breeding. A pro-
minent dairyman in the famous Herkimer County
of New York states his belief, that of the cows of
his region, one-third do not pay for their keeping,
one-third just about pay, and the remaining third
makes good the loss of the first, and yields all the
profit.
Great attention is being given to the imjirove-
ment of American cattle, especially towards secur-
ing better dairy stock, not only by the introduction
and crossing of thoroughbreds, but by careful
selection and breeding from the native stock. The
Guenon theory of escutcheons is more and more
accepted and acted upon ; an official commission
acting under the Agricultural Board of the State
of Pennsylvania in 1878, reported this theory
verified by 95 per cent, of a large number of tests
made by it. 0;i the other hand, this is stoutly
opposed as lacking sufficient proof, and most
animals are judged by their performances and
by those " marks " which are familiar to all ex-
perienced in breeding and handling dairy-cattle.
The first importations of improved stock, kept
pure after reaching America, were made in 1784-5;
Mr. IMiller of Mrgiuia, and Mr. Gough of Mary-
land, then introduced Shorthorns on the Potomac
and into the Valley of the Shenandoah. In 1795,
Mr. Heaton of Dutchess County, New York, im-
ported Durhams. In 1797, Matthew Patton of
Virginia took Shorthorns to Kentucky, and from
these descended "the Patton Stock," great favourites
in that section for many years. Between 1815 and
18:J0, several importations of Shorthorns were made
by parties in Kentucky, Virginia, New York and
Massachusetts, and from that time others arrived
from England every year or two. The first impor-
tation direct from the Bates Herd was made in the
year 18."59 by Mr. George Vail, of Troy, New York,
and quite a number of fine animals were purchased
for Americans at the sale of Lord Ducie's Herd
in 1853. In 1815 the " American Shorthorn
Herd Book" was commenced, connecting with the
Coates series. In 1806 it was estimated that about
800 pure Shorthorns had been brought into the
United States and the Cauadas; the seven volumes
of the "American Herd Bo(jk " then contained
the pedigrees of 6,1110 bulls and over 10,000
females, and its editor estimated the number of
pure animals of this breed living in the country
at 6,000, one-third males. In 1875 direct impor-
tations had reached 1,500, and the pedigreed Short-
horns alive in the Lnited States and Canada were
placed at 20,000. The twentieth volume of the
"American Shorthorn Herd Book" published in
May, 1881, will carry the number of recorded
bulls to over 40,000, and ot cows and heifers to
60,000. Of these, Mr. L. F. Allen, " Herd Book"
editor from the first, estimates 98 per (lent. as
American bred, and that the recorded animals
alive in the country number at least 35,000.
To these may be added 20,000 well-bred Short-
horns not recorded.
The Shorthorns are largely in excess of all other
pure bloods in the United States; and although
their influence is felt mainly in the improvement
of beef cattle, many dairymen hold them in high
favour, and certain families have made remarkable
records at the jjail. Mr. Harris Lewis, one of the
best known dairymen of New York, writes : —
"There is no way known to me by which our
dairymen can so easily and certainly improve the
milking qualities of our native herds, as by using
a thoroughbred Shorthorn bull, and raising the
heifer calves of the best milkers. The bull should
be from a good milking family of Shorthorns. I
commenced this practice several years ago, and the
result has been so favourable to the Durhams that
I am now running into the thoroughbreds for my
dairy. The first cross of the native cow with a
Shorthorn bull usually produces better results than
subsequent crosses, but this rule may not hold
good if the bulls used for the second or third
crosses are of superior milking stock to the one
first used. The very best milker that I ever
owned was got by a Shorthorn bull out of a native
cow, and I find that our Herkimer County dairy-
men, with all their prejudices against Durhams
394
DAIRY FAUMIXCi.
as milkers, will Krst select from droves of cows
bronyht in for sale the Shorthorn ji^rades, and
pay better prices for them than for superior
natives. I must confess that our breeders of
Shorthorns have bred almost all the milk out of
them, preferrino^ beauty to utility, and have made
that pay the best too, but this will not always
contiinie." Several of the most successful butter-
makers in New Enijland hold like opinions, and
use Shorthorns mainly. The editors of the "Ameri-
can Shorthorn Herd Book," in the latest volumes
and by special circulars, appeal to breeders not to
neii;lcct the milking- qualities of their stock, and
call for records of milk-yields by Shorthorns,
singly and in numbers, to publish in the " Herd
Book " as evidence of the value of this breed
for dairy purposes. Mr. Allen writes : — " The
early importations of Shorthorns into this country
were, as a rule, first-class milkers. But, with
the exception of those living in the dairy districts
east of Ohio, our American breeders of Shorthorns
have not kept up the lacteal development of their
cows. Giving attention mainly to flL'sh-produc-
tioii, they have neglected and largely lost the
milking faculty in their stock."
Devons were imported by Americans in much
greater numbers some time ago than they have
been of late years. Some of the first cattle which
arrived at the Massachusetts colonies were pro-
l)ably from Devonshire, and others of the same
blood were brought to Plymouth in the year 1800,
according to the description of the animals. The
first importation of which the record is positive is
thus mentioned in the fourth volume of the old
"American Farmer": — "June 10th, 1817, the
brig Margarelta, Captain Gardner, arrived at Balti-
more from London, with six beautiful j'oung cows
and one bull (Taurus) of the Devonshire breed, for
Mr. Robert Patterson, the whole being a present
from Mr. Coke of Holkam " (afterwards Earl of
Leicester). In 1818, the Hon. Rufus King took
a few animals of the same stock from England to
Long Island. Several other valuable importations
were made between 1835 and LS5.5 by private
parties, and by the Massachusetts Society for the
Promotion of Agriculture. The Patterson Ilenl
has continued the largest and most important in
the United States, has been kept up by Messrs.
\Vm. and Geo. Patterson and Richard Caton by
frequent importations, and the greater part of the
Devons in this country are descended from this
stock. A ]) irtioii of it w:i^ early taken to Con-
necticut, and the continu:ition of that passed in
18.jS into the hands of Governor E. H. Hyde
and Mr. H. M. Sessions, the latter of Hampden,
Massachusetts, and editor of the " American
Devon Herd Book." That publication branched
from the " Davy Herd Book," and is a continuation
of it. The first and second volumes of " Davy "
(1851 and 18o'l) were re-published in the United
States in 1855, and contained the records of the
best Devon herds in this country, one-fourth of
the contributors to the second volume being
Americans. It is also worthy of remark that the
pedigrees of American Devons in the " Herd
Book " antedate the earliest English pedigrees by
ten years. In 1859, volumes wer^ simultaneously
published in England and America, the former by
Mr. Davy and the latter by Mr. S. Howard.
Howard's volume recorded ^58 bulls and 399 cows,
from 84 different herds, all in America. In
March, 1863, the first volume of the "American
Devon Herd Book" appeared, published by a Com-
mittee of the Association of Breeders of Thorough-
bred Neat Stock, and compiled by Mr. Sessions.
The second, third, and fourth volumes of this
series were published respectively in 1868, 187^,
and 1876. The fourth volume contained the records
of 1,205 American Devons, the property of 263 dif-
ferent breeders and owners in the I'nited States
and Canada. The fifth volume appeared in 1879;
and the sixth, to be published in 1881, will show
a total registry of over 1,500 bulls and about 3,500
cows. The Devons seem to do well everywhere in
America, are as well liked in Georgia as in Maine,
are great favourites in the dairy ranches of the
Sierra and Rocky ^Mountains, and are noted alike
for excellence as working cattle, as beef, as fatted
calves, and for milk. There are several fine herds
in the United States in 1880, and it is certain that
they do as well in America as in Devonshire, but
their numbers are far below what is warranted by
their good qualities.
The first Jersey cow known in America was
owned by Mr. Richard ilorris, of Philadelphia,
kept at his farm on the Delaware River near
that city, and is mentioned in the " Annals of the
Philadelphia Society for the Promotion of Agri-
culture" for 1815, as remarkable for making 8 lbs.
12ozs. of butter per week for several weeks.
In 1840, thre3 cows were imported by Nicholas
Biddle, of Bucks County, Pennsylvania; these were
JERSEYS AND AYUSIIIRKS.
395
soou aJtleil to, and tlie herd thus established is
still in existence. About 1S50 this stock hcfjau
to attract attention, and several large importa-
tions were made, notably those of Mv. John A.
Taintor, of Hartford, Connecticut, and Mr. Roswell
L. Colt, of Paterson, New Jersey. Five years
later. Jerseys, then very generally called Alderneys,
became quite numerous in Maryland, Pennsylvania,
New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Massa-
chusetts. The American importations of pure
Jerseys are estimated by Colonel George E. Waring,
Secretary to the American Jersey Cattle Club,
at seventy per year from 1870 to 1876, and
from 100 to 150 annually since that time. At
first cattle were brought rather indiscriminately
from the Channel Islands, a good many Guern-
seys being mixed in with the Jerseys. But the
distinction was soon made ; animals were bred
pure, in 1868 "The American Jersey Cattle Club"
was formed, and in 1870 the fu'st volume of ''The
Herd Register" was issued under its direction.
This publication has reached its eighth volume,
and contains in all the pedigrees of 5,091 males
and 10,815 females. Another "American Jersey
Herd Book," commenced in 1866 by a committee
of associated breeders, has reached its eighth
volume, and contains 6,695 pedigrees; a good
ruany animals are recorded in both. Want of
care on the part of the early importers and owners
both in breeding and in records, prevented the entry
of many excellent animals in the " Jersey Club
Register," under its rules. The great service
rendered by this club in introducing and ad-
vertising the Jersey blood is admitted by all;
but appearances of exclusiveness, jockeyism, and
ring rule have caused distrust and impaired its
usefulness. Of 25,000 genuine Jerseys alive in
America, not more than half are entered in the
" Register " named. The non-registered animals are,
as a whole, fully as valuable for dairy puiiwses,
and include some of the iinest cows in the country
The increase in full-blood Jerseys in America will
probably be 10,000 in the year 1881, while the
grade Jerseys are becoming still more numerous.
Grades of this breed are much sought, and are
multiplying as fast in the dairy districts as Short-
horn grades are in the beef-producing sections.
Jersey blood is undoubtedly doing more than any
other to improve the dairy-stock of America,
especially in the butter-producing sections. Jerseys
are great favourites for gentlemen's estates, as
53
family cows, and are fast gaining as farm dairy-
stock. They are owned in nearly every State in
the Union, and are very popular in the South and
on the Pacific coast.
Ayrshires began to attract attention in the
United States soon after 1830, and first in New
England. A few importations are noted in New
York in 18:J2, and in Canada in lS.3;i. Mr.
Gushing, of Watertown, Massachusetts, had a fine
herd in 18-'37, and the ^lassachusetts Society made
importations that year, also in 1815 and 1858.
There are records of Ayrshire importations almost
every year after 1815. There are two Ayrshire herd-
books published in America. The first was begi n
in 1803, under the auspices of the " Association
of Breeders of Thoroughbred Neat Stock," and
four volumes were edited by Mr. J. N. Bagg, of
West Springfield, Massachusetts. The second
volume appeared in 1868 as the "American;"
the third and fourth were published in 1871 and
1874, and called " The American and Canadian.''
July 1st, 1874', the pedigrees numbered 1,576
males and 3,309 females, and the owners 376.
In 1876 the fifth volume of this series was issued
as " The Ayrshire Record, Vol. L, New Series,"
J. W. D. French, of North Andover, Massachusetts,
editor. Vol. II. appeared in 1878, and Vol. III.
in November, 1880. The latter brought the total
entries up to 8,000 — males, 3,525, and females,
5,475. Henceforth this "Record" will contain
pedigrees of such animals only as can be traced
directly to importation. This was not the rule
in the early volumes, and it was that lack of
thoroughness which led to " The North American
Ayrshire Register," commenced in 1875 by the
INIessrs. E. L. and J. N. Sturtevant, of South
Framingham, INIassachnsetts. Its fourth volume,
published in 1880, shows 970 bulls and 2,154 cows,
and every animal is traced to importation. "VA'hat
the Jerseys are doing for the butter interests of
America, the Ayrshires are fast rejwating among
the cheese-makers and the milk-producers for city
supply. There are not nearly as many Ayrshires
as Jerseys in the country, however, and they are
less widely scattered. Although want of data
makes the matter very doubtful, it is estimated
that the Ayrshires in America in 1880 number
8,000, mainly held by 600 owners in Canada,
New England, and New York, with more or less
scattered south and west.
Herefords were first imported in lsl6 by
896
DAIRY FARMING.
Ilonry Clay, tlio Keiituoky ?t:i(csmnn, in 1S24 by
parties in ilai^saeluisctts; and in lS-10 Messrs.
Corninfi^ and Latham, of Albany, New York,
brouijht over o bulls and 17 cows and heifers, soon
after adding lai-gcly to these numbers. There have
sinee been a few breeders of this race in the United
States; but while they aj)j)ear occasionally at
shows, and in the agricultural journals, and the
white faces are more or less seen in mixed herils,
they never have been owned in sufficient numbers
to make any decided impression upon the stock of
America. During the year ISSO several large im-
portations were made by Americans, tiie animals
being intended, however, for use in improving
beef-stock rather than for dairy-cattle. No herd-
book for Ilerefords has been issued in America
up to 1881.
The same is true to a great degree of the
Holsteins, or Dutch cattle, although this breed
is somewhat increasing among the producers of
milk near the large cities. Importations are
frequent, and there are several breeding-herds
of twenty to fifty animals in different parts
of the country. " The Herd Record of Ameri-
can Ilolstein Breeders " has reached its fifth
volume.
Guernseys and Swiss cattle have latterly been
imported, and purely bred to some extent, and
both are great favourites with those who know
them. The "American Guernsey Cattle Club"
published a herd-book in 1879, containing the pedi-
grees to importation of about 500 animals of this
breed, and have evidence of nearly as many more
in America which for one cause or another cannot be
registered. These are held mairly, by about 100
owners, in Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut,
and Massachusetts, very few yet in the West, the
South, and Canada.
liUEEDING AND ^MaXAKKMKXT.
No class of American agriculturists embody
more intelligence and enterprise than the dairy-
men, and the remarkable increase in the general
product of this industry is largely to be attributed
to the steady improvement in the quality of the
dairy cattle. The first step taken in this direction
was the better care given to the stock; and
throughout the country it is now generally found
l)rovided with comfortable quarters when not in
pasture, and with sufficient food. The next step
was to raise the average cpiality of native herds by
selection and bneding; this has been less generally
practised, and a decided majority of the heifers of
the country at large are still brought to milk with-
out regard to parentage, or with sole reference to
the quality of the dam. But in the leading dairy
districts, breeders are using good judgment in the
selection of native calves to raise, and recognising
the profit of introducing the blood of improved
breeds, especially by the use of thoroughbred
bulls. Enough is thus accomplished to materially
raise the general average quality. !Many farmers
are either keeping only high grades, or raising
herds of j)ure bloods of different breeds according
to local preference. Few dairymen yet find it
really profitable to keep only thoroughbreds,
unless they are able to advantageously dispose of
their surplus stock at breeders' rates. But high
grades are comparatively cheaji, and nearly equal
thoroughbreds at the pail.
All sorts of crosses have been tried between
the different improved breeds and the natives
of various sections. Among the experiments in
this line has been the attempt to domesticate
the American buffalo, and to cross upon it. The
most successful crosses have been with a domestic
sire upon a buffalo cow. The gain expected has
been from the unusual sweetness and great rich-
ness of the milk of the buffalo cow, often one-
third cream ; but the cream is colourless, the
quantity of milk small, and improvement in these
points has been looked for as the result of the
cross. Trials have been made at intervals since
1830 in Kentucky, New York, and Canada, among
other jdaces. The results have been successful so
far as domestication is concerned, and the cross-
bred animals are larger than either parent, hardy,
and often a real improvement upon the average
common stock, both for beef and as dairy-cows.
But the trials have been few in the aggregate,
so disconnected and carelessly conducted as to be
jiroductive of little good, and the true value of
utilising the buff'alo blood has thus been allowed
to remain iu question until it is probable that it
never will be fully determined. The subject is
here mentioned chiefly as one of the curiosities
of cross-breeding in America, and the accompany-
ing engraving is presented in this connection. It
rej)resents a half-buffalo cow, about five years old,
weight 1,330 lbs., and a heifer calf of the former,
about twenty months old. The resemblance of
the latter to the Jersey typo is marked, yet its
THE JAMHSTOWX CATTLE.
397
li'om common
tiireo-fourtli!^ oE dnmestic blood
native bulls as sire and grandsire.
Another experiment at cross-broedino' in
America has been so successful as to be worthy
oH notice; indeed it may be said to have laid the
foundation for a new breed of cattle in the State of
JMassaehusetts, known as the " Jamestowns." They
are hornless cattle, and begin with a bull "James-
town/' dropped in ISa-i by a Suffolk polled cow-
admixture of other blond. The "Jamestowns"
became so uniform in excellence and appearance,
and so numerous, as to be recog-nised in 1S78
by the Norfolk County (Massachusetts) Agricul-
tural Society as a separate class, in its premium
lists. The most noted of the bulls of this breed (?)
in 1878, was " St. Patrick," owned by Mr. A. W.
Cheever of Sheldonville, Massachusetts (editor of
the NeiP England Farmer). A likeness of this
liKKI) ElTFALOEFs.
imported from Ireland during the famine of 1SI7,
in the United States' relief ship from which this
bull was named. The sire was a fidl-blooded
Jersey from " jNIotley's Flora," a very famous
cow, imported in 1851 by the Massachusetts Society.
The progeny of the bull " Jamestown " proved re-
markable, the females very deep and rich milkers,
as were his dam and graudam, the males hardy,
thrifty and gentle, and all of both sexes polled,
no matter what the dams. The family has been
kept up by crosses of Ayrshire and Jersey, the
polled calves only retained, until it is suflicieut
in numbers to perpetuate itself without further
Indl is herewith given. Ilis dam was a James-
town cow, " Ruby," who lived to be Hfteen v-oars
old without ever being dry, and whose calves were
all polled, although several were by pure Jersey
sires. i\Ir. Cheever'.s herd consists mainly of
cows by " St. Patrick," and they are quite uniform
in appearance, although the Jersey blood some-
times shows in the colour. The breediug has
been for quality rather than quantity, and the
annual butter product, per cow, the herd through,
has been ilO, ^55, 260, 261, 256 and 205 lbs. for
the last six years. The comiianion of the liull in
the engraving is "Susie," a cow in Mr. Chccver's
398
DAIKY FARMING.
lieril ; she was almut six years old wlieii plidto-
grai)lu'il. This cow usually gave It Id 1(j ([uarts
of milk a day when at her best, and held up to
10 quarts for months. She was butchered iu
1880, when tea years old, aud while still giving
some milk — 080 lbs. was her dressed weight.
Experience seems to demonstrate that the best
cow for the average .\meriean dairy, yielding the
greatest returns in j)vii])(irtion to cost, is to be got
" .My experience in breeiling dairy-cows for ]irofit-
able use began in 1 ^ t4-, when 1 ]iurebased and
stocked a farm near this city, and have continued
right here for thirty-five years. I had Devons for
a time, then Ayrsliires, crossing them without suc-
cessful results. About twenty-five years ago I
purchased a few thorough brcnl Jerseys from some
of the early imjiortations to Connecticut, to try
them and to cross with the different breeds then on
Fig. 214.— Jamestown Cattle.
out of a well-selected native cow, by a thorough-
bred bull. If milk or cheese is wanted, the sire is
Ayrshire; if butter, a Jersey. Some prefer the
Shorthorn bull from a good milking strain, that tlie
animal obtained may, when desirable, be more readily
turned into beef. The most competent judges
agree that the very best milcli-eow for all purjioses
is the cross of a Jersey sire upon an Ayrshire dam,
but with prevailing prices of jmre bloods this makes
an expensive animal to raise. On this point, the
following is valuable as the testimony of one of the
most successful breeders of milch-cows in America,
Mr. Thomas Filch, of New London, Connecticut :
my farm. I have tried them with all the various
breeds ever owned by me, and the result of my
experiments is, that the cross of a Jersey bull with
an Ayrshire cow produces the best cow for all
]i\u'poses ever bred or owned by me. Next, in my
juilgment, is this same cross with a good native
cow ; next, with a good milking Shorthorn; next,
with Dutch;" next, the saci'cd cow of India; and
last, with the Devon. The fact is well establi.shed
that with whatever breed you cross a Jersey bull,
the infusion of his lilood adds to the richness of the
milk, and the hardiness of the breed crossed on is
not impaired, and, as a rule, the udder and teats, as
FAVOIRITE AMERICAN CROSS-BRED CATTLE.
399
well as the careass, of the ijnule, are enlarged. So
that you really have a better cow, in all ])oints,
in a high-grade Jersey than in a thoroughbred.
By ' all points ' I mean production, economy in
keeping, form, size, and beauty. I feel confident
that if these facts were known and appreciated, and
pure Jersey bulls were generally used in the dairy
districts of America, a raes of cows could be pro-
duced, bj' raising the heifer calves of the best
milkers, that would double the annual products of
the average herds as they now are, and this with
ence. The largest yield of milk per day of any
cow I have ever bred was 57 lbs., and the largest
yield of butter in one week, 17i weighed pounds,
both jn-oduced when fresh on grass, and (i ipiarts
of ground feed jwr day."
Mr. Fitch furnishes the accompanying portrait
of one of his cross-bred Jersey-Ayrshire heifers.
This one is about two years old, has been in milk
four or five mouths, and yields on grass and two
quarts of bran, 17 lbs. or ISlbs. of milk a day,
which makes rather more than one jjound of butter.
Fig. 215.— Ceo.ss bred Jersey- Ateshike Heifek.
but a small outlay for thoroughbred Jersey sires.
The animals bred and handled by me number many
hundreds. The best age to allow heifers to calve
the first time is when they are about two years old
and at grass. I make it a rule to turn the bull
with my j-oung heifers on the 23th of August each
year, making it certain that they will have their
first calf in pasture where they can choose their
place to bring forth their young as nature shall
dictate. They almost invariably do well, and make
better cows than to come in a year later. I never
had a ease of milk fever in my herd, and think
they would be quite rare if cows were not forced
w'ith high feed and fussed with. I have only had
four or five cases of abortion in my whole experi-
The owner considers her a fair sample of the dairy-
cows of this class bred by him.
Another cross which promises exceptionally
good results, but has not yet been tried long
enough to establish any definite facts, is that of
the Jersey bull and the Swiss cow.
The dairy districts do not, as a whole, raise
heifers enough to suj)ply the local demands ; daiiy-
men are able to buy average native cows, three
years old, and in some cases superior milkers, bred
at a distance, for much less than the cost of raising
such animals at home. In an essay on dairying,
which won a handsome prize, and which was open
to all Americans, the writer's advice to the dairy-
men of the United States was : — " Let the calf suck
400
DAIRY FARMTXO.
three times, ami kill il ; its rennet is of more value
than its life." The cost of raisin'^' a heifer well,
until the first calf, is estimated in New York and
New Enf>-laiul at fifty dollai"s amouo' butter-makers
and at seventy dollars among milk-dairymen. They
can therefore onl}' afford to raise cows worth seventy
dollars or more, which is far aliovc the average
price of young dairy-cows. The calves raised in
sections where milk has a low market value, gene-
rally run witli their dams, and the most success-
ful breeders of strictly first-class animals, although
comparatively few in numljer, let the mothers suckle
their calves, even where milk has its hig'hest value,
or sometimes put two calves to one cow. The
usual practice in dairying regions is to take the
calf from the cow when very young, teach it to
drink, feed it on new milk for a few days, then
change to skim-milk, often stirring in a little oil-
meal and oatmeal, and many prefer sour milk after
the calf is five or six weeks old. As soon as pos-
sible, the calf is taught to eat oats, bran, and fine
hay. After weaning from the dam or the jDail, the
young animals generally have only pasturage and
bidky food, hay, or " long forage " of some sort,
until arriving at maturity ; although among choice
stock, where the prospective value of the heifer
warrants the expL'uditure, grain food is added in
the judgment of the breeder. Some breeders do
not turn their calves upon grass at all the first year,
but give only dry food till the second spring,
claiming that, although unnatural, this method
gives the best results. Heifers of common stock
usually calve first the si)ring they are three years
old, high grades being brought to milk a year
earlier. Some eminent breeders of dairy-cows
i^refer to have their heifers come in on dry feed,
dui-ing the autumn or winter b.'fore completing
their third year.
The general management of milch-cows in
Ameinca is on the basis of jiasturage in the summer
and feeding during the winter in stalls or sheds,
hay or " fodder," and moi'e or less grain. The
details of herd management differ greatly. The
pasture season ranges from five to eight months
in different ])arts of the country, averaging six
months through the regions where dairying is a
leading industry. There are places where dairy-
ing is prominent, that have a climate enabling
the cows to sustain themselves mainly by grazing
throughout the year. Various tests show that the
average cow eats lOU lbs. of grass daily while
in ])asture, and accordingly the nece.-sary area of
pa.sturage deiKMids upon the productiveness of the
land. The average allowance is about two acres
per cow, for the season. This is considere<l enough
in the West, where the jiasturage is of the best
natund grasses on prairies and strong uplands. In
Herkimer County, New York, and Berkshire
County, Massachusetts, the best judges state that
three acres yield the necessary pasture and hay for
a cow for the year. Prize dairy reports in the
State of New York, in ditfei-ent years, give these
facts : — 16 cows on 30 acres ; 13 cows on 30 acres ;
29 cows on 55 acres ; 28 cows on GO acres. Dairy-
men differ very much on the subject of frequent
changes of jiasture ; some shift the herd to fresh
pasturage fortnightly, and others consider this
practice highly injurious. Soiling is not often
resorted to by practical dairymen in America,
although trials prove that the system enables the
number of animals on a given area to be doubled,
and the increase of manure saved is a great item.
It is usual, however, for green crops to be raised to
feed at times when the pastures are short and dry,
as is often the case in August in many parts of the
country. In sections where stable manure is valu-
able, it is a common practice to keep the cows in
yards or stalls at night, and at pasture daily,
during the spring and fall, and through the day
during the hottest weather and the lly season,
turning them into pasture at night.
^Vheu not at pasture American dairy-cows arc,
as a rule, well-housed. Indeed, in the best dairy
regions the fine large barns, which not only give
comfortable cpiarters to the entire stock, but cover
all the food needed for half the year, ai'c the pride
of the farmers. The barns are so capacious, that
stacks of hay and straw in the open air are rarely
seen in the Eastern and Middle States. When at
the barn, the cows remain most of the time in their
stalls, and are usually fed there, being turned into
yards for water and exercise; sometimes they are
foddered in racks in the yards, or unler sheds.
The term " fodder " is used to cover all long forage,
hay, stray, anl stover, although more especially
applied to the latter, the cured stalk and blades of
the Indian corn jdant. In some sections of the
country, " roughness " is an idiomatic synon^'m for
fodder. On many dairy farms the good bay is
regarded as a crop for sale, and fed to cows as
a rarity, unless low in pi'iee. If the hay is sold,
corn-fodder mainly rcpkices it. ^Vhen the latter is
FEEDING IN AMERICAN DAIRIi:S.
401
foil wliolc, as is the iii iieral j ractieo, llicrt' is imicli
waste, aud at least 50 lbs. of stover per clay is
needed for each cow. Many cut into inch lengths,
savinu; at least one-third in weig-ht, aud greatly
facilitating the handling of the yard and stable
manure. Some make an additional saving by
steaming the eorn-fodder, as well as hay and other
food. It has been pietty well established that the
good resulting from steaming the food for stock
arises from the moislening rather than the cooking,
and the moisture can be obtained much more
economically than by the often elaborate apparatus
for steaming ; hence the advocates of cooking all
food for cattle are fewer than they were some years
ago. By cutting and coaxing, much straw is used
as cattle-feed, but with little profit in the dairy ; in
the East, the wheat and rye straw, which is limited
in quantity, goes to the paper-mills, or is sold for
stable bedding in the cities and towns; in the
Middle States it is worked into manure by bedding,
&c., when not fed; and in the West, wasted or
burned to get it out of the way.
The addition of roots to the winter diet is
becoming more and more common in the best dairy
regions of America, the favourites being common
turnips, swedes, mangolds, and potatoes : many
cabbages are used. Carrots can be profitably
added in some sections, but are generally found
too expensive because of the labour required, and
parsnips are seldom used in this country for stock.
The " coming root " for dairying districts of the
United States is believed to be the sugar beet, in
connection with the establishment of beet-sugar
factories.
As to grain-feeding, dairymen generally agree
that it increases the milk product, improves its
quality, adds to the value of the manure, thereby
benefiting the farm, and enables more animals
to be kept on a given number of acres at a
greater net profit. Yet heavy grain-feeding is
attended with much risk, and some find that by
greater care in improving the quality of the
pasturage, and using only the best early-cured
hay as winter food, grain can be entirely dis-
pensed with, and the returns of the herd remain
undiminished. Indian corn-meal is the most
common grain-food used by dairymen, and un-
doubtedly the best ; the coarser parts of wheat
(known variously as bran, shorts, middlings,
brown-stuff, and mill-stuff), rye-meal, oats to
a limited extent, and brewers' grains, are all in
use as fond for milch-cows, in the I'uited St;ites
and Canadii. Brewers' grains are decidedly
ol)jectionable, unless used very moderately and
with good judgment. Near corn and potato-
starch factories— numerous in some localities —
the refuse called " starch-feed " is added to the
list. The expensive linseed meal has been largely
replaced by cotton-seed meal, which is valuable
if carefully used, but bej'ond a certain limit
imparts a bad flavour to milk and butter.
Twenty-five pounds of good hay, or its nutritive
equivalent, aud ten pounds of grain, may be
stated as the average daily feed for the milch-
cows of enterprising dairymen, at least one peck of
roots being added when practicable. The grain
being a mixture of corn-meal and bran, careful
butter-makers object to more than half bran, and
prefer three-fourths meal, while milk-producers
desire these proportions reversed.
The following ai'e good examples of the systems
of feeding prevailing among dairymen in different
parts of America : —
Some years since. Prof. E. W. Stewart, of New
York, selected 100 acres of land on his farm for
trial, and took the judgment of his neighbours as
to how many cattle that area would pasture during
the summer. It was thus decided that thirty-five
head would be a fair numljer. He accordingly put
in his barn that number of dairy-cows, from 3 to
8 years old, to be fed from those 100 acres from
May 30th to Dec. 1st. Ninety acres of the land
were left in fair meadow, 5 were in clover, 3
in corn-fodder, and 2 in oats. He began cutting
the clover when 8 inches high ; the grass was also
cut and fed. But instead of using it all, he had a
surplus of 05 tons of hay to put in the barn for
winter use, or to sell. The grass was cut by a
machine, raked with a horse, and drawn to the
barn in a cart, one man being employed six hours a
day in cutting and collecting fodder, and feeding
the stock. About two hours of horse-labour was
also required daily. The whole cost of the extra
labour amomited during the summer to less than
100 dollars, and the hay saved was sold at the
barn for 973 dollars. Adding the cost of cutting
and storing the hay, there remained a net profit
of soiling over pasturage of 775 dollars for the
season, on 100 acres.
Mr. A. W. Cheever, of Pine Hedge Farm,
Sheldonville, Massachusetts, gives this account of
his methods, dated Nov., 1878 : — "I use the term
402
DAIRY FAR MING.
'soiliiif^-' only as it i-elatus to fc'0(liii<4- in the stall,
as uf^-aiust pasturiiiji;'. 1 do not aim to have just
enou^-h "[recu focklcr for my animals, and no more,
but feed <4-reen or dry material as is most convenient.
I feed in the stable because I therel)y save fodder,
and can keep more stock. I have few acres to
cultivate, and aim to make the most of them. !My
farm consists of 26 acres under cultivation, and
6 in ])asture, besides what is occupied by garden
and buildings. I have bought no hay or other
food for animals, except grain, since 187(5, and the
stock has all been kept at home. Last year I kept
an average of 28 animals through the winter, and
had about 4 tons of hay left over when I began
feeding the new crops. Have 26 head now,
including 3 horses, 15 milch-cows, a large bull,
4 yearling heifers, and 3 summer calves. I have
plenty of fodder to carry me through the winter,
without doubt. ]">very fall I sow a broad area
to winter rye, begin to cut it in tlie spring
just as the heads first show themselves, and con-
tinue to cut and feed green till it gets too hard,
which is before the blossoms fall. The rest is
then all made into hay for winter feeding. By
the time the rye is too old, I have orchard grass
ready to mow, and the pasture affords some feed
at that time. Orchard-grass is followed by red
clover, and frecjuciitly these two are grown
together. These, with June grass (Ky. blue)
which often grows with both, fill up the time
between the feeding of winter rye and the main
crop of English grasses, chiefly red-top and timothy.
Oats are sown as early in spring as the condition
of the ground will permit, and the crop is ready to
cut immediately after the English grasses. I have
sown spring rye several years, and obtain a cutting
a week or more before the oats are ready, but as
the spring rye comes just when the pasture is at
its best, I find little need of this crop. It is a
valuable one when soiling is practised exclusively.
The next crop sown after oats is corn, then mill'_'t.
These both need warm weather for ])ro(ital)le
culture. Oats, corn, and millet are each sown at
intervals of a week or ten days, to bring a succes-
sion of tender feed through the season. Corn and
millet are sown to last till early frosts in autumn,
when their place is taken by barley sown in mid-
summer. The latter is very valuable for feeding
in October and November, as it is not much
injured by frosts. Cabbages and turnips may be
used still later, but as my milk is designed to make
a choice article of butter, I have not felt quite safe
in feeding such rank-flavoured food. I also feed
freely of com fodder during the late fall months, by
cutting it when in bloom, and preserving in stooks
in the open field, or by standing it up in long, wide
piles against fences. All the crops named can be
cut and cured for winter fodder if there should be
a surplus. In order to certainly have enough of
everything for feeding green during its season, I
grow more than needed in the more favourable
seasons. The land of ' Pine Hedge Farm ' is very
uneven in quality, and although I do not consider
the keeping of one animal to the acre the year
through (grain excepted) its maximum production,
I cannot expect here to obtain the results possible
on better land. One who adopts soiling, and carries
out the system judiciously, will soon find he can
feed dry hay or other fodder in summer, quite as
economically as in winter. Dry hay is just as
good for a cow in July as in January. A liberal
supply of dry early-cut and well-cured fodder
should be provided for feeding during stormy
weather, and for mixing with green food when the
condition of the animals seems to require it. Dry
feed is a great deal better than green fodder covered
with water in stormy weather, to say nothing of the
job of collecting fodder in a hard rain for a barnful
of hungry cattle. I endeavour to keep tlie whole
farm in growing crops from early spring till the
ground closes up, and most of the land is made to
produce two or more crops during the season."
One of the Massachusetts Charitable Institu-
tions has a large farm attached, including much
hilly pasturage, and has carried a herd of Ayrshires
which has made a fine milk record. The Super-
intendent states that he kept the cows for their
milk, and regarded as the best food the sweet
grass which grows upon the hill-sides, and is
cropped by the cows day by day; with plenty
of this nothing else was needed. In the summer,
when grass was short, he fed early mown hay,
cut with some meal or bran upon it. He considei-s
hay and Cdrn-fudder inferior food for milch-cows,
if fed dry. In winter he feeds twice a day, with
cut h;iy and Judder, and two quarts of bran per
ciiw eiiili linii', wotting with warm water in lieu
of steaming, and from a peek to one half-bushel of
roots per cow, daily. He tries to feed roots from
the time the cows are jnit into the stalls jn the
autumn until they are turned out to pasture in
the spring. Never found root-feeding injurious
ami:rica.\ systems of dairy feeding.
403
to the Hmvoui- ul' milk ; alwii^'s IVil the roots
immeiliulely after milking.
At a meeting of the "Connecticut Board of
Agriculture " a prominent member stated that
lie was engaged in developing an enterprise
involving the winter production of milk for city
supply, in a section formerly much occupied in
the fattening of cattle. He regarded hay as
the basis of all winter-feeding, and that made
from the natural and cultivated grasses, gro^vu
on upland meadows, as the most valuable, if cut
early and nicely cured. This to be supplemented
with sowed corn and the annual grasses. The
system adopted by him to secure the greatest
yield of good milk was as follows : — A light feed
of hay was given the first thing in the morning,
and eaten up clean in ten or fifteen minutes,
during the milking; then the grain feed, ground,
was given dry with a little salt. In about an
hour the cows were let out to go to water, and
he preferred they should go several rods to drink
from warm springs and get exercise, rather than
drink almost frozen water from a tank in the
yard. While absent, the stables were cleaned,
and another feed about the same as first given,
and the cows put up immediately on their return.
They were then able to stand or lie down, at
their choice, in an atmosphere almost as genial in
respect to temperature and purity as that of the
family sittiug-room. If feeding roots they were
given just before milking at night, and the last
feed of the day was given immediately after;
this being always the fullest of the day, for
cows are observed when at pasture to always make
their largest meal just before night.
The President of the American Jersey Cattle
Club, from whose fine herd a " gilt-edged " article
of butter has been made that sold for 75 cents a
pound for several years, gives this simple statement
of the treatment of his cattle : — "They are pastured
when possible, and fed during summer and autumn,
more or less sowed corn, pumpkins and sugar
beets. During the winter good moderately early
cut hay is fed, morning and evening, after having
been cut and moistened with cold water, and
sprinkled over with equal parts of Indian meal
and wheat bran, at the rate of one quart of the
mixed grain per cow, at each feed. After this
cut-feed in the morning, each one has about a
peek of sugar l)eets, also a little salt. A feeding of
long hay is given in the middle of the day. The
54
cows are let out into the yard for water, after their
morning and mid-day meals. They are carded and
brushed every morning. In the stable, they stand
in stanchions on a platform. They have the liberty
of a warm, sunny yard for several hours, every fine
day. On this regimen the cows keep in good store
and breeding condition."
Mr. Burnett gives this account of the manage-
ment of butter-making Jerseys upon his famous
Deerfoot Farm in Eastern Massachusetts : — " My
cow stables are warm and sheltered; in the winter
a trough of pure water is always in front of the
cows : the entire interior of the stables is white-
washed every month. The cows are bedded with
dry loam or sand, and brushed or carded twice
every day. In the spring they are let out into
a sheltered yard, open only to the south, for
about one hour every day. The morning milk-
ing is done at half-past five in winter, and at
five in summer, the second at five in the after-
noon. A daily record is kept of each cow, on
printed blanks, which are handed to me every
Sunday morning. One man does all the feeding,
beginning the first thing in the morning, with a
generous feed of roweu hay, while the others are
cleaning up the stables before milking. I always
cut my grass early in June, and two crops and
often three, during the season. After breakfast,
at half-past si.\, the feeder gives each cow in
milk, four quarts of meal of Northern corn,
ground with the cobs, or, if our supply gives
out, two quarts of clear Western corn-meal,
mixed with an equal quantity of wheat bran.
After this, more hay which they clean up by
nine o'clock. They are not fed again until 3 p.m.,
when one bushel of yellow globe mangolds, that
have been through a root-cutter, is divided between
every three cows. Then a liberal feed of hay,
which is final ; this fed slowly, a little at a time,
prolonging the meal. In dry seasons, I feed some
grain during the summer, and at night add one
feed of rowen or wilted clover."
The follow'ing is a fair sample of many con-
densed statements of management by average
farmers, in the Agricultural Reports of the Eastern
States : — A.D. 187-1'. Thirteen cows, averaged
2,315 quarts milk per annum. Income, 90 dollars
per cow ; net income, 23^ dollars per cow, and
manure pays for care. Milk at 5 a.m., and then
feed all the hay cows will eat. Card and water,
then give 3 quarts shorts and 1 quart cither corn-
404
DAIKY FARMING.
meal or cotton-seed meal. Leave eows till .'S ]i.m.
Repeat feeding and watering and milk at o p.m.
Cows dry about ten weeks.
Experiments upon the comparative value of
corn-meal and wheat-bran in makins^ milk and
butter were carefully made at the New Hamp-
shire Agricultural College in 1S77, with these
results : — Taking two lots of cows as equal as
possible, those of lot No. 1 were fed on bran
during the month of February and on corn-meal
in March ; lot No. 2 on meal in February and
bran in March. Those fed on corn-meal gave the
most milk, or the greater increase, and decidedly
more and better butter ; they also increased most
in weight. Weight of lot No. 1, March 1st,
l,9()Ulbs. ; same, April 3rd (meantime fed corn-
meal), 2,0.50 lbs.; gain, 1.56 lbs. Weight of lot
No. 2, March 1st, 2,024 lbs. ; same, April 3rd
(after bran-feeding), 2,117 lbs. ; gain, 93 lbs.
Lot No. 1 for February required 33"2 oz. milk to
1 oz. butter ; same, for March, 28"5 to 1. Lot
No. 2, for February, 29-2 to 1, and for March,
32-4. to I.
"The Miller System of i\Ical Feeding," so
called because of its chief advocate, L. W. Miller,
of Chantauqua, New York, has received a good deal
of attention, and been much discussed at meetings
of dairymen. It substitutes corn-meal for coarse
forage as much as possible at all times, making it
the exclusive food for the cow when dry. Herds
have been thus maintained in good condition for
weeks without hay or other long fodder, and after-
wards produced line calves and made excellent dairy
records. The corn-meal is fed dry, from 3 to 5 quarts
per day, with a little salt, and water carried to the
cow; but she drinks very little. Mr. ]\Iiller has
caiTied a herd of twenty cows through an entire
winter with meal alone, all the cows being dry at
the start, but most of them calving five or six
weeks before hay was fed ; for the cows in milk
the meal Avas wet, and 5 quarts fed daily (about
10 lbs.). The result was a full quantity of superior
butter. The Aliller S^-stem has been published in
pamphlet form, and well exj)lained in the tenth
annual report of the American Dairymen's Asso-
ciation, 1875.
The foregoing illustrates only the mamgement
of careful dairymen. In the great corn-growing
States of the West, where land and grain are
cheap (and cattle, too, compfiratively), there is
far less care of the animals and much more jirinii-
tive methods of feeding, often involving great
waste. This, too, in regions already famous for
the quantity and excellence of their dairy products.
There, especially in the milder sections, sheds are
often the only protection for cows in winter, the
prairie grass the summer feed, and for wnter
bundles of corn-fodder, the entire plant of the
maize as cut from its root, including the ears of
grain. Still worse, the treatment by some who
f/ii)i/: their cows pay is described as a combination
of "wind and straw'' for care and food.
On the contrary, the best dairymen of the West
are as careful as those of the East, and some are
even higher feeders. For example, Mr. Boies, of
Illinois, a very successful butter-maker, keeping in
milk one hundred cows, selected from the native
stock, considers his success owing to the best of
food and care. For summer he has good tame
pasture, with plenty of clean, sweet water, and at
each end of the day, while milking, he gives
2 quarts of corn-meal and 4 quarts of bran. For
winter, a warm stable, plenty. of early-cut hay or
cured prairie grass, well-cured stover, Hungarian
hay, and oats cut when about half turned and well
cured ; then each end of day a feed of 8 lljs. of
corn and oats, ground fine, 4 lbs. of wheat-bran,
and 2 lbs. of oil-meal— more if the cow will bear
it, less if it prove too much. "Bear in mind there
are five cows at least that don't get food enough
to make feeding pay, to one fed too much. The
cow should always have a comfortable bed of clean
straw or saw-dust — in short, the cow should be
treated like a fine horse." Mr. Boies practises on
this theory, and finds it profitable. Although the
cost of feed consumed by each cow has reached, at
the low Western prices, G2i dollars for the year,
the butter product alone sold for 11!) dollars the
same year, a net profit on each cow of 5(ii dollars
cash. Besides that, the buttermilk and skim-milk,
by being fed to swine, gave in pork and manure
an additional income sufficient to pay for the
stabling and care of the cow, and a fair interest
upon her cost ! Under this management cows are
kept four or five years, then dispo.sed of and re-
placed by purchase.
PiiODUCE OF American Cows.
The records of the performances of dairy-cows
in America are voluminous and interesting. The
census of 1870 reports dairy products, which, when
reduced to a milk cquivahnt, show an average
YIELD OF REMARKABLE COWS.
405
annual pvoduet of only 705 quarts per cow, for
the United States. This is manifestly too low,
and probably the milk consumed at home, at least
one-third of the total yield, was not fjenerally re-
ported. Mr. Dodge, while Statistician of the United
States Department of Agriculture, estimated the
annual yield at 1,S00 quarts per cow in the best
dairy sections; l,:i00 quarts, or less, between lati-
tude 35*^ and 40'^, and about 700 quai-ts on the
Gulf coast; an average of 1,300 quarts for the whole
Ignited States. The best authorities substantially
agree with these figures for the year 1S75, but be-
lieve the general average to be steadily increasing
since. Dr. Sturtevaut says, 1,300 quarts for the
annual average yield of the native cows in the
dairy regions, and 1,800 quarts for superior dairies.
This means an an-
nual income of from
25 to 45 dollars, or
more, per cow^, at
the pail. The fol-
lowing particulars
are given as to the
products of different
kinds of dairy cattle.
Natives. — The re-
cords of 67 dairies of
native cows, which
received premiums
from State Agricul-
tural Societies be-
tween theyears 1846
and 1876, cover 2,228 cows, and give an average
annual yield per cow of 2,103 quarts of milk;
180 lbs. of butter, or 393 lbs. of cheese. Among
these are the following cases : — A New York
dairyman, after several years' careful selection
from common stock, obtained a herd of 16 cows,
which averaged for two years 3,268 quarts of
milk each, per year, and with milk worth 2J
cents a quart, gave a net return of 100"59 dollars
per cow. The herd of Zadock Pratt, a well-known
dairyman of Greene County, New York, of which
a careful record was kept covering the seven years
from 1857 to 1863, inclusive, gave as the average
result, 55 cows, 4,710 lbs. or 2,160 quarts of
milk, 186 lbs. of butter. The milk product
steadily decreased from 1852 to 1861 and then
remained stationary, while the butter product in-
creased from 130 lbs. per cow in 1852 to 225 lbs.
in 1863; and the value of each animal's auniial
Fig. 216.— The "Oake8 Cow.
product, including skimmed milk turned into pork
and veal, increased from 37i dollars to 68 dollars.
At Waushakum Farm, in IMassachusetts, a dairy of
33 native cows was obtained by careful purchases,
and a standing offer by Dr. Sturtevant of 100
dollars for any cow giving over 40 lbs. of milk
a day; this herd produced in the years 1867, 1868,
and 1869, an average of 2,079 quarts of milk
annually per cow.
Among numerous records of the perfomiances
of single native cows, the following are well
authenticated : — A cow in Western Massachusetts,
in 1838, had averaged 377 lbs. of butter a year
for three years, and produced 942 lbs. in 911
consecutive days. The "Vermont Cow'' or Scott
cow, 9 years old in 1865, gave 504 lbs. of butter,
which sold for about
ICO dollars in gold;
the most remarkable
thing in this case
l)eing that the only
feed of the cow was
grass and hay. The
Canadian cow " Ep-
pie " averaged for
seven years 4,380
quarts of milk, sold
i'or 175 dollars a
year ; she was in
milk 270 days each
year, only three-
fourths of the time,
so averaged 16 quarts a day for the whole
milking period. On Waushakum Farm, before
mentioned, the greatest annual product of one
native cow was 3,703 quarts, and the greatest
average of one cow for three years was 2,673
quarts. The most wonderful native record is
that of the " Oakes Cow," so called, winner
of the first premium for milch-cows at the
IMassachusetts State Fair in 1816. This cow
was bred in Kennebec County, Maine, and was
bought from a drove on its way to Brighton
market, near Boston, 1813, by a Massachusetts
farmer from whom the cow was named. She was
then about five years old, and her fame as a
milker having reached the officers of the State
Society, the trial was made under their super-
vision. As a type of the best dairy-cows of
the common stock of America, at that time,
her portrait is here given, borrowed from Flint's
406
DAIRY FAR:\riNG.
"Milcli Cdws and D.iiry F:iriiiin<;'." She calvi-d
May loth, IS 15, and for ."U \vi>eks averaged i(J lbs.
of butter, with a total of 581 lbs. in 9 months,
when she went dry, February, 181G. She was
fresh again April 5th, ISIO, and in ^5 weeks made
480 lbs. of butter, besides suckling a calf for five
weeks. The fair then occurred, and the record
ceases, but this cow must liave produced COO
lbs. of butter in that year. Her feed during
the whole trial was the best of grass or hay,
and all her own skimmed milk, thickened with
7 lbs. of Indian corn-meal a day; her greatest
yield in one day was -lli lbs. of milk, not large.
None of her calves proved remarkable milkers.
Grades. — No herd records of grades are of any
value, as the animals in almost all cases vary
in the degree of improved blood, and often in
the breed used in crossing. Among the famous
single yields are these : — A grade Shorthorn in
New Jersey is recorded as giving 4,8:13 quarts
of milk, making 42-'5 lbs. of butter, which yielded
a net profit of 1:J3 dollars; Henry Saltonstall
of Peabody, jMassachu setts, owned a grade cow
seven-eighths Jersey, which gave 13,005 lbs. or
5,974 quarts in one year, the largest flow being
28 quarts a day. The All is Cow, at Springfield,
Massachusetts, a cr^ss of Durham and Ayrshire,
eight years old, weighing 1,070 lbs., calved April
28th, 1877,andprior to July 1st, 1878 (14months),
gave 15,043 lbs. or 6,942 quarts of milk, being
over 0,000 quarts a year. This cow, dry in July,
calved again in August, 1878, and at the present
writing is repeating her previous record ; her
food is good hay, grass, green corn-fodder, and
a wet mess twice a day, warmed in winter, of
five quarts of mixed corn-meal and shorts, potatoes
and turnips being added occasionally. The largest
milker known in America -svas " Old Creamer,"
a grade or cross-bred cow owned by General S.
D. Hungerford of Adams, Jefferson County, New
York, who kindly furnished a photograph of the
animal from which the accompanying engraving
was made. The likeness was taken in 1873,
when the cow was nine years old and weighed
1,080 lbs. Little is known of her parentage,
but she was bought on the supposition that she
was seven-eighths Ayrshire, with a mixture of
Shorthorn blood, and perhaps some Jersey. In
the year 1873, she gave in June 2,820 lbs. of
milk, in July 2,483^ lbs., and in September over
2,200 lbs. Iler average for Juno was 94 lbs.
or 13 quarts a day, and in that ninnlh she made
the uniirecedented record uf 400 ll>s. of milk in
four days, as follows : —
1873.
7 a.m.
12 m.
5 P.M.
Total.
June 10th
„ 11th
„ 12th
„ 13th
lb-..
33
33 [
Ihs.
31i
33
34.t
31
\\m.
33.J
34
33
34i
lbs.
98
1001
100
lOli
Four days
132
133
135
400
The fact of this seemingly incredible yield is well
established. This cow refused to drink milk, and
never did; her feed at the time stated was all the
fresh clover she would eat, and four quarts of
ground oats and wheat bran, mixed half-and-half
at each milking. Unfortunately, no prolonged or
systematic trial was made of the performances
of this cow, as a milker. Among the measure-
ments taken from " Old Creamer" were these : Total
length, 71J inches; girth about belly, 96J inches;
at flank, 71 inches; depth of flank, 22^ inches;
udder, oval, broad, extensive, and hanging with
the skin in folds — length, 18 inches; depth of
gland portion, 20 inches ; along gland front to
rear, 29i inches ; semi-circumference, 58 inches.
Shorlhorns. — Herds of Shorthorns exclusively
kept with the dairy as the main object, are so rare
that not enough records can be found to give any
general average. The best examples of this kind
seem to be the herds of Harris Lewis, of Herkimer
('ounty. New York, and J. C. Newhall, of Frank-
lin County, Massachusetts. The records of these
herds for several disconnected years give an average
for about forty cows of 3,200 quarts of milk and
290 lbs. of butter a year; the cows 272 days in
milk. Mr. Newhall's herd of 10 cows, from three
to twelve years old, averaged in 1874, 3,577 quarts
of milk and 325 lbs. of butter made. That year
the income i)er cow was 133 dollars, cost 78 dollars.
The best single performances of dairy Shorthorns to
be found are those of the cows " Maid of Athol "
and " Rose," who gave 5,852 and 5,414 quarts of
milk respectively in the year 1873, from which
there was made 513 and 471 lbs. of butter. The
" Stevens Cow," at Ithaca, New York, a roan,
weighed 1,200 lbs. In June, 1S7S, being eight
years old, she gave in six consecutive days 19^ lbs.
of butter, her flow of milk being 71 lbs. a day,
and her only food being grass.
YIELD OP AMERICAN COWS.
407
irtilfiff/'//,i. — For the same voason as in the case
of the Shorthorns, no general average can he g'iven
for the cows of this breed in America. There
are, however, several authentic records of re-
markable production by Dutch or Ilolstein cows,
singly and in herds. Gerrit S. Miller, of Peter-
boro'. New York, owned three cows, which for
six years averaged -ijUOl quarts of milk each;
their ages at beginning of the trial (1870) were -i,
5, and 6 years. A herd of twelve of these cows
in one year averaged 4,003 quarts of milk and
owned by Mr. Iloxie; beginning with the s<'as(in
of lS7(i, when five years old, her iiverage yield for
four years was 1 1',615 lbs. of milk. She calved
April 3, 1S78, and again February 23, 1879;
during the 336 days she was milked, she produced
15,960ilbs., an average of 47^ lbs. of milk a
day for eleven months. These are but two of
several wonderful statements of milk-pioduction
by Dutch cows in the United States, fully
verified; the butter records are few in numljcr,
but there are several claims of 12, 14, and even
Fig. 217.—" Old Ckeameu."
308 lbs. of butter. S. Hoxie, of Whitestomi,
New York, gives the complete record of the
" Duteh-Friesian " (Holstein) herd of the Una-
dilla Valley Association, eleven cows, ranging
from 3 to 8 years in age, average 4| years ; the
average product was 11,286 lbs. or 5,250 quarts
of milk, and average number of days actually
milked, 341. All calved during the year, and
four of them were milked every day in the year.
Smiths and Powell, of Syracuse, New York,
own "Netherland Queen," who dropped her first
calf in April, 1879, when just two years old, and
her second calf at two days less than a year after,
yet produced meantime 13,.5741bs. of milk. The
best single record is that of " Maid of Twisk,"
18 lbs. produced in a week. It should be noted,
however, that these records are mainly of im-
ported animals ; the American-bred Holsteins, as a
rule, have yet to make their reputation.
AyrMres. — The records of Ayrshire and Jersey
herds are much more numerous and complete, as
they should be, having a closer relation to the
general dairy interests of the country.
Eighteen well-managed herds of Ayrshires,
selected from different sections and averaging
twelve cows each, with complete records running
from two to eight years, give an average annual
production of 2,498 quarts per cow. Only a part
have butter records, but these average 238 lbs. to
the cow. The best record on the whole is that of
408
DAIUV FAinriNO.
Sliu-(cv;int Bros., of "WnusliMkuni Fiiirn, Massa-
chusetts, altliough other herds, smaller and tested
for a shorter time, show laro^er protluets. The
record selected as representative, extends through
eight years, being' eom{)lete as to every milk-
ing of every animal, the average size of the
herd being 13 cows. The herd was kept mainly
for brewling pui-poses and not highly fed. The
following is a statement of the annual average
product jvr cow, and the general average at the
end of each year : —
Year.
Aun'ial Average.
Qiinrtg.
Average to Date.
Quarts.
1870
2,G.S8
—
1871
2,3,S(!
2,537
1872
2,S12
2,G2S
1873
2,503
2,012
1874
2,1)39
2,017
187.5
1,901
2,498
187G
2,620
2,.515
1877
2,406
2,509
The difference between the extremes in the annual
average is 911 quarts, but in the extremes of the
general average only 130 quarts. The cows were
dry from 49 to 8G days a year, an average of 09
days dry annually for the eight j-ears. The record
is complete from 18G8 to 1879, inclusive, twelve
years, but the first two years there wei-e only four
cows, and the last two cover a period of experi-
ment with feeding almost exclusively on com
stover during the winter, wliich reduced the
average product of 11 cows for those years to
2,008 quarts a year. The Ayrshire herd of
J. D. W. French, Cochichewick Farm, North
Andover, Massachusetts, fed very moderately as
breeders, has the following record : —
No. of Cows
Lbs. Milk
1874.
3
1875.
11
1876.
1877.
1878.
1879.
11
12
10
13
6,934
0,218
5,310
5,343
5,316
5,222
This high average, of 2,Gli() quarts a year for six
years, needs modilleation because the record in-
cludes the exceptional production of three selected
cows the first year, and reckons two heifers as one
cow in some of the later years. The following
interesting comparison was made by IMr. Robert
IMcAilam at Rome, New York, in the month of
June, 1801, being a test of the milk and cheese
jirotluclion of e(jwal numbers of Ayrshire and
Shorthorn cows : —
Ayu.shiues : 64 Covirs, 6.5,380 lbs. of 3Iilk ; Cheese, 6,424 Ibg.
Daily average of Slilk per Cow, 33 lbs. ; Cheese, 3J lbs.
SnoKTHOiixs : 64 Cows, 52,680 lbs. of Milk ; Cheese, 4,797 lbs
Daily average of Jtilk jxjr Cow, 27 lbs. ; Cheese, 2 J lbs.
The herds were esteemed first class of their re-
spective breeds, and were pastured in adjoining
fields on land of similar quality. The best single
yields of Ayrshires are found also in the Wau-
shakum herd. The cow " Georgie " gave 8,596
lbs. or 3,901 quarts of milk in 1870, the only
yield of over 8,000 lbs. among seventeen dif-
ferent Ayrshires in the eight years' trial ; but
the next year this cow gave only 3,288 quarts, and
her average for several years was 3,200 quarts.
" Georgiana,''' of the same family, gave one year
3,650 quarts. Several Ayrehires in other American
herds are on record as giving averag-es of fivm 50
to 58 lbs. of milk a day for one or two weeks, but
with incomplete accounts of full year's yield. The
ISIessrs. Stiirtevant report in connection with their
herd that during the stated trial they hatl about
twenty records in each year of 40 lbs. and over of
milk in one day, and but one case during the
whole period in which a cow gave over 50 lbs. in
a day. No records of the butter-products of Ayr-
shires in America have been found which arc of
special interest.
Jerseys. — To illustrate the products of Ameri-
can Jerseys, ten herds have been selected, located
in New England, New York, and Pennsylvania.
These average fourteen cows each, and the records
cover from two to seven years. The average annual
])roduet shown is 2,288 quarts of milk and 281 lbs.
of butter. H. C. Haskell's herd of Deei-field
Jersej's (Massachusetts) has a record for seven con-
secutive years, an average of 8 cows, 2,315 quarts
of milk, and 307 lbs. of butter; 16-441bs. of milk
made one pound of butter, the ratio being from
12'G in !March to 23"5 in June, and the net profit
W'as 60 dollars gold per cow, per annum. The
" Deerfoot Herd ■'■' of Edward Burnett (Massa-
chusetts) shows a three years^ trial, with an
average of 25 cows; these gave an annual average
of 2,152 quarts of milk and 2091bs. of butter; and
for the one year of 1S7G, the average was 2,616
quarts of milk and 331 lbs. of butter. A herd
of fourteen cows in Connecticut is on record as
averaging one year 400 lbs. of butter jier cow.
YIELD OF AMERICAN COWS.
409
For yields of sinj>'Ie Jorsoy cows sevonil note wort liy
cases are recorded. (The li<;;'ures in l)rackots indi-
cate the number of tlie animal in the re<>-ister of
the American Jersey Cattle Club.) " Motley's
Flora" (17-"J), in Miussachusetts, 1853, made 511
lbs. of butter in fifty wwks. "Pansy" (lOli))
in Connecticut, calved Sei>(eniber tM\, 1S71, and
before October, 187^, made 571 lbs. of butter.
Milk produce not given in these cases. " Snow-
drop" (569), in Massachusetts, gave an average of
4,137 quarts (9,018 lbs.) during the years 1875,
besides a (iniintify of eronm used ; she cnlved
again, April 15th, 1877, and in the month of
June following gave 1,4'Otilbs. of milk. A eow
owned by the writer, in Massachusetts, in no
sense a fancy or fashionable Jersey, calved in May
IS 76, and on several trials that year was found to
be producing over iOlbs. of butter a week, even in
" ily time ; " she was milked steadily for ninctceu
months, and during the ia-ii twelve of the.sc, the
year 1877, made 516 lbs. of butter. This cow
calved again, February 1st, 1878, and during the
Fig. 218.— "Jekset Belle op Scituate."
.^^^r^-C-
1876, and 1877. "Belle of Newton" (1717), in
the one year 187J<, gave 4,783 quarts of milk
(10,280 lbs. !). " Alphea " (171), bred and owned
by Colonel R. M. Hoe, of Morrisania, New York,
is a cow famous for her own performances and
for the reputation of her progeny ; she lived
(1863-71) before the time of systematic long-
continued records, but on several trials was found
to produce more than 3 lbs. of butter a day —
21| lbs. in one week — on grass alone. Two non-
registered Jerseys are added : — " Abbie," a cow
in Massachusetts, calved April 17th, 1876, and
prior to the next INIareh, gave 4,620 quarts of
milk, from which 4-86 lbs. of butter were made.
autumn of this year gave her own weight (about
800 lbs.) in milk monthly. "The Jersey Belle of
Scituate" (7,828), owned by Charles O. Ellms, of
Scituate, Massachusetts, presents the best record
of any American-bred Jersey up to 1879. She is
descended from "Motley's Flora" and "Dick
Swiveller" and " Pilot," all famous animals in the
early days of Jerseys in the United States. A
portrait of this cow, furnished by the owner, is
given herewith ; it is as she appeared in the spring
of 1877, when five years of age. She dropj^ed her
third calf, February 25th, 1876, and before the end
of that year made 008 lbs. of butter. February
25th, 1877, she calved again, and up to ]March Sth,
410
DAIRY FARMING.
187S, made 7(irjlb.-;. of l.utt.T; she awra-i-d I'.Ul.s.
a week lor over five months, and at times iVmr
(juarts of her milk o'ave a pound of butter. lUr
fifth ealf was dropped May 10th, 1.S78; during;- one
week in June she made £;i. J lbs. of butter, and in
September 7 lbs. were made from the milk of three
days. Iler fifth ealf was dropped June 7th, 1880,
and she was tested for the seven days ending
June 21st; she gave 45 ll)s. of milk a day at
the beginning of the test, and 44 lbs. at its elose.
The total weight of butter made in the week
was 25 lbs. 3ozs., salt having been added before
weighing, at the rate of S ozs. to 10 lbs. of butter.
The record is the more remarkable as the cow
was on pasture in the summer, kept up at night,
and given two quarts of shorts in the morning,
and in winter, besides the best of hay, never fed
over 5 lbs. of grain-food a day.
"Jersey Belle" had two rivals that attracted
much attention in the United States during the
year 1880, and both excelled the record just given.
" Jersey Queen," bred by the Messrs. Fairbanks,
of Vermont, and owned by J. S. Kenerson, of
Bamet, Vermont, is the first. The milk record of
this cow was not kept, but she certainly produced
in 365 days, ending March 15, 1880, the full
weight of 748 lbs. of butter before salting. Be-
sides this, milk and cream were used from her
product, by her owner, equivalent to 20 or 30 lbs.
of butter, but this quantity being uncertain, is not
claimed. In April, 1880, "Jersey Queen" gave
in one week 66 quarts of milk, from which 12 lbs.
of butter were made ; fifteen months after calving,
this animal produced butter at the rate of 650 lbs.
a year, on pasture and 3 lbs. grain-food daily; and
the last week in September, 1880, nineteenth
month farrow, she gave 176 lbs. of milk, from
which 11 lbs. of butter were made. [This eow
will be due with her fourth calf in February,
1881, and will then be seven years old. It is
proposed to make a very complete record of
her performances during the following year.]
"Eurotas" (2,451), a brown cow with a grey
back, dropped August 13, 1871, was bred by
Col. Hoe, being a grand-daughter of "Alj)hea,"
above named. She was by importe<l " Rioter
2nd" (469) out of "Europa" (176), daughter of
"Alphea" by her full brother "Jupiter" (93).
This eow weighs about 1,000 lbs., is i)lain-looking,
large-bodied, short-legged, and somewhat coarse in
pattern. The present owner (1880) is Mr. A. B.
Darling, of New York City. The remarkable
richness of Eurotas' milk was first noticed with
her fifth calf, November, 1878. On trials made
single weeks in February and March following,
she made 21 lbs. and then 22. J lbs. of butter, the
latter from 217 lbs. of milk. As late as three
months l)efore next calving, she gave on grass
alone, 2 lljs. of butter a day. " liurotas " dropped
her sixth calf October 30, 1879. On the 11th of
November her record began, the milk being kept
by itself, and the cream churned every other day.
The butter made during the five months ending
April loth weighed 36 libs. 15oz., no grass
meantime. Then came fresh feed, and in the
sixth month 73 lbs. 13 oz. butter, while in the
seventh, ending June lOth, 91 lbs. 9oz., or an
average of over 3 lbs. of butter a day. The
next two months added 162 lbs. 14 oz., giving
a total for nine months of 692 lbs. 10 oz. of
butter. From August 10 to 15, 18S0, inclusive
(the latest report available), "Eurotas" gave 13 lbs.
9 oz. of butter, which made a record of 706 lbs.
3 oz. in nine months and six days, thus exceeding
the full year's yield of "Jersey Belle." "Eurotas"
should calve November 10, 1880. The detailed
record of this cow for the month of June, 1880,
the eighth month after calving, is of sufficient
interest to insert entire : —
Days.
U.S.
ozs.
Days.
lbs. ozs.
Days.
lbs.
ozs
June 1, 2
- 6
1
June 13, 14
- G 5
June 2.5, 26
- 5
4
„ 3, 4
- G
4
„ 15, IG
- 6 6
„ 27, 28
- 5
0
„ 5, G
- 0
1
„ 17, 18
- 5 15
„ 2U, 30
- 5
0
„ 7, 8
- C
4
„ 1"), 20
- 5 12
,, 9, 10
- 0
5
„ 21, 22
- 5 12
„ 11, 12
- G
4
„ 23, 24
- 5 13
30 (lays - -
8S
c
Among the odds and ends are found : — A cow
in New Jersey that in four w'eeks in June, 1876,
made 75ilbs. of butter, and a heifer which calved
at twenty-two months old was milked for 811 con-
secutive days, and ])roduced an average of one
pound of butter a day during that time. Yet, in
Allen's " American Cattle," doubt is exjiressed as
to the accuracy of Yonatt's statement that Jersey
cows have been known to make 19 lbs. of butter a
week.
Swiss. — Although no herd products of this
breed are to be found yet in the United States,
there is a careful record of the butter-yield by
one cow which deserves menti<in. " Swiss Bessie,"
thoroughbred, was droi)i)ed March 15th, 1872, and
owned from time of third calving, October, 1877,
by Mv. D. G. Roberts, of Pittsiield, Massachusetts.
I'lUCKS OK DAIRY CA'ITLK JX AMKlilCA.
Ill
Ilev fdiiidi :inil lil'di e;ilvcs were ili-djiiu-il in
Aui--us1, 1S7S, ;iii(l Oct(.l)iM-, 1S7!), and Irt
sixth was duo Oclnbor, Issi). Her total milk
yield for tliroo years — Ot-tobfr 1st, 1877, to
October 1st, ISSO— was 37,729 lbs., and butter
made 1,662 lbs.; annual average '9,2-13 lbs.
milk and 554' lbs. butter. The ratio of butter
to milk is very liig-h — 1 to Kig, or 1 lb. of
butter for every 71 quarts of milk, for the
whole period. At times, for a montli or more,
it required Imt 1-3 lbs. of mdk to make 1 lb.
of Imtter. 'I'he pviduet of "Swiss Bessie"
for the calendar year 1S7'J, during which she
was dry two months, was 9,29."j lbs. milk and
611 lbs. butter.
llixed Herds. — The only other milk yields
to be cited are those of the mixed herds of dairy-
cows as they exist in the great cheese-making
districts of New York. Natives predominate
in these, mixed with many grades of various
kinds, and a considerable nimiber of thorough-
breds of different breeds. The ligures are taken
from the reports of the cheese-factories. In
1S64, 425 factories, receiving the milk of 128,528
cows, showed an average yield per cow for
"the factory season'' (say 200 days) of 1,060
quarts of milk. In 1874 the same factories
substantially showed the average yield to be
1,411 quarts. Here is evidence of a marked
improvement in the quality of the stock, a
gain of 33 per cent, in the product in ten
years.
Professor Arnold gave the average of these
New Y'ork factory herds of mixed stock in
1874 as 1,783 quarts for the best, the poorest
1,027 quarts, and the highest for any one
dairy during nine months 2,602 quarts. These
estimates practically agree with those of Dr.
Sturtevant previously given. But in a review
of the census figures made in January, 1879,
Professor Arnold expresses the opinion that
the quantity of milk consumed by the jjro-
ducers has been under-estimated, and on the
new basis he places the average annual milk
product of the dairy-cows of New York at
3,658 lbs. or 1,701 quarts of milk. In Mas-
sachusetts, twenty-five factories in the year
1864 reported 12,130 cows, averaging 1,400
([uarts for 250 days, and the State census for
1S75 gives the annual average product 1,900
(juarts per cow.
55
For ciiuipariscin, a summary of tli
ven in labuKir form : —
1 Annual YitLD per I
Breed.
General A
verages.
Beft Herds.
Best Single
Cows.
Itl.lk.
Buttir.
Mi>k.
Butler.
Milk.
Butter.
II.S.
lb'.
lb .
Ilw.
Ih".
"Natives" ...
4,606
180
4,710
186
10,458
581
Mi.Ked Herds
and Grades...
3,658
203
5,S?0
242
15,043
423
Sliorthorns ...
.-
—
(;,nso
2il0
12,815
.513
Holsteins
—
—
11,286
308
15,960
—
Ayrshiies
5,446
238
5,483
274
8,596
—
Jerseys
4,987
281
5,017
307
12,716
748
Swiss
—
—
-~
—
9,295
611
Value of American Dairy Cattle.
Milch-cows reached their highest average value
in the United States about the year 1870, and from
that time a sharjs decline took place. Mr. Dodge
places the average value at 30 dollars in 1870, and
at 26 dollars in 1878, these figui-es being intended
for the country at large, and to include all cows
except the choicest thoroughbreds. Their nominal
prices are so entirely out of proportion to their
numbers as to be properly excluded from a general
average. A buyer and seller of dairy-cows in
Pennsylvania kept a record of prices for forty
years, with the following result : — Average price
for forty years, 39 dollars ; extreme annual
averages, 19 dollars in 1841 and 85 dollars in
1867; for twenty-five years prior to 1861 the
range was from IS to 40 dollars, the average 27
dollars, and from 1861 to 1876 the range was from
40 to 100 dollars, average 65 dollars. At three
public sales of average dairy-cows held in Penn-
sylvania and New York in 1877 these prices were
obtained — 43 dollars each for 20 cows, 53 dollars
for 25, and 52 dollars for 55. In 1878 the
value of fair cows in the dairy districts averaged
about 50 dollars. In New York City good milch-
cows sold for from 50 to 60 dollars, and extra ones
for 70 or 80 dollars. Mr. Thomas Fitch, of New
London, Connecticut, writes : " In giving you
prices obtained for the dairy-stock raised by me,
thoroughbreds, cross-breds, and grades, I select two
years, ten years apart. In 1866 I sold 53 head of
all ages at an average price of 148 dollars; highest
380 dollars for a cow, lowest 35 dollars for a grade
heifer calf. In 1877 sold 34 head at an average
of 144 dollars; highest 515 dollars for a cow,
lowest 40 dollars for a heifer calf." Some idea
412
DAIRY I'ARMTXG.
of the jric'c's of tliorouo-lilnvtl neat sioek in the
United States can be tiLtaiiied from tlie following
statements : —
Jerseys : At j)ul)lic sales of about five
hundred animals of this breed during the years
1S77 and 1S78, occurring in widely separated
places, the average prices obtained were 2."53
dollars per head for females and tl;j dollars for
males. At a large sale of ncivly-iniported Jerseys
held at Albany, New York, in ^lay, 1.S7S, an
average of over 400 dollars per head was obtained;
at another, in New York City, ."JSO dollars per head
for 20 two-year-old heifers; and at a third, in
Philadelphia, bulls averaged 205 dollars and cows
and heifers 4-27 dollars. A remarkable sale of
Jerseys, largely American - bred and recorded
animals, occurred at New York in May, 18S0, and
is known as the " Kellogg sale." Fifty-one cows
and heifers averaged 29S dollars, and 5 bulls 229
dollars. One bull sold for 600 dollar.-;, and two
heifers were struck off at 1,400 and l,iZ-) dollars
respectively, these being the highest prices ever
realised in the United States at a public sale of
this breed. During the year 1880 several private
sales were reported at very high rates, bulls at
1,000 dollars, and cows at 2,000 and upwards.
Bond fide offers of 5,000 dollars were made and re-
fused for a single cow. Colonel Waring, Secretary
of the American Jersey Cattle Club and Manager
of the Ogdon Farm Association, reports among
the operations of that famous establishment, cover-
ing ten years ending in 1877, iiuix-hases of Jerseys,
23 males at an average cost of 47 1 dollars and 46
females at 190 dollars; sales, 60 males, average
price 99 dollai-s, and 8'3 females, average 21C.j
dollars. In 1855, in New England, a Jersey cow
(then generally called Alderney), giving 12 quarts
of milk a day, and making 12 lbs. of butter
■A week, was worth 100 dollars. Guernseys, less
fashionable, are lower in price, sales in 1878 giving
averages of 176 dollars for females and 103 dollars
for males. Ayrshires may be quoted at aijout the
same rates. But as an example of the choicest
animals of this breed, the Measrs. Sturtevaut rej)ort
tl'.at, in making up the Waushakum herd, the males
were ]>urchased at an average cost of 92i dollars,
the females at 400 dollars. Good Ayrshire cows
change hands in America at from 100 to 200
dollars. At a sale of Ilolsteius in Central New
York in February, 1880, an average of 238 dollars
was obtained. Devon sales are not often reported
in the United States. At one of 35 animals in
Connecticut in 1875 the prices ranged from 150
to 300 dollars; in 1878 a bull and three good
cows sold together for 1,000 dollars. Fifteen
American-bred Ilerefords, all in the English herd-
book, were sold in Maryland, June, 1880, at an
average of 225 dollars. Shorthorn sales occur-
ring in all pai-ts of the country in 1877 and 1878,
none of them being of very fancy stock, give 287J
dollars as the average price obtained for 577
females, and 181 dollars per head for 185 bulls.
The " Shorthorn Herd-Book " reports 384 sales
occurring from 1870 to 1876, including 14,816
animals, the general average price being 393
dollars, but this average was largely raised by a
few extraordinary sales like that of the Campbell
herd in 1876 (see page 13).
T/ie Cultivator and Conntry Gentleman, (Al-
bany) publishes an annual summary of its
reports of public Shorthorn sales. For the ten
j'cars ending with 1879 the record of this journal
includes 22,929 head, sold for an aggregate of
7,218,361 dollars, an average of 315 dollars. In
the year 1879 there were 2,865 animals sold
averaging 115 dollars; this is a great reduction,
but the offerings included a larger number of
ordinary creatures. Two examples are these : —
First, the Cannon-Cochrane sale, at Dexter Park,
Chicago, Juno 30, 1880, when 32 cow-s and heifere
averaged 9L!5 dollars, and 11 bulls and calves
662 dollars, all being choice stock ; second, a sale
of very good animals of the same breed, 38 in
number, at the same place, the next day, resulted
in an average of 189 dollars. The greater part
of these Shorthorns, however, relate to lieef-pro-
duction, and have hardly a perceptible effect upon
dairy-stock in America. H. E. A.
CHAPTER XXYir.
American Dairy ProdL'CTS.
Gross Production— Domestic Trade-Butter JIarkets -Cheese Markets— Boards
^^(^ Exports— Prices.
of Trade— Milk Sales-New York JIarket—
^^^SC_ RKAT as the ]iro;luce of tlie
d;iii-y in America has been
for a numl)er of years,
the total jiroduction has
been much exaggerated.
Without data on which to
base calculations as to the
quantity of milk sold for use while
liesh, and consumed by families of
producers, the number of cows in the
for every one of the 6,000,000 butter-making cows,
which is almost double the general average. The
census of New York for 1875, already referred to
as specially reliable in dairy statistics, gives the
average butter yield for the cows of that State
as 135 lbs. a year. Certainly a lower rate must
be taken for the country at large. An average
of 125 lbs. a year gives a total product of
750,000,000 lbs., and 133 lbs. per year a total
of 800,000,000 lbs. of butter. Between these
country whose product does not affect figures the true amount probalily stands in 1880,
the making of butter and cheese is
quite uncertain. Likewise the amount of
butter consumed by the families of the makers
is largely a matter of speculation, and it is
upon the annual butter product of the United
States that the wildest figures have been given.
the whole worth about 200,000,000 dollars. There
is a general agreement that the United States
cheese crop of 1880 is from 300,000,000 to
350,000,000 lbs., or an average of 300 lbs. jicr
annum per cow. Milk consumed, new and
skimmed, exceeds the butter in value, and carries
Cheese manufacture has been more sectional, and the total value of the United States dairy products
""to 4.08,000,000 dollars. The following statistics,
derived from the United States census, are mani-
festly far below the truth, the amounts consumed
by producers being doubtless often omitted, at least
prior to 1870. The figures for 1875 and 1880 are
estimated as already explained : —
the facts in regard to it better known. The
amount of cheese made in a year by the average
American cow, the number of cows whose milk is
made into cheese, and the average quantity of milk
required for a pound of cheese, are among the best
established facts of the dairy, and furnish a good
basis for calculation. A careful study of all the
reliable data leads to the conclusion that of the
12,000,000 cows owned in the United States, just
about one-half contribute to the annual butter
crop; the milk of about 1,000,000 cows is made
into cheese ; and that of the remainder is consumed
as milk. It is probable, however, that 1,500,000
cows are used for breeding rather than the dairy,
and their milk does not contribute to the dairy
products of the country. As to the gross jiroducts,
it has been often asserted, and in places where one
may expect to find trustworthy dairy information,
that 1,500,000,000 lbs. of butter are annually
made in the United States. This is simply
absurd, for it would require a product of 250 lbs.
Tear.
No. of
Butter
Cheese
Milk Sold
Total
cow^.
made.
made.
and Used.
Yaiue.
lus.
lbs.
Uallons.
lJoll;.rs.
1810 ...
4.837,013
—
—
—
120 926,075
1850 ...
(i,:;;L' ,iii
.;l,; ,;| ...inn
in, >, .1.1.1 ~Ii,;
—
1«!,193,144
18G0 ...
S . 1 ■ . ■ '
]■. 1 t ■ .
—
210,400.580
1870 ...
8,;i:; • . :
'.■'''': . , ; '
235.600,599
360.828,000
1875 ...
IKIllii.iiiu
, (III (HI 1 HI III
-III iiMi.iin )
1.500,000,000
400,000,000
1880 ...
12 000 OIW
81lil,0UU,OU0
3Jll,U01),UUJ
2,000,000,000
408,000,000
The Following mat be added for the Dominion of Canada :
1871 ... 1 1,293 839 ' 75,635,031 I 22,277.747 ( — I -
1880 ... 1,600,000 : 100,000,000 75,000,0i;0 200,000,000 50,000,000
The foregoing is as accurate a showing of the
gross jH'oducts of American dairying as can be
given from the data available.
As to the disposition made of these products,
the home consumption and domestic markets of
414
DAIRY FARMING.
America will be first coiisidcreJ. The three
different forms in which dairy products are used
and sold vary so much in the conditions affeetinj^
them as to necessitate separate treatment.
It has ah-eady been stated, in describing- tlic
location of dairying in America, that the local
butter markets can be and are, g;eneral]y, locally
fed, tliis beinj'' true even in the South, excepting
the cities. Of the annual gross butter product of
the United States and Canada, it may be roughly
stated that 30 per cent, is used by the producers
or in neighbourhood exchange, that 30 per cent,
more is disposed of in local markets, delivered
by the maker to village families or hindled by
only one trader before reaching the consumer,
and that the remaining 40 per cent, goes to
the great centres of trade, and passes through
the hands of three to five classes of dealers,
between the producers and the consumers. In
the local markets the grocers or dealers in general
merchandise in the towns and country stores
receive the butter from the farmers in exchange
for goods, in the form of printed pound lumps
or rolls varying from 1 to 5 lbs. in weight,
and retail it to the various classes of consumers.
For many years no distinction of grade was made
— a pound of butter was a pound of butter, all
bought and sold at the same price, irrespective
of how or by whom it was made. This remains
the custom in country districts remote from trade
centres, and where dairying is not a specialty;
and in the stores of villages aud country towns
in more thickly-populated regions only two grades
are generally known — table butter and cooking
butter. Of course there are exceptions in nearly
every localitj', some makers commanding an extra
]nice for their butter, usually delivered directly
to the consumers, and some whose product is
60 poor that the only place it finds in market
is as grease. When the butter is to go into
the wholesale trade it is generally collected from
the producers by village merchants who act as
forwarders to the city commission produce houses.
For this trade the butter is mainlj- packed in solid
mass in packages of different sizes and kinds;
almost universally of wood. There are round boxes
with cover.-, holding 10, H, and 15 lbs.; pails, "re-
turn pails," and tubs, usually holding 40 to 60 lbs. ;
and llrkins oi' barrel-shaped packages of 100 lbs. ;
also small pails, half-tubs, and half-firklus. This
matter of the size and shape of the package diff'-rs
with locality. There are local merchants in
different parts of the country wdio buy butter of
the producers in lots of different size, of vr.ricd
quality and colour, and then, to render it more
saleable in the large markets, they work it all
over together, generally with a machine, wash
it frequently, often purify it in some way, colour
it uniformly', and then pack it in tubs or firkins;
this is usually called "nnlled butter." In like
manner dairy butter from numerous farms is
collected, re-worked, re-packed, aud sold as a factory
])roduct, being known to the trade as " imitation
creaming." In Canada and parts of the United
States a good deal of butter is sent to market
in large cylindrical rolls, each wrapped in cloth,
and these packed in a tight firkin or barrel,
generally in strong brine, sometimes in dry salt.
Many good dairymen in different sections who
have a special line of customers put up their
butter in pound or half-pound prints, or other
attractive forms, and in packages specially
adapted to this method ship directly to con-
sumers or to fancy groeei-s and marketmen, for
immediate retailing. Another method, first prac-
tised in 1879 and 18S0, is to take the butter from
the churn in granular form before it gathers,
wash thoroughly, work not at all, but place loosely
in a tight vessel, which is then filled with strong
pure brine and sealed uji. In this form butter
may go to market fresh, be preserved for a long
time, and at pleasure removed from the brine,
slightly worked, salted to t;iste, and made into
pats or prints as "rosy" as if just frcmi the
churn.
St. Albans, Vermont, furnishes a good ex-
ample of an American dairy market, with butter as
a specialty, and well illustrates the development
and growth of such a market. This place is the
shire towai of Franklin Countj-, in the north-west
corner of Vermont, G3 miles south of JNIontreal,
and about 200 miles from Boston. The sur-
rounding country in New York as well as in
Vermont is an excellent butter-making region. In
the j'ear 1825, although butter was ]>lentiful and
sold at 10 and 12 cents a pound, there was no
special market and not a great surplus ; the accu-
mulations of the season were usually sent overland
in the winter to the Montreal market. About 1840
a larger surplus of butter was noticeable, and the
shipments turned towards New York, water trans-
portation being depended iijion, and consignments
AIMKRICAN DAIRY MARKETS.
415
iii;i(le in the aulunin only. In ISTjO the coiistrue-
tiou of raih'oads opened a quick route from St.
Albans, created its market, and made Bo.ston the
objeetive point. At that time the town had a
population of 3,50Q, no trade organisation — nor
has it yet — and no special market day. The dairj'-
men of the surrounding; country brought in their
butter at pleasure, and it was bought up by jobbers
and resident agents of Boston dealers. In 185i
a weekly refrigerator-car began to run from St.
Albans to Boston for the butter shipments, and
this made Tuesday the butter day, and gave more
system to the trade. No material change has since
occurred. Every Tuesday, from daylight until
noon, the streets of St. Albans, now a town of
over 7,000 inhabitants, are filled with vehicles of
all descriptions laden with butter and cheese, their
contents are samjjled and graded by numerous
buyers, sales effected, and the packages delivered
directly to the railroad agents. For some years
the greater part of the buying has been done by
local exj)erts, on commission, for the large city
operators ; the commission was one cent a pound
for a long time, but has considerably decreased,
and become largely subject to special contracts.
As to quality, but three grades were formerly
known — j)i"i'^6, fair, and poor, and the quantity of
each ranged just about one-third. Of late years
there has been more care in assorting, and a greater
proportion of the pi-oduct has been placed in the
higher grades, but verj' little in the highest. The
following table gives the shipments of butter from
St. Albans, at intervals since 1850 : —
Years 1850. IS.'iS. 1860. 1865.
, Lbs. of Butter ... 1,192,968 1,715,127 2,256,700 3,035,277
1870.
3,270,182
1875. 1876. 1877. 1878.
2,972,431 2,52.5,325 1,778,700 1,182,950
During twenty years, ending in 1870, the ship-
ments amounted to 50,631,595 lbs., valued at about
15,000,000 dollars, and during the same period
cheese to the amount of 21,000,000 lbs., valued
at about 3,000,000 dollars. Nearly all the butter
passing through the St. Albans market is in tubs of
spruce and white oak containing just about SOlbs.
each. The rapid falling-off in the shipments from
this point since 1870 has been owing, first, to branch
railroads, which take ivp butter at local stations
which formerly went to swell the receipts at St.
Albans, and next to Western comj)etition in the
Bnston market. In the great bultcr-niarkcts (if
the country it is» found that not over 2 per cent,
of the total receipts can be classed as " fancy " or
"gilt-edged," and but ab.iut 10 per cent, as really
first-class, bringing top prices in the wholesale
trade. The consumption of butter varies in the
United Sta,tes in different localities, and among
different classes of people, from 12 lbs. to 25 lbs.
per head per annum. The general average is not
f.ir from 15 lbs.
The conditions governing the trade in cheese
and cheese-markets differ greatly from those
relating to butter. Cheese has never been so gene-
rally made in America by the owners of dairy-cows
as buttei-, and the rapid substitution of factory
cheese-making for private dairying has also made
great changes. So now very little cheese is
made except in the distinctively cheese regions.
The contrast may thus be seen : — The census
shows an annual product in thirty-three States
and Territories of more than 1,000,000 lbs. of
butter each, but only eleven produce more than
l.OOOjOiJOlbs. of cheese; twenty-nine States and
Territories produce more than 2,000,0001bs.
of butter, but only six produce as much cheese.
One of the results of this condition of the cheese
jjroduction is that the article passes through the
hands of several dealers before reaching the con-
sumer, and another is that the cheese trade of the
country is very greatly concentrated. So much
was this the case that, as late as 1860, one man at-
temjited a "corner" in the American cheese trade ;
New York and five adjoining States then produced
nine-tenths of the whole cheese crop of the country,
and the greater part of this was engaged in advance.
A disastrous faihu'e resulted, but this illustrates
the concentration of the cheese trade ; no one
would ever have attempted a similar control of the
butter product of the country. In retailing it
has been quite common for years for the selling
price of cut cheese to be double the current
wholesale rates, and retailers often received a
profit of 50 to 80 and even 100 per centum
on cheese sold to consumers, when selling butter
for just what they paid for it in groceries, or at a
very small profit. This doubtless accounts, in a
great measure, for the very low jyer cajii/a con-
sumption of cheese in America, which is from 4 lbs.
to 5 lbs. per annum. There is in progress, how-
ever, a rapid increase in the rate of home consump-
tion of cheese; the aggregate increase is estimated
416
DAIRY FARMING.
by ffool judfjes to he fnmi 12,0011, IKHI ll,s. to
15,()()U,Ul)0ll)s. ])frycar. Local markets have l)een
created in many places Ry catering to the popular
tastes and preju lices in t!ie matter of size, i'oiin,
and colour of the cheeses offered for sale, and
retailers are beginninif to see that the old maxim
of " quick sales and small profits" is as true when
applied to cheese as to other merchandise. In
some places such special efforts have been found to
increase the average annual consumption in the
community to over 20 lbs. per capita. A case is
authenticated wherecaref ul investigation showed the
per capita consumption to vary in the years 1872
to 1875 from 8 to 11 lbs. ; then, by special efforts
to make cheese a more attractive and more common
article of food, the rate was raisad to 14 lbs. in
1876, 17 lbs. in 1877, and about 20 lbs. in 1878.
Little Falls, Herkimer County, New York, is
probably the best example of American cheese-
markets. The great cheese product of that county
and the advantageous location of the town made it
at an early datu a centre for the sale of dairy pro-
ducts. It is a town of 6,000 inhabitants, situated
in a rocky gorge cut through the hills by the
Mohawk River, directly upon that stream, on the
New York Central Railroad, midway between
Albany and Syracuse, and near the Erie Canal.
The market character of the place was acquired
spontaneously, the dairymen coming there to sell
by common consent. At first trade was very
irregularly conducted, producers and buyers visit-
ing the town at their convenience, and meeting
largely by chance. But the business soon system-
atised itself, and as early as 1838 Mondays and
AVeduesdays became regular sale days, sellers from
farm dairies in large number coming in with their
loaded waggons, and meeting buyers from the
Eastern cities, their agents and local dealers. The
waggons were scattered along the streets, and these,
with the railroad freiglit house, formed the market-
place. From 1860 to 1861, after the factories
became pretty well established, Mondays only were
regular market days. In 18() l weekly reports of
the Little Falls cheese-market began, and have
continued a standard reference from that time ; the
transactions are specially reported for many of the
leading city newspapers, the (quotations telegraphed
the country over, and the prices there obtained have
a marked influence upon the city markets for the
week. The business continued to be chiefly done
upon the streets until 1871. In the spring of that
year a Hoard of Tr:idc, inutly in the dairy interest,
was organised at Little Falls, largely through the
efforts and under the guidance of X. A. AVillard,
with whom the idea originated. On the 10th of
.Iiil\, 1^71, the commodious trade rooms of the
Board were formally oi)ened, and to them the
greater part of the transactions were then trans-
ferred. Other Boards of Trade were soon organised
at different dairy centres, most of them being
modelled closely after this original ; the locations of
several of them have been already named. This
Little Falls Board, although a purely local busi-
ness institution, made the mistake of trying to
attach to itself a " New York Utate Dairymen's
Association,'" with meetings and management
controlled by the local Board ; this has created
jealousies and rivalry, impaired the usefulness of
the organisation, and more or less dispersed the
business, sending some of it upon the streets again.
But as a whole the Little Falls trade continues to
grow, and the town remains one of the largest
dairy-markets of the world. Not only is the greater
part of the Herkimer County cheese product sold
there, but much from the neighbouring counties of
F\ilton, Otsego, Montgomery, &c. Since the factory-
made cheese has become nineteen-tweutieths or
more of the total product, the sales are greatly
facilitated. Factory cheese is now so uniform in
quality that it is generally sold on Mondays by
sample, and shipped the next day from railway
stations nearest to the factories. Thus a very
large part of the amount sold at Little Falls is
never brought to that place, and does not appear
in the report of shipments therefrom. The usual
method is for each factory agent or seller to take a
sample or cylindrical cutting with a tryer from one
cheese of every vat of milk for every day of the
cheese offered ; these cuttings are placed in little
glass bottles which tit a ])ockct-casc (Fig. 210), and
sales made from them at the market. The reputation
of the several factories largely influences the sale
of their products, and indeed sales are often made
a:\ikuican dairy markets.
417
upon iTput:itii)ii alono. It is usual for from seven
to ten (la\s' make of elieese to be offered and sold
from eaeli faetory at one time. The farm dairies
continue to deliver their cheese and butter on the
sale days, and they are tested in the waggons; this
also tends to keep some of the business upon the
street. The quantity of cheese annually sold in
the Little Falls market ranges from 15,000,000 to
17,000,000 lbs., less than half of it being forwarded
from that place. Several hundred thousand pounds
of butter are also sold during the year. The active
season of the market extends from April until
December, although more or less sales occur every
week. The following table, which gives the ship-
ments by railroad only from Little Falls for three
successive years, exhibits the monthly variation in
the markets : —
Year.
Mou'b.
1876.
1877.
1878.
Boxes.
Lbs.
Boxes.
Lbs.
Boxes.
Lbs.
January
326
15,245
668
43 090
1,157
74,201
February
1,206
77 iK)3
771
44 777
723
45.11,5
March
2,226
113.3!)2
1,703
66 401
2H
13,779
April
6,808
558,595
3.538
213.459
6.846
405.639
May
,5.6.53
359,112
10,954
653 577
10,768
651,641
June
12 01"
775,509
15,370
942,031
16,382
1,012,615
July
U,S04
928,988
18.441
1,102,162
19,656
1,233,880
August
i.s.as-
1,132,730
15,947
913,139
17,502
1,051,759
September ...
1U.8!IS
616,028
11,453
688 589
16.576
1,011.453
October
11.158
081,795
17,,'0">
1,091,893
11,328
739,696
November ...
7,365
453.890
10377
654,001
11,369
735,451
Ueoembtr ...
2,262
148,37()
4,937
302,712
7,230
483.391
Total ...
91,370
5,924,563
1U,035
6,746.097
119,781
7,461.723
This table has little value, however, beyond showing
this variation, because the railway shipments form
but about one-half of the season's sales at this
market. It should be added that the prices of cheese
at Little Falls generally run as high as anywhere
else in the country, being often equal to New York
City rates, where the same product is largely re-sold.
As these Dairy Boards of Trade are so nu-
merous in America, prove such a help in busi-
ness, and have a general resemblance, it may be
well to state the leading features embraced in
their governing rules : — Membership open to any
bond fide producer, factory agent, or dealer, on
payment of annual fee from one to five dollars,
private dairymen being taxed less than factories ;
sales-rooms or head-quarters for convenient trans-
action of business on lixed market days, and only
members entitled to the privileges (a small fee
in some ca.ses gives privilege of rooms to any
one for a single market day) ; registration on
each sales-day of sellers and their offered products,
and of buyers ; an executive officer, usually the
secretary, in the charge of the rooms, of mem-
bership, of the bulletin, and of the records of the
Board and the transactions of the market; a
bulletin, and upon it, conspicuously displayed
on market days, quotations, telegrams as to ex-
ports and business information bearing upon the
trade from New York ; foreign and domestic
markets ; a board of arbitration for settlement of
all differences between buyers and sellers, &e. ;
committees to grade products, to facilitate trade
and transportation — and minor regulations.
Utica, twenty-two miles west of Little Falls,
has become a dairy market of almost equal size
and importance. It is a city of over 30,000 in-
habitants, with a large general business. The
following is a comparative and interesting state-
ment of the cheese trade for three jears, at both
Utica and Little Falls, taken from the very
comprehensive reports of Mr. B. D. Gilbert,
Secretary of the Board of Trade at Utica : —
1877.
1878, 1879.
Utica.
Sales of Boxes
Highest price obtained Cents.
Lowest price obtained ,,
General average for Season ,,
Value of Total Sales ... Dolls.
205,713
15
Hi
1,439,991
322,535
12'
1,686,923
301,559
131
3
81
1,488,5.55
Little Fails.
Sales of Boxes ,..
Highest price obtained Cents.
Lowest price obt«ined ,,
General average for Season ,,
Value of Total Sales ...Dolls.
208,847
15
7
111
1,481,017
281,618
12*
0
8i
1,431,013
244,943
141
4
1,149!566
Mr. Gilbert, in October, estimated the sales for the
season of 1880 at 284,198 boxes for Utica, and
237,277 boxes for Little Falls, with an average
price of 12 cents. At these two markets the season
usually begins in April and closes early in De-
cember; the business of the Boards at both places
is -so well maintained that it is rare for a single
market day to pass without the occurrence of sales.
Sales of milk, for use in families, are made
in almost all cases, the country over, by the pro-
ducer direct to the consumer, the large cities ex-
cepted. In many American towns and villages
families keep a cow who own no other domestic
animal; sometimes two families .unite in the
ownership of a cow, dividing the product. And
'MS
DAIRY I'Ali.MIXG.
"■I'lrn tlie <j\vti('r of a siiii^lc iinimal supplios :i
iieifjhlxmr or two witli milk. The milk su])))!/
of the villa<^cs and towns in general is conductiMl
in a most varied and unsj-stematic manner; the
owner of one or two cows carries the milk on
foot from door to door — the keeper of a few
animals delivers to his customers with his own
wngg'on — the milkman "owning a milk-route'"
and an "outfit" takes the milk of several farmers
and retails it, or two or three neighbouring farmers
unite in maintaining one milk waggon and route to
dispose of their products. Although one middle-
man may thus be employed in some cases, the
milk for even large towns and small cities is,
for the most part, conveyed by waggons, without
change, from the farm where produced to the
door of the consumer. The maximum distance
r(>garded practicable for cartage and delivery
is fiFteen miles. Under this system the milk is
generally strained into the can, and started for
its destination without cooling, thus greatly im-
pairing its keeping qualities. In connection with
the large cities, railroad transportation, the hand-
ling of milk in large quantities, and a regularly
.systematiscd trade are to be found, with com-
mission merchants, wholesale and retiiil dealers,
milk depots and retail stalls. Transportation by
rail for over 200 miles is not uncommon. Milk
thus marketed is taxed to support at least three
sets of middlemen, and yields to the producer
from one-third to one-half of the price finally
paid by the consumer. This branch of the sub-
ject will be further noticed under another head.
Nearly all milk for use as food goes to market
in tin cans; these vary in size from 1 to 10
gallons, according to local custom. The average
annual consumption of milk per capita in the
United States cannot be given with any pre-
tence to accuracy; a mean estimate is 100 quarts,
or less than \ pint a day. Several country ex-
periments have indicated 1 pint a day, one in a
manufacturing town \ pint, and the New Yoi-k
City consumption has been estimated at \ pint
daily, per cupita.
All the facts and figures of the domestic
markets refer only to the manufactured articles
butter and cheese, and generally as prepared
for tlie wholesale trade. Butter is usually re-
porti'd in "packages," and cheese in "boxes."
\\lu'n' weights are not added the former may
lie '-omputi'd at TjO lbs. per i)apkago, the latter
at 00 lbs. per box. There is a marked tendency,
however, to forward dairy products in smaller
parcels, in response to the demands of consumers
and the distributing trade. Whereas the ordinary
weight of a cheese prior to 1S50 was 100 lbs. or
more, the average at Little P'alls in 187S was 57
or 58 lbs., and 30 lbs. cheese have proved very
acceptable, bringing prices a shade above others
of like quality, because of the size. In butter,
the home markets are drifting toward a fresher
article and less packed, and so small pails, as well
as 1, 2, and -lib. packages of different forms,
retailed unbroken from the dairy or creamery,
meet with decided favour.
The transactions of other domestic markets
must be very briefly mentioned. Elgin is to
Illinois and the north-west what Little Falls,
Utica, and St. Albans are to the east, the
centre of dairy interests ; and its market largely
influences the trade of that whole section. In
the year 1850 there were not a dozen farms
specially devoted to dairying in the vicinity of
lilgin; in 1878 there were forty butter and cheese
factories within a radius of twelve miles, besides a
very large milk-condensing factory. Previous to
1872 the sales were mostly made through com-
mission merchants, but in that year a Board of
Trade was organised, and its sales during the five
years following amounted to nearly 3,000,000
dollars. The following statistics, furnished by
]Mr. R. P. McGlincy, who has been the Secretary
of the Elgin Board from its organisation, exhibit
the rajiid increase of sales at that market : —
Years.
Butter.
Prices.
Cheese.
Prices.
Value SaKs.
lbs.
Cents.
lbs.
Cents.
Dollars
1872 ...
—
Av. 35
—
8} to 17
81,000
1873 ...
62,061 28 to 40
1,726,316
9 „14
219,178
1874 ...
136,426 I32„40
2,955,202
10 „m
368,.528
1875 ...
23,'j,17.5 1 31 „ 38
4,038,206
9 „15
580,399
1876 ...
879,267 25,, 40
5,177,730
8 „14
767,641
1877 ...
1,174,385 22,, 40
6,636,386
7 „13
1,0.59,085
1878 ...
1,11.3,955 15„27
.5,249,260
4 „11
7r)5,.597
1879 ...
977,879 14„40
3,618,314
3 „12
5.39,143
1880 ...
2,525,917 14 „ 39
10,013,002
7 „14
1,600,602
Milwaukee, AViscoiisin, received in 1878 about
5,000,000 lbs. of butter and an equal quantity of
cheese. The receipts of San Francisco for the
same year were 14,000,000 lbs. of butter and
nearly 10,000,000 lbs. of cheese. The markets
thus far named, as well as others previously
mentioned as centres of trade in describing the
«lair\inr;- districts, imlicatc the activity of this
AMERICAN DAIRY EXPORTS.
419
interest in their surroundins^ country. They are
receiving and forwarding- depots. The dairy trade
for distribution through the most populous Eastern
sections, and in connection with exports, centres
at the great cities.
New York is, of course, the most important
and interesting wholesale market of dairy products
in America. The Butter and Cheese Exchange
was organised there in 1873, and opened trade
rooms in September of that year ; the title has
since been unfortunately changed to American
Exchange, a term so general as to be without
significance. The following receipts at New York
were reported for the trade : — •
1
M 1
H
tS
Butter,
Packages.
h
l.sl
H
1870
187)
1872
330,813
709,473
680,688
1,544,924
1,467,633
1,714,210
1873
1874
1873
951,932
1,005,497
1,073,633
2,007.663
1,831,125
2,335,533
1876
1877
1S78
1,300,475
1,320110
1,368,332
2,184,288
2,451,756
3,202,161
The fluctuations in the market and the activity
of the trade at different seasons of the year can
be seen from the following tables of monthly
receipts and prices at New York, for three selected
years : — ■
Butter in Packages of about 50 lbs. each. Prices in cents per lb. for
fine Creamery and New York State Dairy.
Month,
1874.
1875.
1878.
Cents.
Cents.
Cents.
January ...
70,670
39
to 45
78308
34
to3H
76,767
2fi
to 30
February ..
54,462
42
„ 46
46,725
29
„ 31
73,729
26
„ 30
MiiTch ...
48,203
43
„ 47
81,398
24
„31
68,353
23
,. 29
April
61,604
36
., 39
76,367
21
„ 25
81,321
21
„ 26
May
77,583
33
„ 34
70.818
19
„ 22
122,409
18
„ 21
June
107.071
2S
„ 32
82.314
2(i
„ 28
137,115
1.1
„ 19
July
96.905
29
„ 32
76,813
27
„ 28
141,081
16
„ 19
August ...
91,092
3(1
„ 33
86,843
28
,. 30
141.210
IS
„ 20
September
99 492
;«
,. 36
104.728
:«
„ 32
135 289
19
„ 23
October ...
90,688
3(i
„ 40
145,027
3(»
„ 33
139,227
2(1
„ 23
November.
103,138
3.T
>, 38
128,865
30
„ 33
138,315
■'A
„ 24
December.
102,387
33
„ 37
97,419
30
„ 32
113,516
21
„ 23
Cheese in Boxes of about 60 lb
. each.
Prices in cents per lb. for fine
New York State Factory.
Month.
1874.
1873.
1878.
Cents.
Cents.
Cents.
January ...
25,320
lUtolS'
13.170
15 to 16*
66,965
10 toll
February ..
46,673
10 „ 17
10,503
15 „ 17
40.865
10 „ 14J
March ...
26.913
12 „ 17
46,723
13 „ 17
53.115
9 „ 14
April ...
16 879
12 „ 17
71.9S0
13 J „ 16J
57.469
8 ,. 13
May
69 662
10 „ 17
117,928
14 „ 16
293,377
5i „ 12
June
2S0.215
14V „ 13S
352,433
9 „ m
455 986
5 „ 9
July
403,897
111 „ 14:
461.278
9i „ 13
605,756
3 „ 8J
August ..
318-801
13 „ 14
345,312
9 „ 12
509.122
5 „ 8}
September
214.620
14 „ 14
306,865
8i „ 13
283,101
6 „ 9
October ...
170,828
13 „ 16
273,024
10 „ 14
298,209 '6 „ 10
November.
121.917
15i „ 16S
189-052
10 „ 13,1
314,170 ; 6 „ 9.S
December .
70,396
14 „ 16
144 333
10 „ 13
224,026 6 „ 9
The commercial years thus selected for illus-
tration were of healthy activity, with satisfactory
prices, free from feverishness and unusual fluctua-
tions. The prices given in cents per pound are
for Eastern or New York factory products. The
average receipts per month were 87,215 jiackages
of butter and 158,831 boxes of cheese. The
previous table of yearly receipts shows that more
than half of the whole cheese product of the United
States is annually received at the New York market.
Chicago ranks next in importance, receiving and
forwarding, or distributing, about 50,000,000 lbs.
of butter annually and nearly as much cheese.
Other late reports of the dairy trade of cities are
these, being the number of pounds handled of
butter and cheese respectively : —
Boston, 3.000.000 and 1,000 000 Philadelphia, 6 000,000 and 2,.30O,00O
Baltimore, 6.000,000 „ 1,200 000 Cincinnati, 6,000,000 „ 8,000,000
St. Louis, 7,000,000 „ 3,000,000 New Orleans, 3,000,000 „ 3,000.000
Exports.
The export of dairy products from America
began at an early date, and has rapidly increased
with every decade, although there have been periods
when the trade has greatly fallen off for a few
years. But with the exception of cotton and
leather, there are no products of American agricul-
ture which, from 1790 to 1880, show so great a
gain in the quantity and value exported as do
butter and cheese. Butter became an article of
foreign commerce earlier than cheese, and exceeded
the latter in the quantity annually exported until
1835. From that time there has been more cheese
than butter exported annually. From 1835 to
1865 the values of the butter and cheese exports
were about equal ; since 1 865 that of the cheese
has been much greater.
Among the exports of Charleston, South
Carolina, in the year 1717, is the item of 130
casks of butter, and in 1770 the American colonies
exported 167,0001bs. of butter and 56,0001bs. of
cheese. All of these products went to the West
Indies, and those islands have been the steadiest
and among the largest of the consumers of Ameri-
can butter and cheese, especially of the former.
Until the interruption of the commerce of the
United States by the war of 1812, the West Indies
received nearly all the dairy exports. From 1820
the trade became more scattered, the British-
American provinces receiving large consignments.
In 1830 New York cheese began crossing the
420
DAIRY FARMING.
No.
7. — E.rporfs of Buin/ Products from America.
BUTTEK.
CHEESE.
Year.
Total from tbe
Total from
♦ Total Export
from
North America.
Total from the
Total from
• Total Export
Uniled States.
Canada.
United states.
Canada.
North America.
lbs.
lbs.
ll>s
lbs.
lis.
lbs.
1770
167,613
—
55,997
1700
470,440
—
—
144,7.34
—
—
1800
1,822,341
—
—
91.3,.S43
—
—
1810
1,620,538
—
—
741.S78
—
—
1820
l,0ffi),024
—
—
828.434
—
—
1830
1,728,212
—
—
1,131.817
—
—
1835
681,624
—
—
887,000
—
—
1840
3,78.5,993
—
—
1,748,471
—
—
1845
3.436,660
—
—
8,67.5,390
—
—
1830
3,994,.542
l,17.'^,.50n
4,576,-392 1
10.»;],189
17 100
10,378,199
1855
2,315,249
1,075,600
2,.369,689
4..846 .568
11,400
4,848,968
1858
3,082,117
3,322,.W0
4,071,775
8,(19.s,.527
11,700
7,314 448
1860
7,640,914
.5,512,.'-)00
10,226,296
15,515,799
111,000
15,l,S2,m7
1862
26,691,247
8,905,578
31,.")2li,2.S6
34,052,678
4.39,000
.33,418,820
1864
20,895,435
7,000,000
21,8.50,860
47,751,329
600,000
4.s,o:il,733
1865
21,388,185
6,941,063
26,438,788
5:1,089,468
744, 2(H)
.53,2.50,764
1860
3,806,835
10,448,789
7,960,.'-i71
36,411,985
87O,;i00
35,248,603
1867
4.912,355
10,817,918
11,978,447
52,352,127
l,40.s,100
52,917,158
1868
2,071,873
10,649,733
6,843,484
.51,097,203
6,111,570
56,21)9,268
1869
1,324,332
10,85S,368
8,777,821
39,960,367
4,503,o70
44,416,867
1870
2,019,268
12,259.887
10,670,391
57,296,327
5,827,782
6;S.(I,S3.949
1871
3,965,043
1.5,440.266
15,085,140
63,698,867
8,272,439
71..S2.H,2.SO
1872
7,746,261
19,068,448
23,275,073
66,204,025
16,424.045
82.494,124
1873
4,518,844
15,lflS.6.S3
15,606,930
80,366,.540
19,483,211
99,204,593
1874
4,367,983
12,239,046
13,055,220
90,611,077
24,050,982
113,246,244
1875
6,360,827
9,268,044
14,083,548
101,010,853
32,342,130
130,729,382
1876
4,644,894
12,2.">0,0(;6
1.5,196,717
97,676,234
35,024,090
128,4.S1,5.0
1877
21,. 527, 242
14,691,790
34,821,252
107,364,666
35,930,,524
139,,S76,056
1878
21,834,142
13,,504,117
33,377,.533
123,783,736
■ 39,371,1.39
1 9,81)1,801
1879
38,248,016
14, .508,872
51,6.57,636
141,654,474
49,617,415
1.86,083,762
1880
39,236,658
18,887,703
56,.559,531
127,553,907
43,441,112
167,-534,276
• This colnmn inclule'* total exp >rts from United Sta es and Canida, less the exports of United States to Canada and British Provinces, and
oF CaLBda to the United States.
No. 8. — Destination of the Bdiri) Products Exported from the United States of America.
Tear of Export
and
Name of Article.
] To the British
. ; Po33t.ssious in
I North America.
1858— Butter
,, Cheese
1860 -Butter
,, Cheese
1865— Butter
,, Cheese
1866— Buttoi
,, Cheese
1869— Butter
,, Cheese
1870— Butter
,, Cheese
1873— Butter
,, Cheesa
1875— Butter
,, Cheese
1877-Butter
,, Cheese
1878— Butter
,, Cheese
1879— Butter
Cheese
lbs.
94,1.55
5,644,183
3,363,121
11,978,619
16,854,047
49,727,248
1,432,218
33,042,868
28,630
38,316,127
111,980
50,245,613
1,367,390
71, .584,466
3,205,.360
89,8.54,128
1.5,031, .377
104,941,072
14,345,758
120,929,600
24,841,714
136,603,242
j:i:i,i:!7
871.i«;:i
7l'.i,2i)0
4i:i,'.io:j
l,9.S.i.015
120.574
5S,!1G7
1 I'm, 134
71,528
271.266
l(ili,.'):i4
3:i.s,<,)13
1,3119,212
1,698,164
1,237,112
1,I62,.524
1,651.626
824,373
2,876,351
To the Briti.
West Indies b
Guiana.
To the other
West Indies and
South America.
lbs.
810,128
673,448
930,880
607,246
870,231
730,7.38
465,301
480,785
229,281
387,271
274,505
412,.555
697,068
683,422
680,201
506,348
1,295,079
554,038
1,295,904
6.58,612
3,709,961
1,4.56,458
1,216,.572
642,496
1,4.86,812
621, (;io
1,895,1)41
983,155
1,241,175
472,302
091.310
l,066!l99
217,984
1,.S07,401
462,516
1,363,046
469,517
1,744,942
300,8.82
1,491,142
2.S1,991
490,7.59
256,015
lbs.
109,010
20,320
1,1711,390
2>;i,529
7S7.367
5,O.S4
323,473
1,200
813,614
9,700
4,869,279
43,287
7,I62..8.57
162,283
8,526,618
1,237,978
30,179
2,.S.54,128
47,476
8,381,209
462,408
Ihs.
3,082,117
8,098,527
7,640,914
15,515,799
21,388,185
63,089,468
3,.806,S35
36,411,985
1,324,.332
39,960,367
2,019,268
57,290,327
4,518,844
80,366,.540
6,360,827
101,010,8.53
21,.527,242
107,364,666
21,834,142
123,7.83,736
38,248,016
141,651,474
Atlantic in small quantities, and by 18-iO-4I the butter export from the United States had never
shij)nients to England had reached more than reached 3,000,000 lbs., and cheese had exceeded
1,000,000 lbs. ; this increased to over 5,000,000 lbs. 2,000,000 lbs. but one year; the total value of the
a year before 1815. Still, up to 18 1() the annual annual dairy exports had never risen to half a
PRICES OF DAIRY PRODUCTS.
421
million dollars at tliis time. From lS-10 to 1850
the average annual export of butter was over
3,000,000 lbs., and during- the same decade the
cheese export rose from 700,0001bs. to 17,000,000
lbs. From 1850 to 1855 there was a decline of
nearly one-half in the quantity and value of the
exports. At this time Great Britain appears to
have taken fully two-thirds of the whole export,
and much went to Canada. The reciprocity treaty
between the United States and Canada, which was
proclaimed March 16th, 1855, included butter and
cheese in the free list, and Canada, with the more
distant provinces, were lai-ge purchasers of those
articles in " the States " during the ten years
the provisions of that treaty were in operation.
From 1850 to 1860 the butter exported averaged
2,500,000 lbs. and the cheese over 6,000,000 lbs.
annually; from 1860 to 1870 butter 14,000,000 lbs.,
cheese 40,000,000 lbs. The aggregate weight
of cheese exported from the United States from
1790 to 1878, inclusive, was 1,;386,736,:307 lbs.,
and one-tenth of the whole (139,249,276 lbs.) is
credited to the calendar year of 1878 1 These
facts may be better presented by the accom-
panying tables of export statistics. Table No. 7
gives the total exports of butter and cheese from
the United States and Canada for a number of
selected years, sufficient to show the development
of this trade and its fluctuations, and the net
shijiments of dairy iiroducts from American shores,
in the third column, obtained by deducting from
the sum of the first two columns the quantities
reported as piassing from Canada to the States,
and vice versa. Table No. 8 exhibits the disposi-
tion of most of the surplus dairy product of the
United States during twenty j^ears. The rest has
been distributed in comparatively small quantities
among about twenty other countries ; the largest
customers not named are Mexico, the Hawaiian
Islands, China, and Japan. It will be seen that
Great Britain takes over 70 per cent, of the butter
exported, and over 95 per cent, of the cheese.
The details of the Canadian exports cannot be
so closely given, but the proportion of the surplus
butter and cheese of the Dominion which goes
to Great Britain is about the same as just named
for the United States. The figures of the Tables
are generally those of the fiscal years ending, both
in Canada and the United States, upon the
30tli of June.
The City of New York has controlled nearly
the whole foreign trade of the United States in
dairy goods from the time it became important.
In 1855 more than half the butter and nearly
all of the cheese exported from the country was
shipped from that port; in 1880 three-fourths
of the butter export and more than nine-tenths
of the cheese.
The following is a monthly statement of the ex-
ports from this port for the years 1877 and 1878 : —
Tear.
Month.
1877.
1878.
Butter, in
Cheese, in
Butter, in
Cheese, in
lbs.
lbs.
lbs.
lbs.
January
883,851
4,902,415
827,862
7,418,961
Febraary
1,580,356
4,277,512
841,122
4,516,789
March
2,297,806
2,006,122
1,223,922
6,212,735
Aiiril
1,056,937
1,390,593
1,762,153
5,012,527
May
802,574
8,997,982
1,141,154
14,075,138
June
2,219,435
20,899,781
2,421,295
23,671,879
July
3,031,881
21,788,294
4,251,961
31,030,186
August...
3,585,706
21,003,433
3,405,852
16,794,651
September
,5,126,102
10,667,094
3,804,424
11,006,748
October
1,949,765
7,226,190
2,304,390
10,369,242
November
993,785
8,334,659
2,134,039
8,.554,484
December
718,947
6,861,795
2,276,543
6,823,570
The other ports from which dairy products go
abroad in any considerable quantity are Phila-
delphia, Boston, Baltimore, New Orleans, and San
Francisco.
Comparing butter and cheese with other agri-
cultural products exported from the United States,
it is found that in value they form 3J per cent,
of the total, and that cotton, wheat, pork pro-
ducts, Indian corn, tobacco, and beef products are
the only articles which bear a greater ratio to the
whole.
Peices.
The prices of dairy products in the United
States vary so much with the location of the
sales, the changing rates of transportation, and
the general tone of trade and the markets, that the
figures available are not of great value. Theo-
retically, based upon the respective quantity of
milk required to produce a pound of each article,
the relative price of butter and cheese in the
same market is held to be as 2^ is to 1 ; that is,
with butter selling at 25 cents a pound, cheese
should be 10 cents. But practically this law has
rarely governed sales; cheese, until 1878, sold
generally at half the price of butter, and often
more, but since that time the cheese average
422
DAIRY FARMING
has ranged from one-third to two- fifths that of
butter.
The average prices obtained for butter and
cheese at the wholesale market of New York
City are given as follows for the month of
January in eaeh year for half a century, upon
the authority of Professor Willard : — Commenc-
ing with January, 1835, the products of the
previous year sold in New Y^ork City at 7 J cents
per pound for cheese and 15 cents for butter.
In 1826 cheese advanced to 8 cents, and then
declined, reaching G cents in 1831, 1832, and
1833, advancing to G| cents in 1834. During
this decade the highest price reached for butter
was 17 cents in 1827, and the lowest 13i cents in
1830. In the next decade ( 1 835 to 1 S-i'}) the range
for cheese was from 9^ cents, the average for 1837,
to 4§ in 1844, and for butter from 20 cents in
1838 to 8i cents in 1843. In 1845 cheese advanced
50 per cent, upon the previous year's rates, or
to C§ cents, and varied little till 1851, when it
dropped to 5J cents, the lowest average for this
decade; but it then rose steadily till it reached
9i cents in 1854, the highest point in these thirty
years. Butter, from Hi cents in 1845, went to
19^ cents in 1854. The next decade (1855 to
1865) covers the war period, when gold reached a
value of 2"58 in United States currency, this being
the average for July, 1864. In 1855 cheese main-
tained its price of the previous year — 9J cents,
declining 1 cent in 1856, and advancing to 9J
cents again in 1857. In 1858 it fell to 6| cents,
and then advanced with rapid strides, 8J cents in
1859, 11 cents in 1800, and ou to 15J cents in
January, 1864. At this time the gold dollar was
worth 1"55 dollars currency; or, a pound of cheese
brought a little less than 10 cents in gold at New
York. Butter started at 22 J cents in 1855,
declined to 14 cents in 1861, and rose to 24 cents,
or 15 1 cents in gold, in 1864. (The quotation of
14 cents immediately preceded the year of greatest
butter export from the United States.) Next
come the years of inflation — the "flush times" —
1865 to 1875. Cheese rose in 1865 to an average
price of 20 cents per pound, and butter to 45
cents. These averages were unprecedented, and
have never since been realised. At this time the
best cheese. New Y'ork cheddars, retailed at 40
cents a pound, and the entire butter product of
numerous fancy dairies sold at from 1 dollar to
1 .1 dollars a pound. It must be borne in mind.
however, that on a gold basis the wholesale rates
last named were really 9^ cents for cheese and
20| cents for butter. From this point the decline
has been almost continuous. Cheese brought from
16 to 18 cents imtil 1872, then dropped to 13J
cents, rose somewhat above 14 cents in 1873 and
1874, and averaged 15J cents in 1875; in 1876
the average was 13^ cents, 14^ cents in 1877,
and 12J cents in January, 1878. "Skims" at
the same time were quoted at 6 to 8 cents.
Butter fell to 30 cents in 1866 and 18G7, rose to
45 cents again in 1869, dropped to 20 cents in
1872, and in 1874 stood at 27 cents; in 1875
there was some advance, but still greater decline
followed, the average being about 26 cents in
1876 and 1877.
The season of 1878 witnessed a general
break and demoralisation in the American dairy
market. Cheese steadily declined, choice New
Y'ork State factory falling below 8 cents at
times, averaging 9 cents for the year, and closing
at about Si cents. Butter during the same time
ranged from 33 cents in January to 17 cents in
July, closing at 24 cents, this being about the
average for the year of choice New York and
Western creamery. This depression became still
greater during 1879; for the first six months
selected lots of cheese at New York averagod not
over 8 cents a pound, and in February there were
large sales of lower grade, for export, at 5 and 6
cents. The choicest creamery butter, which stood
at 30 cents in January, averaged 23 cents for six
months, and sold in June at 16 cents, the best
New York dairy butter being 2 or 3 cents per
pound lower. In July and August the averages
were 16 cents for choicest butter, and less than
6 cents for cheese. Early in the autumn a
sudden and great advance occurred ; in October
butter reached 32 cents and cheese 16 cents, 100
per cent, increase within three months, and the
year dosed with a very slight reaction, butter 30
and cheese 13. During 1880 the market was
steadier, but there was a wide range in prices.
Creamery butter starting at 30 to 32 cents in
January, reached 40 cents in February, fell below
20 in June, and rose to 35 towards the end of
the year. Factory cheese touched 15 cents in
February, dropped to 7J in July, and rose again to
13 and over as the season closed. The general
averages in the New Y'ork market for 1879 and
18S0 may be placed at 8 and 12 cents respectively
CHARGES ON AMERICAN CHEESE.
423
for clieeso, and at '2:J and 30 cents for butter.
These are gold rates, the currency of the United
States having reached par again.
Beginning with the year lS78,Wisconsin factory
cheese kept very nearly on an equality with New
York State, and Ohio factory products about half
a cent below ; farm dairy cheese has been seldom
quoted. A\'estern and New York creamery butter
has been also equal in price, with fine dairy jaails
quoted at 20 per cent. less.
The Chamber of Commerce of the City of
Cincinnati, Ohio, is one of the oldest and best-
managed institutions of its kind in America.
From its annual reports the following condensed
abstract is made, giving the annual receijits of
butter and cheese at that city, and the annual
average prices of Central Ohio and Western
Reserve products, for twenty years : —
Butter, I
n Packages.
Cheese, in Boxes.
1
S
sS
f
PM
'1
i
s
g
•c
1
.2"
M
1
H
»
»
1859
13 053
19
1869
53,219
.33
1859
223,230
^
1869
110 163
Kl,
IHIil)
HAiii U
1870 59 121
2.S
1860 227.005
Si
1870
198.903
17
IStil
l.-,.<,\i\ i:;
H71 72.171
2H
1861 1.56 583 7.i
IS71
193,.S.33
13 f
1SB2
2ii,ii iti ij
1-:.' 72.718
20
1862 103,8J1 61
IS7;'
m 610
ui
!«<
;ii;:;i;i \i
l^r:i 62,578 23
1863 121,936 10,1
1873
207. .817
Hi
mm
linr.M -'11
1^71 53,865; 27
1861 HI li;7 It
I.S71
lsl.li8o
itf
l.Sti.i
6.5SSr 33
H7.j 66,722 2'>
m;-! iJv-71 m;
n7.".
17,1,111
It
I.SWi
■6.01S
■M
1876 121.731 -'i
!■;; i-ii;ii \:<
I ^:i;
1-:; 7l.'i
lU
isw
62, JU
2S
IS77 111.761 1<
i-;7 ■:<• 1 ;i, 1 II
l-'7 7
1 1 : 117
r!
IStiS
57, 71 J
3t)
1878 121,012,17,
ixis i.-,:i,77l 11'.
1S7S
ius,:;26
10
The combinations and competitions among the
transportation-lines cause frequent changes in the
rates of freight in America. Figures of one date
can with no certainty ba applied to another. In
general terms, the cost of transportation of dairy
products from Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois to
New York City may be stated as from i to 1 cent
per pound, and that of carriage from New York to
Liverpool from ^ to J of a cent. Through rates
on butter from Iowa to Liverpool were 2-25 dollars
per cwt. during the season of 1878, and ranged
from 1-40 to 2' dollars in 1880. By special con-
tract cheese was carried from Denver, Colorado, to
Liverpool for 206 dollars per cwt. during 1870.
American cheese in its progress to English
markets is subject to numerous charges, which are
thus given ajjproximately by one of the largest
operators in New York : — ■
Cent per lb.
Commission to country buyers ... '
Freight to New York (depends on distance — s.iy) J
Commission of receiver or city dealer J
Cooperage and cartage to vessel ... ... ... ,'-
Commission of the shipper or exporter ... ... i
Ocean freight — average .. ... ... ... A
Marine insurance, with landing and receiving
charges at Liverpool ... ... ... ... A
Shrinkage in weight since leaving maker ... i
Importer's profit— ahout i
This amounts altogether to 2| cents per pound, and
at this stage the cheese has passed from the im-
porter into the hands of dealers and jobbers, and
is on the English market in competition with the
British product. A rough but fairly approximate
method of reckoning the nett proceeds in New
lork of cheese sales at Liverpool is to deduct
one-seven f A of the rates quoted at the latter
place. This will cover allowance for loss of
weight. Of course the charges are less than
those given when the price of cheese is very low
as in 1879. H. E. A..
CHAPTER XXVIII.
American Mii.k Tkaui; and City Supply.
naihvaj- Transportation Cans-New York City Supply-Delivery Waggon— Glass Bottles and Jars-Philadelphia— Chieago— Boston-
Onondaga Jlilk Association of Syracuse.
fZ^OVGH Las already been said
''^j^ ill regard to the sale and
delivery of milk for use as
food in the neighbourhood
of its production, but the
, ■" matter of city supjdy must
be further noticed and some
examples given. To prepare milk for safe
transportation a considerable distance,
l)reserviug its sweetness forty-eight
hours, as is sometimes necessary, the
uniform custom of American producers is to cool it
as soon as jiossible after being drawn from the
cow.* Pools of cold water are generally used, in
which the milk is set in cans or pails 8 inches
in diameter and about ^0 inches deep, the aim
being to reduce the tempei-ature to b-ii'^ or lower
within an hour. Sometimes
tiie milk is strained directly
* Experiments tried in America
during the year 1880 disprove the
theory, supposed to be well cstahlishcd,
that milk must 1)0 soon and thorouglily
cooled in order to make it "keep" and
bear transportation. The parties ex-
perimenting have strained tlie milk
into cans as soon as possible after
coming from the udder, always before
the temperature has fallen below OC
Fahr., then hermetically scaled the cans,
usually of gliss, and from that time
disregarded temperature in handling
and shipping the milk. Thus put up,
the milk has been found to bear carriage
for great distance, and to kc(>p good in
all weather, fully as long as when cooled
in the usual way. The great point
seems to be to seal the milk so soon, as
to permit a minimum exposure to the
atmosphere. The experiments have been on a large scalp,
quantities of milk having been thus sent successfully to distant
points at different seasons. But although the main features of
this process are here stated, there are certain precautionary
m asures taken between the milking and canning, or in the can-
ning-room, which the parties interested do not yet nuke jaililic
into the cans, and those set into the pool, the
covers off. It thus stands until just before the
time of starting from the farm ; if in pails it is
thin transferred to the shijiping cans. When
going to large cities by rail, it in many cases has
to be carried two or three miles to the nearest
station.
Railroad cans, passing between the country
producers and the city dealers, are of varied
patterns in different localities in America. The
aecom])anying illustration gives the forms pre-
ferred in the prineiiial cities, and as made by the
Iron Clad JManufacturing Company of New \ork.
The one in the middle of Fig. ^20 ^\ith the round
toj) is the pattern customary in and about New
York and Saint Louis. That with the smaller
top at the left and rear is used at Philadelphia,
Fig. 220.
Baltimore, and Cincinnati. The one at the right
anil rear is the Ciiieago jiattern, and the little one
oil the extreme right is the Boston can. The usual
size I'or railway cans is 10 (piarts, l)ut the Boston
can raim'es (rom 2 \i> \:l (luarts, SJ, buiiig tlic
TOWN MUAk SUrPLY IN AMERICA.
425
favourite size. This is much used for delivt
luibrokeu to families aud hotels ; it has a \v<
,^^^i^i4^^-
Fig 221.
stopper, while all the others have tin covers. The
can on the left of the figure represents the form
usual for pedlars' delivery waggons, with hook
for the dipper. This, being less subject to
rough usage than the railroad cans, has
not the extra iron-bound bottom.
The milk remains in the railway cans
in which it starts from the dairy iiutil it
reaches the retailer or some distributing
depot; then it is transferred to a cooler,
and ultimately to the delivery cans,
which contain from 10 to 20 gallons, l.j
being a very common size. These cans
have large bowl-shaped mouths, with
covers, and are very generally conveyed
over the routes in open vehicles, the
milk delivered to the consumers by re-
moving the cover at each sale and dipjiing
from the can with a long- handled quart
measure. There is thus constant expo-
sure to contamination, especially in wet or dusty
weather.
A waggon cooler and delivery can invented
bv Frank K. Ward, proprietor of "The Alderney
Dairy " of the City of Washington, is a great
improvement upon the fittings in
general use. The engraving shows
the cooler complete upon the bench
which supports it in the waggon;
under the bench the measures are so
arranged as to keep their places pro-
tected from dust and yet be readily
slijiped out for use. The cooler
consists of a double-walled ease of
heavy plate tin, with non-conduct-
ing air-spaces which extend up
around the necks of the enclosed
cans. Three cans are inseparably
incased in the cooler, two large and
one smaller, these being of single
thickness; tight covers close these
cans. In rear of the small can is
an opening into the general interior
of the cooler, through which it is
tilled with water and ice, broken
ice and salt, or other refrigerat-
ing material, and this, acting upon
the entire surface of the cans, is
very efficient in keeping the milk,
cream, or buttermilk they contain in
good condition during the course of
delivery. In cold weather the double-walled case
and confined air-spaees preserve the contents of the
cans from freezing. Tubes with large taps connect
with the cans at the bottom, and enable the con-
tents to be quickly drawn without exposure by
removing covers. This cooler can be used in any
■I:!i'
DAIRY FAKMIXO.
vehicle over 32 inches in width, l)ut is especially
adapted to a covered delivery waggon with sliding
side doors. In such the bench is fastened in the
fore part of the wa<y<;^on with the cooler facing the
driver; behind him in the back of the waggon is
space for the extra 10-galIon railway cans fi'om
which the cooler is re-filled. The taps are within
reach of a person standing on the ground on either
side of the waggon, but are under cover. In the
ordinary size of the cooler the large cans hold 50
quarts and the smaller half that quantity. The
three taps are removable, and these, with the
four covers and three measures, are the only parts
or pieces; every part of the a])pliance is accessible,
and the whole can be thoroughly cleaned while in
the waggon. There is an opening at the bottom
of the cooler to draw off the water and for cleaning.
This contrivance is also adapted to use in milk
sale depots, in restaurants, and hotels. When
not to be used in a vehicle, rods are inserted
through the middle of the can tops, with plungers
which reach to the bottoms of the cans; by these
the contents may be agitated without opening, to
thoroughly mix before drawing from the bottom.
Fig. ii-Z shows one of Mr. Ward's delivery
waggons complete. Not only these waggons, but
all the arrangements of this establishment at
Washington are so perfect that it well merits
further attention. It is, however, similar to the
one at Syracuse which is about to be described.
The latter is managed by an association, while
" The Alderney Dairy " is the personal enterprise
of its single pvo])rietor.
New York City, in the year lS-10, with its
population of 313,000, received about 45,000
quarts of milk daily, mainly by waggon transporta-
tion; a large quantity was also produced within
the city limits. The Erie Railroad soon after
began conveying milk to New Y'ork, and in 18-1'3
it carried 795,376 gallons. In 1850 the city
received by rail alone an average of 91,413 quarts
daily, and this was regarded as not more than two-
thirds of the whole supply. At this time the Erie
and Harlem roads carried over 3,000,000 gallons
a year each, the Hudson River, New Haven, and
New Jersey roads together 1,000,000 galhjns or
more, and less quantities reached the city by other
routes. In 1800 the estimated daily receipts
were 200,000 quarts; in 1870, 300,000, and in
1879 over 400,000 quarts a day. During one
week in June, 1879, the actual receipts by public
routes, rail and water, averaged 410,450 quarts per
day. The returns of the milk shi])ments over the
Erie Railway show the rapid develo])ment of the
trade at New York: — In 1843, 795,370 gallons;
1850, 3,152,039 gallons; 1860, 6,103,652 gallons,
and 1870, 11,733,500 gallons. In 1850 seventy-
miles was considered the possible limit of milk
transportation ; ten years later the distance was
doubled, and in 1879 milk trains regularly run
between New Y'ork and points more than 250
miles distant. In 1850 one-third of all the
country milk received in New Y'ork was from
Orange County. In 1879 the city received daily
supplies not only from a widely-extended area in
the State of New Y'ork, but from New Jersey,
Connecticut, Western JNfassachusetts, and Ver-
mont. While New Y'ork is the depot for this
great supply, the milk is not all consumed there ;
a large part of the receipts are re-shipped to
Brooklyn, Jersey City, Newark, and other neigh-
bouring places.
The principal railway lines centring at New
Y'ork make the transportation of milk a specialty,
and run daily express milk trains. Most of the
milk thus carried is in 10-gallon cans, and about
200 cans (or 8,000 quarts) form a car-load.
The freight charge, including the return of the
cans, is usually the same for all distances on a
given section of road. On the Erie road the charge
has been for several years 55 cents per can, the
extreme distance of shipment being 80 miles.
On the Hudson River and Harlem roads, 55 cents
for all distances less than 90 miles, 60 cents for
those from 90 to 130 miles, and 80 cents for all
over 130. Stations in Vermont, from 210 to 250
miles distant from New Y'ork City, ship to that
point about 400,000 gallons of milk annually, the
freight being 2 cents a quart, and the receipts by
the farmers averaging between 2 and 2^ cents, the
year through. In Orange County, New York, the
average receipts on the main lines and branches
of the railways are about 120,000 gallons per
annum for every mile of road. The months of
June, July, and August always show the greatest
shipments, April, May, and September coming
next. The three summer mouths carry double the
quantity of the same time in winter. The milk
trains for New Y'ork are nearly all run at night,
reaching the city between midnightand three o'clock
in the morning. The arrangements are such that
morning's milk, after being eight hours in the
MII.K IN SEALED BOTTLES.
•127
ooolins' tauk at Rutlaud, Vermont, 24>0 miles from
New York, can be transported to the city and
delivered at the doors of consumers by daylight
the next rnorning'.
The supply of New York City with milk is
burdened with an unreasonably wide margin
between the price paid by the consumer and the
nett receipts of the producer. While 8 cents
per quart was the usual retail price in the city for
several years preceding 1880, the average return to
the farmer during the same period was for 2i to 3
cents ; the producer has to deliver the milk at the
railway station and furnish the cans, which get
very hard usage, and although " iron-clad " are a
large item in the farmer's expenses. It is admitted
that the cost of delivering the milk after its
arrival in the city is about 'Z^ cents a quart, and
that it cannot be materially lessened ; this too is
exclusive of the 10 per cent, loss on the quantity
delivered, by shrinkage and accidents. But there
i-emain the items of which there is chief complaint —
the freight charges by the railroads and the profits
of the middlemen, together about 3 cents a quart.
It is true that special facilities are provided by the
railways for safe and rapid transit, but still the
rates on milk are exorbitant compared with other
produce and merchandise.. As above stated, the
average rate is from 65 to 70 cents per cwt. for
milk and can for 100 miles or less, while two
barrels of flour or sugar vs^eighing several times
as much are carried twice as far for less money.
Nearly all the milk reaching New York by rail is
taxed from 1;^ to li cents a quart, much of it
more. With the market glutted, sound milk has
been sold so low that the freight absorbed the
whole receipts, the returns to the producer being
only the empty cans. Attempts to reduce by
legislation the charges on milk to 30 cents per
can (J cent per quart) have failed because of the
great influence of the railroads at Albany. The
clear profit to middlemen of 1^ cents and more
per quart is even more exasperating, and the cause
of constant agitation and endeavour to bring con-
sumers and producers nearer together. Co-opera-
tive organisations have been successful to a limited
extent, and with railway charges reasonably re-
duced, milk can be delivered to New York con-
sumers for 7 cents or less, while at the same time
it yields a return of over 3 cents to the producer.
This important matter of city milk supply
receives much attention in America, and several
57
articles have been patented for conveying milk
and cream in small quantities from the dairy to
the consumer unopened. While milk delivered in
the usual way in New York is sold for 8 cents,
there is a steadily increasing sale to private
families for 10 cents of milk delivered unbroken
from the dairy. This trade began with tin cans
holding 1, 2, and 3 quarts, with a simple con-
trivance for sealing, but these were soon replaced
by vessels of porcelain and glass. Of these
there are several kinds, in the form of cans, jars,
and bottles, holding from 1 pint to '2 quarts,
and with or without locks and special fastenings.
The " Lester " can, largely used in New York for
milk from dairies 100 to 200 miles distant, is a
strong glass can and cover, the latter fastened
hy a metallic clamp which not only hermetically
seals the can, but places the milk under slight
pressure and prevents motion or churning of the
contents. These cans are of sizes containing from
1 to 5 quarts, and ai-e packed in wooden cases for
transportation. The crystal jar (Fig. 223) is similar.
It has a glass top screwed down upon a rubber ring.
Fig. 224.
and is provided with a bale. The opening is large
enough to admit a small dipper to remove the
cream. The "Warren" milk-bottle (Fig. 224) is
also very popular, and rapidly coming into use
in other cities as well as in New York. These
bottles are securely and conveniently packed in
boxes holding a dozen, as shown by Fig. 225.
These contrivances show the great pains which are
taken to present milk to consumers in a neat.
i-ZH
DAIRY FARMING.
SL^em-c, and attractive form — a system whieli pays
the veudor well and satisfies the consumer. Thou-
sands of such are daily sent from dairy-farms many
miles distant from New York to agents in that city
who delivi'r them to the consumers. The air being
excluded, tin milk kcejis well in these i^ackages,
and they are convenient for setting at once into
refrigerators or cool closets, allowing the cream
to separate before opening. The jars are easily
arranged so as to show at once if tampered with
en route, and by this means families are enabled to
get ])ure milk direct from the same dairy daily.
By additional jn-ovision i\i&y are regularly supplied
with the milk of a particular cow.
A large quantity of " plain " condensed milk
is sold in New York. This article is pure milk
reduced by the Borden process to about one-fifth
its bulk, rendering it so thick that it just comes
within liquid limits. In this condition it is
delivered daily in the city by route agents, and
sold by the quart at the uniform price of 28
cents; by the addition of one gallon of water
to the condensed quart, the milk is returned
to something very closely resembling its original
state. It is thus chea])er than dairy milk, has
a higher reputation for purity, keeps much longer,
and for these reasons is ])referred by many house-
keej)ers.
Philadelphia is mainly supplied with milk over
railway lines, but the first can of milk ever received
in the city in that way was in April, 18-17 ; it was
from a (yhester A'^alley dairyman, and the vessel an
old-fashioned wooden churn. Up to that time the
milk su])])ly of the city not conveyed by waggon
from producers within a few miles was received by
the steamboats running up and down the River
Delaware. During 1879 scarcely any milk reached
the city by water, and more than four-fifths of the
sup])ly was by rail. The maximum distance run
by the milk trains is CO miles, and Chester County
furnishes more than any other section, proportion-
at^^'ly. Very little now crosses the Delaware, nearly
all bi.'ing supplied by Pennsylvania farmers. The
total average supply of the city is placed at
100, 000 quarts a day, cmjdoying UOO vendors in
its delivery, with nearly as many waggons. In the
retail trade a business of 1,500 to 1,800 quarts is
considered very large, the average being about "200
quarts daily to each dealer. The retail price
changes twice a year, the winter rate, which runs
six months, being ordinarily 2 cents m(-re per
quart than the summer price. As elsewhere, the
consum])ti(jn in summer is found to be much
greater in Philadelphia than in winter, falling
ofE one-tenth about the 1st of Septendjer. The
retail trade feels a great variation in the demand
during every week, at least 10 per cent, more milk
being sold on Fridays and Saturdays than on the
first three week days. This renders the regulation
of the milk supply a difEcult matter, and a surplus
often results. Such is disposed of in different
ways; some is re-shipped to the nearest cheese-
factory, and from much the cream is taken and
churned in the city, the skim-milk and butter-
milk being sold at low rates, or given away.
" Schmier-kase," or cottage-cheese, is a favourite
article in the Philadelphia markets, and this
furnishes another means of consuming the sour
milk. The milk trains an-ive in Philadelphia at
various times between ten o'clock in the morning
and sunset, necessitating refrigerators until the
delivery early the next day. Philadelphia has a
straight-necked, small-mouthed pattern of carrying
can, the sizes being for 5, 7j, and 10 gallons, with
the medium as the favourite. The railway freights
are 8, 12, and 15 cents per can respectively for
the sizes named, or | cent per quart. Shippers
prepay freight, and cans are returned. In 1S72
the retail prices were 8 and 10 cents per quart,
netting producers 3 to 4|- cents. In 1879 these
rates had fallen from (5 to 8 cents and 2 to
3 cents respectively.
-The annual milk supply of the City of Chicago
for the ye-ir 1880 was placed at upwards of
THE BOSTON MILK CONTRACTORS.
429
0,000,000 gallons, nearly all conveyed by rail
from places within 50 miles.
The business of supplying Boston with milk is
managed chiefly by contractors, who, conferring
with the producers just before the commencement
of each period of six months, fix the price per can
at the farmer's door, and assume the provision of
the cans, collection of the milk, and transporta-
tion by rail. The contractor leases a car of the
railroad at a fixed annual rent, with specifications
as to time, route, and stopping-places. The prices
paid have been from .5,000 dollars for a car run-
ning 20 miles, to 9,000 dollars for about 50 miles.
Sixty miles is the extreme distance of regular milk
shipments to Boston up to the year ISSO. This
system has decided advantages in relieving the
farmers of the uncertainty as to nett proceeds, and
the liability of having milk returned which exists
under shipments on commission, and in tending
to lessen the difference between prices to first
hands and to customers. At the same time it has
proved very profitable to contractors, so much so
as to cause producers to feel aggrieved, and en-
deavour by combined action to market their own
milk. The Boston trade has its own peculiar
style of can, as already stated ; this can has a side
handle, small opening, aud a wooden stopper, and
the- several sizes hold 8, Sh, 9^, and 9| quarts, the
second being most used. The contractors very
generally sell the milk at the ear in Boston at an
advance of from 8 to 10 cents per can over first
cost, thereby obtaining a profit of 3 to 5 cents per
can. It is then re-sold by the can at an advance
of 10 or 12 cents, and finally retailed at from 5 to
8 cents per quart. Collections and settlements
are usually made monthly all round. Milk for
which the farmer receives 3 cents can be sold by
the contractor at 4 cents, with a profit of about
i cent per quart ; the wholesale dealer and retailer
divide 3 cents a quart for their labour and profit.
Thus three sets of profits to middlemen. The
average daily supply of the city for ISSO was
116,000 quarts; for the year 42,340,000 quarts;
for this the consumers paid over 2,500,000 dollars.
During the year specified large quantities of sk/ni.
milk were sold in the city, as such, at 3 cents a
quart.
In most American cities there are ordinances
regulating the milk trade, providing penalties
for adult, ration, &c., and the boards of health
or officers under them are often chart>ed with
the execution of these laws. Adulteration to
some extent is found among the dealers in every
city, and among producers also. The commonest
fraud of all is the addition of water, and next
comes the subtraction of cream, or " topping ■"
the cans — removing cream which rises in /run-
s/fit, for sale separately at a high price. Nine-
tenths of all the cases examined where poor milk
is complained of result, if in anything, in finding
that one or the other of these frauds has been
practised. Although various substances are com-
monly supposed to be used for adulterating milk,
it is very rare for the city chemists and inspectors
to find anything added to milk except water, salt,
and burnt sugar. Salt is used to preserve milk
and to give it solidity ; burnt sugar to make up
the needed sweetening and to give colour when
the milk has been either watered or robbed of its
cream.
Under an Act of the INIassachusetts Legislature,
the City of Boston appointed an inspector of milk,
who has been in service since August, 1S59. This
oflieer devotes his whole time to acquainting him-
self with the milk trade of the city, those engaged
in it, the sources and methods of supply, testing
samples of milk upon application, investigating
complaints, and enforcing the laws for the pre-
vention of milk adulteration. He publishes an
annual report containing many items of interest.
The samples of milk examined during each year
range from 1,500 to 2,000, and about one-fourth
are found to be more or less watered ; from 1 to 40
per cent, of water is found, the average being
about 18 per cent. In 1S59 Boston had a popu-
lation of about 178,000, and some 300 milk-dealers.
In ISSO the city had a population of over 360,000,
and from 700 to 800 wholesale milk-dealers ; more
than half these dealers sold from waggons, and most
of the rest kept a few cows and sold the milk in
their neighbourhoods. There were 1,730 cows kept
within the city limits, 510 persons owning but
one each. The inspector classes all as wholesale
dealers who distribute milk to families, stores,
hotels, &c., from waggons, or who keep more than
one cow. No attempt is made to keep account
of the retail dealers, except requirement of regis-
tration when entering the business, and examina-
tion of their wares on complaint. It was estimated,
however, that milk was retailed at 5,000 different
places in Boston during the year 1880.
The City of Syracuse, in the State of New
430
DAIRY FARMING.
York, wliic'li with its environs contains a jiopula-
tion of about 70,000, possesses a unique organisa-
tion for its milk supply. It is known as the
Onondaga County Milk Association, and was
chartered and began business in the month of
March, 187^. The capital stock of the com-
pany was originally 25,000 dollars, hut it lia.s
been a steadily prosperous concern, and has since
increased its capital four-fold. The stock is held
by about fifty persons who were formerly milk
jiroducers and dealers acting indepeildently, and
it is apportioned at the rate of 20 dollars to
each cow usually kept in milk by the holder;
the stock-book shows that the members own from
seven to seventy cows each. The head-quarters
of the Association are in the city, where it owns
and occupies a large four-storey brick building-
provided with every accommodation for receiving,
keeping, handling and distributing milk, for board-
ing and lodging the thirty or more employes, and
for general business purposes. There are offices,
the directors' room, and a well-arranged hall for
meetings and discussions by members of the
Association and other dairymen. In the rear ai'e
barns and stables for twenty-five horses, sheds
for as many waggons, sleighs, harness, &c., also
a repair shop, a blacksmith's shop, and other con-
veniences. The Association maintains twenty
milk routes, with a waggon and pedlar uj)on
each, supplying about 40,000 people tlu'ough
the year. The management is delegated to
a president, vice-president, and nine directors,
of whom five form the executive board, and the
working force comprises a superintendent, cashier
and accountant, milk-receiver, two distributing
clerks, cheese-maker, hostler, blacksmith and
heljier, housekeeper and assistant, and twenty
pedlars. All the help is boarded at the building
of the company, and one of the most interesting-
items in connection with the enterprise is the
fact that board satisfactory to the employes has
been furnished at a cost of less than 8 dollars a
month.
The Association originated from a prosaic de-
sire on the part of milk-producers to benefit them-
selves, and a belief that several persons who were
selling milk in Syracuse, each one by himself,
could economise in labour and cost of delivery
by co-operation. The object was to establish a
central depot where the milk produced by all
could be received, thence distributed so far as
it could be used as milk, and provision made for
working the surplus into butter and cheese on
joint account. The great saving expected was
in the delivery to consumers; it was thought that
instead of half-a-dozen waggons running daily
through the same streets to furnish here and there
a family, as occurred often under the old s3-stera,
the customers of the six pedlars might, by union
of interests, be suj>plied from a single waggon.
Next was the expected saving by advantageous
use of the surplus milk ; that of several pedlars
being " pooled " or handled in one mass. Both
of these expectations have been so far realised
as to give prosperity to the Association. The
independent "owners" of milk routes at first
looked with suspicion upon the concern, but one
by one have found it to their interest to join.
The impression of a monopoly, likely to be at
first formed, is not sustained by the facts, for
the Association has opposition enough from in-
dividual sources to force it to keep uj) the quality
of its milk and to keep down its prices. The re-
sult has really been to maintain in this city a
high standard of quality and very reasonable rates.
The articles of association are very carefully
drawn, and these are among the most important
features : — Every member is bound to deliver at
the rate of 6 quarts of milk daily through the
year for every cow represented by the stock he
holds ; the directors may refuse all milk offered in
excess of this ratio, and may reject any milk failing
to meet the rules as to quality, condition, &c. ; the
cows, farm, food, water, and general dair^' manage-
ment of every member are to be subject at all
times to inspection by the directors or their agents;
no member may in any way interfere with the
business of the Association by competition or other-
wise, or become at all interested in rival trade;
every member on withdrawmg from the Association
agrees to bond himself to abstain from all such
competition for at least five years; members may,
upon due notice, cefise to deliver milk proportionate
to stock, and in lieu be granted a cash dividend,
at the rate of 7 per cent, jicr annum ; there are
strict pi'ovisions as to details, and penalties pre-
scribed for all violation of the rules and regulations;
all sales are for cash, and monthly iinancial state-
ments are made, with monthly dividends for the
stock-holding jiroducers.
The business is conducted as follows : — Each
n. ilk-producer has two sets of narrow-necked.
AN AMERICAN CO-OPERATIVE DAIRY.
431
larsfe cans to carry his milk fr(im liomc to the
central depot; the rules require that the milk
shall he cooled as much as possible before delivery
by settino- the cans in a cold bath, and in warm
weather the cans must be protected by wet blankets,
while en route; the milk is to be all delivered
before eight o'clock in the morning, and it is upon
delivery that the work of co-operation begins.
The building of the Association faces north, and
at the east end, cutting off a part of the first
storey, is a driveway to the yard and buildings in
rear, and the long platform at which each stock-
holder delivers his milk. Every can is marked
with its weight and the name of the owner; as
fast as received they are weighed by the clerk and
the milk credited to the producer, furnishing the
basis of his accounts with the Association. After
weighing, the cans are placed on a car and run
along a track to the cooling-room, where they are
put into a tank of ice- water until wanted for
distribution. The producer receives his second set
of cans, delivered the previous day, now clean and
sweet, and returns home. The milk is distributed
without being decanted just as brought from the
farms to the depot, and the milk of the same
dairies passes over the same route day by day.
Each pedlar on leaving the depot is charged with
the weight of milk placed in his waggon. The
consumer, if so inclined, may read the name of the
producer daily upon the can from which he is
supplied; indeed, by paying a small extra charge,
the consumer may not only select any dairy
connected with the Association from which he
prefers to be supplied, but may go to the farm and
select a particular cow; the milk will then be
specially strained in a small can, marked and duly
delivered. This, in cases of sickness and for food
for infants, is a matter of importance. These
provisions also enable any complaint on the part of
the customers to be at once traced to the producer
of the objectionable milk. On the return of the
delivery waggons, each pedlar delivers his surplus
milk, is credited for it, and it is run through a
pipe to the butter and cheese room in the base-
ment. Each pedlar then takes his empty cans, for
which he is responsible, to a place provided, where
they are rinsed in cold water, scalded with hot
water and then steamed, a row of jets being
arranged so that by placing cans over them,
bottom uj3, every crevice is reached by the steam,
and the metal so heated as to destroy every
tainting germ. The cans arc flicn di'i(\l, in the air
and sun when possible, and await delivery to the
farmers. Near the tank and cleaning apartments
is a sitting-room for the use of pedlars while
waiting, and in this a set of drawers provided with
locks, one of which is assigned to each pedlar for
keeping the money and ticket-box entrusted to
him.
In the basement a six-horse-power engine and
a large boiler furnish the heat and steam required.
All the milk not taken out by pedlars is set for
butter-making, skimmed at twelve hours, and the
buttermilk and skim-milk are made into cheese.
The milk returned by the pedlars, kept separate,
is set twenty-four hours, the cream churned and
the milk made into " pot-cheese " or sent to the
piggery. The latter is situated outside the city,
and there the Association keeps about 100 swine
on contract. The customers are furnished upon
order mth butter, cream-cheese, and " pot-cheese,"
cream, buttermilk, and sour-milk ; 10,000 quarts
of sour-milk are often sold in a month at half the
price of new milk.
Every member of the Association has a busi-
ness interest in having everything right and giving
the public full satisfaction. This leads them to
sustain the management in making and enforcing
strict regulations, to ensure cleanliness, purity,
and a good quality of product, and to ferret out
any fraud and bring offenders to justice. Erequent
tests are made of milk received, and close investiga-
tion as to causes follow all appearances of inferior
quality or any irregularity. The directors often
employ inspectors who are strangers to the pro-
ducing members whose farms they visit, and their
reports, covering the most minute particulars, are
only made known to the officers of the Association.
The general standard is maintained by requiring
a change in care, food, or water when found
necessary, and sometimes by discarding one or
more inferior cows.
The business of the Association is sum-
marised in the table on the following page, the
figures being the average result of operations for
the years 1876, 1877, and 1878.
These interesting facts are derived from the
annual reports of the Association : — There is the
greatest consumption at the season of greatest
production ; this is shown by all experience in the '
trade. The consumption in winter is undoubtedly
reduced somewhat by the increase in price; in
4;32
DAIRY FAU.ML\(x.
Syracuse the retail rates have been 5 cents a quart
in summer and 6 cents in winter. The milk con-
sumed by the customers of this Association is, as
nearly as it can be computed, at the rate of 59 quarts
per annum per cajnla, or -I'u"^ quarts per day. Tlie
shrinkage or total loss in measuring, si)illing, and
cleaning cans seems very large : 2S:5,;350 (|uarts of
milk in a year, the whole product of 120 cows I
But it has Ijeen found that pedlars must alwaj^s be
allowed 10 quarts in 100 for this seeming loss in
delivery; much of it is due to the necessity of
contrast between this cost of delivery and that in
New York and Boston is very striking. Fifty-
two dairies contributed to the Association the
milk of about 1,G00 cows. The actual average
product of the cows was 6'52 quarts jjcr day,
or 2,380 quarts per year, which is very creditable.
The highest average, 3,770 quarts per oow per
year, was attained by the owner of ten cows, this
yielding l03i dollars each; one owning 40 cows
averaged 3,339 quarts. The lowest average of any
stockholder was 1,843 quarts or 50i dollars per cow.
Milk Peceiteo.
Milk Disposed of.
Monthly
Shiinkage.
Months.
Produced,
Quarts.
11)1,934
Bought.
Amount
Received.
Qnurts.
Dailv
Receipts.
Qnarts.
Sold.
Made into
Butter and
Cheese.
Amount
Cousumed.
Daily
Sales.
Quarts.
Quarts.
Quarts.
Quarts.
Quarts.
Quarts.
January
1,120
193,0.54
6,220
166,621
2,989
169,610
5,375
23,444
Filiruary
190,904
1,872
192,776
6,885
1.56,040
11„S.33
1«7,873
.5,.573
24,903
March
231,520
2,218
233,738
7,540
186,067
22,090
208,1.57
6,002
25,.580
Aiiril
210,329
6,318
246,647
8,221
180,419
38,641
219,060
6,013
27,.587
May
298,829
14,449
313,278
10,106
189,329
91,363
280,692
6,017
32,.585
June
311,.589
15,9.59
327,548
10,918
184,136
117,327
301,463
6,137
26,086
July
283,202
1.5,188
298,390
9,625
187,517
78,662
266,179
6,049
32,211
August
238,317
11,966
250,283
8,074
184,646
47,124
231,770
5,9.56
18,514
September
210,467
9,881
220,348
7,344
167,.546
3.5,1.50
202,,596
6, .584
17,751
October
198,941
9,326
208,267
6,718
1.59,9.58
29,038
188,996
5,160
19,271
November
193,250
2,930
196,180
6,539
150,344
28,393
178,7.37
.5,011
17,446
December
201,310
2,790,592
2,628
203,938
6,579
149,985
35,978
185,963
4,838
17,945
Total
93,855
2,884,447 1 7,902
2,062,608
538,448
2,601,096
5,651
283,350
CASH RECE
PTS.
CASH PAYMENTS
MUk sold
§101,7.56.88
Divided .among Producing Members
§90,192.68
14, -i;!! lbs. Butter sold
3,132.81
93,8
55 quarts Milk purchased
3,01.5.55
85,53.3 „ Cheese sold
9,408.63
Expenses— Salaries, Labour, Taxes, itc. kc
24,323.57
4, .509 quarts Cream sold
1,236.69
Sui-
plus— To balance
638.34
91,514 „ Sour Milk, &c.
2,535.13
Receipts from Sa
es
SU8,07
J. 14
Total Cash Paj-ments .
§118,070.14
" giving good measure," really over-weight at each
delivery. The shrinkage on routes has often reached
13 per cent., and at the retail delivery department
of the office it has been just about 8 jier cent. The
exact shrinkage in the sales of 1877 was 12- OS per
cent., and in the whole business of the year S"8
per cent, upon the gross amount of milk handled.
The average receipt for milk sold was 4^ cents per
quart, for the surplus milk 2i cents, for all a little
over 3i cents. The producers received in dividends
jx'r quart 2| cents for milk delivered at the depot
by them. The total expenses divided averaged
1 cent a quart on the milk sold, and 84 cents for
every 100 quarts of all the milk handled. The
The full description given of this organisation
seems to be justitied by its peculiarities and its
excellency as a model. The problem which the
Onondaga Milk Association had to solve was : —
Would the savings arising from co-operation be
sufficient to enable them to sell only pure, un-
skimmed, unwatered milk at such prices as to
give them a fair profit, at the same time meeting
any legitimate competition that might enter the
market ? The experiment appears to be a success ;
ami the As.sociation has by its own honesty, and
by insisting upon the honesty of those who sui)ply
the milk, acquired the confidence of its customers,
the people of Syracuse. II. E. A.
CHAPTER XXIX.
American Farm Dairying — Methods and Processes.
Milking— Coo. ing- Milk Farms— Deep Setting— Butter Farms-Farm Dairy Rooms and Buildings-Statements by Butter Prizo
Winners -Odd and Primitive Methods.
veyed.
JjJ^lRY methods and processes in
America necessarily vary
miicli because of the diver-
sity of climate, of systems
of farming, of the origin,
habits, and condition of the
So great is the variation in
matters of detail, that a minute descrip-
tion of all is impracticable, but by clas-
sification and the selection of examples
a fair idea of the facts may be con-
As to general management and the treat-
ment of cattle, enough has been written in pre-
ceding sections. It remains to describe different
methods of dairy detail practised in the United
States, with some reference incidentally to farm
arrangements and buildings, and the processes of
manufacturing butter and cheese in private dairies
and by co-operation at factories on what has been
named " the American system."
The jiail is, then, the place at which to begin.
Nearly all the milking is done by men in America,
and although the simple requirements of good
milking — quietly, quickly, cleanly, completely —
are well understood, in very many cases they are
not observed. It has been often and truly said
that good cows are much more common than good
milkers, and many a good cow has been ruined, or
her development prevented, by an ignorant or care-
less milker. It must be confessed that, as a general
rule, there is a lamentable degree of negligence
at this all-important point. More than half the
dairy-cows in America are stalled half the year, and
many more placed in stalls at milking-time habi-
tually at all seasons. A very common practice is
to give food just at milking ; this is partly a matter
of convenience and partly to keep the animal occu-
l)ied and quiet. But some thoughtful dairymen
claim, with a show of reason certainly, that so im-
portant an operation as milking should receive the
undivided attention of the cow as well as that of
the milker. Very generally, therefore, cows are
milked in their stalls, and the condition of the
stalls and the atmosphere of the shed or stable is
often such as to injure the quality of the milk
every moment it remains exposed in the apart-
ment. Worse yet, the cleanliness of the cows
and of the milkers is inexcusably neglected. It
very often happens, also, that the other farm
duties are such as to throw the milking into hours
very early and very late, when the light is insuffi-
cient to ensure jiroper care, and when the milkers
are but half-awake, benumbed with cold, or, when
tired and perspiring, they hurry carelessly through
this final " chore " at the end of a long day's work.
Washmg or otherwise cleaning the udder before
milking is the exception rather than the rule. In
those sections where a mild climate or the want of
buildings makes open shedding or the lee-side of
a haystack the customary shelter, and the cows are
consequently milked in the open air, even with
equal negligence on the part of the keeper, the
process of milking is far more cleanly than in most
close stables. Yet many cow-stables are to be
found well cleaned and ventilated, the air always
pure and sweet, where straw, leaves, sand, and
sawdust are need for bedding, and absorbents,
whitewash, and plaster frequently and fi-eely ap-
plied, sufficient attendance provided, the cows carded
daily, and every precaution taken to ensure cleanly
milking. And it is encouraging to observe that the
importance of cleanliness in connection with cows
and their milk is being more and more recognised
in the States. An open tin pail, sides somewhat
434
DAIIiV FAK.Ml.XO.
flarins;, is tlic usual rocp])taole for milk as ilrawii
from the cow, but utensils afforJiu<f mare protec-
tion are coming into use.
The milking done, the product is carried,
usually in the open pails, regardless of the weather,
to the dairy or milk-room. On small farms where
the quantity of milk is never large, no special
apartment is devoted to it, but the pans into which
it is strained will be often found set upon shelves
in the open cell;ir near barrels of vinegar and pork,
or bins of apples, turnips, or potatoes, or in the
familv pantry alongside cold meats and vegetables,
pies, ])iekles, and preserves. It is astonishing how
good butter and cheese, or articles so considered,
are ever made under such conditions, and yet this
is a true sketch of the circumstances under which
the greater part of the dairy products of America
were made not many years ago, and of the treat-
ment of milk in many instances still. In other
cases milk-rooms are, and for generations have
been, fitted up in the cellar, wholly or partly under-
groimd, or on the ground-floor in some well-shaded
part of the house. Separate buildings are not
general, but are numerous in the best dairying
sections, built in connection with well, ice-house,
spring, or intlependently, as described in the exam-
ples to follow. Small quantities of milk are some-
times placed in large tin pails or cans, lowered by
cords into a well, and there suspended, partly im-
mersed. It is at this point of the treatment of the
milk that great variatiims occur, depending chiefly
upon its after-use, whether to be shipped to the
city for sale, taken to a factory, or made into
butter or cheese upon the farm. Therefore
classification should begin here, presenting first
examples of management where the specialty is
production of milk for town and city supply.
The Secretary of the Board of Agriculture of
the State of Connecticut, Mr. T. Sedgwick Gold,
is a practical farmer, owning, living upon, and
conducting a farm of GOO acres located in West
Cornwall upon the southern slope of one of those
very stony hills so numerous in Litchfield County,
and some 000 feet above the bed of the Ilousatonie
River. From the north side of the farm, which
extends to the top of the hill, there is a fine view
of the Berkshire hills in Massachusetts, and look-
ing over and beyond the Taconic spur of the Green
Mountain range the Catskills can be seen stretch-
ing along the west side of the Hudson River.
Originally rocks large enough and numerous
enough to try the strength and patience of the
most energetic were the chief feature of this
property. Most of these were in the form of
boulders, this section lyinj^ in one of the most
apparent glacier j)aths in the country. The smaller
stones have been drawn together and worked into
massive walls, constituting the boundary and
division lines of the farm, and many of those too
large to move have been buried out of sight, in
holes dug beside them, the soil thus removed being
used for grading, filling hollows where smaller
stones were removed. In this way good grass lots
have been so cleared that the mower and tedder
find few obstructions, and the pastures have been
improved. The walls, of course, prevent an econo-
mical working of the farm ; it is not pleasant when
one mounts a horse-rake to be stojiped by a fence
and obliged to turn around every 30 or 40 rods,
but there was no other possible disposition of the
stone. Many of the best grazing and dair}' farms
of New England are similar to that here described.
Grass is the staple product of " Cream Hill
Farm," and the ci'op averages 250 tons. Indian
corn, wheat, rye, barley, oats, and roots are also
cultivated, so far as these crops may be needed
for home consumption. A maslin crop of oats
and barley is a favourite with Mr. Gold, securing
a large yield and making excellent feed for horses
and swine. Ground grain is preferred for the
stock, and water-power being abundant, there is
a mill on the place wdiich does the work not
only of this farm but of several others of the
neighbourhood. All the hay and grain raised is
fed out on the farm, mainly to cows, the specialty
being milk-production ; but other cattle and sheep
are also fed, and considerable beef and mutton
sold. The farm-buildings are commodious and
convenient. The new barn has all the modern
conveniences for a dairy-herd ; it stands upon
the hill-side, with sheds and yard open to the
south, the basement for manure accessible to
teams, and so ventilated that no fumes ascend
to the cattle floor above ; back of this are cellars
for roots and fruit. The main floor is well lighted
and well ventilated, with stalls on the sunny side
and bays for hay on the north, while a stone wharf
at either end gives access to the capacious second
floor, on which three or four loads of hay can
stand at a time. The foundation of the building
is substantial masonry, and the massive oak and
chestnut frame, the timber all grown on the farm,
AMERICAN DAIRY METHODS.
435
looks as though it might last for centuries. From
50 to 60 cows are kept in milk, ami the daily
average product is g-enerally kept above 10 quarts,
so that the usual shipment is 15 cans of 40 quarts
each, besides ample reserves for a large household.
Mr. Gold had native cattle originally, and began
to improve by introducing Durham blood, but
found Shorthorns too large and clumsy for his
stony hills, and changed to Ayrshire ; this change
resulted in an increased milk-product and a dimi-
nished expense in feeding. The present herd are,
with a few exceptions, Ayrshires or high grades
of this breed, and at the pail the grades are about
as valuable as the full bloods. Milking begins
in summer about sunrise and ends about sunset ;
in winter it begins before sunrise and ends after
sunset. The milk is strained into railway cans
in a clean room at the end of the barn, and then
carried directly to a cooling room near the house.
There are tanks of running water from a hill-side
spring, with a constant temperature of 46'' Fahr. ;
the cans are placed in the cold bath, uncovered,
and not quite filled, leaving the surface of the
milk the full size of the can and at or below the
level of the water; thus the cans remain several
houi-s. Under the same roof there is a supply
of ice for use when the weather necessitates re-
ducing the temperature of the water in tanks and
for transportation. The night's milk always goes
to the 1 ath, and is cooled till the next afternoon
The morning's milk is treated iu the same way,
and remains in the bath at least nine hours.
Between three and four o'clock every afternoon
the cans are lifted from the water, filled quite
full, closed tightly, and then started in a suit-
able conveyance for the railroad. The fifteen
cans of milk make a load of almost a ton, but
fortunately the route is down hill all the way,
three miles, to the West Cornwall station on
the Housatonie railroad. There the milk train
is met, which reaches New York City, 1;J(J
miles distant, just before midnight. The waggon
takes back to the farm the empty cans of the
shipment the third day preceding ; five sets of
cans are thus necessary, and a sixth set is always
held in reserve in case of loss or detention.
Thus an " outfit " of railway cans for this farm
costs about 400 dollars. Mr. Gold uses mules
for his teams, finding them well adapted to his
work, hardy, docile, and ready to carry the load
to railway or mill without fretting, although at
53
the end of a long d:iy of iMlmur. At times the
milk of this farm, instead of being shipped in
tin directly to a commission merchant in New
Y'ork, is taken soon after the morning's milking
to a creamery near the West Cornwall depot,
where it is all cooled, then put in the glass cans
of tiie Lester Milk Co., and by the creamery
manager forwarded to the city the same after-
noon, and delivered to consumers the next morn-
ing. It may be stated in passing that fruit,
in great variety and abundance, is a leading
feature of this highland farm, and that Mr.
Gold has near his house an acre which is always
the model farm garden of the State of Con-
necticut.
Public attention was called in America to the
deep-setting of milk in the summer of 1871, and
the subject has been agitated ever since, con-
stantly gaining friends, and the practice steadily
extending. The first article iiublished was a de-
scription of some Swedish dairy-farms, among
them that of Mr. G. Swartz, which appeared in
the American Agricult wrist iu May, 1871; this
was soon followed by several letters in the same
periodical by George E. Waring, jun., announcing
the adoption of the Swedish deep-setting method
at " Ogden Farm," in Rhode Island, and reciting
the satisfactory results. Professor Willard men-
tioned this method in some of his dairy lectures
about the same time. But the claim that " the
Swartz system" was thus first introduced into
America is absurd ; it has been practised in this
country, in all its essential features, for more than
a century. The writer of this read the articles
above mentioned, in the year of their publication,
upon a farm in "\^irginia, where deep stone crocks,
of just about the dimensions recommended by
Colonel Waring, were used for setting milk for
butter-making, in the cold pool of the spring-house ;
and the negro dairy-woman pointed out one such
crock which she had used thus in the same spring
for over fifty jears ! The only variation from
the " Swartz system " was iu the material of the
vessel and iu not using ice ; the water in the spring
remained between 44° and 48"^ Fahr. during the
year.
Between I SCO and 1870 a number of con-
trivances for setting milk were introduced, most of
them being large, shallow pans, in a fixed standard
or frame, usually about as high as a table, and
each holding a whole milking. The sizes varied
43G
DAIRY FARMING.
from 10 to SJOO gallons, and the depth of the
milk, as set, from 3 inches to 8, or even 10.
Since 1870 several appliances, under the general
name of " creamers," have come into use more or
less, most of them arranged for deep-setting.
Nearly all these are patented articles, and the most
useful of them will be hereafter described.
Cellars, ice-houses, and springs are utilised for
keeping the cream until churning, and in many
eases, whore the quantity is small, it is put in a
covered pail or can, and hung in the cool air of the
well. The general practice in America is to keep
the cream until it sours, or " ripens," to some
degree. For churning, the old vertical dasher was
long the favourite, and so remains in some conser-
vative districts, but it has in most places been
replaced by the crank churn in some of its many
forms. Hand-power has always been the rule,
and continues to be. A tendency to return to the
primitive and sensible method of shaking the cream
instead of beating it is seen in the rapidly-increas-
ing number of dasherless churns of divers patterns
that are coming iuto use throughout the United
States.
The processes of farm butter-making are so
various in America that the subject can be best
illustrated, in addition to the foregoing, by giving
some selected examples of the practice in particular
private dairies.
Philadelphia butter has long been celebrated
for its excellence, and a sample of the fine dairies
near that city is the one owned by Mr. Samuel
J. Sharpless, in Chester County, Pennsylvania.
Mr. S. is one of the best-known breeders of Jerseys
in America, and two of his cows received the
highest premiums at the " Centennial Exposition "
in 1870. The farm is 100 acres, and so disposed
around the hill on which stands the house, that all
the fields can be seen from the door-yard. The
farm-buildings are in a valley at the rear of the
house, protected from winter winds, and convenient
to all parts of the farm. The milking-house is
a slight wooden structure with so many open
doors and windows that it is hardly more than a
shed, and kept as clean as a dining-room. It is
used only during the pasturage season, then closed
up for stabling young stock. On each side is a
row of stanchions, with mangers in which a little
sweet-corn fodder or a little bran is placed at
each milking-time, to ensure eontente<l, quiet
standing. The floor is of hard clay, well rammed.
Each cow has her own place, with name, age, and
pedigree over the manger, and they are arranged
in the order in which they usually come in from
pasture. The milking is done by women, the
same one always attending the same cows, and it
is done quietly and quickly. Near by is the spring-
house, the dairy institution of this region, built of
stone, 2i feetby 18, the walls 10 feet high, its
foundations set deeply in the hill-side, so the floor
is 4 feet below the level of the ground at the lower
end. A plentiful spring enters directly from the
earth at the back end of the building, and flows
over the entire floor, at a depth of about 3 inches ;
the floor is of oak plank laid upon sand and gravel.
At one place is a pool a foot deep, in which the
cream-pails stand. There are platforms raised a
few inches above the water, on which Ui move about
the room, but three-fourths of the area is occupied
by the slowly-moving spring-water. At the top
of the walls, on each side, are long, low \vindows,
covered with fine wire cloth, wdiieh gives a free
circulation of air in the ujjper part of the room.
The milk is strained into rather small pans painted
on the outside, and provided with handles ; the
milk stands about 3 inches deep, so that its
surface is just below that of the water in which
the pans are placed. The cream is removed after
twenty-four hours, with a concave tin scoop per-
forated with many small holes, separating the milk
thoroughly. The eream-pails hold several gallons,
and stand in cold water till churning. The tem-
perature of the water as it flows about the milk-
pans is 5^'^ Fahr., and that of the air of the spring-
house, when closed, about 56*^ ; thus the year
round. It is the intention in this establishment
to keep milk, cream, and butter at a temperature
within the limits of "ji"^ and Oi*^ from the time
of setting, to the table. The ehurning is rarely
done more than twice a week. The churn is
of the Philadelphia barrel pattern (described on
page 453), hung upon its axis with a journal or
bearing at each head and revolved by hors(;-
power. The churning lasts about an hour, at
the end of which time a little cold water is added
to cause the butter to gather. The buttermilk
is then drawn off, cold water added twice, a few
turns given to the churn, and when the last water
comes off it is nearly clear. The horse-power
is then thrown out of gear, and the churn gently
rocked by hand to collect the bntter near the
opening, and at a vent from which the remaining
VARIOUS AMERICAN DAIRIES.
437
water escapes. It is thus left for an liour or
two. Then the butter is taken from the churn
and worked upon an ]']niLree rotary butter-worker,
20 lbs. at a time ; this is in one corner of the
sprino;-house. At the last of the working the
maker throws the butter backward with the left
hand, and as it comes from under the roller
presses upon every part of it, with the right hand,
a cloth wrmig out pretty dry from cold spring-
water ; the cloth is frequently washed and wrung.
This is continued till not a particle of water can be
seen as the butter comes from the roller; when
thus well dried the butter begins to adhere to
the roller. It is then salted, on the " worker,"
with the roller, 1 oz. to 3 lbs., removed to a
table, weighed and at once put up in pound
prints. The working, wiping, salting, weighing,
and printing of 100 lbs. of butter is done by
one person in little more than two hours, the
whole process, irom the beginning of churning,
being usually completed before noon. The beau-
tiful " Philadelphia prints," fragrant as new-mown
hay and as yellow as gold, such as only pure
Jerseys will make, are then deposited in large
tin trays and set in the water to harden. The
next morning each print is wrapped in a
damp cloth, put in a tin case, each layer on
its own wooden shelf, with ice compartment
filled if needed, and in a sweet cedar tub (the
Koehler) sent to the city consumers in perfect
condition.
" The Darlington butter " is among the best
known and most highly esteemed of all the famous
brands of Philadelphia prints. It is the product
of the dairy-farm of Jesse and Jared Darlington,
350 acres, in Delaware County, Pennsylvania.
The herd consists of 170 cows, largely natives,
selected for their butter qualities, and 110 to 150
are usually in milk. There are two spring-houses,
the principal one built of stone, 46 feet by 32, one
and one-half storeys high, with a never-failing
spring discharging about 8 gallons of cool water per
minute. The milk-room is 24 by 28 feet, tem-
perature 55° to 60", and the milk is strained into
large pans, the largest holding 500 quarts, being
set 5 or 6 inches in depth. It usually remains
thirty-six hours before skimming, by which time a
slight acid has been developed ; in winter a little
sour milk is put in the pans to hasten the process.
When taken off, the cream is put into tin pails
holding 5 gallons each, and hoisted to the upper
room ; there the pails are put into a cold-water
bath until churning. The churning is done twice
a week in two large horizontal revolving-barrel
churns, run by power; time usually over an hour.
When the cream is put into the churn, a suitable
quantity of annatto, dissolved in milk, is added
to produce a colour resembling the highest natural
colour of the best Guernsey butter in June. The
butter, when taken from the churn, is carried to
working tables in the upper room ; it is not washed,
but the buttermilk is extracted by absorbing it in
a moist cloth, which is frequently wrung out in
clear water. It is thus thoroughly worked over
in masses of 10 or 12 lbs. each, is salted at the
same time, and then passed to the weigher at an
adjoining table. This operator forms it into rough
cones of the desired weight, and transfers it to the
moulder at her left. This workman, with pound
and half-pound wooden " prints," turns out very
rapidly the nicely-finished and attractive lumps,
each bearing the name " Darlington," with a neat
device. The lumps are regularly arranged in
square zinc trays, several inches deep, which float
in a cold-water vat. The owners devote much
time to personal supervision or execution of the
dairy details, and have maintained such a standard
in their butter, that it has sold at from 75 cents to
I dollar a j)ound for several years in the cities of
Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston.
(The milk and buttermilk are fed to swine, these
about equalling the cows in number.)
The following sketch and description of the
private dairy of Mr. Eastburn Reeder, of Bucks
County, Pennsylvania, which combines ice-house
and dairy-rooms, were furnished by the owner to
the American. AgricuUurist, and published therein
May, 1875:—
The building is shown in Fig. 226. It is 84
feet long and 15 feet wide, and stands at a dis-
tance from any other building or any contaminating
influence. It is divided into five apartments, the
ice-house (seen at a, Fig. 227), the milk-room {ft),
the vestibule (c), with stairs leading to the winter
milk-room below, and an attic above for the
storage of sawdust for the ice. The ice-house is
12 feet square and 14 feet deep, holding 36 loads
of ice, or over 2,000 cubic feet. It is 6 feet below
ground and 8 feet above. The walls are of
stone, IS inches thick. The frame building above
the wall is 8 feet high. The lining boards of the
ice-house extend down the face of the wall to the
438
DATiiv FAinrixr,
bottom, making an air space of 18 inches, -which
is filled with sawdust. The ice-house is filled
through three doors, one above the other, at the
rear end. There is perfect drainage at the bottom
of the ice-house, ample ventilatinu above, and no
currents of air can reach the ice.
The milk-room (6) is 12 feet square, and is
1 foot lower than the ice-room. It is divided into
two storeys of 7i feet each, for winter and summer
use. A ventilator enters the ceiling of the lower
room and leads to the cu])ola at the top, fur-
nishing complete ventilation for both rooms. The
vestibule (c) is 4 feet wide and 8 feet long.
Here the milk is .<!trained and skimmed, the butter
is worked, and pans arc stored. The floor is of
flagging laid in cement, as is that of the winter or
lower dairy. The pool (</), which contaiiis ice-
water, is 30 inches long, l(i inches wide, and
20 inches deep, and in this the deep pans and
cream-kettles are immersed. The waste from the
ice-box {e) can be turned into this pool. If the
deep-can system of setting milk should be prac-
tised, this pool can be lengthened to l:i feet.
A drain (/") carries off all the waste water from
the room. At ff, Figs. 2:J7 and 228, is a cooling
cupboard, located in the wall between the ice-house
and the milk-room, 6 feet high, 4 feet wide, and
18 inches deep. This is lined with galvanised
sheet-iron, has a stone slab at the bottom, and two
slate shelves 15 inches wide, on which the cakes of
butter are hardened before they are packed for
market. A current of cold air can circulate
around the shelves, as they are 3 inches narrower
than the depth of the cupboard. There are lat-
ticed blinds in the doors of the cupboard, shown
at i i, Figs. 228 and 229, where the doors are shown
as open and closed. A current of cold air can
l)ass through the lower lattices, and this causes an
equal current of warmer air to pass through the
upper ones. This warmer air, cooled by contact
with flic ice-box {/■), jjasses down and out into the
inilk-riMim, where a temperature of (U)" is casilj'
maintained. J5y clo.sing or opening these lattices,
the change of temperature is regulated as may be
desirable. At A //, Fig. 227, are ventilating pipes,
which are provided with registers, seen at r r,
Figs. 228 and 229. These communicate with the
air-chamber beneath the ice-box, and also with air-
flues at each end of it ; thus two additional cur-
rents of cold air can be created when they may be
needed. Tlic windows of flic 1 )W('r milk-room are
close to the ceiling, and above the surface of the
ground outside. They are 3 feet wide and IS inches
high. They are made with outer wire cloth screens,
glazed sashes, and inner shutters or blinds. The
milk-room can thus be aired and darkened at the
same time, if this is desired. In operating this
dairy it has been found necessary to use 10 to 15
bushels of ice weekly in the hottest weather of
the summer, the ice-box then requiring filling
two or three times each week. The air within the
milk-room has always been dry, so that the floor
will not remain damp after it is washed longer
than a few hours. (The dairy has been examined,
when in operation, by a committee of the Soles-
b\iry Farmers' Club, who reported that it was the
best dairy-house they had ever seen.)
"Spring Hill," in Fairfax County, ^'irginia, is
situated u])i)n the second tier of hills rising fi-om
the Potomac River, and is 12 miles due west from
the city of Washington. The farm contains about
100 acres in forest, two-thirds being primeval
hard wood, the other third pine of 30 years' growth,
and 130 acres of arable land, divided into seven
fenced fields, each having a living spring or spring
stream within its limits; 10 or 15 acres more are
occupied by buildings, garden, lawn, and roads.
The soil is the heavy, deep, red clay, characteristic
of the Piedmont region of Virginia, the home
of maize and clover. The principal crojas, Indian
corn, wheat, rye, oats, grasses, and leguminous
plants. Fruit and butter the specialties, the cities
of Georgetown and Washington the markets.
The cows. Jerseys and Jersey grades, 15 to 20
being kept in milk, are at pasture seven months,
semi-soiled during one-third of this time, the dryest
season, and fed in stables, tied with short chains
the rest of the year, with several lunirs daily in a
warm yard. The winter-feeding has no unusual
feature. The milking is done by negroes, under
an open shed in favourable weather, and begins
just about sunrise and sunset. The milk is at
once taken in the tin milking-pails to the spring-
house, several rods distant. This building is in a
forest-lined ravine, between two hills, upon one
side of a small stream, stone walls enclosing a
space of S feet by 12, covered by a wooden frame
and roof with ventilating windows in the gables.
Large white oaks shatle the building in summer,
admitting for a few hours in mid-day stray beams
enough for health and jiurity. In winter the
sun shines unnn it a short time dailv. The air
AN A:\rERICAN DAIRY IIOT^SE.
439
passing through tlie little vale is alwaj's fresh ami
sweet. A platform occupies the niiiUlle of the
sprino'-house, extending frc n the door at one end ;
a double spring issues from the hill-side upon either
side of the platform, just inside the doorway, ami
the water, flowing along the sides, meets at the
farther end and
passes out to the
adjacent stream.
The temperature
of the water re-
mains between
44^'and4S'-'Fahr.
during the year,
and that of the
air in the room
is seldom above
55^. I'pon reach-
ing the spring-
house, the milk
is strained into
earthenware
crocks of rather
greater depth
than diameter,
holding from 3
to 8 quarts, and
these are set into
the spring, so the
milk surface will
be just below the
water level, and
clean wooden cov-
ers put on them.
In the water are
flat stones of dif-
ferent sizes,whieh
can be shifted
easily so as to give
any desired depth
to the water flow-
ing over them ;
thus milk-vessels
of all sizes can be accommodated. A large stone
jar for cream stands in the deepest part of the pool.
The flow of water is unfailing, and suflicient to
change the whole every twelve or fifteen minutes.
Along each side of the building, -Z feet above
the water, are slatted shelves to which the milk-
vessels can be transferred in case of an occasional
overflow of the surings in an unusual storm, for
®
Fig. 228.— Open Doors.
storage of extra milk- vessels and similar uses. The
milk is skimmed uniformly at the end of twenty-
f(iur hours, one morning's milk being removed from
the spring before the ne.xt is set. The skimming
is done with a metallic ladle, care being taken
to dip out as little milk as possible. The
chiu'uing is done
when the cream
is sweet, usually
every other morn-
ing, and some-
times every day.
The churn is of
wood, a horizon-
tal cylinder with
a simple rotary
dash, turned with
a crank by hand.
Temperature of
the cream at
churning, GO" to
&2.^' ; time in
churning ave-
rages twenty mi-
nutes. The butter
is gathered in tlie
churn, removed
to an oak table
with an inclined
top, washed tho-
roughly with cold
spring-water, and
lightly worked
with a lever; then
salted, about f oz.
to a jjound, and
set away till
evening. It is
then carefully
worked with a
lever, moisture
removed with
sponge, covered
with muslin, and packed in small stone jars in
quantities to suit customers. The butter, in jars,
remains in the spring-house, but never near warm
or cooling milk, till sent away. Once or twice a
week the product is delivered to families in the city,
generally under contract, at a fixed price the year
round. Price for some years, 4(1, Ah, and 50 cents.
Weekly i.n.ducts from SO to 1(10 lbs.
©
®
J"ig. 220.— Closed Doors.
440
DAIRY FAR MING.
lu the Southern States where springs are not apartment, and a small ventilating flue in owe
availalile for spring-house dairies, milk-rooms or corner. It makes a very eonvenient and satisfae-
cellars are sometimes constructed alongside the tory arrangement for managing the milk of a few
well, from which a su])])ly of cold air may be cows, from which butter is made.
obtained, ami sometimes as independent apart-
ments. The Ai/ierifiDi jlffriciilfiai.it gave the
foHowing description of a private dairy of this
class, seen in North Carolina in 1S(!S : —
"It was built in connection with a very
pleasant and comfortable although an old inun-
sion. Tiie entrance to the cellar was from the
porch which ran around the house, and adjoin-
ing the rear or kitchen door.
A handsome shade-tree and a
grape-vine jirotected the en-
trance, which had lattice-work
on three sides, with a door,
also partly of lattice-work, in
the front. A few. steps led
down into a very cool apart-
ment about (5 feet below tlir
ground, well lighted from a
glazed cupula in the roof, and
built of brick, and white-
washed. From a trap-door at
one side a stairway led to a
lower cellar, which was the
milk-room. The upper apart-
ment was used as a store-room
for kitchen utensils, churn, and
other similar articles. The lower
cellar, when the hatchway was
open, was well lighted. It
was also of brick, and cleanly
whitewashed. The lloor was
of brick, not cemented together.
Shelves ran ai'ound this cellar
at a convenient height, on which were kept milk,
cream, butter, and other things jjroper to a milk-
room. Although it is now five yeai"s since we saw
this cellar, its coolness, perfect cleanliness, and
sweetness was so impressive that the remembrance
of it is still perfectly distinct. The cellar was
about 10 feet square, and in all about 14 feet deep.
The lower apartment was ceiled over with wooden
beams and a tight floor. The cost of the whole
would not be beyond the means of almost every
farmer."
The writer knows of a similar room in Virginia,
built right against the wall of a deep, cold well.
It has an ojiening from the well into the Iciwcr
Milk Cellar -Ei.e
Section.
" Deerfont Farm," in Southborough, Worcester
County, Ma.«sachusetts, owned and managed by
Mr. Edward Burnett, has already been mentioned
as having one of the best herds of Jersey cattle
in America, and it is one of the most success-
ful butter-farms in New England. About 75
head of Jerseys are kept, including calves and
heifers, the cjws in milk numbering from 45
to 60. The average yield
being 5 lbs. of butter a week
to each cow for the year, the
butter product of the farm
ranges from 200 to 30(1 lbs.
a week. Systematic manage-
ment, and the closest attention
to care and feed of the stock,
as well as to dairy details, cha-
racterise the establishment.
The cows ai"e always milked in
their stables, where everything
is scrupulously clean. The
dairy-rooms are in one wing of
a frame building, which in part
serves for employes' quarters,
and is situated on a hill-side,
rather higher than the barns,
although near. There are four
apartments, a refrigerating
room, a milk-room, a churning
and working room, and storage.
The dairyman receives the milk
from the milkers and attends
to all the subsequent work,
from straining the milk to shipment of the butter.
Mr. Burnett began, in the year 1870, with the
small old-fashioned tin pans ; these he discarded
within twelve months, and put in large Orange
County pans, effecting a great saving of time. A
year later he changed to setting in deep pails in a
tank of cold water, and after two years adojited the
Hardin method of refrigerating, still using the
dec]) pails set dry in a compartment, the air of
which was cooled with ice. The room arranged
for this purjjose is now used for keeping cream and
butter while in store. The next step onward — for
he makes only such changes as he considers
advaiiccnicnts — was a contrivance designed Iiy
PRACTICE OF VARIOUS FARMERS.
J II
Mr. Bunu'tt liimsi'U', (■(juliii;^' with ire-water aluuit
one-third ut' the can, the ui)j)er part, while the rest
was exposed to the air of the milk-room, OO'^ to
70*^. The settinof vessels are cylindrical, of tin,
20 inches deep and 8 inches diameter, with covers,
and holding 17 quarts each. These are jilaced in
a wooden trough 9 inches deep, which has holes
cnt in the bottom to let the cans throno-li till they
rest upon an iron flange soldered on to outside of
each pail ; under the flanges are rubber washers,
and these, with clamps, make all water-tight.
Thus the pails or cans have about 8 inches of their
length within the tank, the rest projecting below.
In this position the cans are flUed, the milk
strained a second time as it enters them. The
tank or trough is then filled with water, in which is
placed broken ice enough to reduce the temjjerature
to about 45*^. The tank is made in two sections,
each large enough for pails to hold one milking
at the maximum. An ice-chest, the size of one
section, is fixed on rollei's so as to move and fit
closely over either half of the tank, and when in
position may be let down upon a rubber washer
running all round the section by a simple lever
which displaces the wheals from the rails. This
leaves an air-tight compartment between ice-
chest and water of tank. The chest holds 200
or 300 lbs. of ice, and needs filling but once
daily. Its drip falls into the tank, but not upon
the cans. After thus setting ten hours the milk
is carefully skimmed with a metallic dipi)er, in the
form of an inverted cone, with a long handle. Of
course the cream thus obtained is fully double the
bulk of that gathered in most other methods, being
thin and watery, and it is more trouble to churn
it. But Mr. Burnett has satisfied himself by
repeated experiment that he jiroduees a higher
quality of butter, and more uniform at all seasons,
than by his former open-pan system; moreover, in
some instances where by the new method he
obtained 1 lb. of butter for every 17 lbs. of milk,
the ratio with shallow pans tried at the same
time, milk standing forty-eight hours, was 1 to
18. He also found it much easier to control the
temperature of his milk by water than by air, no
matter how small the room used. Skimmed as
stated, one section of the tank is always enij)tied,
although perhaps not cleaned up, before the milk
for the other comes in. The cream is put into
large tin pails, which stand in refrigerating-room,
temperature 50'^, until the faintest acidity is
ileveliiped. The (■reain-])ails are then moved to
the churning-room, and tenqierature gradually
raised to oC in summer and to G2'^ in winter.
Four or five days in each week the cliurning is
done, usually two churnings of about 3i) llis. of
butter each, from 20 gallons, or thereabouts, of
the thin cream. The Philadeljihia barrel-churn is
used, revolved horizontally by steam-power, about
forty turns per mmute ; three-quarters of an hour
to an hour is generally occnined in churning.
When the butter breaks and the ]jieces are about
the size of peas, the buttermilk is drawn off.
Then the butter is rinsed three or four times in
the churn, with pure water of the temperature at
which it is desired to work the butter. After this
it is gathered as much as possible in the churn and
removed to a wooden working table, similar to the'
Eureka worker (hereafter described) . Upon this the
butter is rolled out thin, usually three times, and
each time wiped, or rather " sopped," free from all
moisture ; then, while spread thin like pastry, it is
salted, only 3 oz. to 10 lbs., the salt sprinkled on
evenly with a fine sieve. The butter is rolled out
twice more, to incorporate the salt, and then sent
into the refrigerating-room, where it remains from
about 10 o'clock a.m. till 4 p.m. It is then re-
worked, simply to throw off any brine formed and
to render it more flexible, and made up with spats
• — no hand contact — into regular triangular prisms
about 6 inches long and weighing I lb. each.
These rolls, each wrapped in muslin, are packed on
end in tin boxes, all 18 inches wide and 5 inches
deep, and differing in length according to quantity
of contents. The tin boxes are in turn placed in
wooden ones, with ice-packing when necessarv, and
thus sent by rail to Boston. The prices obtained
for several years have ranged from 45 to 75 cents,
being usually about double the market quotations
for best butter in lumps. Mr. Burnett has at
times purchasL'd considerable milk of neighbouring
farmers having Jersey's or Jersey grades, and thus
increased his weekly production to 4001bs. of
butter, sometimes more; but he has invariably been
obliged to discontinue this because it lowered the
average quality of his butter and so injured his
business. The buttermilk goes to pigs, a choice
article of pork being another specialty of the farm.
The skim-milk is shijiped every day to B;)stoii,
25 miles distant, and is one of the important
matters in the economy of the farm management.
Treated as described, the milk is always sweet
44.2
DAIRY FARMING.
wlien skimmed, and with a, fair percentage of fat
remaining, so it sells readily in the city at half
the price of whole milk.
Di.^tinct from his hutter-making, ]\Ir. Burnett
sent to the Boston market, during the years IS78
and 1879, a limited quantity of clotted cream in
glass jars, which he prepared as follows : — In his
milk-room two large shallow pans were set in
double jackets, so their contents could be heated
by steam or hot-water circulation, or similarly
cooled. A cooling-chest, like that described for
the other milk-setting apparatus, was arranged to
fit over these pans alternately. The milk, strained
into a pan, was heated by steam to 160'^ Fahr.,
and then by replacing the steam with cold water
and with cooling-chest over it, in which ice and
salt were used, it was cooled rapidly, almost to
freezing. This gave the stiff clotted cream, which
was removed in about ten hours. The skim-milk,
as in the other case, was sent to Boston.
Not content with the improvements cited, ^Ir.
Burnett experimented, during the season of 1879,
with centrifugal cream-separators, and finally had
one made after modifications of his own suggestion
and under American patents, which he proposes to
use henceforth. It operates continuously, and
with it he is enabled (1880) to send milk and
cream, separately canned, for delivery in Boston
the same day it is taken from the cow, and can
place butter daily on the dinner-tables of his
customers made from the morning's milk. He
has also adapted the centrifugal principle for ex-
tracting the buttermilk and brine from his butter,
the apparatus being devised by himself, a centri-
fugal " worker."
Hon. Harris Lewis is one of the bcst-knuwn
dairymen in the United States. He has been
President of the New York State Agricultural
Society, the State Dairymen's Association, and
the Farmers' Alliance. His farm, of 140 acres,
is at Frankfort, in Herkimer County, New York,
about midway between Utica and Little Falls ; it
lies upon the north side of the Mohawk River, and
extends from that stream back into the wooded
hills. About 30 acres are on the Mohawk flat,
overflowed every spring, receiving a deposit which
accounts for the famous crops of hay cut from this
meadow year after year. Upon the upland stand
the two dwellings of Mr. Lewis and his son, modest
buildings in no way remarkable.
The dairy barn is in mau\ respects a n)odel.
It is a large frame building on four heavy walls,
the top of the east-side wall being le\el witli the
ground, making easy access to the mni:i floor for
the loads of orchard-grass, which grows abundantly
near by. On the cattle-floor below are two rows
of stanchions running the length of the building,
will) ]iassage-way in the centre 10 feet wide.
Forty animals stand facing this passage, into
which the hay is thrown from above, and from
which ventilators lead to the roof. A patent
manger is in use; when opened into the passiige
these make convenient troughs for hay, and when
.shut down, a square box for meal or roots is before
each animal. On each side, in rear of each row of
cows, is space wide enough for a team to pass
through with sled or waggon, and doors to match
at the ends. Yet, when closed, the stable is w'arm
enough in winter to keep roots without freezing,
and a sujiply of these is always to be seen at one
end, in their season, with a root-cutter at hand.
yiv. Lewis is famous for his root crops for winter
feeding; he relies for feed mainly on roots and
hay while in stable, and pasturage supplemented
with a regular ration of dry forage in the summer.
There is running water in the barn-yard, and the
liastures and lanes to them are well furnished witii
watering troughs in different places, so the cows
need never walk far to drink. And near each of
these many watering-jjlaces a few shade-trees have
been provided. Mr. Lewis believes that all these
accommodations are economical, as the easier he
makes everything for his cows, the more comfort-
able and contented they are, and the belter return
they make at the milk-pail.
The herd numbers about 30 cows, nearly all
full-blooded Shorthorns, and about ^5 are usually
in milk. It is remarkable as being one of the
few noted dairy-farms in .Vmerica where Short-
horns are jjreh'erred to other breeds for dairy pur-
poses.
The dairy-hduse, a little west of the barn
tiiwavds the highway, and between the two houses,
is a neat wooden structure, raised a little above
the ground, and divided into two rooms. The one
first entered is for churning and cleaning, and has
an outer door at each end ; a door on one side of
this work-room opens into the milk-room. Four
Jewett pans are used, each large enough to lioKl
the milk of a single milking of 30 cows. In one
end of the room is an open tank, supplied with
spriiig-ualiT by a ram, the overflow going to the
PRACTICE OP VARIOUS PARMEKS.
448
trouEflis in the barn-yard. Ice is used in the tank
as needed. From this tank water is carried under
and around the pans, and the room, receiving no
other cooling', is by this means kept at about 00°
in hot weather. The milk is allowed to stand
from thiity-six to forty-eight hours in the pans,
according to the weather; the aim is to skim as
soon as coagulation appears at the bottom of the
pan. The churning is dene every day in a BuUard
oscillating churn, by dog-power standing on north
side of work-room. As soon as the butter begins
to come, the temperature of the contents of the
churn is reduced to 55^^ by pouring in cold water.
AA'hen the butter has separated from the milk and
before it is gathered into a mass, being in lumps
like small peas, the buttermilk is drawn off and
water poured in. This process is repeated until the
water that loins off is quite clear. The butter is
then carefully spread so as not to adhere in a mass,
salt gently stirred in at the rate of | oz. to the pound,
and the butter then placed in a bowl and set in a
cool place until the next day. The incorporation
of salt is then completed, and the butter packed
in jars or other packages. All of Mr. Lewis's
butter is taken in the home market, and always at
an extra price.
W. V. S. Beekman, of Saugerties, New York,
one of the prize butter makers of that State, gives
the following description of his procedure : — He
feeds his animals all they will eat of the verj' best
food. Average daily ration in winter ^Olbs. bright,
earlj-cut clover hay, 4 quarts of fine corn-meal,
and one peck of roots, carrots, parsnips, sugar-
beets, &c. ; in summer he gives an abundance of
soiling crops in addition to pasture. AVhile pasture
is poorest, feeds fodder corn, 2 quarts eorn-meal,
and a little hay. He uses stanchions, being led
to prefer these after considerable experimenting ;
the cows stand on an elevated jilatform, with an
18-incli wide gutter at the rear. Before each
milking the stables are cleaned, and absorbents put
in the gutter and fresh straw in the stalls. The
cows are then brushed off, and their udders sponged
with tepid water. He prefers deep cans for setting,
and uses the pool in his spring-house. The latter
is a rough board building, 8 feet square and 6 feet
high ; the temperature of the spring ranges from
40-' to 50° during the year. Before churning, he
sets the can of cream into a tub containing water
at about 70*^, and stirs the cream till the latter
is brought to 62", as shown by a floating dairy
59
thermometer. The cream is churned sweet, three
times a week, in an old-fashioned dash churn.
After churning, the butter is taken out. Bibs, or
10 lbs. at a time, into a bowl, and washed at once
rapidly, most of the buttermilk being removed in
this washing. Half an ounce of finely-sifted salt
is used for each pound of butter. The working is
finished on a low oaken table having its upper
surface an inclined plane, and the butter is care-
fully pressed, all the moisture being absorbed by
applications of thin muslin cloth, which is found
preferable to a sponge. Mr. Beekman packs in
earthen jars in summer and in oaken tubs in
winter. By his management he was able to make
butter of superior quality in August, 1872, a
month famous for its intense heat and violent
thunder showers, and as firm as his product of
June and October. He ships to private customers
in New York, and by night boat, in summer, not
using ice, as he thinks it injurious to flavour. His
is a small, private dairy ; he keeps but six cows in
milk, feeds and milks them himself, and personally
churns, works, and packs his butter.
The following are condensed descriptions of the
processes of making butter in jirivate dairies, as
given by winners of some of the highest prizes
awarded at dairy exhibitions in America : —
Premium Daiiy Buffer at Norfh-Wesfern Dairy
Fair, Chicago, December, 1877.
Statement of C. C. Buell, of Rock Falls,
Illinois : — Cows mostly common stock, a few
grades of Durham and Jersey, 40 in all. Fed
(November) by running in corn-fields during day-
time, where stalks are standing, and at night in
stable, on timothy and clover, with two messes
of meal daily, two parts com and one oats, by
measure ; also fed greater part of the sour-milk
and buttermilk from dairy. jNlilk strained through
wire strainer into deep pails as soon as drawn;
pails stand in the open air till milking is finished.
Then strained again, into same pails, through double
cloth strainer. Milk set in a room without fire, lom-
perature 40*^ to 50'^. During part of the time,
temperature of room being above 50°, the pails
were set in cold water for twelve hours. ]Milk
skimmed twice within forty-eight hours, it being
considered desirable to mix the newer and older
cream, for sake of flavour. All the cream mixed
after last skimming and allowed to stand four
hours before churning, during which time it was
.114
DAIRY FARMING.
slowly brought to a temperature of 63". Two
different churns are used, dependent somewhat
upon tlie weather and condition of cream ; one is a
vertical dash churn, with solid dasher, its lower
side concave, and the other an empty box with ten
sides, which revolves about forty times jwr minute.
From a half-hour to an hour and a half is occu-
])ied in churning, often the latter with revolving
churn. As buttermilk begins to appear, a couple
of gallons of strong brine is added, at a tempera-
ture of 58*^, and the churu stopped a moment later,
as with this addition of the brine, at a proper
temperature, the butter sejwrates rapidly. As
much brine as necessary is then used in washing
down the sides of churn, cover and dasher. The
butter is then dipped from the churn into a bath
of 2 gallons of brine, 10 or 12 lbs. at a time
being thus washed, and four or five such i^arts,
constituting the churning, may be washed in the
same brine. Removed to a worker with a rolling
lever, the butter thus washed but once is worked
as little as possible, just enough to mix in a little
more salt and to make all compact. Sometimes,
instead of working in salt, the butter after the
slightest working is laid into a tub of brine for
four hours, then worked enough to expel the brine,
and packed for market. Chemical colouring matter
is used in the churn. Neatness, scrupulous neat-
ness, at all points. The two premium tubs were
made up of three different churnings.
Premium Bairy Bitfler at International Dairy
Fair, New York, Becember, 1878.
Statement by John S. Murray, Delhi, New-
York, whose butter also received prize at the
exhibition of the Royal Agricultural Society of
England, at Kilburn, 1879 : — Butter made from
a dairy of 30 cows, principally natives with a
sprinkling of Alderneys (Jerseys), by the Cooley
or submer"-ed process. The milk remained in the
vat twenty-four hours, at a temperature of 48''',
when the milk was drawn off and the cream taken
into a warm room to prepare it for the churn.
Endeavour to have the temperature and ripeness
come as near together as possible, just before
churning, so as to save sudden heating, as at this
stage cream is very sensitive and easily injured.
We churn when , the cream is slightly acid ; we
churn about a quarter of the milk, including
cream; churn by water-power at a tenijjerature of
59" to &l" ; use the old dash churn ; churn every
day except Sundays, some daj's twice; when it
begins to come in small particles, wash it down
with cold water, then take it out into the butter
bowl and sprinkle on a little salt, add a few quarts
of water, stir a little, and let it remain a short-
time; then let it drain off through a hole in
bottom of bowl ; then wash in two waters, at
second washing press solid. Weigh and salt
with Joz. of Iliggins' Eureka .calt to I lb. butter,
work it carefully and let stand in a cool cellar
about four hours, covering it with a cloth ; then
work again slightly on an inclined plane, in order
to let brine run off, and pack. When the firkin
is filled, a cloth is put on wet with brine and
covered with about an inch of fine salt, damp. A
flat stone is placed on t<jp till time for closing the
package and sending away. The w-orking is all
done with a hand-paddle or ladle, by pressing
carefully so as not to injure the grain ; have tried
several patent workers, but have nothing that
would replace the ladle. No artificial colouring.
Hiram Smith, of Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin,
for some years the President of the North- Western
Dairymen's Association, made the butter which
took the sweepstake special prize for the best
made by any farmer, creamery, or dairyman in the
United States, salted with Higgins' Eureka salt
(New York, December, 1878). Statement :— This
butter was made from a dairy of 50 cows, in the
mouth of November, 1878 ; the cows were fed
during the time on hay cut in June, also about -t
quarts of sliced yellow-globe mangel-wurzel with
4 quarts of wheat middlings to each cow per day.
The cows were regularly salted three times a week,
and had free access to water pumped from a well.
Milking done about six o\dock morning and
evening; the milk immediately strained and sub-
merged in ice-water, at a temperature of 45° in
the coolcry cans, and allowed to remain about
eleven hours, or between milkings. Then the
milk is drawn off, and the cream all mixed
together and brought to a temperature of 62", and
stirred at intervals for twenty-four to thirty-six
hours, or until it becomes a little acid and com-
mences to thicken, at which time colouring matter
is added at the rate of a tea-spoonful to 8 gallons
of cream ; temperature of the cream at the com-
mencement of churning never below 60" nor above
62^', and moderate churning until the cream breaks,
or until globules of butter appear the size of
wheat kernels. Churning should then cease, and
PRIMITIVI': PROCESSES.
445
a gallon of cold brine to every 8 g-allons of cream
be acldod, mainly for the purpose of iloating the
butter, so that the buttermilk can be drawn off
free from the butter. Then add as much more
cold brine to work and harden the butter, allowing
it to remain ten minutes, with a few turns of the
churn. After the brine is drained off, the butter
can be salted in the churn, or upon the butter-
worker, at the rate of f to 1 oz. to a pound of
butter, according to the dryness of the butter, and
worked but slightly at this time. Cover with a
cloth and let it stand four or five hours, then work
it to the consistency of conveniently packing,
which should be immediately done, pressing firmly
down until the package is well filled. Cover with
a clean muslin cloth, cut the shape of the package,
wet with brine, and keep in a cool place until
used.
With all the progress that has been made and
the means provided for facilitating dairy opera-
tions, there can still be found in practice, in some
parts of the United States, the most primitive
methods, especially in butter-making. There are
doubtless a good many families who keep one or
two cows, and make all the butter they use, yet
never use a churn. The writer has three such in
mind, as examples, where all the butter is made by
stirring the cream with a spoon or wooden paddle,
in a large earthen bowl.
In Texas and' New ]\Iexico, making butter is
a rare occurrence. Many owners of cows by the
thousand seldom use milk, but there are times and
places at which scenes like the following can be
witnessed : — A portion of soured cream, or of the
whole milk (for in this climate the milk usually
thickens before the cream separates), is placed in a
stout leather bag, that is tightly closed and fastened
to one end of a long raw-hide rope, or lariat, the
other end being attached to the pommel of a
Mexican saddle, on the back of a half-wild mus-
tang pony, with a rider quite equal to the occasion.
All being in readiness, the rider puts spurs to his
steed, which goes off with a bound. The lariat,
suddenly straightened out behind, jerks the bag
violently forward, so that it falls beside the
horse, or, perhaps, hits him upon rump or heels,
or strikes the rider's back, and then falls to the
ground only to be the next moment jerked into
the air again. Thus the mustaug careers over
the prairie, with its fantastic appendage, until the
practised ear of the rider detects the rattling
sound in the contents of the sack — as, perchance,
it deals him a soxind blow on the head — and knows
that the butter has come. Then, reining in his
horse-power, he draws his churn up before him on
the saddle, and canters back to the ranchc.
A modification of this rather violent mode of
churning was customary for years among emi-
grants, freighters, and detachments of troops when
crossing the Western plains. These caravans, or
trains, moved so slowly that it was an easy matter,
while grazing was good, to take along " an Ameri-
can cow " to add comfort to the meagre domestic
provisions for " the outfit." The milk not used
while sweet was put into bottles, or small stone
jugs, corked up ; these, partly filled, were hung
under waggons, and there swung and jolted, as the
train moved over the roadless prairies through the
day's march. Halted for the night, the bottles
were buried in the earth to cool, and in the morn-
ing little lumps of firm fresh butter were ready
for breakfast.
Among the Cherokee and Muskogee Indians,
who were moved in the year 18'i8 from the Gulf
States to the Indian terrritory (west of Arkansas),
an old and peculiar mode of making butter may
yet be found in j)ractice to some extent. The
cream is not removed from the milk until the
latter has fully loppered, and then care is taken to
get only the cream. A quantity of this is kept
until thick and stiff; it is then poured into a
coarse linen cloth, the mass wrapped up in several
successive coverings of any porous material, and
the whole bundle then buried in the ground,
preferably 3 feet deep, in a clean, loamy soil.
Exhumed after twenty-four hours, the inner cloth
is found to contain butter, generally dry, firm,
and in good condition, all whey and water having
been absorbed by the earth. Butter thus made
has little colour, but is excellent, provided the
other dairy processes are done in a cleanly and
judicious manner.
Home-made cheese in the United States is
becoming more and more rare. The factories
have so generally sujDerseded farm cheese-making,
that the latter receives very little attention in the
consideration of dairy interests in America. And
where cheese-making continues in small quantity
in private dairies, there is nothing peculiar to the
processes employed which calls for special comment
or description, H. E. A,
CHAPTER XXX.
Dairy Imtlements and Machinery.
Milking Machines— Strainers and Coolers— Milk Cans— Milk
Packages— (. hecse-making Apparali
;. V>^, tc~> Fertility of American Invention.
'tPx'^OTHlNG is more noticeable
in connection with American
dairying than the great at-
tention paid to improving
the dairy appliances. And
this fact in turn is evidence
of the development and importance of
the dairy interest itself. The Americans
are famous for their ingenuity, and no
sooner does any branch of industry
become prominent than many brains
and hands are directed" towards pro-
viding laljour-saving apparatus and improving the
processes at all points. The inventions in aid of
dairying are very numerous, and the progress made
is quite as marked as in the mechanical advance-
mfnt in other departments of agriculture. Indeed,
new devices for the dairy appear so fast that a
close watch of the United States Patent Ofhce is
necessary to keep up with them. As a single
example of this activity, from the time of the
enactment of the patent law there have been on
an average thirty applications a year for new or
improved churns; and although about one-fourth
have been rejected, 1,811 patents on churns have
been issued, or a new churn every seventeen days
(average) for more than eighty years !
This chaj)ter will be devoted to an accoupt of
American dairy apparatus, and especially to de-
scribing and illustrating those articles which have
borne the test of practical application, and are
recognised as valuable acquisitions. Of the mul-
titude of appliances produced, of course only a few
of the fittest survive and come into general use.
As far as it is possible, the utensils will be
described in the order of the process of dairy
manipulation.
'ans and Creamers— Churns -Butter - workers— Printers- Butter
s— Jlilk Vats— Presses— Hoops and Bandages— Cheese Boxes—
Milking-machines therefore come first. Con-
sidering all the trouble that arises from poor
milking, injury to the cow and spoiling of milk,
it is no wonder that reform in the matter of
milking is so loudly called for. And then the
time consumed : it is within bounds to say that
for the cows in milk in the United States, this is
equal to the whole labour of :JO(J,000 men every
day in the year. It is therefore not surprising
that for thirty years inventors have been trying to
produce a machine to do this work. There have
been between forty and fifty patents issued in the
United States for cow-milkers, beginning in 1849,
and they may be classed according to their action,
as tappers, squeezers, and suckers. The first class,
or tube-milkers, as they are commonly called, are
illustrated and described on page 58, to wdiich tlie
reader is referred. While these tube-milkers are
of occasional service in eases of sore, obstructed,
and malformed teats, their continued use has
generally been found injurious, in causing in-
Hammation, loss of milk by " leakage," and pre-
mature drying. So far is it from being true,
as sometimes asserted, that these milking ap])li-
ances have been generally adopted in America, that
not a single well-known dairyman in the country
has adopted or endorsed them. Yet they con-
tinue to be manufactured and advertised, and
must find bu\'ers.
The next system of milkers patented attempted
to imitate hand-milking, in squeezing and strip-
ping; but the difficulty of making a mechanical
substitute for the human hand has not been
surmounted, and no success has thus far attended
the inventions on this basis, although it is
unquestionably the direction in which success
is most to be desired.
STRAINING AND COOLING.
447
More than half the American patents for
milkers have been npon machines which have
aimed to imitate the natural motion of the calf in
suckino^. Ten of these patents were issued to
L. O. Colvin, beginning in IStiO, and it is upon
the general plan of his inventions that the greatest
hope now lies for perfecting a practically satis-
factory cow-milker. The latest machine of this
kind, which has attained the highest mechanical
merit and the most complete theoretical action,
is that of Albert A. Durand, made at Auburn,
New York.
StEAIXIXG, COOI.ING, AND AeEATING MiLK.
Straining milk before " setting " it for cream
or canning it for shipment is very essential, and
too often neglected, coarse cloth make-shifts or
other utensils being relied upon that do not answer
the purpose. In most metal strainers the surface
has been flat or concave, so it has not been possible
to use wire cloth fine enough to remove all im-
purities without filling the meshes and clogging
the strainer. To do the work (piickl}^, the cloth or
wire used is often so coarse as to make the opera-
tion of little effect. The best American article of
this kind is More's pyramidal strainer, illustrated
in Figs. 2-5] and -I'-iZ. Its special advantage is
the form of the strainer : the milk falls upon the
sloping sides of the pyramid, and the sediment is
the constantly carried to the base, leaving a clean
surface through which the milk rapidly passes.
This permits wire cloth of 100 mesh (10,000 per-
forations to the square inch), which is finer than
any cloth strainer used, and cleans the milk per-
fectly. As it never clogs, it works very fast.
The bowl is seam-
less, of Britannia
or copper, of fine
form and finish,
and of great
strength. The
strainer is at-
tached by a coarse
screw, and can be
easily removed
and cleaned.
Strainers of dif-
ferent meshes are
furnished for the same bowl, for various domestic
uses. In the first figure a portion of the bowl
is cut awaj' to show the position of the strainer.
Fig. 232.— .Strainer in parts.
Fig. 231. — Pyramidal Strainer.
and the whole rests upon a circular metallic
support used in straining into small pans; the
second figure shows the parts separated. For
use with large fac-
tory-carrying cans,
deep-setting pails
and pans, a simijle
bent-wire attach-
ment is furnished,
which gives com-
plete support. This
excellent utensil
is sold in several
sizes, the strainer
surface having
from 60,000 to
150,000 perfora-
tions, at from 1|
to 2i dollars, with
attachments com-
plete. It is exclusively manufactured by Moseley
and Stoddard, of the New England Dairymen's
Supply Depot, at Poultney, Kutland County,
Vermont.
The subject of cooling milk before transporta-
tion has received much attention in America
during the last twenty years, and in that time
patents for a hundred and fifty devices for the
purpose have been issued,
twenty-one of them in the
year 1S75, and twenty-four
in 1S76. Many combine the
cooling with cream - raising,
and those will be mentioned
later. The simplest and most
common provision is the tank
or bath of running spring-
water, cooled by ice when
necessary, and tin pails about
8 inches in diameter, and from
18 to 25 inches deep, with
heavy bottom (Fig. 23'3).
A clever contrivance for
expelling the animal heat in
a quicker way, but requiring
more labour, is represented in
Fig. 2-"34. By this milk aerator
and cooler, a hand-lever below
draws air through an ice-box and forces it down
a tin tube to a perforated base, where it is expelled
through the milk. The air maj- be drawn through
Fig. 233. -Milk
Cooler.
448
DAIRY FARIMING.
cottoii-wool, and so be purified from "jerms of fer-
ments. A valve at the base of the tube prevents
Fig. 234. — Milk Aerator.
•the milk from bciiii;- drawn intu tlie liellows. All
the parts are detachable for eleaninii^. The figure
shows the apjiaratus by itself, and also as attached
to a can by the extension bracket, but without the
ice-box. This aerator is sold, complete, for !•
dollars, and fitted to cans of all sizes.
MiLK-CAXS.
Milk-cans, for eonvej-ing- the article to fac-
tories by railway, to city dealers in milk- waggons,
and for delivery in small, unbroken parcels to
consumers, are very numerous, differing widely in
patterns and in size. Over a hundred patents
on milk-cans have been issued in the United
States since 1860.
The "factory" carrying can has been
shown in Fig. 13^, page 274. It is usually a
MiLK-C.VN HaXIU.EH.
cylinder with diameter two-thirds of height,
holding from .j() to 60 gallons; when well made
the sides are of a single jjiece of tin, and with top
and bottom hoops and a midway band. Bottoms
and bands are often of wrought-iron, tinned ; the
covers in .several patterns have ventilators attached.
The side handles may be quite plain or of the
Whitney pattern, which is that used by the Iron-
Clad Can Company of New York, and shown in
the engraving. Another improved form of ean-
JKHidles is Millar^■^ patent ; these are a combi-
n;iti(in for eonvenieuce in ordinary handling and
for raising and tii)ping, when cranes are used
at a factory. Some cranes have curved hooks,
and some hooks squarely bent which require a
socket perpendicular to the side of the can ;
these handles provide for both. They are made
of malleable iron, japanned or tinned, and cost
half a dollar a pair.
JNIiLK Settino.
For setting milk to let the cream gather,
almost the only article used in the Northern States
for many jears was the shallow tin pan, circular,
with sides slightly flaring ; and the counterjiart of
this in the South and those regions where spring-
houses prevailed was the pan, often aiiproacliing
a jar in form, of earthenware, generally called a
crock. A dairy of much size, fitted wnth small pans
in the days when milk was allowed to stand forty-
eight or sixty hours before skimming, presented a
formidable array of tin-ware ; the labour connected
therewith, devolving upon the women-folk, was
simply killing. The tiers of bright pans upon a
bench, drying and sweetening in the sun, is still a
characteristic f)f the homestead of the American
genei'al farmer, who keeps a few cows and makes
butter to use and sell at the country store. But
in the active dairying districts the small pans have
almost disappeared.
Patents for inqiroved milk pans and coolers
began to be taken out in 1S59, although few were
issued prior to 1865 ; during the next fourteen
years, over one hunilred and fifty devices of this
class were patented in the United States. Most of
them were for large, shallow setting, holding from
10 to 200 gallons, the depth from 5 to 8 inches,
sometimes 10, and the pans sold in sets of four.
Nearly all these pans have arrangements for a
circulation of cold or warm water around them for
regulating the temperature of the milk. Illus-
trations and dcscrijjfions of several of these
systems of cream-raising have already been given.
All these api)lianees for deep-setting dejien 1
upon the use of ice, and involve much labour in
SETTING AND CREAMING.
449
handling' and cleaning the cans. There are good
AmeriLan dairymen, however, who wish some-
times to apply heat to their milk, to vary the
depth of setting it, and to set deep without so
many cans. The judges on apparatus at the
International Dairy Fair at New York, in 1878,
decided that the l)est creamer was one that would
accommodate methods and jirocesses based upou
different theories, not restricted to one, and
awarded the diploma for "the best creamer"
accordingly.
The refrigerating creamery-vat of Whitman and
Burrell, of Little Falls, New York, shown in Figs.
236, 237, received the award. The general utility of
this vat is one of its chief merits. In it the milk
may be set at any deiitli up to 20 inches, and the
Fig 237 — C'RE\Mf K\ \ VI, CLO^tD.
vat may be of any size, that made for factory
service being 1.5 feet long, and 3 or 4 feet wide,
with a capacity of 600 gallons. Strained directly
into the vat, the milk may be cooled by a flow of
spring-water, under, aroimd, and through it. Two
flat tin cases, or hollow partitions, are suspended
the length of the vat, dividing it into three long,
narrow compartments, and these conduct cold
water through the mass of milk ; if it is desired
to prevent cream rising, these attachments, by a
simple device (not shown in the engraving) may
be put in motion as agitators. A light cover,
adjusted by balance pulleys, may be let down upon
the vat, and having a jambed edge with india-
rubber packing, all dust and air are shut out.
The cover is of rooflng tin, double, with an air-
space of one inch, the top painted and the inside
dressed with shellac or paraffln. Ventilators are
made in the cover when wanted. To expedite the
cooling, thei'e are ice-pans which may Ije placed
under the cover, directly over the milk, with drip-
tubes which iiass to the outside of the vat. With
a very economical use of ice, and perhaps a little
salt, a body of .5,000 lbs. of fresh milk may by
this apparatus be reduced to a temperature of 40*
Fahr. in a remarkably short time. The provisions
for water circulation answer also for steam, and by
its application the contents of the vat may be soon
heated to any degree. Hot water may, of course,
1)0 used instead of steam. And to suit different
notions in cream-raising, the apparatus atlmits
of the application of heat at the bottom only,
of cold at the bottom or the top alone, or of heat
below and cold above. The milk receptacle is of
heavy tin, substantial but plain ; the vat-frame is
thoroughly made, put together with screw-bolts,
well finished, and the panels covered with a non-
conducting coat to economise heat and cold. The
whole is simple, every part accessible for cleaning,
and it is easily managed. The milk may be
drawn off with faucet and spout, and there is the
usual ti])ping contrivance to facilitate emptying.
The cream Avhich forms under these air-tight
covers is very tender and of even consistency,
having none of the objectionable skin or crust so
common when exposed to the air, and so it may
readily be drawn through the large faucet, after
the milk, and conducted directly to the churn.
These various attributes make this vat a con-
venient and economical appliance for either butter-
making or a cheese-factory, and particularly for
an establishment where both articles are produced
at different times, or made from the same milk.
Six sizes of these vats are in the market, capacity
from 75 to 700 gallons, and they range in price
from 35 to 75 dollars for vat alone, and from 50
to 140 dollars when complete, with cover, ice-pans,
and partitions.
450
DAIRY FAinriX(J.
The Ancut cooler and eream-iaisov is a still
simpler a])i)iiratus for deep-setting in quantity, the
invention of R. Aneiit, the sujierintendent of one of
the famous Stewart ereamerics in Iowa, the result
of experience there, and introduced in 18/9. A
strong tank holds a set of ten deep ohlong cans,
each with capacity for 100 Ihs. of milk; they may
be connected, thus receiving and discharging
1,000 lbs. at once, or any number of the com-
partments may be separately used. There is
amjjle space between the cans to facilitate clean-
ing, and the arrangement presents the greatest
possible cooling surface. The tank is made to use
cold running water, or for a still bath, adding ice as
required. It stands above the floor like a cheese-
vat, and has the usual dumping device. The
gang of cans, strong and durable, is easily hiindled
and removed by one person. A discharge-pipe
allows tlic milk to be drawn off from under the
cream, and the can-bottoms are so shaped that
should there be any sediment it will be carried
awav bv the current of milk at ths first flow on
oj)ening the outlet.
The Fairlamb milk-cm, patented in 187S, is
an appliance specially adapted to a new system of
creamery practice introduced at the North-west by
C. C". Fairlamb, of Arena, "Wisconsin. The method
Fig. 23!).— Section of C.-.x.
consists in g.ithcring tlic cream only from tl;e
pro.lucing dairies instead of the whole milk.
Instead of paying for milk by the pound, with no
allowance for difference in quality, in this system
the payment is according to the butter value, the
cream being taken by the factory agent from cans
of uniform size and construction, and credit given
according to the glass gauge in the side of tiie can.
Loss of cream by too much shaking of milk in
hauling is thus avoided, and all the skim-milk
is left sweet upon the farm. The Fairlamb can
is an es.sential part of this system ; a very good
idea of it may be got from Figs. 238, 2;i'.i. The
can is lOi inches high, 12 inches in diameter at
the top, and lOi at the bottom, and provided with
an air-tube in the centre for aid in cooling the milk ;
this is shown in the sectional view. The cover is of
tin, with a rubber band covering the edges, and
making the can air-tight, when in place. A glass
gauge is H.\ed in the side for measuring the depth
of the cream. The can may be used in water or
open air ; cooled air is recommended as the best by
the inventor.* A specially-contrived carrying can
is provided for the cream gatherer, under this
system, with follower- heads to prevent churning
in the waggon, and this can is made of any size
above 20 gallons ; it is also arranged for regula-
tion of temperature of the cream during transit.
Baker's excelsior cream-strniner is very con-
venient for reducing a mass
of cream to even consistency,
either before churning or for
sale for table use. The cream
is forced gently through per-
forations at the fioint of the
cone-shaped tin, by means
of a peculiarly-shaped wooden
knob, turned with a crank.
This utensil, price 4 dollars,
is made bv Jones, F'aulkner, and Co., of I tica,
New York".
Up to the separation of the cream from the
milk, the various kinds of apparatus cannot lie
well sub-divided, they are all used in connection
with the raw materials. But beyond this point
dairy appliances are naturally placed in two great
classes, as they are intended to facilitate butter-
making and cheese-making.
Churns.
There. were issued in the United States, prior
to the year 1879, upwards of 2,000 patents for
tools and implements used in making butter.
Churns were the first dairy utensils ])ntented in
America 1802), and have exceeded all othei-s
combined in number and variety. The grand
aggregate of over 1,800 patents of this kind
includes not only entirely new^ patterns or prin-
ciples, but changes and improvements in the barrel
or body of the churn itself, in dasher.s, in com-
binations, attachments, and operating devices.
^-^
Fig. 240.— C'utASi-
STB.UNEB.
AMERICAN CHURNS.
451
In 1803 a "rockiiin' fluirii " was invented, in 1813
and 1831 " jxMiduluni " churns, with others
termed " reciproeatini>-," "self-acting-," "oscil-
lating," and " rotary." Churns and butter-
workers combined were first patented in 1851 and
1852. As a matter of curiosity, theee churn
patents are divided in time as follows : — Prior to the
year 18^5, 71 ; during the twenty-five years ending
with 1850, 131 ; during the decade ending in 1800,
117; during the ne.xt decade, 802; from 1871 to
1875, inclusive, 361,; in 1876, 86; in 1877, 109;
in 1878, 98. The greater part of the whole
number, therefore, have originated within twenty
years. Some of the best and most popular forms
of American churns will now be described.
The Davis oscillating churn of the Vermont
Farm ^laehiue Company received the first honours
Fig. 241. — Oscillating Chpen.
at the International Dairy Fair, New York, 1878.
It is a box with rounded ends, free from dashers or
other obstructions, hung in a portable frame by
Fig. 242. — Section or Oscillatino Churn.
four hinged rods, and given its swinging motion
by a handle at either end. Figs. 211 and 212
show the general appearance of the clim-n, and the
60
motion given to its contents by the oscillation.
It is very well made, but three pieces of wood in
the body, except the cover; and having no sharp
angles and corners, it is easily cleaned. It is very
efficient, easily managed, and (piite cheap. Several
sizes are made.
The pendulum churn, John Campbell's patents,
sold by the Dairy Sap])ly Company of New York
Fig. 243. — Pendulum Chubn.
City, is on the same principle as the preceding one,
but differs in details and in material, this being of
111 i.iM Churn.
tin. It is suspended by two cords with snap
hooks, and moved back and forth horizontally by
\ \
Fig. 245. — Section of Pendulum Churn.
a handle at one end. Figs. 213 and 211 show
the exterior of the churn and the motion given
to it as it swings ; Fig. 215 the action of
the cream in the churn. The latter is perfect,
including the entire contents, so that no " dead
cream " can collect anj'where, and the peculiar
shape of the interior causes sufticient concussion
without any dashing o\'er; but for very active
453
DAIRY rAR:\IING
agitation a close cover is provided, and this has two
veut tubes which may be kept corked or left ojien
Fig. 246.— Whipple's Rectangular Churn.
for aeration while churnino-. The effect upon
the cream is so thoroui)h ami uniform in this
churn that the butter " comes '•" all at once. It is
especially adapted to prevent ovei"-churning, and
to facilitate the method of washino- and salting
the butter in its granular form. AVhen the
butter passes the mustard-seed condition and
begins to form larger granules, the tendency
in this churn is for the heavier buttermilk to be
thrown into the cone-ends, while the butter is
buoyed off and does not, as a rule, come in contact
with the tin. At this stage, when the particles
become the size of wheat-grains, the churning
ceases, and some cold water or clear brine is poured
in ; then, after a gentle motion to wash and harden
the butter grains, a large cork which during the
chuniing closes an opening in the end opposite the
handle is removed, and a metallic tidjular strainer
inserted, through which the buttermilk is drawn
off, by tilting the churn and taking a half-hitch
around the handle with the nearest swing cord.
The ojjerator replaces the churn, adds water, washes
the butter by shaking ihe chum, and draws it
off as before, repeating until the water comes off
clear. The butter may be hnally removed with
a wire dip-strainer while floating upon water in
the churn, salted and set away for final manipula-
tion while still in the granular form. The large
opening to the churn, its form, general simplicity,
and material enable it to be very easily handled
and cleaned, and it is one of the cheapest of good
churns. \Mien not in use it occupies no floor
room, l)ut it is readily hung up out of the way.
"Whipple's rectangular churn, made only by
Cornish and Curtis, of Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin,
is A great favourite in the North-west, received
the highest prize at the Chicago Dairy Fair of
1877, and has won many other honours. It is
easily imderstood from the illustration in Fig.
■Z\i>. A rectangular or cubical box, quite plain
Ijut strong, with circular opening and close cover
on one face, is suspended from diagonal corners
ujKjn a light frame turned with a crank handle,
and as it revolves the cream falls from corner to
corner, giving it a diversified and ra2:)id concussion.
Nothing could be simpler, and it is very effective
in its work. The same pattern is made in large
sizes and fitted with pulley for operating by
power.
Bullard's oscillating churn, manufactured by
Bullard and Ellsworth, of Barre, Massachusetts,
is another of the same general class of churns
without paddles or dashers, was one of the first
introduced on this principle, is used by many of
the best butter-makers in New England and New
York, and is deservedly popular. It received the
highest awai'd at tlie United States Centennial
Exposition. The body (Fig. 217) is a plain box, the
length about twice the other dimensions, opening
and cover on the top, with vent. By a simple
fastening the box is held in place on a seat or
frame with two upright rocking standards, and
moved back and forth by a handle at one end. At
the other end are two heavy balance wheels which
overcome the resistance of the cream and continue
BULLARD'S OsclLLATIXi; CllURN.
and regulate the movement. By these wheels,
also, power may be a])j)lied. But although con-
tributing much to the ease and action of the churn.
AMKRICAN CIIUHNS.
453
the wheels add to its cost and make it a heavy aud
roomy impk-ment to haiidh; and store.
The Blanchard is unqiiestionalily tlu' l)est, a'^
it is the most widely known
and used, of American dash
churns. It is well represented
in Fig. 248, with its parts.
These are some of its con-
spicuous merits : perfection
of material, excellence and
thoroughness of manufacture,
simplicity of construction, and
ease of operation. The form
exposes every part of the
interior upon the removal of
the cover, and the dasher
can be detached by a single
motion. The action of the
dasher, with its self-adjust-
ing floats, is to give four
motions to the cream at every revolution of
the crank, and the agitation is in the form of
currents, instead of friction and blows. A re-
verse motion of the dasher after the butter
forms gives it a cam pressure, by which the
buttermilk may be mainly worked out. Porter
Blanchard and
his sons have
been making
churns at Con-
c 0 r d, N e w
Hampshire, for
more than fifty
years, with a '
constantly in-
creasing reputa-
tion, and are
still the sole
manufacturers of
the wares which _ %
bear their name.
The Blanchard
cylindrical fac-
tory chiu-n is
one of the
newest of the
power churns, and has bccii very successful in
many of the largest butter-making establishments
in the United States. These churns possess all the
excellent qualities of the smaller hand-machines
already mentioned, and are of great capacity'.
LLANlII VID Lull N
The size shown in the engraving (Fig. ~-l-') will
make from 375 lbs. to -ido lbs. of butter at a
i/hiirning, according to the quality of the cream.
Price for this size, 50 dollars.
The horizontal barrel churn,
constructed for either hand
or power, has usually three
dashers running the length of
its interior, projecting 3 or l
inches from the staves towards
the axis, and jwrmanenlly
jilaced equi - distant. This
churn (Fig. 250) is in general
use in Pennsylvania, particu-
hirly near Philadeljihia, and is
often called the Philadelphia
revolving churn. It is used
more or less all over the
country, especially in small
factories or dairies having
light power, and is made by several of the best-
known American manufacturers of dairy ap-
paratus.
The " Queen of the Dairy " is the name given
a revolving box churn (Fig. 251) made by Gardner
B. Weeks, of Syracuse, New York. It is made for
factory use, in
gangs of two,
three, and four,
■which may be
used sej)arately
or all thrown
into one com-
partment. The
churn is admir-
ably balanced,
and even the
large sizes may
be turned by
the hand-crank.
This three-gang
size will make
400 lbs. of
Imtter at once.
Price complete,
75 dollars.
The butter-makers of Orange County, New
York, still largely use the old-time barrel churn
with the vertical dasher. In large dairies and
factories two or more of these are made into a
gang, to which any convenient power is attached,
BLANLHiBD ClLINDRK VL CH I"
454
DAIRY FARMING.
as shown in Fi<?. 25:3. Singly and in gangs, revolved; dashers are made in the oddest shapes;
these old - fashioned eliurns continued to be and several patents combine churns and dutlies-
favourcd \>y ^oud dairyinen in diii'ureut parts of washing machines. A little contrivance which
has received commendation is a miniature chum
'^-^v*^^— ^-^ of crystal glass, an u])right cylinder in pint and
quart sizes, with a close cover and vertical dasher
of silver-plated metal, which is very convenient
for all kinds of experimental churning. It ia
Fig. :.'")0. — Horizontal Barrel C'ul'HX.
the United States. The set here represented is as
put uji bv Jones, Faulkner, and Co., of Utica, New
York.
From among the great number of churns
patented and offered for sale in America, but
never in general use, a few of peculiar construc-
tion may be mentioned. C. H. Carver, of
Taunton, Massachusetts, has made a propeller-
dasher, a large wooden sjiiral, which operated
vertically, by gearing, in any cylindrical vessel,
carries the cream to its centre and bottom with a
force commensurate to the speed. It operates
very easily and well, is quick in its work, and
especially effective when the butter comes, in
gathering all the particles into i>ne compact ball.
J ig. -JM .—'Weeks' Kevolviso Box Chlkn.
There are several forms of churn in which the
cream-chamber is within a water-l)ox, for regu-
lating the temperatiu'e. Boxes of different shapes
are rotated or shaken in ^various ways. One
barrel is hung upon its transverse axis and
-Tavlob'.s Patent Eccentric Chirn.
made by the W. H. Silver ^Manufacturing Com-
pany, of New York City.
In our notice of English churns we omitted
the mention of Thomas and Taylor's patent
" Eccentric " churn, of which we give an engiav-
ing in Fig. 253. In this churn the agitation of
the cream is accomplished ehielly by the
alternate rising and falling of the op-
jiosite ends of the churn. The inventor
claims that it is an easy churn to work,
and many peoj)le speak highly of it.
It has received a leading first prize in
one of the Royal Agricultural Society's
competitions.
It is hardly desirable to describe in
detail here the various devices for
operating churns which are to be found
in America. Sundry combinations of
gearing, with cranks and treadles, are
provided to ease human labour on the
small churns, and there are arrangements of
weights and springs which only need a little
winding-up to do all the ttu-ning. Light animal
]i()wt'i's are made, circular and with endless chain,
in which a dog, goat, sheep, or calf can be
AAIERICAN BUTTER-WORKERS.
455
Pig. 253. -Oan.
titilisod; and one patent is for an attachment
between a lady's voeking-chair and a strong
coiled spring, whereby her leisurely oseillatiou
while conversing,
reading, or put-
ting the baby to
sleepj will store
up sufficient power
to do the day's
churning 1
Butter- WORKERS.
Buttei'-workers
seem to have
originated in
America. These -
implements, as
distinct from
" gathering and '
working churns,"
were first in-
vented in the year
1843 in Connec-
ticut, and next appeared in Pennsylvania in
1853. Up to 1860 twenty-one United States
patents had been issued for this class of appliance,
but it was some j'ears later before they became
at all popular in any form. Between 1860 and
1870 forty-five patents for butter-workers were
taken out, and up to 1879 over one hundred and
fifty in all, the recent average being ten a
year. Such of these utensils as have proved prac-
ticable are ajiplieations of the lever and the roller
in different forms.
In nearly all of
them the pressure
is apjilied by oper-
ating the worker
with one hand,
while the other
with a wooden
paddle or " ladle "
moves the butter
and brings it into
position for work-
ing. Points deemed essential are that the butter
sliall come in contact with neither the hand nor
the metallic parts of the implement, and that the
moisture should be entirely extracted with the
least possible labour, and without injury to the
gi-ain of the butter. Workers made wholly
of close-grained wood are preferred. One of the
earliest and simplest forms is a triangular tray
open at its base and inclined Inwards the ajiex,
where there is
fixed in a loose
socket one end of
a large wooden
lever which can
be moved to reach
every part of the
tray. This is made
to use upon any
table, or jilaeed
upon a permanent
frame or set of
legs. The pressure
exerted by the
lever is entirely
at the judgment
of the operator.
The expressed but-
termilk or water
used in washing
runs off into a pail set l)elow the lowest point.
Fig. 254' represents this kind of butter-worker as
made by Jones, Faulkner, and Co., of Utica, New
York, and Cornish and Curtis, of Fort Atkinson,
Wisconsin.
The Howe butter-worker is another pattern of
the same class. A rectangular tray has a sliding
frame fitted to its lons-er sides which carries a
r Vektk \i, ]'.
-Triangular Butter-
worker.
235. — Howe Butter-worker.
pressing bar the width of the tray, operated by a
lever handle. The frame slides ofE at the end, leav-
ing a plain butter tray. It is all of wood, simple,
eheaj), convenient, and efficient (Fig. 255).
456
DAIRY FARMING.
The Em-flea Inittcr-worker, made hy tlic Ver-
mont Farm ^lachine Comjiaiiy before mentioned,
eonll)inei^ tlie lever with roller. The butter can
Ki''. L'5U.- Kl-ltKK,
Eli-WOKKER.
l)e rolled with any degree of pressure. Fig. 256
well represents the implement, and shows how the
roller may be carried to any part of the inclined
table. This worker has great capacity, as from
10 to 70 lbs. of butter can be easily managed
upon it at one time. It has an advantage over the
ordinary lever, in giving an even pressure to all
parts of the butter without any drawing or sliding
motion, and over the fixed rollers in the ability to
change the pressure to suit the condition of the
butter. There is no metal about this imi)lement,
and none could be siiniiler in its jiavts or easier to
£ ^A.,
II. iiumiiiimtnl
Cunningham Blttek-wouker.
manage. In the hands of a discreet butter-malcer
this is the most satisfactory American worker. It
received a special dij)lom:i at the New York Dairy
Fair of 1878.
Several butter-workers have been patented in
the United States depending upon the roller
ojjcrated by a crank. The best of these is the
Cunningham butter-worker (Fig. 257), made and
sold by AVhitman and Burrell, of Little Falls,
New York. A rectangular frame on strong
legs carries a traverse which is moved back and
forth the length of the frame, by sliding it
with the hand, or by turning the crank. The
crank also turns a fluted roller. AVithin the
frame is ])laced a wooden tray, fitted to it and
holding the butter; this remains in place
(luring the working, but can be at once re-
moved. The crank and roller do the work,
and compensating springs at the ends of the
roller regulate its pressure according to the
consistenc}^ of the butter. This implement
received a diploma at the first International
Dairy Fair at New York. The price for one
with capacity of 30 lbs. is 8 dollars.
Lilly's patent (Fig. 258) is the best of the
American rotary butter- workers. By simple gear-
ing the crank revolves the butter-bowl and also
the ladle or grooved roller. The shape of the
latter is peculiar, pressing the butter into ridges as
it passes under, which on the next turn of the bowl
are crossed diagonally by the roller. There is no
metal which can
possibly come
into contact with
the butter. The
bowl is concave,
so the butter-
milk all tends
towards the
centre, where it
passes down
through a hol-
low s])indle fo
a vessel ]ilaccd
below. The ma-
chine can he
taken apart in
a minute and
thoroughly
cleaned with
ease. On de-
taching the roller, the bowl can be removed from
the frame and set away with the butter. This
worker is made by C. H. R. Triebels, of Phila-
dol])hia, in three sizes; capacity from 5 lbs. lo
60 lbs. ; prices from 12 to 20 dollars.
Fig. 258.— Lilly's Bitter-worker.
:\IOULDING AND PRINTLXC;
457
The only power butter-worker wliich has borne
severe practical tests in America is that manufac-
tured by Porter Blanehard's Sons, of Concord,
New Hamjishire. The accompanying engraving
(Fig. 250) answers every purpose of description of
this simple but efficient utensil. With it large
quantities of liuttcr are worked at the factories.
A very handy butter-worker for small dairies
consists of a common wooden bowl, placed securely
Fig. 259. — Blanch ard's Butter- wobker.
easily, quickly, and thoroughly, without injuring
the grain. The butter is subjected to direct
pressure between surfaces of wood, and without
rubbing or drawing. It costs 20 dollars. This is
a great acquisition to the labour-saving apparatus
of large butter-makers.
A butter-worker oi an entirely different charac-
ter was patented in the United States in INIay,
1877, by Charles A. Sands, of Burlington, Kansas.
It resembles the English machine of Hancock & Co.
A wooden tub (Fig. 260) has within it a metallic
cylindrical screen with a few perforations ; the tub
is two-thirds filled with clear water, and outside the
screen broken ice is placed, in warm weather. The
butter, taken right from the churn, is placed in a
strong metallic cylinder, the lower part of which
is finely perforated, and this cylinder is placed in
the water, in the middle of the tub, being kej)t in
position by radial braces. To the top of the cylin-
der is fitted a follower wdiich is moved dowTiward
by a large screw with hand- wheel, attached to a
frame on top of the tub. The screw pressure of
the follower forces the butter through the perfora-
tions of the inner cylinder, and it tises in vermicelli
form through the water within the screen, being
washed and cooled thereby. This machine is, by
the patentee, urged upon those who prepare re-
packed or " milled " butter, but the fewer facilities
such are given the better. It has not yet (1879)
been manufactured for sale.
Fig. 260.— Peki'orateij Wouker and Washer.
on a light stool and held firmly against a rest,
which pre\ents it from breaking or sj^ringing
do\vn. The ladle or paddle is similar to that
used by hand, but larger, attached to a lever,
and adjusted so as to reach all parts of the bowl.
The latter may be revolved either way at will,
as readily removed as from a table, and bowls of
different sizes may be used.
Of a number of American contrivances for
pressing and printing butter, the simplest and
Fig. 261. — Butter-moulder.
liest, all considered, is Nesbitt's patent. This is
a hand-lever press, made of hard wood, with bra.-;s
458
DAIRY FARMING.
hinges and screws, few in numljer, and the parts
secured by wedges, so as to Ije easily taken to
l)ieces for cleaning. It is plain, but of fine work-
manship, and capable of heavy pressure if needed.
AVith this press butter can be very rapidly and
easily formed into cubical lumps or " prints,"
pounds or half-j)ounds, and at the same time
imprinted with a trade mark or any little device.
These little implements, very convenient in pre-
paring butter for the retail trade, are sold for from
5 to 7 dollars, according to size, by the New York
Dairy Supply Company.
A more elaborate and expensive machine is in
use by some makers of fancy or " gilt-edged ■"
butter, which presses a previously weighed ball or
lump of butter into a sis-faced " print " of any
proportions, leaving devices in relief upon five of
its faces, which is a pretty sm'e preventive of
imitation.
Butter Packages.
Butter packages are to be found in the ITnited
States in great variety as to material, form, size,
and purpose. Over one hundred patents have been
issued for such articles, half of them subsequent to
the year 1874. Wood is the favourite material,
and its cheapness and lightness, rather than any
other quality, render it almost the one thing used
in the wholesale trade. For carrying butter in
bulk, 50 lbs. or more in a body, the aim is to
secure a package which shall be strong, to with-
stand the dangers of breakage in transportation,
easily handled, conveniently opened and closed,
and in material and construction suited to preserve
its contents from deteriorating in quality.
The "Optiinus" butter-tub, made by James
B. Gilbcrds, of Jamestown, New Y'ork, received
the diploma as the best package for the wholesale
trade at the International Dairy Fair at New
York, 1878. This is a white oak tub w^ith three
hoops and a white ash cover, of excellent work-
manship. The latter is attached by a fastener of
a very simple but clever device, which leaves no
ears to be knocked off, is very efficient, and can be
removed in an instant. The trade find it of
decided advantage, as it admits of repeatedly
showing the contents, while when the cover is
replaced the package has no appearance of having
been opened. The tubs of this pattern are sold at
about 4 dollars per dozen. The " Optimus "
return l)utter-])ail is substantially the same
article, but better finished, and painted witli
galvanised iron hoops, and sells at about 10
dollars a dozen.
The firkins and half-firkins, tubs, pails and half-
pails of many other manufacturers differ in details
from the above, but not enough to call for any
special description.
A nuich greater variety exists in the packages
intended for shipping butter directly to the con-
sumer, or for retail in unbroken parcels of from
1 to 20 lbs., or in pound lumjjs and smaller prints.
An air-tight glass butter-jar is made by
N. Ilalsted, of Scranton, Pennsylvania, which is
an excellent article. The jars, of clear glass, are
strong, hold IGlbs., and made air-tight by special
fastenings. The carrying-case, of wood, may be
made to hold one, two, four, or six jars, and is
ingeniously contrived to ensure safe transportation.
It forms a return package superior to any of wood,
and is reasonable in price.
Perkins' refrigerating butter package consists
of a stone jar, light but strong, encased in a,
durable wooden jacket provided with a bail and
a double cover. The jar is surrounded, as may
be seen in Fig. 262, with an air-space as a non-
conductor. There can be no leak, no absorption,
no waste ; so the weight is uniform and there is
no reason for tare. This is a safe, clean, durable,
and cheap return package of decided merit. Jones
and Perkins, of Minneapolis, ^Minnesota, the
makers, use glass
as well as stoue-
wai'e. In both cases
the wooden honji
at the rim of the
jar is shrunk on,
and the wood-casing
attached thereljy.
The improved
butter-tub made by
J. G. Koehk-r, cif
Philadelphia, is one
of the nicest con-
trivances for carry-
ing print or luni]i
butter from dairy
or factory to be de-
livered to the con-
sumer or retailed from the package. Tliis tui) is
oval in shape, of white cedar, liound with metallic
hoops, and provided with handles. The lid has
hinyes and fastenings so t'lat it mav be locked.
Fig. :;02.— PEHKINS' KEFKIUElUTiNQ
Butter Pack^ige.
APPLIANCES USED IN CHEESE-MAKING.
459
opened half at a time, or wholly removed. Within
is a removable tin case, with small air-space sur-
rounding. At each end of the case is a detachable
iee-chamber, which can he emptied and filled
without disturbing the butter; and the spaces
occupied by these chambers are available for
Fig. 2t)3.— Koehler's Butter Package.
additional butter, when ice is not needed. On the
inside of the tin case are ledges to support wooden
shelves holding prints of butter, and these may be
left out for packing in rolls or large lumps.
These tubs, with capacity for 25 lbs. of butter in
prints, are sold at 5 dollars for those with iron
trimmings, and 10 dollars for those extra finished
and full brass trimmed ; with capacity for lOOlbs.,
13 dollars and 25 dollars respectively.
A very handy form of preparing butter for the
retail trade, in small packages, and of preserving
it well, is that of D. C. Perrin, of Boston. The
butter is made up (by press or otherwise) into
eqiial-sized pound lumps, and each wrapped in a
piece of transparent paraffined paper. Four of these
lumps closely
fit into a box
of very thin
wood, which
has received an
odourless and
wat e rpr o of
coating. A
strip of pap<r
pasted around
the cover her-
metically seals
the package.
The butter is admirably pi-otected, and the retailer
saves all labour in cutting out and weighing, and
all loss by waste and shrinkage, whether the cus-
tomer takes the little four-pound box or a single
lump, in its clean, impervious wrapjun*. The pack-
age may be varied in size of lumps, and the whole,
61
^'9.
Fig. 264. — 1'ekkin's Butter Package.
wrappers included, can be furnished at a less cost
than the common five and ten pound round wooden
boxes, with covers.
N. Waterliury, of Baltimore, Maryland, makes
a one-pound butter-box, with packing-tools to
match, also intended for use in the retail trade.
The boxes are thin bauds of wood, bent rouixl,
lajiped, anil sewed together with a machine, with
loose circular wooden guards for top and bottom,
all to be well soaked in brine before using. Four
bands, after being filled, with eight guards, and
two stiff circidar head-blocks at the ends, are
placed in a little frame, and tied up in a cylindri-
cal package. Each of the bauds or skeleton boxes
holds a circular pound lumj^ of butter. For trans-
portation a double-walled case is provided, in which
twelve of the four-pound packages are placed, and
if distance makes it expedient the interstices are
filled with dry salt. The tools for putting up
butter in this form are convenient, making the
labour light, and the whole expense need not exceed
one cent a pound.
Cheese-making Appllinces.
Cheese-making apparatus has not received in
America the amount of attention which has been
given to ajipliances for the manufactui'e of butter,
although the progress made has been as great. In
this class the United States patents number just
about three hundred, and these include agitators,
bandages, boxes, curd-cutters, curd-mills, curd-
sinks, hoops, modes or processes of manufacture,
presses, and vats.
At the factories, as the milk is received from
the different patrons, each lot is weighed in the
weighing-can, and often several small lots in the
same receiver, befoi-e its contents are run off to the
vat. The weigh-cans generally used range in size
from 40 to 90 gallons ; one of the best is shown in
Fig. 133 on p. 274, and is made by Childs and
J imes, of Utica, New York. It is of heavy tin, iron-
bound, with an iron bottom, inclined toward the
outlet to hasten emptying. The same firm offer a
great improvement over the old style of discharge-
gates, such as shown in this weigh-ean, which
require frequent re-packing, and often leak at that.
Jones' patent weighing-can gates are all metal,
opened and closed by a lever operating a rack and
pinion, which moves one metal surface upon
another, so accurately fitted as to avoid all
packing and absolutely prevent leakage. With
460
DAIRY FARMING.
these gates of three-inch diameter, and with or tion, the arrangements for ag-itatino^ and eoolinc
without nozzk's, the contents of the hirgest receiv-
ing-eau may soon be discharged.
Great imjjrovements have been made in the
conveniences for weigliing the receijjts from several
successive patrons. Fairbanks and Co. make a
the milk, for quick and uniform application of
heat by water or steam, and its special adajitation
to the Arnold patent process of cheese-making.
Of the " self-heating vats " there have been
few improvements ujion the " Union Dairyman,"
patented in 18C;J, and made by Thomas B. O'Neill,
of Utica, New York, and it continues to be a
favourite with the cheese-makers of New York.
A cylindrical copper heat or fire box extends
along the bottom of the vat about half its length,
and a cut-off is provided by which the hot water
can be kept wholly in a tank at one end or turned
on to the vat, to circulate under and around the
milk. The milk-pan can be easily lifted out of
the tank by the handles of its woo<len frame, for
cleaning, &c. ; the whey is drawn off witii a sy[)lion.
These vats are made in sixteen sizes, with capacity
of from 100 to 800 gallons, and sold for from S(J
special cheese-factory scale, with a compound to 300 dollars (Fig. 20s)
beam, by which several different lots of n
not exceeding 200 lbs. each, ixnired
into the same receiver, can be
successively weighed, the weight of
each being shown on a separate beam.
Each sliding poise is usually provided
with a clamp, to hold it in place.
There are different forms of
spouts and conductors for conveying
the milk from weigh-can to vat, but
these do not need descrijjtion.
Cheese-vats and improvements therein h;
received fifty United States ])atents, and althoi
the first was in the year 1810, only four w
IimIjiIi's "Oneida" cheese-vat, made by ("liilds
2G8.— SELF-HEi\TING MiLK-VAT.
Fig. 2i;r,.- Kaihrank
Factory Scale.
and .Tones, of Utica, is another of the sell-heaters
which is very popular. In this the heater runs
the entire length of the vat, and its patent
equaliser distributes the heat with
great evenness, at the top as well as
at the bottom. These vats, in sizes
corresponding to the " Union Dairy-
man," are sold at prices aliout one-
fourth less.
The agitators and the curd-knives
made by Whitman and Burrell, of
Little Falls, New York, are considered
the best in America. Their eiu-d-
cuttcrs have metallic heads, which add
The greatly to the utensils in neatness, lightness, and
and ease of cieanino'. The blades are of the 1)est
Fig. 2fi7.— Factory
Scale.
issued before tlie era of cheese-factories.
covered refrigerator vat of Whitman
Bvu-rell, previously described among milk coolers steel, not over half as thick as the old-style
and creamers, page 410, received the ])rize for the knives, and pass through tender curd with a clean
best vat at the International Dairy Fair of 1^78. cut, s(|ueezing out no oil. The thin blades are
Its special merits are its thoroughness of construe- prevented from spreading by one or more cross-
CURD-DRATNER AND GANG-PRESS.
461
stays, and these have cuttiiit>- e(lj>'es, or are lilailes
themselves. These cnrd-eutters are shown in
Figs. 135 and 13(i, pages i7b and 270.
Jones, Faulkner, and Comjjanv's eiird-drainer
269.— CCRDDBAINER.
is of most approved pattern. The light wooden
sink, from 8 to 15 feet long, is placed upon two
wheel-trucks provided with strong rollers. It has
a false bottom of wooden siats, easily removed in
three sections. Below is the drop bottom, in-
clined to allow the whey to run off, and permitting
a free circulation of air under the curd. Price,
two dollars per foot of length (Fig. 269).
The curd-mill was hardly known among
American cheese-makers up to as late a period as
1806, and not usually found at dairy supply stores
till still later. It has since been not only
generally introduced but greatly imin'oved in its
construction. The best American curd-mill is
undoubtedly the patent of Whitman and Burrell,
made with knives on the cylinder,
as shown in Fig. 93, page 207. The
knives are set spirally, so as to cut
the curd and carry it through rapidly.
The grate is also a set of knives. The
advantage of knives over pegs is very
great, cutting the curd instead of
tearing it, and entirely preventing
" white whey." The engraving shows
its peculiarities, and how easily it must
work. The price is about 20 dollars.
Cheese-presses have been invented
and improved in the United States, at
the rate of one or two patents a year,
from the beginning of the century,
five prior to 1S50, five during the year 1876,
and a total of over a hundred up to 1881.
Despite the later inventions, the old-fashioned
vertical press with a wooden screw to each
cheese is still much in use. The Frazer gang-
press was a long step forward, but better ones
soon followed.
Tlu' Hubliell gang-press, as in Fig. 270, is
one of the best, if not the best of all ; it received
first honours at the great Dairy Fairs of
I s77 and 1878 (Chicago and New York).
Tliis was originally Beach's Patent,
IS76, transferred to J. G. Hubbell&Co.,
and then to Whitman and Burrell, who
are the sule nianufiicturers. 'J'lic
machine presses a horizontal gang of
cheese, with capacity for fifteen, each of
seven inches thick. A strong, well-finished
frame, standing at a convenient height
from the floor, has the pressing apparatus
attached, which is easily operated liy a
hand-lever, with ratchet and palls. This moves
a douljle set of plain sjiur gearing, the smaller
wheels turning two screw shafts which run the
whole length of the frame, and passing through
solid nuts on either side of the platen or follower,
draw that toward the head block with a perfectly
even motion. This insures uniform pressure upon
the cheese, resulting in good form and avoiding all
tendency to strain parts of the machine and to
bulge the gang of cheese. The lower part of the
frame is a liquid-tight box in which all whey
pressed from the cheese is collected, and from which
it may l)e drawn in any manner desired ; this is great
security towards cleanliness in the press room.
This press is sold for 60 dollars without hoops.
forty-
Fig. 270.— The Gang-press.
The Wilson self-bandaging cheese hoops are
usually sold with the Hubbell press, and are shown
with it in the illustration, also more fully in
Fig. 275. This hoop has many advantages also.
It is wholly of metal, and entirely dispenses
with rubber rings and wooden followers. It is
4G3
DAIRY FARMING.
in four parts/ a closed wide hoop, an open hoop or
spHt cylinder, to fit within the first, and hottom
and top rimmed covers, stamped from solid metal ;
at one end of the outer hoop is a narrow, in-
wardly-projecting rim or flange. The open and
closed cylinders make what is called a telescopic
hoop. In use, the cover with widest rim is placed
on the ways in the bottom of the press, rim
upward; the cap cloth, as large as this bottom
cover, is placed upon it. Witliin the rim of the
bottom cover is set tlio open hoop, its cut edges
touching; this is tiie
bandager. The band-
age, a little longer
than the hoop, is fitted
within it, tlic upper
end wet and turned
over the top of tlie
hoop. The solid hoop
is then put on top of
the open one, and
slipped down over it
about an inch ; the rim
of the bottom cover
and the closed hoop
at the top keep the
split hoop from spring-
ing open and hold the
bandage in jdace. The
outer hoop is held in
its position by little
hooks, attached for the
purpose. The cheese
curd is then put in for
any desired thickness
of cheese, but always
enough to prevent the
outer hoop when slip-
ping over the inner one, while pressing, from
being forced quite down to meet the rim of the
lower cover. The cap cloth and cover are then
put on, the cheese turned on its side on the ways,
and the top cover placed close against the head of
the press. In the same manner a number of
hoops may be filled, the top cover of one against
the bottom of the preceding, until all are in place.
The hooks mentioned are then unfastened and the
pressure is applied. After pressing, the outer
hoop, which has handles, may be easily drawn off
the inner, and that may be sprung open enough
to release the cheese pressed in its bandage.
Coming from these Wilson hoops the cheese is
always found moulded in perfect form. These
hoops, 1.5 inches in diameter and 10 deep, or
thereabouts, are sold for 8 dollars each, half of
this being the heavy royalty for pressing any
cheese in a bandage, controlled by the Andrews
and Orgen patents.
The Freeman hoop is another oxcelicnt one,
which is also made by ^^'hitman and IJurrcll. Tiie
hoop itself is one jnece of galvanised iron, with
a perforated bottom, stamjied out and turned up on
the hoop. The band-
ager, an ojx^n or spring
hoop, is made wedge-
shajied, its lower part
being drawn very thin,
almost to an edge.
Similarly, the upper
part of the hoop itself
is bevelled, so the
bandager enters it per-
pendicularl}', and the
two thicknesses of
metal then over-lap-
ping equal the single
thickness of the hoop
below. This preserves
the exact cjlindrical
form of the interior,
the bandager being in
place ; the latter is held
by metal loops on its
edge, which catch upon
the top of the hoop.
The follower is of
wood, perforated and
grooved, with rubber
ring. The bandager
and hoop " telescope " about 7 inches, and the
follower does not enter the bandage band till it
has settled to its place, and the bottom of the next
cheese in the gang presses upon it ; it is thus
possible to make in the one hoop cheeses varying
from 7 to 11 inches in thickness. This is the
chief merit of the Freeman hoop, and it is a
great one.
The Naylor press is another made by the same
firm as the Ilubbell, and differing from it mainly
in being so constructed as to enable a gang of
cheese to l)e instantaneously released from pressure,
instead of the slow process of withdrawing the
Uprioht Gang-press.
CHEESE-HOOPS AND BANDAGES.
463
platen by luruin^ a screw. This conveuience, and
its being 10 dollars cheaper, constitute its only
advantasjes. The general form is the same, but in
place of the two long screws in the Hubbell press,
the Naylor has two bars with teeth upon which fall
two sets of pawls successively, as the platen is
movetl by turning a crank. So by simply throw-
ing out the pawls with a lever, pressure is removed,
and the follower, then playing loosely upon the
bars, can be pushed to any point.
The upright presses made by Charles Miller and
Son, of L^tica, New York, are an entirely different
form of the gang-press. Two of these presses are
illustrated, one for a single gang of cheese, the
other for a triple gang. Other patterns made
allow a double gang or one in sets of four, sixteen
hoops. Tlie principles are the same in all. In
the first figrure there is a series of levers connected
PKESS- BOARD.
with weights by means of rope and pulley, in such
manner that the pressure is continued and followed
up by the weights, and the screw is arranged so
that it can be raised or lowered to accommodate
any height of cheese. In the second figure the
levers and weights are omitted, but the length of
the screw is adjustable as in the other. The
general construction is fully shown. The presses
represented cost 50 dollars and 40 dollars respec-
tively, and others of the same kind from 30 dollars
to 90 dollars, according to capacity (Fig. 271).
Millar's patent cheese-hoops, used with these
presses, are shown in Fig. 272. They are made
of heavy galvanised iron, with a perforated bottom
and loose open rim, and are suitable for any ordi-
nary screw-press. Over the inner spring hoop,
which is raised to the height of the curd, the press-
board shown in Fig. 273 is placed, and follower
and rubber ring are needless. As pressure is
applied, the loose ring sinks into the hoop with the
cheese. Price 5 dollai-s each.
The seamless cheese-bandage (Fig. 2 7-4) , patented
Feb. loth, 187S, by E. V. Lapham, of :Morrison,
Illinois, although a very simple thing, is one of
the most valuable contributions lately made to
American cheese-making appliances. It is sold in
the bolt, usually fifty yards, like any i)an<hig(>
cloth, of dif-
ferent qualities
and sizes, but
is a continuous
seamless cylin-
der. Cut the
right length and
the bandage is
ready. It costs
just the same
as the material
alone for the
ordinary lui-
bleached band-
age. Thus it saves the labour of making, the
waste in the cutting and in seams, and the
thread. The bandage is better, too, for it
is always certain to fit the hoop of given
size for which it is made, and there is no
seam to rip open or to mark the cheese
in pressing. In ordering, the size of
the hoop is given, that of the bandage
corresponding. Whitman and BurrcU are
the sole proprietors of this bandage, and
so popular did it become during its second season
that thirty looms built expressly for its manu-
274.— Seajiless Ba.ndaue.
Fig. 275. — SELF-B.VNDAGINQ ChEESE-HOOP.
facture, from which hundreds of thousands of
yards have baen taken, failed to supply the de-
mand.
464
DAIRY FARMING.
Tlie annoyance and exjiense of makinj; shi pping'-
boxes by haud-labourj iu the cbeese-makiujj dis-
tricts, led to the inven-
tion of Harris's cheese-box
bending machine. This
has proved its practical
value. With it more than
twice as many boxes can
be made, and more uni-
formly, in the same time,
than in the ordinary way.
In niakiiig large quantities
the cost of the labour has
been reduced, by the use
of this machine, from 2^
cents and over, to 1 cent
per box. It is made by
whitman and Burrell.
The machine with one
cylinder, which makes two
sizes of boxes, costs 35
dollars; and with two cylinders, to make five
sizes, 45 dollars (Fig. 276).
In this cha])ter the records of the United States
Patent Office have been frequently referred to, as
giving the best available data as to the number of
Fig. 27G.— Chkese-box JI
dairy aj>jiliances of various kinds produced in
America. But this is far from the tnitli, as many
improvements are made
and new articles devised,
of different degrees of im-
jwrtance, and which get
' vffi" 1 more or less into general
j!!!!!^ • I use, for which no patent
is ever sought. Some of
those herein described are
of the number. Calculating
from the known relations
between patented and un-
patented articles in other
branches of mechanical in-
genuity, it is estimated
that prior to the year 1 8S0
the number of different
dairy ajipliances produced
in the 1 nited States
exceeded eight thousand.
And such is the progress in this department of
the dairy industry, that before these pages are in
tyi^e there will probably be some valuable addi-
tions to the long list of American dairy inqile-
meuts and machinery. JJ. E. ^v.
CHAPTER XXXI.
The American Factory System.
Origin of Co operative Dairying-Jesse Williams-Spread o£ Cheese Factories-Different Modes of Management-StatiBtics of Fac-
tories- Factory Keports-Examples -Factory Processes-Skim-cheese— Creameries— Butter Factories.
HE commencement of the
era o£ associated dairying,
distinctively known as the
American or Factory sys-
tem, is assigned by common
consent to Jesse WilHams,
of Rome, in the County
ida, and State of New York,
A.D. 1851.
Co-operation in dairying had un-
questionably been practised at a much
earlier date, not only in Switzerland,
but in several well-authenticated instances in
different parts of America. These trials were
all in connection with cheese-production, and in
most eases the curd, drained and sometimes partly
pressed, was gathered from several dairies to
some central point to be made into cheese.
In a paper read before the Wisconsin Dairy-
men's Association, Mr. J. G. Pickett, of Winne-
bago County, described what is probably the first
recorded instance of co-operative cheese-making in
the United States. In 1810, his father, Mr. A.
Pickett, removed from Ohio, and settled in Jefferson
County, Wisconsin, taking with him 10 cows.
The little pioneer settlement at Rock Lake, con-
sisting of eighteen families, and others similar in
the same region, had arrived at that stage of civilisa-
tion when cheese was longed for. Mr. Pickett pro-
posed, in the spring of 1841, to meet the demand.
He desired to make cheese from more cows than
he had, but was unable to purchase more. Four
neighbours, however, owned among them 10
cows, and Mrs. Pickett suggested the idea of co-
operating with these neighbours in cheese-making.
Although an entirely original idea with her, it was
deemed a good one, and at once carried out. An
agreement was made, and about the same time two
other settlers, not far distant, rented 10 cows more
to Mr. Pickett for two years. On the first day of
June, 1811, Mrs. A. Pickett, assisted by her son,
who relates the story, made from the milk of 30
cows, owned by six "patrons," the first cheese
ever manufactured in Jefferson County, Wisconsin,
and doubtless the first made on the associated plan
in that State, if not in America. The little kitchen
factory in the log house was operated on precisely
the same general principles as the large establish-
ments of later years in the same county. The
milk was delivered in a very convenient way, safe
from injury or adidteration, for all the cows belong-
ing to the settlement grazed in common, and were
driven to Mr. Pickett's yard, and milked by their
respective owners. The milk was weighed in the
pails with old-fashioned steel-yards, the quantity
credited to each patron daily, and in the autumn
the cheese was apportioned according to the milk
contributed. No one in those days thought of cut-
ting a cheese less than five months old, so when
the work of the season closed, the cow-owners took
their res])ective shares in cheese instead of money.
Rude as were the implements and the methods
employed, the quality of the cheese was fair, and
the fact established that a good article could be
made from the wild grasses which covered the
country. The experiment was so satisfactory that
the next year, 1842, five more cows were added
by the arrival of two new families, and Pickett's
cheese soon became known and in good demand, at
a shilling a pound, from Milwaukee to jMadison.
In the year 1814, Lewis M. Norton built a
cheese-factory at Goshen, Connecticut, which is still
owned and used by his descendants. The cheese
made there was from curd collected at the factory
466
DAIRY FARMING.
from numerous farms in the vicinity. Like enter-
prises in the same decade are recorded in different
parts of tlie country.
The following apj)eared in The Allany Culli-
vator in November, 18-i9 : — " In the Western
Reserve of Ohio, where the making of cheese has
been largely carried on for several years, a change
of system has lately taken j)lace to some extent.
Certain men, who are well acquainted with the
manufacture of cheese, purchase the curd, unsalted,
of their neighbours, and make it into that kind of
cheese for which they liud the readiest sale and
best price. A single manufacturer sometimes uses
the curd produced from the milk of several hundred
cows. It is gathered every morning by men who
call at the different farms for that purpose. These
large establishments are called 'factories.' "
None of these efforts seem to have become per-
manent business enterprises, to have reached the
dignity of a system, or to have had more than a
local influence. And even in New York, where the
Williams family iuaugui'ated the associated system,
the beginning appears almost accidental, and years
elapsed before others, in any number, adojited the
co-ojDerative methods. To Jesse Williams is, how-
ever, recorded the honour of being the first to
establish a permanently successful cheese-factory
in New York, and from him and his neighbour-
hood the American Factory system has spread and
attained its present proi^rtions.
Jesse Williams was born on his father's farm,
in the town of Rome, Oneida County, New York,
the 24th day of February, 1798. His father,
David Williams, had been a soldier at Fort
Stanwix during the revolutionary war, and,
attracted by the fertility of that region, he eventu-
ally settled, with two brothers, near the town
of Rome, which occupies the site of the old garri-
son. Jesse was the youngest son, lived upon the
liomestead with his parents until the death of both,
at the ripe ages of eighty-six and eight^'-seven,
and continued to reside there until his own sudden
death from paralysis, December 20th, 1864. He
married Amanda Wells in February, 1822, and
this widow still lives (1880) at the old home, which
is now owned by one of the sons.
It was in 1831 that Jesse Williams took the
management of the farm. It had then become
exhausted by continual grain cropping, and be
determined to try the recuperative effect of dairy-
ing. He began with 14 cows, making the milk
into cheese, and within three years increased the
dairy herd to 40. As was usual in those days,
the wife bore tlie main burden of the dairy labour;
at first she took charge of the milk from the time
it reached the dairy, and with her own hands made
all the cheese, and cared for it until sold. As the
cows were increased in number the dairy required
the time, strength, and thought of both husband
and wife. By untiring assiduity they succeeded in
making an article which not only found ready sale,
but gained a reputation, until Williams' cheese
was sought in New York and Philadelphia, sold at
an extra price, and was shipped to England to
some extent.
In the month of February, 1851, Jesse
Williams contracted his cheese of the following
season to merchants at Rome, at 7 cents per pound,
the cheese to be held until autumn, with a view
to sending it to Liverpool. As the average price
in the neighbourhood was then less than 6 cents,
Mr. Williams regarded his bargain as very ad-
vantageous, and, with a father's thoughtfulness,
induced the buyers to consent to include the
season's cheese of his eldest son, George, whom
he had just established upon a farm in the
vicinity. This was agreed to upon the guaranty
of the father that the quality of the sou's cheese
should equal that of his own. Upon communi-
cating the facts to his son, the latter at once
doubted the ability of himself and his young
wife, with but one year's experience, to make
cheese equal to that of the parents, who had
devoted twenty years to this work. The family
consultation which ensued led to George and
his wife being instructed in cheese-making at
the old homestead, but without resulting in the
cheese of the new farm coming up to the father's
standard ; and then Jesse Williams said : —
" Well, if you and Anna cannot make your cheese
what it should be at home, bring your milk here,
and your mother will make it up with ours.
The cheese will then surely be all the same."
Made as a suggestion, to obviate a lack of
uniformity, and to secure a higher average
quality, it was acted upon, found practicable, and
j)roved successful, although the farm of George
Williams was at least two miles distant from
his fathci-'s. Here was the beginning of the
Williams co-operative dairying, June, IH-Jl.
The next step was natural : the question arose.
Why cannot we do this with more milk, getting
ORIGIN OF CHEESE-FACTORIES IN AMERICA.
467
it from ouv neig-libours ? Mr. Williams found
that the products of milk in the neighbourhood
averaged about 5 cents a pound for cheese fresh
from the hoop, or an equivalent in butter, no
allowance being made for the labour involved.
Here was a fair margin for business, providing
the milk could be obtained on this basis, and also
]\Irs. "Williams made up at the farm the milk
of IfiO cows, and before the summer closed
j)ledges enough for the next year were secured
to warrant the erection of buildings suitable to
handle the milk of 300 or 400 cows. A co-
partnership was at once formed between Jesse
Williams and his sons George and De Witt;
JESSE WILLIAMS, FOUNDER OF CHEESE- FACTORIES.
providing he could sell all the cheese he could
make under the contract at 7 cents. The project
being submitted to the contractors, they assented,
stipulating that all should be of " the Williams
standard." The neighbours were next negotiated
with, and a number found willing to sell and
deliver the milk upon the basis above named,
being glad enough to be rid of the labour and
vexations of the dairy work at home and the
uncertainties of sales.
Thus, during the season of 1851, Mr. and
62
springs near the homestead were leased, buildings
erected, and at the opening of the season of
1852, the original Williams Factory commenced
operations. De Witt managed the general farm-
ing, while Jesse Williams and George, with their
wives, devoted themselves to the factory and its
work. That season the family held 70 cows,
and they purchased the milk of 290 more. From
its start the factory proved a success, and this
was largely due to the high quality of its pnxluet.
That, iu turn, is attributed by the family to the
4fi8
DAIRY FARMING.
scrujHiIoiis eare, g'ood judgment, and ceaseless
labours of Mrs. Amanda Williams, wlio for
several ycai-s was really the eheese-maker, person-
ally supervisiiio' all the details of manufaeture.
The original make-house, calculated for operations
untried on so large a scale, proved unsuitable,
and has been degrailed to a ])ig'-pen ; but the
curing-room, made upon plans resulting from
home experience of many years, still performs
its work, and may be regarded as a model. The
site of the Jesse Williams Factory is now occupied
by the Rome Cheese-Manufaetuiing Association.
It was a characteristic of Jesse Williams that
he was always ready to receive suggestions, to
seek advice, and avail himself of every opportunity
to jirogress and improve in his work. Corre-
spondingly, he never sought to hide or make
mysterious the causes of his own success ; the
Williams Dairy from the first, and the Williams
Factory to the last, were always open to whoever
came to learn, and to strangers and neighbours
alike were freely given the fruits of experience
there gathered by the open-hearted proprietors.
As a good citizen, Jesse Williams identified
himself with the interests of his town and county,
and whenever a worthy object could be promoted
by his assistance, earnest and active co-oj)eration
on his part was not wanting. His indomitable
will and energy overcame obstacles that seemed
formidable to other men, and he was almost
certain to accomplish whatever he undertook.
Just, kind, charitable, loved and respected by
those who knew him, he passed away universally
mourned. Not an aspirant for fame or public
honours, seeking only to ennoble his life-work
of farming, he lived to see his native county
raised to the head of the great dairy interest
of the greatest dairy State through the adoption
of the system he had introduced, and, indeed, to
see the whole land dotted with cheese-factories,
all of them founded upon the success of his
own modest work.
Yet it required several years, at the outset, of
actual demonstration to satisfy the dairymen of
Oneida County that the principle of co-operation or
association, in distinction to domestic labour, was
adajjted to their industry in general. It was not
until May, 18o4, that the second cheese-factory
was opened in Oneida County. That year four
were built at different places in the State of New
York, two more the next year, and the number
gradually increased, till in ISOl there were about
forty in operation in that State. Ten years elapsed
from the time the Williams Factory commenced
its full o])erations in sj)ecial buildings before
similar establishments liecame at all numerous.
Then they multiplied with great rapidity. A final
realisation of the merits and success of the system
in the heart of the great cheese-making district of
America was one cause ; a second was the rapid
increase in the foreign demand ; another was the
organisation of the first Dairymen's Association in
the country in 18G3; and a great incentive was
" the war period," with its rise in the \mcc of
cheese from 10 cents and less in 1800 to 15 cents
in 1SG3, and to 20 cents and over in IBG.j.
During the season of 1862, between twenty
and thirty cheese-factories were in operation in
Oneida County. They had already spread to
Herkimer and other neighbouring counties, and in
1863 there were nearly one 'hundred reported in
New York, besides some in Ohio and other States.
About this time the American Dairymen's Associa-
tion began to keep a list of the cheese-factories in
operation, and the number from which it succeeded
in getting reports for several years shows the
rapid extension of the system : —
Teiir
lS6t.
1865.
1S66.
1867.
186S.
1809.
Factories in U.S. ...
232
291
495
571
806
1,075
„ in Canada
-
10 1 25
27
31
35
Tear
... 1870.
1871.
1872. j 1873. 1874
Factories in U.S. ...
II '1
... 1,234 1,216 1,301 1,308 1,346
„ in Canada
35 35 35 36 36
The location of the factories upon the last list
publi.shed by the Association (1874) was as
follows :— In 44 different counties in New York,
1,018; in Ohio, 108; Indiana, 3; Illinois, 45;
Michigan, 2() ; Wisconsin, 45 ; Iowa, 7 ; Minne-
sota, 6 ; Pennsylvania, 21 ; Vermont, 32 ; Massa-
chusetts, 26 ; Virginia, Tennessee, and INIissouri,
each 2 ; and Connecticut, Kansas, and North
Carolina, each 1. Factories for the manufacture
of butter alone, and those for making both butter
and cheese, have also become very nimierous, and
a good many originally full-cream cheese-factories
changed their plan, so that it is now diHicult to
HOW FACTORIES ARE CONDUCTED.
469
determine the num1)er of eheese-faetories proper.
Durint;- the reeent period of i^-reat depressioiiin dairy-
ing'ahirgenumheriif factories in the east wereclosetl,
hut the extension of the system in the north-west
has caused a steady increase in the whole numh>'r
of factories and creameries in the country. There
is a decided tendency to make the factories of
smalk'r size as they multiply, the better to accom-
modate the delivery of milk. The minimum for
economy in a factory for butter alone is regarded
as 150 cows, while for cheese alone it hardly
"pays" to handle the milk of less than 250 cows.
The total number of establishments in America
which employed the factory system in dairvinof
was estimated by several authorities in 1876 and
1877 as 4.,000, and it is believed the United States
Census for 18S0 will record at least 5,000.
The statistics of the new Census regarding
these establishments will be of special interest,
because it is proposed for the first time to syste-
matically classify them, according to their work,
as cheese - factories, butter - factories, combined
butter and cheese-factories, and milk-condensing
factories. The schedule of inquiry contains fifteen
distinct items applicable to the industry in general,
and from five to ten additional bearing upon the
different branches. At the present writing the
data have been obtained, but not yet compiled ; it
is hoped to present the results in the appenilix to
this work.
There are three general methods under which
these establishments are conducted in America.
First, the purely co-operative plan, by which the
system is naturally introduced in new places,
but which is generally soon supplanted by one of
the others. On this plan the farmers of a neigh-
bourhood unite, contributing to the original
expense of the enterprise in proportion to the
number of cows they keep, on'uing the property in
common, and conducting it by a committee or
committees, selected from their own number from
time to time, and dividing the products or the net
proceeds thereof in proportion to the milk they
severally supply. To be strictly co-operative, the
dairy, factory, or creamery should be wholly
managed, and the work there performed, by one or
more of the "patrons." Secondly, associated dairy-
ing on the plan of a joint-stock comjiany. In
this, the organisation and management is similar
to that of a joint-stock concern established for any
mercantile or manufacturing enterprise, except that
care is usually taken to have most of the stock
held by dairymen who will send milk to the
factory, and thus have a direct interest in its
o])erations. The stock capital is usually sufficient
to cover the original plant, real estate, and e(piip-
ment, and leave a margin for o])erating expenses.
In some cases a certain dividend is guaranteed to
the stock, and this charged as a part of the
expenses of the factory ; the net proceeds arc then
divided upon the basis of the milk contributed by
the patrons : this is semi-co-operation. In other
cases, the factory once established contracts for
milk at a i^rice fixed periodically, often buys it
largely from others than the stock-holders, and
then the net proceeds are applied to dividends
upon the stock. In all these joint-stock concerns
the control is usually vested in a Board oF
Directors, chosen by the stock-holders, and the
directors employ their agent, or business manager,
and labourers on salary. The third method makes
the business one of individual or corporate enter-
prise, removing it practically from the realm of
agriculture to that of manufacture, the dairy-
farmers becoming simply the producers of the raw
material, milk, which they sell to the manufacturer
at rates fixed by contract. Or, the latter receives
the milk, charges a fixed rate for manufacturing,
furnishings, and sales, and makes returns to the
milk-producers according to the mai-ket. On this
plan the land is purchased, buildings erected, and
the factory or creamery operated by some person
who devotes his entire time to this business.
Factories of this last-named character are, as a rule,
more successful, and give better satisfaction, than
those managed in any other way. Jealousies and
the danger of too much management are avoided,
the business is more likely to be conducted on
business principles, and have the benefit of business
experience. The factory manager has better con-
trol over his product, being able to accept, criticise,
or absolutely reject the milk offered, without danger
of losing his place as a result, and the dairymen
know just exactly the standard they must attain
in their milk.
The factories have generally been open to
inspection by all interested, enijjloyers have con-
tinuallv examined one another's work, and there
have been competing exhibitions of products, with
meetings, publications, and other aids, which have
resulted in developing a knowledge of the most
profitable methods of producing good milk, the
470
DAIRY FARMING.
best and most economical j)rocesses of manufacture,
and sj'stematic provisions for storage, trausjiorta-
tion, and .sale.
The following facts are selected because of their
reliability and interest from the mass of pub-
lished statistics and reports reo-arding the cheese-
factories in the United States and their operations.
From the 435 factories found in New York in
1865, the superintendent of the State Census
selected 133 from which the most complete returns
bad been obtained, and published the same in full.
These facts are taken from that table as to three fac-
tories, the smallest, the largest, and one of medium
size : also the average of the whole number : —
Beason
Capital.
Cost of
Building
and Ai>-
paralus.
Persons
Empluyed.
C30W8.
Length of Season.
Milk
UBed.
ot
vast.
1
i
&
2
Factory
Opened.
Factory
Closed.
Made.
Smallest
Dnis.
3,200
2
280
April 19
Oct. 31
lbs. 1 Ihs.
881,539 86,533
Medium
3,000
2
4
500
May 1 Nov. 18
1,410,590 144 059
Largest
4,000 5
5
1,200
April 18 Not. 9
3,977,720 384,000
Average
2,843 2
Zi
50i
April 20 Nov. 12
1,412,202 142,432
The cost of buildings ranged from 700 dollars,
where the milk of 300 cows was managed, to
5,500 dollars, where the cows contributing num-
bered 475. The average ratio of made cheese to
milk was 1 to 9-915 lbs.; average pounds of milk
to a cow, 2,80^; pounds of cheese per cow, 283;
average price of cheese, 20 cents; average value
of cheese per cow, 56.52 dollars.
During the decade between the publication of
these official figures, the Secretary of the Ameri-
can Dairymen's Association collected returns from
as many factories as possible annually, not only in
New York, but in other States. He succeeded in
getting returns from thirty-three cheese-factories,
complete in each case for the ten years, 1865-1874,
and they furnish these results, more valuable than
any single year's exhibit can be, because of the
length of time covered by the averages : —
Tbirty-thtee
Factories.
1865-1874.
No. of i ^«°f*>'
C°7 Working
Cheese
made
per Cow.
Lbs. of
Milk to
lib. of
made
Cheese.
Anna.il
Average
Selling
Price.
Cents.
17.02
13.12
14.52
Ex-
treme
Prices.
Highest ...
Lowest ...
Average ...
GOl
280
521
235
175
201
lbs.
366
25,5
300
9-95
9-39
976
Cents.
25
11
In regard to special statistics for a single sea-
son, the Assistant-Secretary, Edward J. AViekson,
made this statement, which shows such a contrast
between the work of different factories and the
productiveness of different dairies as to be worthy
of repetition entire : — " I have authentic reports
from ninety cheese-factories, widely separated in
location, giving the average net return per cow to
patrons, the highest average per cow to a single
patron, and the lowest average. The figures are
drawn from the actual records of more than
36,000 cows. During the season of 1874, the
value of the highest average yield per cow for a
single factory was 55.07 dollars, the lowest, run-
ning the same length of time, 31.22 dollars, and
the average for the ninety factories, 39.57 dollars.
These are factory averages, not records of separate
herds. It appears from these reports that the
average net return to patrons per 100 lbs. of milk
has been 1.22 dollars (about 2J cents a quart) ;
the highest net yield was 1.38 dollars, the lowest
99 cents. I have been much interested in com-
paring the average returns per cow with the
average selling price of the factory, and the
quantity of milk required for a pound of cheese, in
order to determine how much the large yield per
cow is due to the dairyman, how much to the
cheese-maker and salesman. In the factory report-
ing the highest average per cow (55.07 dollars)
the selling price for the season averaged 14.11
cents, and the ratio of cheese to milk was 1 to
9' 76 lbs. Comparing this with the lowest average
(31.22 dollars), I find the latter sold cheese for one
quarter of a cent less per pound through the sea-
son, and used nearly half a pound more of milk to
a pound of cheese. Y'et this difference in manu-
facture and price forms but a small part of the
wide range between highest and lowest average
returns. The profits of dairies depend mainly on
the farm, not on the factory ; the difference between
profit and loss is in the quality of the cows and
their management. This is strikingly illustrated
by further figures derived from these returns. In
the whole ninety factories, the best record for a
single dairy is an average of 82.17 dollars per
cow for the ordinary season, and the poorest is
14.50 dollars per cow ; the average of the best
dairies reported by the ninety factories is 50.04
dollars per cow, and of the poorest dairies in each
of the ninety factories, 29.34 dollars." Here is a
very wide margin, for which the dairyman himself
FACTORY REPORTS.
471
is mainly responsible, but which is developed by
the factory and its records. It is not the least of
the merits of the factory sj'stem that it presents
such facts as these, previously neither proved nor
The average annual results of a single iactory
in Chatauque County, New York, whose reports
are available for fourteen consecutive years, are
as follows: — No. of cows, 917; No. of patrons.
King Settlement Cheese Factory.
Season of 1863. 0/)aied May Hth ; Closed Kovemhcr lOth. I.cnijth, 191 days.
Honth
May.
Jane.
July.
August.
Milk received ... ... ... Iba.
90,568
202,847
212,314
182,040
Cured Cheese ... ,,
8,756
19,328
20,406
17,278
Milk for lib. Cheese ,„
10-314
10.500
10-406
10-500
September.
154,440
16,708
9-228
122,391
13,805
17,731
2,193
Totals :— Milk received, 982,331 lbs. ; Cured Cheese, 98,474 lbs. ; Cheese to Milk, 1 to 9-908 lbs.
Greatest number of Cows, 315 ; average number, 290.
Cheese sold at different prices, 11.50 to 13 dols. per cwt. ; total for 98,474 lbs., 10,395.89 dols.
Expense Accoi'nt : — Dols.
Manufacturing, at 1 cent per lb 984.74
Bandaging, 189.64 ; Colouring, 11.00 200.64
Eennets (350), 31.25 ; Salt, 33.00 64.25
Boxing, 224.12; Cartage to E.E., 231.48 45.5.60
Net proceeds (being 88i cents per 100 lbs. of Milk)
Schuyler's Factory, Westmoreland, Oneida County, N.Y.
Season commenced May llth ; Closed October 31s<. Working days, 174.
Totals :— Milk received, 830,493 lbs. ; Green Cheese, 82,580 lbs. ; Cured Cheese, 78,644 lbs.
Shrinkage, 4-75 per cent. ; Milk to 1 lb. Green Cheese, 10-06 lbs. ; to Cured Cheese, 10 56 lbs.
No. of Cows, 307 ; No. of Cheese (6 small), 697 ; average weight (20\ inch long), 114 lbs.
eeceipts on sai.es.
EXPENSES.
Date.
No. of
Cheese.
Lbs. of
Cheese.
Price.
Proceeds,
Gross.
Items.
Gross.
Cost per Cwt. of
Cured Cheese.
June 23 ...
July 28 ...
Aug. 17 ...
Sept. 7 ...
Sept. 21 ...
Oct. 9 ...
Dec. 15 ...
At Factory...
60
100
100
100
86
50
197
4
6,783
11,117
11,111
11,265
9,965
5,888
22,082
428
Cents.
12
Hi
12
12
12}
13i
15
m
Dols.
814.56 i
1,306 25
1,333.32
1,351.80
1,220.71
794.88
3,312.30
52.32
Making, 1 cent per lb., green
Bo.xes, 688 at 21 and 21* cents
Bandage, 42.5J yds at 24 cents
Rennets, 317 at 25 cents
Salt, lOJ barrels
Boxing (labour by patrons) ...
Cartage ( ,, „ ) ...
All other Expenses
Dols.
825.80
144.. 58
102.06
79.25
22.30
17.37
9,5. .50
41.47
Ui-nts.
105.00
18. .38
12.98
10.08
2. 84
2.21
12.14
5.27
Totals
697
78,644
-
10,186.14 j
Totals j 1,328.33
168.90
Cost per cwt. of Cured Cheese, excepting manufacturing, and also deducting labour performed by )
patrons (boxing and cartage) )
Average price per lb. gross, 12.95 ; net, 11.26 ; net returns per lb. of Milk
49.55 cents.
1.07 „
appreciated, to those who ought to know and to
heed them.
The accompanying abstracts are given as good
examples, complete and condensed, of annual reports
of American factories, as made up for the patrons
and furnished to the dairymen's associations.
66; length of season, 218 days; milk received,
2,330,536 lbs. ; milk to 1 lb. of cheese, 963 lbs. ;
average price of cheese sold, 13.23 cents; returns
per 100 lbs. of milk, after deducting all expenses,
1.33 dols.
A few statistics are now added, for comparison,
ilZ
DAlllY FARMING.
derived from factories in States other tlian New
York. ^Viseonsiu cheese ranks with the best, and
some of her factories give the followint^. In the
list for 187'1', this State is credited with forty-five
factories ; the Secretary of the Board of Trade at
Sheboj'gau Falls collected reports in the year 1877,
from sixty-two factories, all in the county of She-
boygan. The totals reported by these were 9,870
cows, 31,958,821 lbs. of milk, and ;3,185,275 lbs.
of cheese, and these averages : — Cows per factory,
159 J dieese jier cow, 323 lbs. ; ratio, cheese to
milk, 1 to 1003 lbs. ; price of cheese, 10.85 cents
per lb. ; value of cheese per cow, 35 dollars.
Eleven factor! "s in Massachusetts, with a total
product of 811,254 lbs. of cheese, reported the
same season the ratio of cheese to milk, 1 to
10'273 lbs.; cost of making and furnishing, 2
cents a pound ; net returns to patrons, 2 cents per
quart for milk delivered.
A cheese-factory in the town of Winthrop,
Maine, was in operation eighty days in the months
of July, August, and September of the year 1871',
and 1-10 days during the season of 1^75 ; the milk
used was from about 200 cows, a large jyavi of
them full-blooded Jerseys, and the rest high-
grade Jerseys. In 1874, 1 lb. of cheese was
obtained for every S"7 lbs. of milk, and the next
j'car the ratio was 1 to 8'9 lbs. This was Jeraeij
cheese, and was pronounced by a competent judge
to be " extraordinary for its rich fatness, equal to a
Stilton."
The remarkable results at Gwillem's Factory, in
Colorado, in 1878 were noted on page 377; later
records of factories in that section, situated 7,000
to 7,300 feet above sea-level, give the productive
ratio for an entire season as 8'555 lbs. of milk to
1 lb. of cured cheese. The average yield of milk
per cow, although not exactly' ascertained, is not as
corrcsi)ondingly small as might be supposed from
this high cheese qualitj-. Extreme dryness of the
atmosphere is the characteristic of the climate
there, and so well is milk preserved that no acidity
whatever is perceptible at any stage of the cheese -
making in the factories of Colorado.
It is impossible to determine exactly how and
when American factories, organised and estab-
lished with the sole idea of making who'e-niilk
cheese, began to manufacture skim-cheese, and
to add butter-making to their other work. It
seems, however, to have resulted gradually, from
a combination of natural and economic canses.
beginning very soon after the factories became
numerous. Thus, late in the season, when milk
diminished in quantity, but grew richer and kept
good longer, patrons at a distance from a factory
would deliver only every other day, and, the
cream having sejiarated on the earlier messes, they
would remove it, to make butter for home use,
and so send to the factory milk with but half or
a third of its cream. And yet the factory cheese,
from this milk, would be apparently equal in
quality to the average of the season. Again,
factories receiving a part of their milk in the
evening, and failing to prevent a separation at
night, woidd try removing and churning the
cream of that part, and still make good cheese.
There were good cheese-makers, too, who noticed
a large jiercentage of butter in the whey, and
claimed that this might be saved by taking more
or less cream from the milk for butter before
maAing into cheese, and without detriment to
the latter product. And frugal factory managers
discovered that they could turn out as many or
more pounds of both butter and cheese from a
given quantity of milk as of cheese alone, and
could sell the double jjroduct for a good deal more
than the single one. Facts like these, and the
results of such experiments, were soon heard in
meetings of dairymen, and became arguments for
more or less skimming.
Professor X. A. Willard, ]ierhaps the closest
student of American cheese- factory practice, as
he certainly was its most active and prominent
advocate in the early years of the system,
favoured skimming within bounds, as may be
seen from this extract from an address delivered
by him at the Annual Meeting of the American
Dairymen's Association, in Januaiy, 18C6, and
repeated before the Ohio State Cheese !Manufac-
turers' Association the same year: — "Now take
these facts together : — First, our cheese is richer
in butter than it need be ; second, we cannot, if
■we would, retain all the butter in the curds ;
third, the price of butter is greatly in excess of
cheese. These propositions prove that we are
aninially throwing away . millions of dollars,
without benefiting anybody or anything, except
perhaps the pigs. It is a waste which all of
ns have been awam of for a long time, but in our
blindness were unable to see clearly how to
remedy. It can be done by the adojition of
bulier-makiiig in connection with cheese manufac-
TlIK SKIMMING QTIESTION.
473
tuiv. This modification of our system promises
to be a leading feature in future operations of
the dair}'. The plan admits of various modiil-
cations in the manufacture of cheese. Some cau
turn their attention to purely skim-milk cheese,
and others only partially so. The question will
occur, of course, to what extent the cream may
be removed from the milk, and yet a nice, mellow,
palatable cheese be made. It is my belief that
a portion of the milk may be kept twelve hours,
if not longer, then skimmed and added to a fresh
mess, and from this mixture as nice an article
of cheese made as under our present mode of
letting cream pass to the whey tubs. To many
of our factories the addition of a spring or cooling-
room, a churning- room, and the necessary imple-
ments of butter-making, need cost but little ;
the additional labour, with an ordinary factory,
would be covered by one person, and in some
instances no addition would be needed to the
usual force employed. The public necessities
demand that in every cheese-producing county
several factories should make butter, at least
enough for local consumjjtion. As the quantity
of skim-cheese increases new markets will be
opened, and these, while they have a tendency to
continue remunerative rates, must also operate
advantageously on other styles of cheese, by
reducing the quantity of these kinds and making
them more scarce. I do not advise every factory
rushing at once into the manufacture of skim-
cheese. That would over-do the business and
cause a failure, by throwing upon the market
too much of this kind. But it would be safe
for those factories that have nice water, and
locations suitable for erecting pool-rooms, to add
them to the factory, and commence a series of
experiments to determine what proportion of the
butter may be removed from the milk, and yet
retain a quantity sufficient to produce a rich,
mellow, and high-priced cheese. The whole
matter at this time is crude and undeveloped,
and must be worked out in the future." Professor
"Willard adhered to this position, for in a public
address, some years later than the foregoing,
this passage occurred : — " Cheese-men come here,
fearful of the establishment of butter factories.
They insist that every particle of cream must
go into the curds, when they know it cannot
all be retained, while it has been proved over
and over again that the. night's milk may be
skimmed at certain sea.sons nf the yi':ir, and when
thus treated and mingled with the mornint;-'s
milk, the expert cannot detect loss of cream in
the cheese. '' Still later, in a similar address,
Professor L. B. Arnold said this : — ■" The practice
of skimming is gaining ground year by year,
and is likely to continue, be the consequences
what they may to our national reputation. So
long as skimming gives a better return on a
hundred f)ounds of milk than can be done by
making cheese alone, it will be of little avail
to attempt to check its progress. It will go on
until by natural results there becomes an equili-
brium in profits, so I have no disposition either
to urge on. or retard its progress, for it will
regulate itself in time."
With such teachers and teaching, and with the
balance-sheets of factories adopting this advice
showing better returns than those adhering to
their whole-milk principles, it is not surprising
that skimming became commori; factories pro-
duced more or less butter, and changed their plans
accordingly. From the outset, however, there
were stout opponents to all skimming in connection
with cheese manufacture, conspicuous among them
being makers whose " marks " had won a high
reputation, and merchants who prided themselves
on keeping a high standard in the markets. The
" full cream " men and the " creamery " men
still have frequent warm discussions over the
effects, and also the ethics, of their respective
operations.
This explains, in a measure, the existing
variety in the establishments connected with
American dairying which come under the general
head of "the factory system.^' Some make cheese
and nothing else. Others, with cheese as the
main product, make more or less butter ; they
vary with the season and the market, taking
from one to three pounds of butter from a himdred
pounds of milk ; and these, in some cases, hold on
to their original name of cheese-factory, while
others have changed to " creamery." Others,
afain, known as creameries, make both butter and
cheese at all times, or butter mainly, with cheese
only at times, or butter alone. Then there are
those called butter-factories, but even among them
more or less cheese is made. It is impossible
longer to tell from the name alone the nature of
the work done in the establishment. "Creamery"
is the most common name f-pplied in the United
474
DAIRY FARMING.
States to any factory where the article cream is
separated from milk or liandled separately.
Creameries came into existence earlier than
is perhaps implied by the foregoing, and .soon
followed the cheese-factories, wherever the latter
were established. Thus, placing the real start
of cheese-factories as a si/sfem in New York at
1861, the first creamery was opened in 18G4 ; in
Illinois the first cheese-factory was built in 186:i,
the first creamery in 1867; in Iowa, the first
cheese-factory in 18G6, the first creamery in 1871,
and so on.
The methods of conducting creameries differ
more than those of cheese-factories, just as there is
greater variety in the details of butter-making
than in cheese-making in private dairies. In
most cases, the whole milk being received, and
the first object being to cool it and cream it, the
prevailing methods are known as the ])ool and
pail system, the large shallow-pan practice, and
the use of creamery vats, in which the milk can
be " set," and tlien made into cheese after the
skimming. Two of these methods have been
already e.'iplaincd in Chapter XIX., and other
examples will be hereafter given. There is
another methotl wliich, because of its practical
success, deserves to be fully described, and
which is here alluded to because its peculiari-
ties relate more to the cheese part than to the
butter. H. E. A.
CHAPTER XXXII.
Dairy Work in American Factories.
General Factory Arrangements- Examples and Details of Constraction— Cheese-vats and Heating Apparatus— Curd-cutting—
N ■^t-' rressing— Curing-rooms— The Whey— Creameries, or Butter Factories— Methods and Ajjparatus.
i^ N describing the arrangement
of the buildings, their rooms
and fittings, we may divide
--j^_ them into two classes. The
^K^'^^'ix fi'"^*' includes the oldest
factories. We take, as an
example of these, the Whitesboro' Fac-
tory, Oneida County, N.Y., the property
of Dr. L. L. Wight, who holds a high
jilace among American dairymen.
Doubtless, establishments more com-
plete and convenient in some resjjects exist, but
we have selected this because it is a very good
representative of the better class of American
factories, and happens to possess the best curing-
house we remember to have seen in the United
States.
The delivery window (Fig. 277) is but a few feet
above the road which rises in front of it, so that while
the milk can be poured into cans on the weigh-
scale (1) without the aid of a hoist, the weighing
platfo.m is still somewhat higher than the vats (2),
allowing the milk a good fall when discharged into
the latter through a conductor pipe from the weigh-
can. The milk vats (2) are four in number, con-
tain about 500 gals, each, and are heated by steam,
and cooled by a good supply of water. Opposite
these are laid two iron-capped truck-rails (6), ex-
tending from the making-room over a low plank
bridge into the curing-house, which is a separate
building. A sink (7), in which the curd is placed
for drying, runs on this track, on the other side of
which are two " Fraser" piesses (5), and over it a
McAdam curd-mill (4), driven by a 2 horse-power
oscillating engine (3), which also pumps water for
the boiler. By the arrangement shown the sink
can be run under the mill for curd-grinding, and
63
dra\vn back to the end of the track when its con-
tents are to be put in press. The boiler (8), set in
brickwork, is placed in a partially detached build-
ing, so that it cannot aft'ect the temperature of the
making- room.
The curing-house is 104 ft. long by 30 ft.
wide, and two storeys high. The cheese-tables
(9) are of the type shown in Fig. 290, and
raised about 3 ft. above the floor. When the
presses are to be emptied, a table (11) on wheels
is run over the track into the making-room, on it
some half-dozen cheeses are placed, it is thea
Fig. 277.— Ground-plan of ■Whitesboro' Factory.
1, Weighiiig-niacliine ; 2, milk-vats ; 3, en^ne ; 4, ciird-mill ; 5, presses ;
6. rails for pink ; 7, sink ; 8, boiler; 9, cheese-tables; 10, stairs to
upper room ; 11, theese- waggon.
drawn back into the curing-house, and its load
deposited on the tables. In this way the labour of
removing the cheese from one part of the factory
to another is greatly lessened. The windows of
476
DAIRY FARMING.
this house are provided with louvre shutters, wliioli fheeso from the milk of l.oOO cows. It will he
can he made to exclude the rays of the suu. During seen in the plan that tiie making, press, and curing-
the summer months, when the days are often in- rooms are all in a line, and so situated that when
tensely hot and the nights cool, the windows are the curd is removed fmm the vats (.'5) to the sink
Fig. 278.- CuHiNc-iiorsr, Wiiiii.si;.
closed during the former and opened during the
latter, an ecjuable temperature being thus pro-
cured and preserved. We well remember the cool-
ness of the building during one of the hottest of
American summers, the thennometer standing at
about 70", when the air in the open was between
80" and 90" Fahr.
As another instance of the convenient arrange-
ment of the different parts of a factory on the
279. — Pl.vn of Trlxton F.icroRT.
A, A, Delivery windows ; 2. weighing-machines nnd cans ; 3, milk-vats
4, sink ; 5, mils for biiik ; 6, presses ; 7, cheese-tables.
(I) it can be run intu llie jiress-room between the
lines of presses (6), and from them carried as cheese,
on a table similar to that before described, into the
curing-room, without exposure to the open air.
The truck is run between the racks (7) the whole
length of this room, thus rendering any carrying
of the cheese in the hands unneeessarv. The
Jig
¥
RRRRR
"""JFACTURIHG "
CURtNQ ROO
AriD OFFICE
Fig. 280.— ri.,\N OF NE\vvn.LE Factury.
1, Weighing-machines and cans ; 2, milk-vats : 3, sink ; 4, boilc
5, wash- vat ; 6, old screw-presses ; 7* lift ; 8, desk.
same principle, we give a portion of the ground-
plan of Truxton Factoiy, in Cortland County, N.Y.
It was built for manufacturin<r and storiii"- the
making-room for this factory is furnished with two
delivery windows (a, a), to expedite the weighing
of the milk. I'lider the platfunii is a wafer-tank.
NEWVILLE CHEESE-FACTORY.
477
the overflow from which runs over flagstones laid
beneath tlie wood floor, (Uirrying away any slops
which might otherwise have collected there.
AVe now describe a factory possessing a pecu-
liarity in its construction which, on account of the
jtrinciple of manufacture involved, makes it worthy
(if notice. The Newville Factory is located near
Little Falls, Herkimer County, N.Y.j and has.
factory the "shute" (see Fig. 127, page 250) is
used when removing the curd from the vats to the
sink — an arrangement described at p. 259. The
curing-rooms, with the excej)tion of one used in cold
weather, are over the making department, and the
cheese is carried to them by the hoist (7). This
building includes living-rooms for the work-hands.
We now come to the description of the system
through the skill of its manager, Mr. A. G.
Weatherwax, obtained a high reputation for its
goods. The delivery platform is in a shed pro-
jecting fi"om the building, under which the waggons
stand when delivering the milk. Here a hoist
lifts the cans to a certain height, when they are
tipped and their contents emptied into the weigh-
can (1). At the other end, and within a foot or
so of the five steam-vats (2) , the floor sinks some
4 ft., so that they may be said to stand on a plat-
form, below which, in the lower part of the build-
ing, are the sink (."5) and presses (6). In this
of manufacture pursued in these associated dairies,
and the apparatus used in the work. The cheese-
tub, or vat, is first in importance. Among the
earlier apparatus of this kind is that known as the
" self-heater " vat. It is constructed with an outer
case of wood and an inner one of tin. The sides
and ends of the latter slope away from the wooden
ease to the extent of two or three inches, as shown
in Fig. 282, which gives a cross-section of the
apparatus. Under the body of the vat is a long
metal tube, which connects with that part of the
vat between the inner and outer cases by other
478
DAIRY FARMING.
Fig. 282.— Section op
SELi'-llIiATtU \ AT.
and smaller tuVs. Throug-h this cylinder passes a
flue (1), at the month of which is fixed a small
giate, in which is a fire to heat the water, and this
ill its turn raises the temperature of the contents
of the vat. The water is
poured into the vacant space
Ijctween the inner and ouler
cases throno'h a hopper, and
beiiinj heated, flows upwards
and inwards aj^ainst the sides
and bottom of the tin case,
and returns to the flue in
tlie manner shown by the
arrows in tl e illustration. The smoke finds ejifrpss
throu(>-h a ]iipe at the other end of the vat. It is
said of this apparatus that it distributes its heat
uniformly and without the use of much fuel.
In Figs. -283, 284, and 285 are given illustr.n-
tions of a most useful combined milk-vat an 1
heater, such as may be used in either factories or
farm-house dairies.
The heater is constructed separately from the
vat, and consists of wrought-iron pipes, screwed
together in such a manner as to form a fire
chamber, and present a large amount of heating
surface directly exposed to the action of the fire.
This coil of pipes is enclosed in brickwork, which
as to distribute the heat equally. The lower pijie,
the one that supplies the coil with water from the
Fig. 283.— Milk-vat and Heater.
prevents loss of heat. A pan, or tank, rests on the
top of the brickwork, and is connected to the coil
in such a manner as to form a perfect circulation ;
so that when the tank is filled with water, and a
fire started, the water is warmed very rapidly. A
flue is formed underneath the bottom of the tank,
so that it receives the heat from the fire after it
has passed the coil.
The coil is also connected with the vat, and
forms, with that, a perfect circulation. The upper
pipe, the one that supplies the heat to the vat,
branches off, and two smaller jiipes are connected
to it, and these extend through the space between
the tin and wooden \'ats, and are perforated, so
Fi^. 2S4.— Heati.ng Aitauails.
vat, is attached directly to the bottom of the
wooden vat. Proper stop-cocks are attached, so
that the heat from the coil may be turned on or
shut off from either the tank or vat at pleasure.
A safet\--pipe is attached to the cold water, or
lower pijie of the coil, which allows the water and
steam to escape into the tank, to prevent all
danger of exploding, in case all the stop-cocks
should be negligently closed at once.
The tank is filled with water, a fire started in
Fig. 285.— Mn.K-VAT, with Isneu Shell Removei
the chamber formed by the coil of pipes, and the
water in the tank is first warmed ; the stop-cocks
that connect it to the coil being open, while those
HKAT-GENEKATORS.
479
to the vat aro closed, thus forming a ciiculatiou
^vit'.l the tank only. After this water is warm,
and when the milk has been placed in the tin vat,
the stop-cock to the vat is opened, and the warm
water immediately passes from the tank, filling the
space between the tin and wooden vats. ^Vheu
filled, the stop-cocks are closed, leaving the coil
in connection with the vat only. The heating of
the vat then immediately commences. The water
passes from the vat through the lower pipe,
and circulates slowly through the coil, becoming
gradually heated, until partially converted into
steam. In this condition it is returned to the vat
through the perforated pipes, and by them is most
evenly distributed. As the steam condenses on
meeting the cooler water in the vat, the same cir-
cuit is continued until the proper temperature is
reached, when the stop-cock to the vat should be
closed. This cuts off the circulation, and prevents
a further rise of temperature. When the heat is
sbut off from the vat, the stop-cock to the tank
should at onee be opened, and the tank, having
been re-filled with cold water, receives the heat
from the coil until the vat is ready to be warmed
again. In this manner a supply of hot water may
be kept on, and for any purpose. One or more vats
may be attached to a single heater, and the whole
construction is such that it can scarcely be injured,
even by the greatest careless. less.
We now give an illustration of a neat and effi-
eieht combined steam-generator and engine (Fig.
286), in general
the
use among
factories. It is
fitted for burning
wood or coal, and
1 lie flues are ar-
ranged to present
a great amount
1 if heating surface
to the action of
tlie flames, by
which economy of
fuel is obtained.
In some dairies
self-filling tanks
are attached to
the boiler. One of these is shown in Fig. 287,
elevated on a wooden frame, and connected with
the boiler by two pipes. When the water in the
generator is so low as to free the end of the
Fig. 286.— Combined Boiler xxn
Engine.
^a=a
'^
-SELF-KIL ,1M
TANK.
j)ipe (1), the steam rushes through it into the
t.ink, some of the water from which passes thro.igh
pipe (2) into the
boiler, neither water
nor steam being able
to return, the valves
working only (inc
way. This insures
absolute safety if
the valves are in
working order and
the tank filled.
When enough of
the morning's milk
has been delivered to fill one vat, the work of making
the cheese commences. The agitator floats are re-
moved, the milk heated to about 81)'^ Fahr.,and the
rennet and sour whey added. Tlie veils used for
making rennet among the American factories are
dried and stretched on sticks, often badly cured, and
always variable in their action. Some factories are
supplied by the patrons, who cure them at home.
Nothing surprised us more in our visits to Ameri-
can dairies than to find a rennet of such an un-
certain chai-aeter so commonly in use. In Canada,
however, much better veils can be obtained; these
are known as " C. P.," and are selected and cured
by an English dealer.
AA hen coagulation is completed— generally in
sixty minutes or less — the curd-knife is called into
use. There are two sorts of knives — the vertical
and the horizontal (see Figs. 135 and 136, pp. 275
and 276). The former consists of a number of
sharp steel blades fixed half an inch apart in a
head-piece of wood or metal, and j)rovided with a
handle. In the latter the blades are fixed hori-
zontally to two side-strips of steel. Wherever this
is used the vertical knife accompanies it, though
in many cases the perpendicular instrument is used
alone. The latter is drawn through the curd from
one end of the vat to the other, then, after an
interval of several minutes, across it. Now another
pause occurs in the work, and then either the hori-
zontal knife is used to cut it as far as possible into
cubes, or with the vertical instrument it is divided
into still smaller pieces. After a time the con-
tents of the vat are stirred b}' the hands and arms
of the maker, or by a rake, such as that shown in
Fig. 137, p. 276. We have seen this work done
with common hay-rakes, by makers who preferred
them to all other implements for the pm-pose.
480
DAIRY FARMING.
Fig. 288.— Section of
Curd-lump.
When the pieces of curd are reduced to about one-
third their original size, steam is turned on, and the
whole mass heated to about 95'^ Fahr. When it
has been scalded sufKeicntly it is allowed to sink
to the bottom of the vat, and remains there under
the whey for some two hours, more or less, to
become acid.
When the curd-knife is used (which essentially
belongs to the American and not to the Cheddar
system) it must be at intervals, or loss of
solids will be the result. But during these
intervals the strips or lumps of curd grow
tough and skinny. By the time the scalding
process is com])leted each lump has become, as
it were, dry and tough on the
outside, though gradually more
moist towards the middle, the
whey not having been properly
separated. We have split open
many such lumps, and found
this to be invariably the case to
a greater or lesser extent. We
give (Fig. 288) an enlarged section of such an one,
which will explain our meaning. Now, whatever
may be the belief of the followers of that system
on the question, the whey not separated before the
scalding process is finished will never be separated
by pressing, nor fully by grinding, although by
the latter treatment some whey, and with it solid
matter, may be worked out. This result of grind-
ing, not known with well-made Cheddar curd, is so
common in America as to have necessitated a curd-
mill, with knives instead of bars (see Fig. 9^3,
page 207). We have seen in American factories,
where the curd was ground with the oi-dinary peg
or bar-mills, a quantity of thick white liquid
pressed fi-om it in the grinding. But whether
ground or not, there is enough
whey left in to account for
t he Itad-keeping quality of much
American cheese. A lack of
acid will, in a fair curing tem-
perature, render the cheese taste-
less and "soapy ;" too much acid
and moisture will produce a ten-
dency to early decay.
When the curd is sufficiently
acid the whey is drawn off with
a syphon, with which is used a cylindrical strainer,
both shown in Fig. 130, page 278. In factories
on the plan of the Whitesboro' and Truxton estab-
380.— Fl.it-side
Pail.
lishments, the next work is the removal by the
"fiat-side pail" (Fig. 289) of the curd and remain-
ing whey to the " sink." It will be readily seen
that this utensil is peculiarly adapted to the pur-
pose. When the vat is tapped, nearly all its
contents may be removed by it.
In salting, the proportion of salt to curd varies
in diiTerent factories, but about 2 lbs. to 1,000 lbs.
of milk manufactured is the general rule. A large
quantity of English salt is imported for the dairy
trade, being considered by many the best ; but some
American firms are producing a really fine article,
such as that of the " Onondaga Works," at Syra-
cuse, New York, where it is manufactured on a
process perfected by Dr. Goessman, a noted
chemist, by which freedom from impurity is
obtained. This article, known as the " Onondaga
Factory-filled Salt," enjoys a well-earned reputa-
tion.
The best press yet in use in America is that
made by Messrs. Fi-aser and Benson at Rome,
New York, and known as the " Gang-press "
(Fig. 270, page 461). It is so constructed that the
cheeses are pressed horizontally against each other,
the lower part of one hoop fitting into the upper
part of the next. The screw runs in a movable
wooden block, which can be set in the proper posi-
tion for one or two cheeses as well as for the
whole number for which the press is intended.
As soon as the newly-made cheeses reach the
cnring-room, they are neatly marked on the band-
age with the date of the manufacture, a dam])
paste being used for the purpose, applied with a
stiff brush over a stencil-jilate. In the " drying"
or cheese -rooms two
classes of racks, or
tables, are sometimes
to be found. The one
of which we give a
section in Fig. 290 is
the most convenient,
and allows more cheese
to be stored in the
same space.
The temperature
believed to be most favourable to the early ripening
of American cheese is 70° Fahr., in which it usually
becomes fit for exportation in three weeks. When
a quantity has been sold, each cheese is weighed
separately, scales of the ]iattern shown in Fig.
291 being used. This machine serves two pur-
Fig. 290. — C'KEESE-TABLE.
FLOATING CUKDS.
481
posi's : in the scoop (a) salt, &c., may bo wciglu'il ;
ou the table (b) cheese.
The cxjiense of packing the cheese in boxes
for exportation is considerable, each box, 10 inches
deep, costing one half-
penny for every inch
of its diameter ; a pack-
age of that depth, and
16 inches across, cost-
ing IC cents, or Sd. ;
and if a greater depth
Fi-. -'ill —t'liEisE .sc\i Ks than 10 inches is neces-
sary, a cent is charged
for every additional inch of vertical measurement.
Thin discs of wood, called " scale-boards," ai"e
placed against the top and bottom for protection
of the cheeses when they are boxed.
Many dealers visit the factories and inspect
the goods previous to the weekly market, but
the cheese from the dairies of reputed makers
is generally sold without any such inspection, and
sometimes even without samples. Some dairymen,
well known on the market as skilful makers,
receive a certain sum per pound in advance of
all other prices, and sell their goods only to one
house. The dealers are well aware that in first-
class factories the quality of the goods is uniform,
and great confidence is therefore placed in the
managers of such establishments. When samples
are carried to the markets (for factory-cheese is
never sold and delivered on the spot, as in our
English fairs) the " plugs " are often placed in
glass tubes, and carried in a leather ease (see
Fig. 219, page -IIG), by which means they are
preserved from dust and damage.
There is a time in every season when the
inferior condition of much cheese that is made in
American factories seriously affects the market.
Those goods made during the months of June,
July, and August go " off flavour " rapidly, and
have to be sold at a lower figure on that account.
" Hot weather " cheese becomes a drug on the
market, a source of vexation to all parties con-
cerned, from the patron to the consumer. The
causes of this are not difficult to discover. The
mischief may be traced to the farm, where the
cows drink water from stagnant pools ; to the
factory, v/hcre the whey tanks and hoggeries are
situated too near to the making-room, and send
forth their vile odours to taint the milk. We
have seen the curd made from tainted milk rise.
<luring the scalding ))roccss, eii iiKis-tr to the
surface, and at such times the work is positively
unhealthy, on account of the smell rising from
the vat. We remember visiting a factory where
a bad "floater" was being dealt with, and
hastening from the vat to the door, found that
escape from one evil only brought us in contact with
another — the smell from the whey-tanks, which
were within a few feet of the spot we occupied.
In the management of " floating curds," two
principles are usually recognised — that acid will,
in a measure, overcome taint, and that a minute
division of the curd will do much, by liberating
the gases. In factories where the "loose curds"
system prevails, the mill is used for the latter
purpose. By following these principles, makers
have in many instances succeeded in so far
conquering the mischief as to produce cheese in
which only a slight peculiarity of flavour could
be detected as the result of the original taint.
But while such is the case, it is yet certain that
great losses are sustained every year through the
milk supplied in a tainted condition to, or spoilt in,
the factories during the summer months. The
cheese which goes " off flavour " early is not
all, however, necessarily made from bad milk,
for the produce from the sweetest and purest milk
will also, under circumstances unfavourable to its
proper naking and curing, be more or less injured
in " keeping " quality. On the markets many
persons betray anxiety to clear out " hot-weather "
stocks at almost any obtainable figure, especially
if the factory euring-i-ooms are unfit, through
faulty construction and a lack of the means of
procuring and preserving a correct and uniform
temperature, for holding such goods.
In most factories the whey is conveyed by
pipes or shutes from the vat directly to the tanks,
and drawn from these either by the farmer to his
home, or for the fattening of hogs on the factory
premises. In the former case, the patron is
allowed to take a quantity proportionate to his
milk-supply, as part payment for the latter, or
he can remove as much as he requires at a fixed
jirice per gallon; while in cases where the fatten-
ing of pigs is a part of the factory business, the
patron is allowed one pig for every five cows'
milk supplied, or the company owning the build-
ings use the whey on their own account.
Some years ago considerable attention was
directed to the manufacture of whcy-cream butter,
482
IVVTRV FARMTXCr.
ami a fair article was jinMliii-i'il \>y two processes.
Olio of tiicse, knowu as tlie ''hot" i)rofoss, con-
sisted in the addition to the whcv, if sweet, of
a certain amount of soiu- whey, and heating it
to 175" Fahr. and upwards, by which means
sufficient cream was raised to produce rather over
Joz. of butter to a gallon of whey. Tlie other
method of cream-raising was surrounding the
tank containing the whey with cold water. The
churning in either case was performed in the
ordinary manner, at a temperature of about 60"
Fahr. But the manufacture of this article has
been to a great extent aliandoncd, being considered
unprofitable, and the practice is now confined to
a few establishments. In many factories, however,
a "grease" is prepared from whey, by heating
and removing from it the cream and albumen,
which, when cold, is used for rubbing tlie cheese.
The quantity of milk required to produce a
pound of cheese varies greatly in different in-
stances, both the quality of the milk and the skill
of the maker influencing the results. From the
statistics of forty-eight factories in the State
of New York, in 186-i, we leani that the largest
quantity was lO'SSlbs., and the least S-;31]bs.,
whilst the average of the whole number was
9'82 lbs. of milk to every pound of cured product.
The average of forty-eight factories in 1865 was
9-81 lbs. ; of thirty-nine in 1866, 9-68 lbs.; of
twenty-eight in 1867, 9-83 lbs. ; of thirty-seven
in 1868, 9\S81bs. ; of forty-two in 1869, 9-64 lbs.;
and of twenty-five in 1870, 9-95 lbs. ; showing a
general average of 980 Ib'S. of milk to 1 lb. of
cured cheese. From the reports of ten well-known
factories in the columns of the Utica Herald (De-
cember, 1876), we find that they have used on an
average 101I)S. of milk for the production of lib.
of cheese.
The quantity of milk required to make a pound
of clieese is the basis of the calculations regarding
the payment for milk, the patron receiving for it
as much as the price per pound obtained for cheese,
less the cost per pound of making. Let us sup-
pose that during a certain week 10 lbs. of milk
were used to each pound of cheese produced, and
the latter was sold at 1 0 cents (5d.) per pound,
while the cost of manufacture was 2 cents (Id.) ;
the patron would receive 8 cents (Id.) for each
10 lbs. of milk delivered by him.
When the dividend is declared, a statement is
presented to each patron, showing the price
realised for cheese, tlie quantity of milk supplied
by and the sum due to him, witli any other
statistical information which it may ajipear de-
sirable to publish. We give a specimen of such a
form : — •
t'HF.h:.sE Factory.
For week ending 188 .
Milk supplied lbs.
Cheese sold lbs.
Milk required for one pound of cheese lbs.
Cost of manufacture per lb
Milk supplied by Mr lbs.
Value per lbs
Value of milk supp'icd ■$
, Secretary.
In certain cases, especially where the factory
is owned by a private individual, the system of
regulating the price of milk by the figures of other
factories is adopted. The patrons choose two
dairies well known for their fine goods, and agree
to accept as much for their milk as is the average
of the prices paid by these dairies ; so that if one
pays 8 cents (4d.) and the other nets its patrons
7 cents (3id.), the average, 7i cents (^fd.l, will
be paid by the proprietor for the quantity of milk
representing a pound of cheese.
GliEAMERIF.S.
Since their introduction, in ISGl, butter-
factories have spread rajiidly, and at the present
time a large number are in operation. But by far
the largest proportion of American butter is still
made in farm dairies, the quantity from the former
in 1874 being 3,214,125 lbs., whilst that made in
the latter amounted to 107,873,361]bs.; so that
for every pound of butter made in factories, 33 lbs.
were made in the liomes of the people. The
creameries are increasing in number ; but as a fine
quality of butter is produced in home dairies at
less expense and with far more cerfciinty than
first-class cheese, they are not likely to monopo-
lise the manufacture of the former as the cheese-
factories have done that of the latter.
The "spring" system of cooling and setting
milk followed on many farms may, at the outset,
bo briefly described, the main principles having
been adojited in most of the early factories. Over
a cool spring of water, and a portion of the stream
flowing from it, stands a small wooden building
known as the " milk-house." The bed of the
stream within the house is made uniform, and its
sides extended to suit the farmer's necessity.
VARIOUS AMERICAN FACTORIES.
483
Stones are fixed here ami there in the water, to
prevent the milk-paus being moved by the force
of the stream. The milk is brought to this
spring-house and poured into clean earthen crocks.
These are placed in the water between the stones,
covered by a tile or piece of wood, and left until
the cream has risen. Among the first factories
this arrangement in a modified foi-m was generally
followed, though other methods of milk-setting
have since been introduced.
As an instance of a factory where the "spring"
setting is followed, we select that belonging to
Mr. Gardner B. Weeks, of Syracuse. The water
from the spring is conducted by a pipe, situated
20 inches under the ground, to a large pool (2), in
which the pails are placed, the water flowing into
the pool in suflScient volume to retain its natural
r" ^v 1 =
1 Ti
2
o
71 — ^ — ^i
li — ^ — \^
w
|i n ^"
h ^ — 1
II
I— w— '
Fig. 292. — Plan of Gardner B. 'Weeks' Facioky.
1, Weigb-can ; 2, pool ; 3, milk-vats ; 4, sink ; 5, presses ; 6, chwms ;
7, cold-water tank ; 8, hot-water tank ; 9, steam-boiler ; 10, steam-
pipe ; 11, stairs to curing-room ; 12, cheese-tables.
coolness, and to rise around the pails to within 2
inches or so of their tops. The pails are 8 inches
in diameter and 20 inches deep. An example is
given in Fig. 168, page 30(). The milk is left in
the pool until all the cream has risen, when the
latter is removed by the "dijiper" (Fig. 168), a
long-handled, conical cup, which is pushed down-
wards into the milk of the pail until its edge is
slightly below the surface, when the cream mns
into it, and is poured from it into another vessel to
await churning. Some butter-makers believe that
the cream will not all rise in less than thirty-six
hours ; others skim at twenty-four hours after
setting, and hold that all that may be removed
afterwards will not be worth waiting for; but
there are many cireum.stances to be taken into
account in these calculations outside the mere
question of time.
The skimmed milk is emptied into the vats (3)
and made into cheese, and the pails cleansed for
the next setting.
64
We have selected for purposes of illustration
two other creameries, each possessing, in its con-
struction and furnishing, peculiarities worthy of
Fig. 293.^Plan ok Finck's Basin Creameuy.
1, Weigbiiig-macbine ; 2, milk-vats ; 3, press ; 4, boiler and engine ;
5, "Blanchard" churn; 6, shelf; 7, cupboard ; 8, spring; 9, stairs
to ciiriug-room ; 10, whey-pump.
notice. The first of these, the Finck's Basiu
Creamery, is located near Little Falls, N.Y., and
is the property of Messrs. Whitman and Burrell,
an enterprising hardware firm of that town.
The delivery-window at this establishment opens
on a covered drive-way, under the shelter of which
the patrons unload their milk. The making-room
contains three vats (2), a large gang-press (3), and
in a partitioned recess a combined horizontal boiler
and engine (4) . The milk is set in the ordinary
steam milk- vats (2), and to cool it rapidly a
very ingenious apparatus is used. This "cooler"
(Fig. 2!)-l) consists of a frame of tin pijies, of 1|
to 2 inches in dia-
meter, fitting into
two similar pipes at
each end, the length
and width of the
frame being a little
less than those of
the vat. At one
corner is a pipe (1)
with a funnel-shaped mouth, into which cold
water flows from the supply, and, circulating
through the frame, emerges at the end of the bent
pipe (2) at the opposite corner of the apparatus.
This frame is suspended from the sides of the vat
by hooks (4), and in such a manner as to be at
about half the depth of the milk. After the cream
is taken off, the cooler is also removed, steam ap-
plied, and the skim-milk made into cheese. In the
butter-room is a large " Blanchard " churn (Fig.
249, p. 453) driven by steam-power, a wide shelf
(6, see plan), and a large spring water-tank (8),
Fig. 291.— Whitjian a.nd Ei'Ekell's
Cooler.
484
DAIRY FARMING.
over p;irl of wliirli a codlinii^'-cnpltoard (7) is fixrd.
AVhen the Imtter has bpcn taken from the chum,
and the buttermilk worked out by the "Cuunint^;'-
ham " worker (Fig. 2U7), it is placed in this tank,
and when firm removed to the cupboard. A very
superior butter is made here, and the business is
profitable to owners and patrons.
The other examjilo is a creamory near Rome,
Oneida County, iS'.Y., the i)iopcrty of Messrs.
H-^-
Curing rooms
EZj man s"" i
, I f T| BOOM I
Fig. 295.— Plan of Gaddis, BIcAdam, and Co.'s Ckeamery.
1, Weighing-machine ; 2, milk- setting vats; 3, cheese-making vats;
4, "Blanchard" churns; 5, cooling-vat ; 6, *'Fraser" presses;
7, stepa to store-room ; 8, coal ; 9, vertical boiler , 10, engine.
Gaddis, McAdam, and Co. Here the milk-setting
and cheese-making dei)artments are separated.
The milk, after being weighed, is set in the vats(;J),
which are constructed as shown in section in
Fig. 29(5. The outside wooden case is similar to
the corresponding part of a
milk-vat. In this two tin
cases, of the shape shown in
the annexed illustration, are
jilaced side by side, which
arrangement allows more room
for the water supplied for cool-
ing. The water (2) is kept at
a slightly higher level than the
surface of the milk (I). On
the top of the cooler is placed a cover having a
ledge (:i) raised around it, cross-strings (4) for
strength, and cylindrical ventilators (.")) fixed at
intervals throughout its length. Over this cover
water flows continually, materially assisting in the
rapid cooling of the milk. AYhen the cream is
skimmed off, the milk is conducted to the vats
(3, see plan) and made into cheese. The "Fraser"
press, the "Blanchard" churn, and the "Cunning-
ham" butter-worker are all in use iu this factory,
and butter of a fine fpiality and good skim cheese
were being made at the time of our vi.sit in 187().
It is generally held by American butter-makers
that cream should be churned at a temperature
ranging from 58° Fahr. in summer to 65° in
winter, and if it does not stand at the proper
heat, the pail containing it is placed in warm
Fig. 200.— UrcAiiAM
Cooler.
or cold water until the thermometer indicates
the retjuired lemperature. Ampng the Orange
County, New York, makers, the old vertical dash
churn (Fig. 'Zb',i, page 455) is a favourite, and
various devices are emplo^-ed to work several of
these at one time in large establi.shments.
In most American butter-factories the human
hand has been superseded by machinery for work-
ing the butter after it comes from the churn.
The appliances for the puqwjse are many, ranging
from complicated and exjiensive machines to the
simplest and cheapest form of pressure lever.
The rotating butter-worker with corrugated
roller (shown in Fig. 17!), page 313) is also used
:97.— " Cl'NNlNGHAJI " BdTTER-WORKER.
in American creameries, but the best worker we
have seen in America is the " Cunningham "
(Fig. 297), a machine in which the corrugated
roller is used, as in the last example ; but in
this instance it (2) is -attached to a movable
frame which traverses the length of a sloping-
table, running smoothly and being kept in place
by small wheels and cleats. On the frame are
brass springs (3), to govern the rising and falling
of the roller, and at the lower end of the table
is a hole through which the buttermilk escajies
to a pail (•!■) suspended from a hook. The
Fig. 29S.— "Ol'NNINfillAM " AVORKING.
operation of "working" is shown in Fig. 29S,
whore the roller has spread out the butter on the
table. The handle being turned, the roller and
^[ARKKTlNCr THE PRODUCTS.
485
frame move to and fro over the len<;th of tlie
table, the former releasiut;: the })uttermilk, which,
with a bowlful of water, is swilled into the pail.
When this has been done a few times, the butter
is gathered together by a change of motion
peculiar to this machine. The roller (Fig. 299),
Fig. 2'J9. — "Cunningham'" Rolling.
being brought below the butter, is turned by
the right hand in the direction of the arrow,
while the frame is pushed by the handle (1)
towards the upper end of the machine, the butter
being rolled before it, as shown in the cut.
Brought thus into a large lump, it is placed in
the centre of the table by the ladles, sjiread out
a little, and the operation of working repeated.
It has been said that by the use of a machine
of this kind the grain of the butter will be
injured; but from personal knowledge we may
say that, when this " worker ■" is used with due
care, such a result is not possible. The salt
is incorporated with the butter by this machine
in somewhat the same way that the buttermilk is
removed. The butter is spread out on the table as
in Fig. 298, the salt sprinkled evenly ujion it,
then rolled together as in Fig. 299, turned
and spread again, and the rolling and working
continued until it is uniformly salted.
The degree of saltness in butter is a matter
of taste, and depends also on whether the goods
are to be exported or sold for immediate home
consumption. No fixed rules are therefore fol-
lowed on this point, though, the fancy of the
consumer or demand of the trade once ascertained,
the maker aims at uniformity in that respect.
The Liverpool and Onondaga salts are mostly
used in the butter-factories.
In packing butter for the market, " pails "
or " pots " are used. With the " firkin " and
"half firkin'' of the export trade we are all
familiar ; but there are vessels in which the
produce is sent to the private consumer and the
home market generally, constructed on a better
plan, with a more finished appearance, and having
some neat arrangement for fastening up safely
and j)reserving the contents from injury. Such
a one is the "Westcott" return-pail (Fig. 'M)0),
made from white oak, and provided on the cover
Fig. 30U. - " \Vi>.iL.in" );etl-en
BUTIEK-PAIL.
Fig. 301.— Founder.
with a simple hinge and staple, fastened by a
wire or lock. In pressing the butter into these
packages, a wooden pounder (Fig. 301) is used,
and great care is exercised to fill every part and
exclude all air.
For " roll " or " p:it '" butter, the best package
is the "Philadelphia" pail (Fig. 3U2). The ends
are partitioned ofE and filled with broken ice,
and the butter arranged on plates, as in our
illustration, thus insuring
its coming to market in a
good condition.
The variation in the
proportion of butter to
milk is great, the amount
of the latter required to
produce a pound of the
former ranging from 7 to
17 quarts. This may be
accounted for partly l)y the management, but
mainly by the difference in the quality of the
milk in various instances. The purchase of milk
for butter-making at a price regulated by the per-
centage of cream it gives is therefore reasonable.
In Wisconsin a creamery has lately been started
in which it is proposed to manufacture into
butter the cream from the milk of 4,000 cows, the
patrons setting their milk at home, and the agent
visiting them daily to convey the cream to the
factory. By this system the farmer will be saved
the trouble of delivering the milk ; and as the
cream-raising and skim cheese-making will be
removed from the creamery, the making and
maiketing of the butter can be dune with fewer
Fig. 302. — Philadelphia
Pail.
4S6
DAIRY FARMING.
1 aids, and thus i^-reat economy of lalmur will 1x'
one result of its adoption. By it also the ob-
jectionable custom of paying for poor milk at the
same rate as for that which is rich in cream will be
done away with, and it will be to the farmer's
interest to raise as good milk as possible. This
new development of the principle of association
gives promise of rapid growth, and of solid benefit
to the dairy interest.
We have already stated that the skimmed milk
of the creameries is made into cheese. The manipu-
lation is the same as in the manufacture of whole-
milk goods, but more rennet and heat are used in
coagulation, and a greater amount of acid developed
in the curd before pressing. Creamery cheese is to
a large extent exported, being suited to the trade
of warm countries.
Some years ago an attempt was made at
improving skim cheese by adding to the milk
an animal fat known as "oleomargarine/' which,
it was believed, would in coagulation become
incorporated with the curd, and so take the place
of the butter removed. A patent was taken out
on the process by Mr. H. O. Freeman, who built a
large factory at Ridge ^lills, near Home, N.Y.,
where it is carried out on a large scale. As in
another part of this work the subject is treated
more at length, we will not enter into a description
of the process, but simply remark that, after having
seen it at the Ilidge Mills establishment, we do
not consider it a success, and believe that a more
palatable and saleable class of goods may be made
from the. .pure skim-milk than from any to which
foreign fats have been added. J. O.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Recent Modification.-; in American Cheese-making.
JIa'.'.ins Cheese without Acid— Professor Arnold's Improved Jlethod— New Method of Making Skim-mllk Cheese— Estimates for
an American Factory.
D> CIDITY has been of very great
service to American cheese-
making. In a hot climate like
that of the States tainted milk
is a common occm-rencej and
particularly so in the case of
cheese-factories where the milk is carried
a mile or two in closely-lidded cans, and
projier care is not taken to cool and
aerate it soon after it is milked. Acid has
bridged over many a difficulty, seen and unseen,
but American authorities on cheese-making think
the time has come when it must be employed in
a different manner ; and they pay a high com-
pliment to English Cheddar cheese-makers by
going back more closely to the original Cheddar
system. In the following article, Professor L. B.
Arnold sets forth very clearly the new line which
American dairymen are about to adopt :^
" Making Cheese without Acid.
" In the days of dairy cheese-making, before
factories came into use, it was the almost invariable
practice as soon as the curd, after being cut and
' scalded,' had become tolerably firm — -so it would
squcMik between the teeth and feel hard when
squeezed in the hand — -to draw the whey, cool the
curd at once, and salt and put it to press. This
was emphatically a sweet-eurd process, no acid
being used or developed in any stage of the
manufacture. But this is far from being the
'no-acid process' I have recently advised. This
was a faulty mode of making, and is not to be
recommended. It left too much whey in the
cheese. They would often huff, lean aside, be
porous and spongy, and assume all sorts of flavours,
according to the extent of whey retained in the
curd, so that it was difficult for two workmen, or
even the same one, to make cheese alike. Though
there was usually a decided cheesy flavour de-
veloped in this process, the want both of high
qualities and uniformity made it a bad article for
commercial transactions. The cheese being dif-
ferent on each farm, the purchaser never knew
what he was getting without a personal inspection
of every man's dairy or every man's load of cheese
as it came to market, and much of it being short-
lived, as well as otherwise faulty, the traffic in
cheese in those days was a precarious business.
These circumstances, which, to a considerable ex-
tent, still lie against dairy cheese, materially
lessened its market vahie.
" When the factory system was introduced, this
sweet-curd process, with but few exceptions, was
in full vogue, and was carried into the factories,
where it worked even worse than in the dairies.
When made up on the farm there was no tam-
pering with the milk to its injury. It had all
the freshness and qualities it possessed, whatever
they might be, which it had when it came from
the cows. But in the factories it was different.
Being carried from one to two, three, or four miles
from the farm to the factory, while warm and closely
covered, the animal odour, or peculiar odour of new
milk, became developed into taint, especially when,
from bad water, heat, or other cause, there ^A•as any-
thing like feverishness about the cows. Animal
odour, tainted milk, and floating curds became the
pest of the factory system, and caused many a ton
of spoiled cheese to be taken from the factory slyly,
and buried or thrown into the dock after it got to
the market. The increased development of odour
and taint from the lack of cooling and proper
ventilation while in transit t i the factory, and also
488
DAIRY FARMING.
from keeping' milk in ]ar<je masses over-night
without suffificnt coulinn;, ga.\c so much trouble to
cheese-makers who worked after tiie swect-eurd
proeess, that the whole factory system was at one
time threatened with annihilati )n.
" By degrees factory-men found an improvement
by (as they called it) cooking or scalding their
curds more, which simply meant keeping them in
the warm whey longer, to effect a greater separation
of whey. This made the curd and cheese harder
and drier. It took more milk to make a pound of
cheese, but the cheese was better. At length the
curd was continued in the whey till the latter was
distinctly sour. The souring made the separation
of whey as complete as desired. It retarded curing,
and for a time at least held the taint in check, and
became an antidote for floating curds. This was
a great point gained for the factory-man. He was
now able to manage milk in almost any condition
successfully. If it was much ' off ' he soured more ;
if in better condition he soured less. Thus with a
little experience he was able, by nice discriminations
in the degree of acidity in his whey, to control the
curds to his liking. This acid process, then new
to the great majority of cheese-makers, wij)ed out
all tendency to huffing and porosity. The cheeses
made by it had the merit of being firm and com-
pact in texture. They would stand up stiffly in
hot weather till they could be got to market, and
they had the further merit of greater uniformity
than manufacturers had been able to give them
before.
" The ability to secure these qualities has given
satisfaction to manufacturers and dealers, and in
the markets of the past has secured prices fairly
remunerative to producers. Probably nineteen-
twentieths of the cheese-makers in the United
States and Canada are now following out the
priictice of developing a decided acid in the whey,
and keeping the curds in it till they are matured
for the press, and, feeling satisfied with their work,
regard the acidity developed as the sheet-anchor
of their art. The acid process, as described, was
unquestionably a step in advance of our early
factory make. Indeed, almost anything was better
than a cheese full of tainted whey, whose tenure
of life was so uncertain that it was not always
sure of reaching the market it was made for. The
certainty of reaching fair and approximately uni-
form results, whether the milk was all right or
not, was an item of importance. While I concede
and appreciate fully all the excellences of the acid
process, I do not regard it as the end of perfection.
" It fails to meet many of the requirements of
a perfect cheese. The acid cheese is generally too
short-lived, or, if made for keeping, it is too dry
and hard, and insipid. It develops too little of ^
distinct cheesy flavour, and too much of a sour
one instead. It is not salvy and rich enough. It
dries up too readily when cut. Its cheesy matter
is too insoluble, and it is so difficult of digestion
as to favour dyspepsia and constii)ation, and much
of it is positively unhealthy for invalids and dys-
peptics, who constitute a very large jier cent, of
our population.
" The great bulk of our factory cheese, though
made on the acid plan, is not, even with all the
cream worked in, sufficiently appetising and health-
ful to promote a liljeral use of it by our people.
The amount of cheesy flavour, the rich and buttery
texture of fine old cheese, the rapid melting on the
tongue like a ripe pear, and the solubility of the
caseous matter, all depend on the comjjleteness of
the cheesy fermentation induced by the agency
of rennet. As I demonstrated last summer by
thorough tests, the acid in sour whey permanently
injures the action of rennet, so that the cheesing,
or curing, as it is called, all other conditions being
the same, never goes on so well when the curd is
affected by its presence as when it is not. It is
for this reason that the more acid we use the less
cheesy taste we get, the less buttery texture, the
less of the cheese is soluble, and the less of it
digestible.
" T/ie CJicihlar process, in a somewhat modified
form of the English mode, has been adopted to
some extent in this countiy, and has worked well.
It mends many of the defects of the acid process.
The factories atlopting it proceed about as follows :
The milk is set for curding at 80'^' to 81", the curd
is cut, worked, and ' scalded ' to blood-heat or
thereabouts, the same as in the acid process. The .
distinctive feature of this system consists in draw-
ing the whey at some period before the curd is ripe
enough for pressing. The time for doing this is
different in different factories. Oftener than other-
wise it is drawn as it approximates souring. The
vat being tipped to secure ready drainage, the curd
is heaped upon its upper end, where it is allowed to
pack and keep warm till the requisite amount of
whey is expelled, and the curd is rijie enough for
the press, which is generally determined by the
DISADVANTAGES OF ACID.
489
liol-iron test. At this stage it is ground fine
enouo-h to take salt evenly, and is cooled and
pressed.
" While cheese made by this process is as firm
and close in texture as that made by the acid pro-
cess, it is better in most respects. First, it will
have a more nutty flavour. The acid in the whey
' cuts ' the flavouring oils in the curds lying in it,
and carries them off, leaving the cheese insipid and
wanting in the delicate aroma which cheese fan-
ciers highly esteem. The more acid, the less nutty
flavour. Second, it will have more cheesy flavour,
be richer and more buttery, melt sooner on the
tongue, and be very much easier of digestion. All
this because the action of rennet is not interfered
with by acid whey. By ripening the curd a part
of the time out of the wdiey, as good a cheese can
be made of the same milk, after skimming the
night's milk, as can be made with the cream all
in, when the curd is wholly matured in the whey,
and the acid well developed. Third, it will keej)
better.
" Lactic acid is a strong antisejitie. But it is
an animal acid, and unstable, soon changing into
other forms. "While it endures, it is a powerful
antidote for taints in cheese-making, but it kills
none' of them, it only siispends their activity.
Its amount in cheese is limited by the sugar in the
whey retained. Whenever it assumes a new form,
as it soon will, it loses its preservative power, and
the taints, if any are present, resume their sway at
once, and carry the cheese to swift destruction.
This is the fate of cheese by our acid process, when,
to guard against the effects of faulty milk, a
strong acid is developed. The cheese stands up
well while it lasts, but goes down at one leap when
the acid has spent its force. Cheese made by the
Cheddar process, if we may so call it, meets with
no such sudden failure. It ripens and decays
gradually, and for a long time grows better wdth
age.
" Dr. Voelcker asserted several years ago that
whey reacted upon the curd which lay soaking in
it. Warm whey, like warm milk, is a most fertile
field for the develo^^ment of ferments, which
always mean change. Whey, we know, is all the
time changing, from the moment it separates from
the curd till it is disposed of, and the curd lying
in it feels instantly all the effects of its ever-
changing condition. In the last stage of the acid
process, the whey makes its most damaging im-
pression when it has become sour and stale, but its
influence is deleterious all the way along. Obser-
vant cheese-makers will recognise these facts. The
change which I have recently urged in our process
of cheese-making is simply to draw the whey
earlier than is generally done in the Cheddar process
— to draw it at the earliest moment practicable. By
letting the wliey run off as fast as expelled, the
cause, or a part of it, is removed w'ith the whey,
and the fault is reduced instead of aggravated.
This process is, therefore, not only adapted to milk
in its normal condition, but also to that which
is in any way demoralised. In extreme cases it
admits of rinsing the curd in warm water, to re-
move more completely any remaining traces of
taint or acid. It is important, in any process,
that the temperature of the curd, whether in the
whey or out, should be kept up scpxarely till it is
done. To fail in this is to do damage to the
resulting cheese. ^Manufacturers who attempt to
experiment in this early drawing of the whey
should provide themselves beforehand with the
means of keeping their curds at blood-heat till
they are done, whether in the whey or not. The
whey will then separate, and the curd ripen just as
perfectly and as rapidly out of the whey as when
in it. If this precaution is observed it will be safe
to draw the whey as soon after heating up as the
largest lumps of curd have become thoroughly
warmed through, and for the rest to follow the
Cheddar method.
" It will facilitate the process and save curd,
and require less labour and skill in manufacturing,
to heat the milk to 98°, and apply the rennet at
that temperature instead of heating up after it is
coagulated. ]\Iilk may be heated much more
evenly and rapidly than the eurd can be. Several
experiments in this direction have worked finely.
When setting milk so warm, the smaller quantity
of rennet which must be used to prevent coagu-
lation before the milk comes to rest may not push
the curding so fast as some may desire ; otherwise
there seems to be nothing in the wa)' of heating
the milk instead of the curd, and thus simplifying
and facilitating the work. The process I have
endeavoured to describe has been called a 'no-acid
process,' and it is essentially such, as it objects
to the use of acid, either in rennet, in milk, or in
whey in which curd is held. The questions in
respect to whey escaping from warm curd while
packed in the vat, whether acid or otherwise, and
490
DAIRY FARMING.
the indications of the hot-iron test in ren^ard to
acidity and cheesing, have not yet been sufficiently
investigated to be considered in this connection.
They must be left for future study."
The sj'stcm here advocated by Professor Arnold
is not strictly a no-acid process, because keeping
the curd at blood-heat, after the whey is removed,
will cause acid to develop. It is, however, a very
different thing from allowing the acid to develop
before the whey is removed. It should be called the
no-acid -in-the-whcy process, which would be a cor-
rect definition, though not perhaps a comj)lete one.
It really consists in drawing off the whey while it is
perfectly fresh and free from acid, and, by keeping
the curd covered and at a temperature of 98'^, to
develop acid in the curd; and in order to this the
curd has to lie a longer time before grinding and
salting takes place. It is a fact well kno^^-n to
those who are acquainted with the Cheddar system
of cheeseTmaking, whether in factories or in farm-
houses, that excessive acidity produces a cheese
which, when cut for eating, is to all taste and
appearance poor in fat; it will be dry, hard, and
granular, not moist, soft, and mellow in texture.
This is not wholly because such acidity destroys
or carries off a portion of the butter — though it
certainly does cany off or destroy the light oils
which give a flavour to cheese and butter — but
because it cheeks the ripening of the cheese by
weakening the action of the rennet ; and an unripe
or imperfectly-ripened cheese never appears to be
so rich as a properly-ripened cheese in fats.
At the same time this acidity checks the fur-
ther development of taints that have already taken
possession of the milk ; and were it not for the
acid, such milk would produce a cheese in which
the incipient taint would go on developing during
the time the cheese was ripening, becoming very
offensive at the last; hence the employment of
acid in making cheese from milk that is more or
less tainted, though it may do some harm in the
way of dissipating the flavouring oils and in re-
tarding the ripening of the cheese, does good in
the way of checking taints, in expressing the whey,
and in causing the cheese to be more comjjact than
it would be without it.
The following description of Professor Arnold's
system of cheese-making, written by IMr. T. D.
Curtis, Secretary of the American Dairymen's
Association, is both interesting and important : —
"Heat. — The milk is received in the ordinary
vat in the ordinary way, and then gradually heated
to the temperature of 1)0° before the rennet is
added. The customary way is to set the milk at
Si" to 8G". The new method prefers the higher
heat because the liquid is more readily and more
evenly heated than a solid is. The temperature
of QS'', or blood-heat, would be preferred for the
same reason, but experiment shows that the rennet
does not produce as good results at 98'^ as at 90°,
but they are better when the setting is done at
90° than when it is done at a lower temperature.
After the curd is cut it is allowed to stand until
suflieiently hardened to permit of stirring without
waste; then the temperature is steadily raised at
the rate of a degree in two minutes, to 98°. Here
it is kept, as nearly as circumstances and facilities
for keeping up the temperature will permit, until
the end is reached. But a slight fall of tempera-
ture, or even its gradual descent to 80°, does no
damage to the curd, if it does not sour ; it simply
retards the action of the rennet, and delays the
time of going to press. Unless the milk is sour
or too far gone with age the curd is not allowed to
remain in the whey long enough to sour. Where
acid comes on before the whey is separated, special
treatment is required.
"Setting the Milk. — This, as before said, is done
at 90°. Prepared rennet, of uniform strength, is
preferred. It is better to mix the concentrated
liquid — one pint of which is sufficient for 3,500 or
4,000 lbs. of milk — in about "one gallon of water
at or a little above the temperature of the milk, for
every pint of rennet used. This secures an evcner
action of the rennet throughout the mass of milk
than could be secured if it is added to the milk in
the concentrated form, no matter how much it is
stiiTed. It is readily distributed evenly through
the water without affecting in any way the virtue
of the rennet ; but when in the concentrated form
it strikes the milk, some of its virtue is expended
upon the milk first touched, and this coagulates a
little in advance of the mass, making denser points
all through it, as can be seen by putting the hand
in the curd and permitting it to run off gradually
as the hand is raised. These points get too much
rennet-notion at the expense of the rest of the
mass. Hence the advantage of diluting the concen-
trated liquid rennet in water. The stirring to incor-
porate the rennet should be continued — agitating
the whole mass, and not merely rulfiing the sur-
face, as some do — until the milk will barely have
PROFESSOR ARNOLD'S PROCESS.
491
time to come to rest before coa<;-ulation begins.
Tlie strength of the rennet being known by ac-tual
experience, a good judge of the condition of the
milk can easily approximate the time at which
coagulation will begin. He will, of course, avail
himself of anj- doubt, and stop stin-ing soon enough
not to spoil the curd. If he uses enough rennet to
cause coagulation to begin in fifteen minutes, he
is safe in agitating the mass of milk for twelve
minutes.
" Cutting the Card. — Under the old method
there is no definite rule for cutting the curd.
It is an advantage of the new method that it
furnishes a definite rule, in no way depending
on contingency or guesswork. The operator
may be deceived in the strength of the rennet,
if it is a batch he has not carefully tested, and
get coagulation sooner or later than he desires.
He proportions his rennet to the time he wants
the cheese to cure and keep. If he wants it to
keep a long time, he uses a proportionately less
amount of rennet, which will require more time
in which to perfect the cheesing jirocess. If
he wants a quick-curing, short-keeping cheese
for immediate consumption, he adds a larger
amount of rennet. The day we spent with
Professor Arnold he wanted to make a rather
quick-euring cheese, and put in rennet enough
to cause the beginning of coagulation in a little
over eleven minutes. Had he wanted a fairly
slow-curing and long-keeping cheese, he would
have had the point of coagulation at twenty
minutes or longer. And here, after these ex-
planations about proportioning the amount of
rennet to the character of cheese desired, comes
in the rule for cutting. No matter how soon
or late the coagulation begins, the time interven-
ing between that and the setting is multiplied
by 1\, and this gives the time after setting when
the cutting should be done. For illustration :
The day we were with Professor Arnold coagula-
tion began in a little over 11 minutes; he
cut the curd 28 minutes after setting. Thus
2| times 11 are 27i, and making allowance for
the time over 11 minutes when coagulation began
made 28 minutes from the time of setting the
milk. If coagulation had begun in 20 minutes,
the cutting would have been done at the end
of .50 minutes. This makes a rule that every
one can comprehend, but it requires a timepiece
and strict attention to business. It is valuable,
65
however, as everything definite about so empirical
an art as cheese-making helps to reduce it to
a science, and enables us to secure uniform
and reliable results. The cutting, when begun,
should be continued with tolerable expedition
until finished, and the cutting should be what
is called ' fine ' — quite fine. The object in cut-
ting is to facilitate the escape of the whey from
the curd, and hence the finer it can be cut without
waste, the more the escape of the whey is facili-
tated. The day of what was called ' coarse curds '
long since passed, except among a few fossils who
never change, and all intelligent dairymen now
concur in the practice of fine cutting.
" Stirring the Card. — With the process of
raising the heat begins the stirring, not only to
prevent the packing of the curd on the bottom and
aroimd the sides of the vat, where the heat is
greatest, but to secure an even distribution of the
heat throughout the mass of curd. Some> but not
so many as formerly, think it necessary to begin
the stirring and breaking of the curd with the
hands. Once there was no cutting of curds, and
all breaking was done with the hands. Even since
the days of associated dair^-ing and dairymen's
conventions, some leading dairymen have inveighed
against the use of the curd-knife as dangerous and
wasteful. The same class maintain the use of the
hands in the first stages of stirring the curd, and
oppose and denounce the use of the rake as likely
to ' make white whey.' But they are honestly
mistaken, and stand in their own light. The rake
at all stages when it is safe to stir the curd will
do it more easily, more expeditiously, and more
cleanly than the hands. It is disgusting to see
perspiring men and women working in the whey
up to their shoulders, and jsainful to see them
nearly breaking their backs reacliing across the
edge of the vat. They may be, and are quite
likely to be, more destructive and wasteful than
the rake. Professor Ai-nold uses the rake from the
be""inning until the whey is drawTi off. All the
stirring done in the whey is done with the rake,
and a smooth hand hay-rake, with about one-half
the handle cut off, is as good as any. The stin-ing,
after the heat is up to 90*^, does not need to go
bej'ond just sufficient to keep the curd from pack-
ing and gathering in large lumps, which will not
readilv take the salt when salting-time comes.
"Drawing the Whey. — Formerly a portion of
the whey was drawn off as soon the curd acquired
492
DAIRY FARMING.
6ufficient hardness to not run through the strainer.
Enough was left to float the curd easily, and this
was kept on until sufficient acid was developed to
make the curd fit to dip. Then there were great
hurry and commotion to get the balance of the
whey oflF and the curd dipped and salted before it
got too sour. But sometimes the acid developed
so rapidly that it would get the start of all hands,
and the curd would be more or less injured by too
much acid. Gradually it became the practice
among cheese-makers to draw off all the whey as
soon as there was any indication of souring, and
cheddar the curd — that is, haul it away from one
end of the vat, elevate the other end, and then
part the curd in the middle, lengthwise, piling it
up along the sides of the vat, so that the whey ran
off and settled in the lower end as fast as it exuded
from the curd. This is now the prevailing method,
the hot iron being depended upon to indicate the
degree of cheesing or acidity, whichever it may
be called, by the number and length of the threads
of toasted curd that can be drawn out when the
hot iron is applied and adheres to it. "When ready,
the curd has to be ground in a curd-mill before
salting. The new method draws off the whey
early — as soon as the curd is hard enough to pre-
vent all waste — and keeps the curd from packing
and lumping by stirring with the hands until it
reaches the point where it will not pack, so that it
cannot be readily crumbled apart by stirring and
using the hands ; and it is desired to avoid all
necessity for grinding, while the hot iron is con-
sidered useless as an indicator of condition. But
here comes in a contrivance for facilitating the
separation of the whey and keeping up the tem-
perature, while making the work of stirring easier
and aiding in 'oxygenising ' the curd.
" The Rack.- — Something like the old-fashioned
sink-rack is placed in the bottom of an empty
second vat. One extra vat, in place of the usual
sink, would answer for a factory, as the first vat is
emptied in transferring the curd to the second, and
the vat just emptied can be used as a second vat
or sink for the next one. But let us describe one
or two peculiarities of this rack. It is made in
two, three, or four sections, as may be chosen
for convenience of handling. The slats, 1 inch
or \h inches wide, run crosswise of the vat, and
are placed so as to nearly touch each other. Of
course they are as long as the vat is wide. These
are nailed to side pieces, running lengthwise of the
vat, and placed 4 to 6 inches from the sides.
These side pieces are i inch or J inch thick
when planed, are 10 inches w4de, and stand up
edgewise, thus causing a space of 10 inches be-
tween the lower side of the slats and the bottom
of the vat. These side pieces are supported by one
or two braces on each section of the rack near
the bottom, but not so as to obstruct the passage
of whey under them. The side pieces are 10
inches wide, not only for the purpose of leaving
considerable space below the cuitl, as it lies on the
rack, but so as to raise the rack high enough to
make it convenient to stir the curd on it with the
hands. If permitted to lie too near the bottom,
the reaching would be tiresome, and even painful.
On this rack is spread an ordinary cloth strainer,
and then the curd, with as much whey in it as
is left when the syphon stops drawing, is dipped
and emptied in this cloth and rack. Of course
the whey drains through and occupies the 10-inch
space beneath. This whey is not only thus easily
got rid of, with the whey remaining in the curd
as fast as it exudes, but aids in keeping up the
temperature and in keeping it even and not too
dry. This warmth is not so essential to making a
good curd as it is in hastening rennet action and
expediting work. If in cold weather it is likely
to get too low, steam is turned on, and the tem-
perature of the whey is raised, which warms the
curd by radiation. In ordinary summer weather
no additional heat will be needed.
" Oxidation. — Here we have to consider one of
the principal points of the new method. It has
for some time been known that to let a curd stand
in the open air, with occasional stin-ing after salt-
ing, appears to improve the texture and flavour
of the cheese, and many of our best cheese-makers
practise airing the curds as much as possible in this
way. But none of them, so far as we know, have
tried the experiment of airing curds before salting.
Under the new method, the early drawing of the
whey and spreading it on the rack we have de-
scribed is for the purpose of airing or oxidising tho
volatile oils in the curd. These form gases by oxi-
dation while curing, and, if they form gases faster
than they can escape freely through the rind of the
cheese, cause porousness and huffing, so much dis-
liked by all. But exposing the curd to the air by
stirring it on the rack, while it helps to get rid of the
whey, also oxidises the volatile oils and gets rid of
them, while such as are not volatile, Init remain to
PROFESSOR ARNOLD'S PROCESS.
493
give flavour and richness to the cheese, are pro-
gressed in the process of curing to an advan-
tageous degree. In cheddaring, this oxidation
is greatly facilitated, and hence the advantage
of tliis method over that of keeping the curd
in the whey, where little or no oxygen reaches
it, save as it is brought to the surface by
stirring. Aside from this, there is a positive
disadvantage in leaving the curd in the whey
and excluded from the air. This exclusion of
the air facilitates fermentation or the develop-
ment of the yeast fungus. There is not only
decomposition, but recomposition by the action
of organic forces. It is when this action begins
that it is so difficult to get rid of the whey
and salt the curd before it is injured by acid.
The avoidance of this fermentative action is
what gives the cheddaring method its superiority.
All who have tried cheddaring know that it
greatly, if not entirely, avoids the danger of
too much acid, unless it be by misjudgnient.
But the new method does not want the acid
development at all in the curd, and seeks to
avoid it. It aims at simple chemical changes,
by breaking up old combinations and forming
new ones. Two agents only are recognised —
rennet and oxygen — and these are relied upon
to produce only chemical changes, such as break-
ing up some combinations and forming others
without develojiing organic action. The rennet
gradually destroys the cohesive power of the atoms
of casein, and prepares them to unite more closely
with the new compounds formed by the fats
and oxygen. The casein has no positive flavour
of its own, and without the proper chemical
union with the fats, which the rennet prepares
the casein for and the oxygen prepares the
fats for, it is practically indigestible and in-
nutritious. By the oxidation of the fats, car-
bonic acid gas, as well as other gases, is thrown
off; and the union of the oxygen with these
fats is what gives the distinctive cheesy flavour.
When this flavour is attained, it is desirable
that the oxidation should go no further. Beyond
this, decay is gradually approached, and is in-
dicated by the rank, ' off-flavour ' taste, which
grows stronger and stronger until putrefac-
tion is reached. The rennet action is chiefly
digestive, and should keep pace with oxidation.
When the culminating point of both is reached,
we have the best flavoured and most digestible
and nutritious article of cheese. "Whoever dis-
covers a method of stopping the action of both
rennet and oxygen at this point will confer a
boon, not only on the dairyman, but on man-
kind, and stand a fair chance of reaping a
handsome reward.
" Saltbig. — With the new method it is not
so particular when the salting is done, provided
the milk is all right to begin with, and there
are no signs of fermentation. It is usual with
those who adopt the new method to let the
curd air until about ready for the press, before
adding the salt. At first the curd steadily
hardens as the whey separates, until it feels
quite hard and harsh. But gradually, as oxi-
dation goes on, after the rennet has expelled
the whey, the curd softens and grows smooth
and silky to the touch. It also grows tenderer,
and gets quite mellow, apparently becoming
richer in flavour and appearance, or showing
more ' quality,'' as the buyers say of cheese
when it is fine and butteiy. When the proper
degree of softness is reached, or the cheesing
and oxidation are progressed far enough — to
determine which is a matter of observation, ex-
perience, and judgment — the curd is salted,
and, if cool enough, is put to press. In hot
weather the curd should not be pressed at a
temperature much above 80°, but in cooler
weather, if the temperature of the press-room
is not kept up, S-l" to 85° would not be an
injurious temperature. Unless the surrounding
atmosphere is quite cool, so that there is con-
siderable escape of heat by radiation, the tem-
perature of the cheese will rise after it is put
to press, owing to the combined action of
rennet and oxygen, and the centre of the cheese
will be warmer than the outside, because curd is
a poor conductor of heat, and the heat generated
will but slowly pass off by radiation. The tem-
perature of a curd in the vat or on the rack
may be raised somewhat by allowing it to re-
main quiet, so the heat will not radiate into the
atmosphere. The salting should be at the rate
of 2i lbs. to 1,000 lbs. of milk.
" Taints. — It is claimed for the new method
that by oxidation the taints in milk can be wholly
got rid of; and that even the flavour of onions,
leeks, turnips, rank grasses, or other strongly-
flavoured food can be dissipated into the atmos-
phere, as all these flavours and smells depend on
4-94
DAIRY FARMING.
Volatile oils which pass through the cow's system
into the milk, and are oxygenised and expelled in
the form of gases, by exjjosure on the rack. The
thorough separation of the whey from the curd, as
fast as it exudes, also facilitates the eseayie of the
elements of taint. Hence, in working tainted milk,
the process of oxidation is prolonged until the
taints disappear ; but should there he danger that
fermentation will set in, the curd may be salted
and afterwards exposed to the atmosphere, the salt
not hindering the action of the rennet or of the
oxygen, but checking the development of acetic
acid. Lactic acid may be had by simple oxidation
without fermentation, which should be prevented
if possible, and checked as much as possible should
it set in. Floating cm'ds and slippery curds are
improved by oxidation before or after salting.
They are always tainted curds.
" Soiir-milk Curd. — When the milk is so far
gone that souring cannot be prevented, it should
be set at a low temperature, and not heated beyond
94°. But the cutting and separation of the whey
should be exjjedited in every way, and the salt,
in extra quantities, got on as soon as possible. If
some is thrown into the milk before it is set, and
stirred in with the rennet, it will be an advantage,
as the sole effect of the salt, beyond flavouring, is
to cheek fermentation and retard decay. It may
safely be used freely on a sour curd because thrown
on early, and much of it is carried away by the
whey, whicdi will hold it in solution. If a curd is
very sour, it may be washed by pouring warm
water — say of 100° to 105° — over it while stir-
ring it, and improved thereby.
" Cnring. — There is nothing peculiar about the
curing process under the new method, save that it
continues its philosoi^hy in the curing-room. The
temperature should be even, and should be 65°
to 75°, according as more or less rapid curing is
desired. Here the oxidising process which was
put ahead of the cheesing process in the make-
room — in order to volatilise all offensive oils, and
expel them in the gaseous state — needs to be
held in abeyance, to give the rennet a chance to do
its work. Too much ventilation is not good for
a curing-room, if cheese is properly made so that
offensive gases will not be geneiated. It is impos-
sible to prevent further oxidation — at least in the
ordinary curing-room — but it can and should be
ke])t down to the minimum ])oint until tlie cheese
is lit fur market. It must go on so slowly that the
small amount of gases generated may find escajie
through the rind, and not cause the cheese to puff,
or show its former presence in excess in the form of
holes, big or little, when the cheese is bored or cut.
Nor should oxidation be raj)id enough to generate
too much heat and cause fermentation to set in, as
the yeast plant will play upon the casein and form
out of it a compound neither valuable nor profit-
able; and this fermentation, with the rajjid oxida-
tion of the fats, will soon form a comi)ound of
decay and low organism unfit for human food.
" Colourinrj. — We have thus far said nothing
of colouring, because on the day that we took our
first lesson in the new method of cheese-making,
Professor Arnold was making cheese for himself,
and used no colouring. But we got his views on
the subject, which, as may be inferred, were not
favourable to putting colouring matter into cheese.
He says the addition of the vegetable matter used
for colouring slightly affects the flavour, and is an
element of fermentation and decay. If used at all
it ought to be cut with oil instead of alkali. ATI
colouring for cheese-making is dissolved in potash.
The alkali unites with the colouring, but when put
into the cheese the alkali finds a stronger aflinity in
the casein and unites with it — instead of with the
fats, as some have supposed — while the annatto
forms new combinations with the fats and oxygen,
both sets of new combinations making a bad flavour
and hastening decay."
A Nkw Method op Making Skim-milk
Cheese.
It might have been thought that almost every
possible and impossible method of cheese-making
had been tried in America — the country, par ex-
cellence, of exijeriments. We have heard of oleo-
margarine cheese, in which melted animal fat has
been substituted for the butter of which it has
been deprived ; oil from suet, or from leaf-lard,
has been used for the purpose; and broad hints
have been given from time to time that more
questionable ingredients have been employed to
give to skim-milk the adventitious richness wliich
naturally belongs to cheese made from milk that
has not been skimmed. A wholesome jirejudice
against such bastard cheese has grown up, and
the " system " on wliich such cheese was made
is likely soon to die out.
The inventors of the new method of making
skim-milk cheese are Amos L. Larabel and Joseph
NEW METHOD OF MAKING SKIM CHEESE.
495
M. Jocelyn. The process is carried oxit at the
factory of Whitmau and Burrell, of Utica, N.Y.,
and is described as follows : —
"The cheese-vat contained milk that had heen
set for twenty-four, thirty-six, and forty-eight
hours, and the cream taken off as closely as it
could he gathered. The proportions were 585 lbs.
at twenty-four hours, ;37i lbs. at thirty-six hours,
and 547 lbs. at forty-eight hours, making- 1,504 lbs.
in all. This included the buttermilk, which
amounted to about 300 lbs. The skimmed milk
was heated to 83°, the buttermilk was poured in
and mixed well with it, and the whole was then
allowed to stand until the entire mass was properly
acid, as it is considered that thoroughly sour milk
makes better cheese under this process than sweet
milk. It was then heated to 86°, and at this
point the anti-hufRng extract, which is the pecu-
liar feature of the process, was added in the ratio
of 1 ounce to 100 lbs. of milk. This extract is
composed of an alkali, which changes the milk
from sour to sweet, and it is an antiseptic which
acts as a preserver. For ten minutes the m.ilk
Avas continually stirred, in order to have the ex-
tract thoroughly distributed through it. Then
the requisite amount of Hansen's extract of rennet
was added; in eleven minutes the milk began to
thicken, and in twenty-five minutes it was cut.
The heat was then increased to 98° (this cheese
being intended for a southern market), although
ordinarily it would only be scalded to 94° or 96°,
according to the weather. As soon as the curd
was well separated from the whey, the latter was
drawn off, leaving the curd perfectly sweet. The
object then was to get it to press as soon as suf-
ficiently cool, and the temperature was reduced
to 70° by pouring on cold water. The curd was
then salted at the rate of 3 lbs. to 100 lbs.,
which was rapidly but evenly mixed in, and then
it went to press. It is considered of more im-
portance to put the curd to press while still sweet
than to have it thoroughly drained, as the whey
will be squeezed out in the press.
" The most striking peculiarity of this process
is its positive contrast with the old method. In-
stead of working a sweet milk up to an acid
standard, it reduces sour milk to a perfectly sweet
curd. The alkali used to effect this result is
potash, a substance that is taken out of the milk
along with the cream, and is as essential to its
full value as any other constituent. Of course.
there is always more or less fat which is not
taken out of the milk by skimming, and it is
claimed that the alkali ' saponifies ' this fat
so that it will not become rancid upon exposure
to the atmosjihere. During nearly the whole
process, before setting and after cutting, the milk
and then the curd was kept in a state of agitation
by the hands and arms of the men working it.
No curd-mill was used, Mr. Jocelyn claiming
that he could make a better, finer, and more even
curd by hand than he could by the use of a mill.
The extract alone gives a rich colour to the milk ;
but where a deep colour is desired, annattoine is
added in the proportion of about 1^ drachms to
100 lbs. of milk.
" It remains to give the result of operations
upon the mass of milk of which we have been
speaking. From this 1,504 lbs. of milk, 59 lbs. of
butter and 146 lbs. of cheese were made. The
average would be 1 lb. of butter to 25J lbs. of
milk, and lib. of cheese to lOjijlbs. of milk.
This was in the latter part of October. IMr.
Burrell was selling his butter at 35 cents per lb.,
and at the rate at which the cheese has sold
during the jmst summer (1880), it is safe to say
that this will bring 11 cents when it is ready
for market. The total value of the products of
this milk would therefore be 36.71 dollars, or an
average of 2.44 dollars per 100 lbs. of milk —
almost double the amount received by the patrons
of our cheese-factories. We regret exceedingly
that the process should show such a result, as it
Avill have a tendency to draw full-milk cheese-
makers into the skimming business. But we
believe that, one of these days, a change must
come over the cheese-trade. Either full-milk
cheese must rise to a price which will make its
returns commensurate with those of the butter and
skimmed-milk cheese-factories, or cheese of the
latter quality must be reduced to a much lower
level in price. As the prospect of the latter
alternative is rendered more unlikely than ever
by the successful introduction of the anti-mottling
and anti-huffing cheese extract, we shall expect
to see our full-milk cheese establishments either
driven to the wall, or else compelled to go into
the manufacture of butter and cheese with the
use of this extract. Mr. Burrell has been making
this quality of cheese during the whole summer,
and with astonishing results. It has sold far
beyond his expectations. It seems to have kept
496
DAIRY FAR^riNG.
as well as full-milk stock. It shows up rich and
stocky under the trier. And as the maker gains
more experience in its manufacture, it steadily
improves in quality. He is now making a lot
of small cheese, weighing only 25 lbs. each, for
the express purpose of shipping to the West
Indies, to test their keeping qualities as severely
the lowest and highest given in the catalogues of
reliable American dealers in dairy implements and
machinery for the year 1880. The different prices
named for the same utensil indicate difference in
quality, in kind or in pattern. For example : —
A " factory-churn " may be a plain barrel of the
Philadelphia pattern, costing only 10 dollars, or
List of Articles, with Prices, required to thorougldy Equip a Factor^/ or Creamery receiving the Milk
from about 500 Cows.
Akticles.
WLolp-milk
Cheese Factory.
Cheese and Butter
Factory.
Pool and Pail
Butter Factory.
Pan or Vat
Butter Factory.
Butter Factory
receiviut;
only Cream.
Number and Name.
From
DSUT
300
120
"s
1.5
40
(iO
"20
10
4
10
'"7
2
10
2
2
2
"1
5
1
4
2
25
To
From
To
Prom
To
From
To
From
To
1 Steam Boiler, Engine, Pump, &c., ( 4 H.P.
complete 1 6 H.P.
2 COO-gallon Steam-vats
4 300-gallon Cooling-vats
3G0 Deep Cooler Pails
Cream-vats, 1, 2, or 3
1 Curd-drainer ...
1 Curd mill
1 Gang Cheese-press (or 2)
20 Cheese-hoops
1 Factory-churn
1 Butter-worker
1 Platfonn-scale for Millc
1 Butter or Cheese Scale
1 Salting-scale
1 Receiving or Weigh Can
Hauling-cans
Hoisting-crane Fixtures
Milk-spout and Conductor
Curd-knives
Syphon and Strainer ...
1 Set Creamery Gl;)ss-ware
1 „ Stencils and Markers
Small Cheese Utensils...
Small Butter Utensils
Tryers, Butter and Cheese
Kennet and Colouring Jars
Cleaning Utensils
Kubber hose
Account Books
Plumbing, Snafting, &c
Bols.
500
150
"in
25
90
liiO
■50
15
5
15
"io
15
4
6
3
5
""2
15
3
6
5
30
1,134
Dole.
400
300
"30
8
15
40
60
10
8
20
10
4
10
50
7
2
10
2
2
2
3
2
5
1
4
3
50
Dols.
600
400
'C5
15
25
90
160
.50
25
50
15
15
100
10
5
15
4
6
3
5
6
4
15
3
6
6
100
Dols.
300
250
20
"io
8
20
8
4
10
"'7
2
"3
2
2
1
4
2
25
Dols.
400
275
40
"(io
50
10
5
15
io
"'6
3
■"6
3
5
2
0
5
100
Dols.
300
300
'20
10
8
20
8
4
10
■"7
2
■"2
2
■■■3
2
1
3
2
50
Dols.
450
400
"40
"(io
25
50
10
5
15
10
5
"'e
3
'"6
3
5
5
5
100
Dols.
300
"25
"20
8
'"8
4
■30
"1
2
'"3
i
2
25
Dols.
400
"go
"go
25
"io
5
"60
"2
3
"g
3
5
2
4
5
100
Total Dollars
652
1,060
1,803
680
1,026
756
1,205
435
750
as possible. The success attained hitherto war-
rants the belief that there will be no failure in
this experiment."
Estimates and Costs.
To explain in detail the articles necessary for
fitting out dairying manufactories of different
kinds and the cost of the same, the subjoined list
has been prepared. The size assumed is a capacity
for the milk of 500 cows. For a smaller factory
the fittings would cost nearly as much, and for
•me twice as large the equipment would cost only
20 or 30 per cent. more. The prices stated are
the same of best finish, 22 dollars, or a 100-gallon
" Blanehard," 45 dollars, or a gang box-churn,
60 dollars. Any one of these might serve the
purpose, but true economy would dictate a churn
costing 40 to 50 dollars for a creamery of the size
assumed. Again, there is a great difference in
the expense between fitting up a cheese-factory,
with the old style single screw-presses and plain
hoops of wood or metal, and giving it a full com-
plement of gang-presses and patent self-bandaging
hoops. Several articles named in the list might be
dispensed with, while some managers would wish
to add others. H. E. A.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Canadian Paikying.
Advantages Possessed by Canadian Dairymen— General Comparison of the Provinces— Present Supremacy of Ontario as a Dairy
Province— The Maritime Provinces.
, HE dairying' linsbandry o£ the
United States has been
treated at length and
elaborately in the preceding
chapters; and the descriji-
tion may, to a great extent,
stand for that of Canada as
■well, because there are so few salient
differences between the practices of the
two countries. A few general remarks,
mentioning climate and other differ-
ences, so far as they may be said to exist,
will be sufficient, and for details of the methods em-
ployed the reader must needs be referred back to
American dairying. It would indeed be strange if
the dairying of two closely-adjacent countries, whose
boundary-line for the most part is not even a river,
but has to be marked out on terra, fir ma, and whose
people and language are the same, should differ
in any essential features beyond those which are
easily accounted for in the difference of climate,
and in the trilling variations of local practice; and
it may be affirmed that differences quite as great
are found within the limits of either country sepa-
rately as are found between the two combined.
The southern latitude of Canada at its lowest
point is that of Madrid, Rome, or Constantinople,
and its northern terminates at the North Pole, so
that it may be suj^posed to have all the climates
of Europe from the Mediterranean to the Frozen
Sea; still no part of Canada has a summer climate
so unhealthy as that of Rome, nor is its general
climate so fickle as that of Europe; as a general
thing it may be said that the climate of Southern
Canada resembles that of Western and Central
Europe, except that its summers are somewhat
hotter, and its winters as a rule more severe, yet
neither the heat nor the cold of Canada is so hard
to be borne as the same degrees are in Europe,
mainly because the air is drier. Such a crop as
Indian corn, which will seldom rijjcn in England
or in the northern departments of France, is
cultivated to a vast extent in the valley of the
St. Lawrence, and in the north-west teiTitory it
comes to maturity in a latitude equivalent to that
of Liverpool.
Over the United States, especially over the
Western ones, Canada has the immense agricul-
tural advantage of a summer rainfall, which pre-
vents the land from being parched and scorched
with excessive heat and drought. Wheat will
ripen at latitude 58°, and barley at 6.5", which is
some three to four hundred miles north of the
Orkneys and Shetlands; but this occurs only in
the north-west of Canada, for in the north-east, in
the direction of Hudson's Bay, the arctic currents
that sweep down the coast of Labrador lower the
temperature, and push further south the limits
of grains and grasses. But wherever wheat and
barley will ripen, in a climate whose summer rain-
fall can be depended on, there is a good prospect
for grasses and roots and green-crops generally;
and though the winters ai'e severe, making the
wintering of live-stock an arduous duty, they
begin and leave off again with a regularity which
enables the farmer to make nicer calculations than
he can think of doing in the British Islands ; and,
as the frosts are keen, and last as a rule for a
considerable period, the ground is mellowed and
pulverised to a degree which greatly lessens the
work of preparing it for the seed, while the gradual
melting of the snow in spring gives to the soil a
supply of moisture which is of great service to
the newly-germinated seeds.
498
DAIRY FARMING.
Over a coiisideralilc poition of the United
States, west of St. Louis — west, that is, of the 98th
meridian — the summer rainfall is altogether insuffi-
cient for the needs of vegetation. During four or
five months of the year, and they the most imj^or-
tant agricultural months, grasses cannot flourish^
and roots and green-crops arc out of the question,
so that the vast district west of Illinois, reaching
to the Pacific, is not adapted to dairying, and
never can be, unless vast forests are planted to
increase the rainfall, and irrigation works on a
vast scale are carried out wherever water for the
purpose may be had. All this tells against the
exjiansion of American dairying to the almost
unlimited extent which would otherwise have been
possible ; and Canada promises at no distant period
of the world's histoiy to become almost as great
a stock-raising and dairying country as its neigh-
bour the United States — pursuits for which its
soil, climate, and general characteristics appear to
be eminently suitable. The soil and climate of
Canada, in fact, throughout a vast area, are favour-
able to the growth of many useful jiasture and
forage grasses, and the country in general is well
watered, while both the land and labour are cheaper,
and taxation lighter, than in the United States.
The Province of Quebec possesses, in common
with the maritime provinces of the Dominion, for
the pursuit of dairy-farming, advantages which are
unsurpassed, and probably unequalled, in any other
portion of North America. Throughout the summer
months the temperature is cooler and the rainfall
greater than in the western or southern portions
of the Continent. Proximity to the sea, to the
St. Lawrence, the Saguenay, and the St. Maurice
rivers, and to the innumerable lakes and streams
which cover a large portion of the province, makes
the climate moister, and secures excellent meadows
and the best of pastures ; and the rich bottom-lands
or alluvial flats, so general alongside the larger
rivers, especially of the St. Lawrence, are extremely
fertile in the production of an abundance of food
for cattle, while the general health of stock is
excellent. Springs of pure cold water are found
in many places, and in the winter a supply of
ice for summer use may be secured with case and
facility; these advantages arc of great value in
cheese and butter making during the hot portion
of the year.
In the neighbourhood of IMontrcal there is a
large tract of country adapted to daiiyiiig; Init it
is the district known as the Eastern Towiishijis,
lying to the south of the St. Lawrence, and bor-
dering on the States of ISIaine, New Hampshire,
and Vermont, which may be regarded as, and
will ultimately become, the best dairying region in
the extensive and straggling Province of Quebec.
Here the configuration of the .country is rolling,
and the soil, as a rule, is loamy; there are also
many streams and running brooks — features that
may be regarded as essential to a dairpng and
stock-raising country. So far, however, the pro-
vince has not made the progress it might have
done in agricultural pursuits. Live-stock of all
kinds, especially dairy-stock, stand in need of cul-
tivation and imj)rovcment, and the general con-
dition of agriculture is far enough below its
possibilities. Improvements, however, are now in
progress, and as the province enjoys the advantage
of a contiguous sea-board, which gives ready access
to European markets, and as many of the pojjulous
places in the Eastern States are within easy reach
of the southern part of it, we may expect dairy-
farming to spread while it improves in many parts
of Quebec.
At the present time Ontario is far ahead of
any other province, alike in its dairying as a
speciality, in the quality of its cattle, and in its
agriculture generally. For dairying districts,
many portions of both Eastern and Western
Ontario are clearly well adapted. At a moderate
expenditure of labour and money, large croj)s of
various kinds of forage can be grown for winter
feeding, while for summer use it is easy to have a
succession of green-crops for soiling. For the
former, timothy grass and red clover are extensively
and most successfully grown ; for the latter, clover
and " green corn ■" — that is, maize planted thickly
and cut green — are chiefly employed. In some
cases maize is planted thickly in rows which are
some I'Z to 18 inches apart, horse-hoed until it is
far enough ahead of the weeds, and cut green as
it is wanted. Portions of land may be planted at
intervals, giving a succession of crops. If there
hap]iens to be more of the green corn than is
wanted for soiling, it is a simple matter to stook it
up in sheaves, each stook containing a dozen or
more sheaves. In this form the corn stands well
out in the fields, and is fetched in as it is wanted
during the winter. To be utilised in this manner
as winter-forage, it is considered expedient, and no
doubt it is expedient, to cut the stalks while they
PROGRESS IN CANADA.
-199
are still green, tender, and sappy, and when the ear
of corn is still " in the milk ; " this will be about
the time when the plant has attained nearly its full
growth in height. Cut at this period, the plant
retains the nutritive properties which have been
elaborated in it during its growth ; it has a smaller
proportion of woody fibre, is sweeter and tenderer,
and an altogether better article of food for stock.
smaller ones of which are either less numerous
now than they were before the forests were cut
away, or are dry when they are most wanted.
This question, indeed, is one which forces itself
on the attention of dairymen in most parts of
North America, and it has to be met either now
or in the future by wells and ponds and meres.
In various Canadian provinces cheese-factories
Fig. 303.— Creameet of Messrs. Hettle and Inglis, Teeswater, Ontario.
than if cut when the ear is fully formed and the
stalk and leaves are turning yellow with ripeness.
Turnips, mangels, carrots, and the like grow suc-
cessfully, and even luxuriantly, in many parts of
Canada, and seldom better than in Ontario. It
would seem probable that such soiling and forage
crops as lucerne, vetches, the rye-grasses, and the
various trifoliums, not to mention rape, mustard,
and the like, would grow well on the loamy soils
which are almost everywhere found. The chief
want of Ontario, generally speaking, is that of
streams and springs and running brooks, the
66
are already very numerous, and creameries, for the
production of large quantities of butter on the
associated system, are spreading in many parts.
These institutions have at once increased the pro-
duction and improved the quality of Canadian
dairy produce, which no longer ranks behind that
of the United States, and they are now counted by
hundreds. In the annexed engraving (Fig. 303) we
give a view of a creamery situated at Teeswater,
Ontario, and belonging to Messrs. Hettle and
Inglis, whose butter for some time has enjoyed a
.reputation in Glasgow,. to which city it is
500
DAIRY FARMING.
cliicfly shij)j)C'tl. Tliis factory cost about 4,000
dollars, which includes the cost of some expensive
implements that have been discarded. It has been
built at three different times, each year making it
necessary to increase the size. The buildings are
76 feet long by 26 feet wide. One department has
a concrete floor; in this building six wooden vats
are set, about 15 feet long, 3 feet wide, and 1^ feet
deep. Tin vats are placed in the wooden ones,
leaving a space between the two to allow cold
water to run at the bottom and sides of the vats.
The milk is poured into the vats at a temperature
of 80° to 90°; it is then reduced to (U)". In
addition to the cold water running around the vats,
a zinc float having ice in it is put into the vats ;
this is floated up and down each vat until the
temperature is sufficiently reduced ; the milk stands
from twelve to twenty-four hours, and is then
skimmed. Before churning, the cream is allowed
to " ripen," that is, to get a little sour, and care
is taken to have it all in the same condition. They
formerly used large upright dash churns, but these
have been discai'ded, and the " Blanchard " churn is
now used. They churn about 150 to 200 lbs. at a
churning, and churn twice a day. The churning
is done 1iy steam ; it is commenced with thirty
revolutions a minute, and gradually increased to
fifty. It takes from one to one and a quarter hours
to churn. The butter is then taken to a worker,
washed, worked, salted, and allowed to stand one
day ; it is then worked over and packed in firkins
that have been soaked three days, then steamed for
three hours in salt and water, and properly pre-
pared. A cloth is laid at the bottom of the firkin
and another on the top; the top is then covered
with a thin ]ayer of salt. The keg is then put into
the store-room, which is kept nearly ice-cold ; there
it is safe for shipment at any time.
There is another room in which the engine and
boiler are kept. The engine is only a 3 horse-
power, but it has proved itself of sufficient power
for the factory. Cheese is made from the skimmed
milk, when the milk is only allowed to stand
twelve hours. After the milk has been skimmed,
steam is put into iron pipes that are laid in the
bottom of wooden vats. The water is soon heated,
and the heat is imparted to the milk in the tin
vats ; when at a proper temperature the rennet is
put into the milk, which soon coagulates. Tlie
j)roeess is then gone through as in cheese-factories,
and the cheese is taken to a drying-room. The
skim-milk cheese sells from 4 to 6 cents a pound,
and the butter fetches 120s. per 112 lbs. in the
Glasgow markets.
A plentiful supply of good, cold, clear water is
essential to a butter-factory. On a rising ground
near this factory is a beautiful spring of water;
this is conveyed to the factory in wooden jiipes, and
thence into iron pipes. An ice-house is close by.
As in the United States so in Canada, cheese-
making has in the past had more attention paid to
it than has the sister art of butter-muking. Cheese-
factories are more numerous than creameries, and
so it follows that cheese has become more a cen-
tralised, while butter has remained more an isolated,
manufacture, the one receiving collective and the
other individual study and experiment. It is pro-
bable, however, that this disparity between the two
industries will not exist in the future. Mr. Bal-
lantyne, M.P.P., of Stratford-on-Avon, Ontario,
is among the prominent men who have worked
out the problem of factory cheese-making in
Canada, and his efforts, along with those of other
agricultural reformers, have done much towards
raising the cheese of the Dominion in the estima-
tion of English buyers.
Formerly there was great difficulty and un-
certainty in making autumn cheese in Ontario ; it
was liable to be huffy and porous ; and, as the
whey was not always well got out of it, the flavour
was frequently unpleasant. This difficulty has
been completely overcome by "rijiening" the milk
before adding the rennet to it. Mr. Ballantyne
thought the matter out in his mind, and urged it
to us in this wise : the summer's milk kept through
the night is not so deadly cold as the autumn's,
and so is in a more natural condition ; its warmth
has brought it into that state which produces the
best cheese — that is, it has ripened somewhat, be-
cause warmth as well as time is necessary to the
ripening of anything. He declares his belief,
further, that the best cheese cannot be made from
fresh, warm milk ; because, though it is, of course,
warm enough, and has never been cold, it has not
the required age, and so is unripe. Hence he
prefers that one-half of the milk he makes cheese
from should be twelve hours old, and this, being
ripe enough in itself, ripens the fresh morning's
milk when the two are mixed together. In summer
the ripening of the evening's milk is enough for
the purpose, but in the colder weather of autumn
it is not, so the morning's and evening's milk are
STATISTICS AND SUMMARIES.
501
warmed up together to a temperature of 90*^ or
sOj and allowed to stand several hours before the
rennet is mixed with them for coagulation, and
this is done because the autumn's evening miik
has been too cold to admit of enough, if any, ripen-
ing. As the mass of milk stands at the tempera-
the best system the world knows for making plain
" hard " cheese — consists in the ripening which
the curd gets after separating it from the whey,
and before salting and pressing it. This ripening
comes of keeping the curd warm, and exposing it
to the air. But even in the Cheddar system it is
FopulaCwn, Ayi-icullure, and Dairying at various dn/es, rclnliiig to the Dominion of Canada.
Persons engaged
Tear.
Population.
Agriculture.
Cows.
Butter made.
Cheese made.
Notes.
A.D.
lbs.
lbs.
1G67 ...
3,918
(668 Families.)
1,500
(3,107 "cattle "in all.)
Census of " New France."
1719 ...
22,530
9,000
(18,241 "cattle "in all.;
Do. does not include Acadia, &c.
176.5 ...
69,810
(12,230 Houses.)
22,748
(50,013 "cattle "in all.)
( Census of " Canada," which does not
1784 ...
113,012
(18,924 Houses.)
44,294
(98,594 "cattle" in all.)
<j include Nova Scotia, &c. Pop. of
I N. S., i-c, 1784-5, about 55,000.
1827 ...
774,279
378,031
( Census of Upper and Lower Canada
I and Nova Scotia.
Pop. of New Brunswick, Newfound-
land, and Assiniboia, 130, 054 (182S).
|Does not include Nova Scotia andl
( Census, including Upper and Lower
1848 ...
1,089,041
502,503
< New Brunswick. Pop. estimated, J.
(, 400,000. j
< Canada, Nevrfoundland, Prince
(. Edward's Id., Manitoba, &c.
I Census Returns for Upper and Lower
1852 ...
2,312,919
215,079
730,238
32,330,397
4,834,719
< Canada, Nova Scotia, and New
(. Brunswick.
I Includes Upper and Lower Canada,
1861 ...
3,301,147
337,304
995,506
51,700,440
4,002,143
I Nova Scotia. From census. New
j Brunswick, Prince Edward Id.,
' Manitoba, and Newfoundland.
^From Census Returns 1870-71, in-
1871 ...
3,738,546
483,984
1,292,839
75,035,031
22,277,747
< eluding same provinces as 1801,
( above.
Province of Ontario alone.
1871 ...
1,620,851
228,708
638,759
37.023,043
17.979,817
1871 ...
1,191,516
160,641
400,542
24,289,127
2,2.52,015
Pro\Tnce of Quebec alone.
1871 ...
285,594
40,394
83,220
5,11.5,947
224,8.33
Province of New Brunswick alone.
1871 ...
387,800
49,709
122,088
7,161,807
1,244,853
Province of Nova Scotia alone.
1871 Census. Number and Si
je of Farms in the Four (4) Chief Provinces,
Dominion of Canada.
Province.
No. of
Owners.
No. of
Tenants.
No. of Farms
of 10 acres and
below.
No.
10 to 50 acres.
No.
50 to 100 acres.
No.
100 to 200 acres.
No.
Over 200 acres.
Ontario
Quebec
New Brunswick
Nova Scotia
144,212
109,059
29,059
43,830
28,046
9,027
2,143
2,486
19,954
10,510
2,009
7,148
38,882
22,379
6,415
11,201
71,864
44,410
11,888
13,138
33,984
30,891
6,900
10,401
7,574
9,896
3,330
4,428
Notes.— 1871 : Four provinces, 333 cheese-factories, 998 emploj^s, 120,026 dels, wages, 1,601,738 dols. factory cheese sold.
ture named, it ripens, and the difficulty previously
so common disappears, the autumn cheese having
all the warmth and mellowness of character of the
summer cheese, and it is not liable to be injured
by the excessive heat of the summer climate ; this
autumn cheese, in fact, take it for all in all, is
probably the best of the season, whereas it was
formerly, in many cases, the worst.
The grand principles of the Cheddar system of
cheese-making — which, by the way, is jjrobably
well known that autumn cheese does not mature
like that of summer, and this !Mr. Ballantyne de-
clares is owing to the evening's milk of autumn
not having a chance to ripen like that of summer.
Professor Arnold, an able exponent of the Cheddar
system, has done much good in Canada in teaching
dairymen how to manage floating-curds — that is,
by exposing them longer in the vat, and by develojv
ing more acidity to checkmate the taint which is
common to tioatino'-curds. The milk is generally
502
DAIRY FARMING.
delivered once a day to tlie Canadian factories,
and the farmers, under pain of having their milk
rejected, are required to take proper care of the
evening's milk, and to deliver it in good condition
at the factory. This done, the transit is supposed
to do good rather than harm to the milk.
In the foregoing table we give a record of the
population, agriculture, and dairying of Canada,
from which will be easily gathered the rate of pro-
gress of the country up to the year 1871, when the
last census was taken. It wll be noticed that the
great bulk of farmers own their land and farm it,
and that there are more farms of 50 to 100 acres
than of any and all sizes below those limits on the
one hand and above them on the other.
the transit. The trains commonly run close up to
ships that are about to sail ; the cheese and buUer
are taken on board the last thing, are on their way
to England or Scotland without delay, and are
unshipped before any other lading is, on arrival ou
this side.
In 18G5 Canada imported cheese from the
United States to the value of 200,000 dollars, her
own production being not enough for her own
wants ; but since that period the establishment of
factories has so increased the production, that she
not only supplies the wants of an ever-increasing
population, but exports large quantities to the
mother-country. The production and exporta-
tion of dairy products from Canada are destined
Krporkd from the Dominion of Canada.
BUTTEE.
Che
ESE.
Tears.
Produce of Canada.
Foreign
Produce.
Produce of Canada.
Foreign Produce.
Quantity.
Value.
Quantity.
Value.
Quantity.
Value.
Quantity.
Value.
U.S.
Dnis.
Iba.
Dola.
lbs.
Dots.
lua.
D0I3.
18C8 ...
10,649,7S3
l,69S,n42
6,141..570
620,.>43
1869 ...
lo,sr,:j,2G8
2,3)L>,270
4,503,370
549,572
1870 ...
12,'2r)il,8S7
2.3r.:!.n70
5,S27,7S2
674,486
1871 ...
15,43'.l,2(ir>
3,0r..'i,-J-j;i
8,271,4.39
1,109,906
1872 ...
19,0li8,448
3,(ilLM;7'.i
16,424,025
1,840,284
1873 ...
15,208,633
2, SI IS.; 17! 1
7.710
1,546
19,483,211
2,280,412
2,8.32
1874 ...
12,233,046
2.6L'ii,»ri
L',S43
713
24,0."i0.9S2
3,523,201
298,820
33,3.>4
187.5 ...
9,268,044
2,:w7,:fL'i
6_',7l'6
12,803
32,342,030
3,886,226
221,S',I4
20,750
1876 ...
12,250,066
2,r.lii,s:n
l-l'.'.:i(ll
38,.537
35,024,0'.I0
3,751,268
2,861 iiii;
298,740
1877 ...
14,691,789
3,07o.-tii'.l
7s7.1i;i
151,572
35,930,.V.'4
3,74S,.-,75
l,770,;i97
149,393
1878 ...
13,006,626
2,382,237
4:17,491
91,960
38,0.54,294
3,997,521
1,316,845
123,780
1879 ...
14,307,977
2,101,897
22s, 21 15
3(;,550
46,414,035
3,790,300
.3,202.3,89
244,4.50
1880 ...
18,535,362
3,058,009
352,341
01,093
40,308,678
3,072,434
3,072,434
200,680
The ordinary mode of disposing of cheese in
Canada is for the buyers to visit the factories
weekly to see that the quality is right, and cither
buy the cheese on the spot, or at the adjacent
towns on market days. The districts being exten-
sive and the factories some distance apart, it is
next to impossible to take the cheese in bulk to
market, and to obviate this the buyers inspect the
cheese where it is made. In other cases cheese is
bought from sample, and in yet others it is con-
tracted for at a given price for the season. When
the cheese is sold, the farmers haul it in their
waggons to the railways, whence it is taken to
the shipping ports. Special trains run on stated
days for the conveyance of cheese and butter, and
in the summer months refrigerator cars arc used
to preserve the goods from injury by heat during
to increase, and in course of time to exceed, in
all probability, those of the United States.
In the table given above, for which we are
indebted to Professor George Buckland, of the
Department of Agriculture and Arts of Ontario,
we give a statement showing the quantity and
value of butter and cheese exported from the
Dominion of Canada during the thirteen years
ending ISSO.
Notes on the D.\irying Industry of the M.\ri-
TiME Provinces, specially of Nova Scotia.
By George Lawson, Ph.D., LL.D., F.I.C.
In order to give a correct indication of the pre-
sent state of the dairy industries in the maritime
provinces, it is necessary to refer briefly to the
agricultural conditions of those countries, which
THE MARITIME PKOVINCES.
503
differ essentially from Ontario iu depending' loss
upon wheat-growing and the raising of beef-cattle,
and more upon the productions of the forest, the
mine, and the sea. The " ^Maritime Provinces "
(as they are called) consist of New Brunswick,
Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island; to the
eastward of these lies the large island of New-
foundland, whose bays and banks have been so
long and favourably known, in common with
ncigliboiu-ing shores, for the extent and value of
their fisheries. Of the three confederated provinces,
the smallest. Prince Edward Island, is most exclu-
sively devoted to agriculture, whilst Newfound-
land, geographically although not yet politically
connected with them, is dependent upon its neigh-
bours to a large extent for agricultural supplies.
In Prince Edward Island the soil is light, easily
worked and free from stones, and there are exten-
sive deposits of mussel-mud at or below low tide-
mark, which serves as a valuable fertiliser to lauds
near the shore. Large quantities of barley, oats,
potatoes, besides butter, poultiy, eggs, and other
produce, are annually exported, chiefly in the fall
of the j'ear (before the ice forms around the shores),
to the adjoining provinces, to England, and to the
United States. There is a Government stock-
fai-m at Charlottetown for the improvement of
dairy and other stock, and the interests of agri-
culture are steadily, if not rapidly, advancing.
Dairying and cattle-raising appear to be subsidiary
to the raising of grain and potatoes, so far as
the supjjly of foreign markets is concerned. In
New Brunswick, which is of great area, but only
partially cultivated, grain-growing and dairying
are both practised to a large extent, although a
considerable portion of the rural population are
engaged during a part or the whole of the year in
the wild forest lands, chopping logs and bringing
them down the rivers to the numerous and exten-
sive saw-mills. Increased attention is being given
to agriculture ; the Provincial Government make
frequent importations of thoroughbred stock from
Ontario, England, and the United States, and
agricultural exhibitions are held under Govern-
ment sanction for the reward of successful culti-
vators and stock-raisers. For many years Jersey
and Aryshire stock have been raised to some extent
in New Brunswick, and have tended to improve
the dairy qualities of the cattle generally. The
occupations of the people of Nova Scotia are more
diverse than those of the other provinces, for,
whilst large numbers are engaged in lumbering,
shipbuilding, and the fisheries, no inconsiderable
portion find remunerative employment in the coal
and gold mines, and the quarries of-gypsum, grind-
stone, and sandstone. In Nova Scotia as iu New
Brunswick, so large a number of the people being
engaged in other than agricultural pursuits, there
is a home market for country produce which pre-
vents the dairy and other farm products from
obtaining as much attention in foreign markets
at present as they are likely to command in the
future. Notwithstanding the diversitj^ of industries
in Nova Scotia, dairy-farming is carried out to a
greater or less extent, and with greater or less
success, throughout the whole country, and not
alone by the class who are properly styled farmers,
for many of the fishermen and lumbermen, who
can only jAy their vocations during a portion of
the year, have small farms by which they are
enabled to sujij^ly at least their own domestic wants
in the way of milk, butter, cheese, pork, poultry,
and other produce. The possession of land and
one or more cows by the lumbermen and fishermen
generally throughout the proviuce, although it does
not make any show in the exports, forms a very
important factor in the real wealth of the country,
and the comfort of the people, who have thus,
even in the most adverse of seasons, the means
of healthy subsistence. In Nova Scotia the rural
population never want for the necessaries of life.
Where the attention is divided between different
occupations, we are not to expect the best methods
of cultivation, the most improved implements, the
finest live-stock, or rapid progress in the adoption
of new processes. Accordingly in many parts of
the country, especially in the shore counties, there
is much room for improvement, much poor cultiva-
tion, and imperfect management of dairy-stock.
Where holdings are small and scattered, the im-
provement of live-stock is especially difficult, as it
is not profitable (even if it were practicable) for
a fisherman-farmer to purchase an expensive male
animal, and the distance of neighbours prevents
combination for this purpose. It is otherwise in
many inland localities where farming is the exclu-
sive or principal pursuit, and particularly amund
the bays and estuaries, where rich dyke-lands have
been reclaimed from the sea, or where extensive
deposits of marine marsh-mud prevail ; under such
circumstances agriculture is conducted on a larger
scale and iu a more systematic manner, the newest
504
DAIRY FARMING.
improvements in implements are introduced, and
attention is specially given to the character and
management of the live-stock. The dykes under
])roper management yield crops of timothy hay
{P/ileum pratense) of from two to three or more
tons per acre, which su])i)ly feed for the winter,
and the "after-grass" furnishes, during the autumn
months, an abundant and rich pasturage, which
greatly promotes the flow of milk. The marine
marsh-mud and mussel-mud are used for spreading
on the uplands, and are found to be very cfKcacious
not only in promoting the growth of grass for hay,
but also in yielding large crojis of e.xcellent potatoes
and other roots. The cultivation of grain, and es-
pecially of wheat, has for many j'ears been rather
neglected, on account of the markets being tilled
with flour and grain at low prices from Ontario
and the western States; but within the last j-ear
or two farmers have become more alive to the im-
portance of grain-growng in a regular system of
husbandry. From these explanations it will be
seen that the Nova Scotian farmer cannot avail
himself of straw and grain cleanings, which are so
useful as winter feed to stock in essentially grain-
growing countries, but that the abundant crops
of hay and the excellent pasturage throughout the
whole summer and autumn months make up for
the deficiency, and specially indicate an adaptability
of the country for dairy-farming. Turnips and
mangels thrive well in all parts of the country,
and there is a tendency to increase in their cul-
tivation, the chief obstacles apparently being the
expense of summer labour and the want of manual
skill in hoeing.
We have no reliable statistics of the dairy-pro-
duce of Nova Scotia since 1871, when the general
census was taken. It is certain that there has
been a steady increase in all such jn-oducts, as well
as in all the field products of the country, since
that year. The quantity of butter produced in
1871 was upwards of seven millions of pounds
(7,1C1,8G7 lbs.). The jwoduction of New Bruns-
wick during the same jear was nearly a third less,
the exact quantity being 5,115,917 lbs. Analysing
the returns of the several counties, we find that the
smallest quantity was produced by Queen's, one
of the Atlantic shore counties, viz., 1;3^,15;3 lbs. ;
the largest by Pictou County, which bounds on
the gulf shore, opposite Prince I'xlward Island,
801,()(il lbs. A large portion of the inhabitants of
Pictou County are of Scotch descent. The quantity
of home-made cheese produced in the Province of
Nova Scotia in the year 1S71 was 881,853 lbs.,
the quantity made in New Brunswick in the same
year being not much more than a sixth of that
amount, viz., 151,758 lbs. The principal cheese
county in Nova Scotia is Annapolis, which fur-
nished 270,306 lbs. ; Halifax, a very large
county, which embraces the City of Halifax, the
great local mart for all produce, manufactured only
28;J lbs. of cheese, all of which, except 12 lbs., was
made in the eastern division of the county. Since
1871 a great change has taken place in the cheese
manufacture. No doubt the quantity of " home-
made " cheese is less now than formerly. But the
total amount of cheese produce in the country
must be greatly in excess of the records of 1871,
for, within the last five or six years, cheese-factories
have been established throughout the country,
particularly in the counties of Colchester, Anna-
polis, and Pictou. The factories are light wooden
structm-es, with appliances sufficient for working
up the milk of two or three hundred cows. The
milk is brought by the farmers, or by special
carriers, an account of its weight kept, and it is
paid for at a rate proportionate to the profits of
the factory or market value of the cheese produced.
Although all these factories are worked on a more
or less co-o]ierative system, experience has intro-
duced variations in the business management in
different localities. The whey is used for the
fattening of pigs, and may be carted home in
casks to the farm, or the farmer may send his
pigs (limited in number to the quantity of milk
he supplies) to the factory, where there are pens
furnished with troughs, into which the whey is
conducted as it drains away from the curd-vats.
The common cattle of Nova Scotia vary much in
size and appearance in different districts, and even
in the same district, although they are commonly
spoken of as the " native breed." They are rather
distinguished for their hardiness and suitability for
rough pastures than for size or beef qualities, yet
many of them are excellent milkers. No disease
is ever known among them. For fifty years or
more Guernsey stock has been in use in the neigh-
bourhood of Halifax, and the male calves of the
Guernsey cows, sent year by year from the city to
various jiarts of the country, have improved the
milking qualities of tjie cows in many districts.
Cows are frequently found giving exceptionally
large yields of milk, or milk of remarkable rich-
LIVE-STOCK IN NOVA SCOTIA.
505
ncss, well adapted for buttcv-niaking', and in such
cases it is usually found on inquiry that they have
inlieritcd some Guernsey, Jersey, or Ayrshire
blood. Within the last twelve years the improve-
ment of the neat-stock has been systematic and
rapid. Commencing wnth the year lSCl5, the
Board of AgricuUui'e, acting under the Govern-
ment, have made regular importations of thorough-
bred stock to supply the wants of the various
Agricultural Societies. Ayrshires have been im-
ported from Scotland and from the Provinces
of Quebec and Ontario, Devons and Shorthorn
Durhams from England and Ontario, and Jerseys
from the United States. Twelve years ago there
was not a single pedigreed animal in Nova Scotia.
Now there are of thoroughbred registered animals
in the province : — 160 Shorthorns, 200 Ayrshires,
100 Devons, 50 Jerseys, 4 Guernseys, besides
many animals whose pedigrees have not been pre-
served, especially of the last-named class. As the
herds of thoroughbred animals are being rapidly
swollen, not only by natural increase, but by yearly
or more frequent importations from abroad, and
there are at present hardly any exports of this
class of stock, it will be seen that the domestic
animals in Nova Scotia must be very rapidly
undergoing change. There are eighty agricultural
societies spread over the eighteen counties, and
every society is enjoined by the Central Board to
maintain a certain number of bulls (proportionate
to the financial ability of the society) for the
improvement of the stock in the district. In this
way it is hoped, befoi-e very many years, to effect
a complete change in the character of the live-
stock of the whole province. In rich agricultural
districts where the raising of cattle for beef is a
principal object, the Shorthorns are chiefly in
favour, and grade oxen of this breed are now
becoming common. "Where cattle are used for
working as well as for beef, the Devons are to be
preferred. In the dairy districts the preference
for Ayrshires is very decided, and is now begin-
ning to extend to Jerseys and Guernseys, pure
or grade Aryshires being found most useful
for cheese-making, whilst the admixture of
Guernsey and Jersey blood increases the propor-
tion of cream and capacity of the milk for butter-
making.
The depression of trade during the last year or
two has given an impetus to agriculture in Nova
Scotia. The country is naturally adapted for dairy-
farming. Should the spirit now evoked continue,
it may be expected that before many years the
butter and cheese produced on the rich pastures
of this cool healthy country will make their mark
in the markets of Europe and America, as the
unrivalled fruit of the extensive apple orchards has
already done.
CHArTER XXXV.
Continental Dairying,
France— Sweden— Russia Denmark— Germany— Austria— Switzerland— Italy— The Netherlands.
r^* S the nearest to us, we commence
i>^ notice of the Dairying of the
Continent with
FRANCE.
On the one hand the dairy in-
dustry of France is stimulated by
a very large home consumption of cheese
and butter, and on the other by an ex-
tensive export trade in the latter article, and a
not inconsiderable one in the former. The Nor-
mandy and Brittany butters have long been
well received in English markets, where they
have obtained a position from which they will
not easily be displaced, and they are also ex-
ported in considerable quantities to tropical cli-
mates, chiefly to Brazil and the South American
Republics. Dairy-farming is also extensively
followed in all the north-western departments
of France, in some districts very successfully,
on systems from which British farmers may
copy much that will be to their advantage.
The leading features in them are arable cultiva-
tion of the land in certain districts, minute care
and cleanliness in the manufacture of the butter,
and surpassing neatness in the methods of packing
it for the market.
Mr. n. M. Jenkins says* : — ''■ The extent of
business done by some of the French butter mer-
chants is astonishing. For instance, the firm of
Lepelletier, of Carentan, whose trade is solely with
England, send the butter over in their own vessels,
and in 1877 their exportation exceeded 4,000 tons,
and the estimated average value in France for the
ten years then ended was nearly half a million
sterling per annum. They estimated that in
1878 their trade would show an increase of 30
• Journal of tlie Royal Agricultural Society of England,
vol. XV., part i., 1879.
per cent, over its average amount in the previous
ten years.
" French butter is sent to market in a great
variety of packages, according to the requirements
of each locality. For the London market kegs
holding about 70 lbs. each, crocks holding 50 lbs.,
and boxes containing one dozen 2-lb. rolls are most
frequently seen. Extreme cleanliness and refresh-
ing neatness (amounting almost to what the French
call coquet f eric) are characteristic of all the methods,
and they are further distinguished by the free
and almost lavish use of clean linen linings. The
kegs and linen linings cost about Is. 9d. each; the
crocks, which are protected by an outside basket,
and also lined with linen, cost about 2s. each, in-
cluding everything ; and the boxes holding a dozen
rolls cost about 9d. each, including linen and ])apcr.
In the hottest weather the boxes are sometimes
double, the space between the two boxes being
filled with cotton wadding. In fact, the French
butter-merchants thoroughly realise the importance
of delivering llieir wares in an attractive condition,
entailing neither trouble nor waste upon the re-
tailer. On this point I may be allowed to quote
the remark of an English friend : — ' My cheese-
monger said to me the other day, " Look here at this
French box. I open it " (which he did) ; " here is
the butter fit to weigh out to you without an atom
of loss. Now let us break open this cask of Irish :
you see I have to scrape it all round and lose a lot,
besides the trouble. '^ ' Small tins for exportation
to the tropics add something considerable to the
price of the butter — namely, in round numbers,
UA. for 1-lb. tins, .Sid. for "2-lb. tins, and 5d. for
tins holding lib. Tluis the cost per lb. decreases
very rapidly in jiroportion to tlie augmentatioti in
the size of the tin."
The cheese-making of France, as of most other
Continental countries, is wholly different in cha-
DAIRYING IN FRANCE.
507
racter from that of England, and it is distinguished
by a much greater variety of features. While in
England scarcely any sort but hard cheese is made,
in France there is little else than soft varieties,
most of which ripen in a short time and yield a
quick return to the farmer. These soft cheeses are
small in size and pungent in flavour, generally
speaking, and are usetl less as a food and more as a
flavour than is the case with English cheese. Many
of the French kinds of cheese, varying in shape and
size, look very much like cream-cheese that is
mouldy with age, and some of them are not unlike
it in texture and flavour. Being wholly different
in all the essential points, and not less so in appear-
ance than in flavour, from English cheese, they do
not at present, save to a limited extent, appeal to
the tastes of the English people; for though con-
siderable quantities of the more famous kinds are
sent to this country, they are i-equired for the most
part for the use of foreign residents, and it is pro-
bable that they will not, for a long period, become
so generally used in this country as to encourage
the English farmers to undertake the making of
them. At the same time it must be admitted that
our national taste is undergoing more or less of
modification, so far as dairy products are concerned ;
and it is none the less true that these various
foreign cheeses could be very closely imitated in
this country by simply adopting the foreign
methods of making.
There ai'e, however, two conspicuous exceptions
in France to the general run of soft cheeses, and
these are the justly famous Gruyere and Roque-
fort. The former of these is certainly as " hard "
a kind of cheese as we usually find made in
English dairying districts, and the Roquefort is
not in any sense a soft cheese. Gruyere is usually
associated with Switzerland, but large quantities
of it are made in France ; it has a peculiar flavour
which is very acceptable to those who are used to
it, but it is less tender in texture than a ripe
English cheese. It is usually made in very large
sizes, flat, but of considerable diameter, and in
appearance it is one of the handsomest, as in
flavour it is one of the most pleasing kinds of
cheese made anywhere. Hard, like the English
cheese, yet very different in other respects, these
two kinds are better known in England than any
other of the French cheeses. The Gruyere is made
from cow's milk, and in many countries, but the
Roquefort is confined to the south of France, and
67
made from the milk of sheep and goats. We
come now to the dairy methods of the country.
Milking.
The cows are milked mostly twice, in some
cases three times per day. Wooden milking-pails
are still in use generally, though in not a few
dairies tinned pails are preferred. For transport-
ing the milk short distances, for instance, from
Fig. 305.
Milk-sieve.
the stable to the dairy, iron or wooden tubs
holding 9 to 18 gallons are carried on a pole by
two men. To prevent spilling, a wooden dish is
allowed to swim on the surface of the milk. In
the department of Bessin the milk is carried in
jugs (Fig. 30i), which are placed in wickerwork
baskets after the Dutch fashion. The milk is
passed through a sieve (Fig. 305) of wood or tin.
The first consists simply of a wooden funnel, the
aperture being stuffed with a bunch of clean straw j
but the latter, which is in use in the improved
dairies, has a fine netting of horsehair, which keeps
back effectually all impurities. Another kind of
sieve is used in the Bessin. It consists of a
wooden bowl without bottom, and is laid out with
a piece of linen. In the Calvados tin sieves (Fig.
306) are employed, laid out with linen.
Transport op Milk.
If the milk has to be taken a long way, tin
cans (Fig. 307) are used. Very
great care is taken in France
as to the treatment of milk re-
quired to stand a long transport,
and we think that the immense
consumption of Paris is not the
least reason for it. Paris con-
sumes no less than 50,000 gal-
lons a day of milk, which is
brought by rail, not counting
the considerable quantities pro-
duced in the suburbs and
around them, which are transported by cart.
Fig. 307. -Milk-can.
608
DAIRY FARMING.
making in all an estiinated 711,000 gallons per
day. As to the prices, the farmevs are gene-
rally paid 10 to 13c. (hi.
to lid.) per litre (If pints),
by the wholesale dealers,
who supply the retailers in
Paris for 20 to 22 e. (2d.),
while the consumer must
pay 25 to 30 c. (2|d. to
3d.) per litre ; some of the
leading dealers, who send
out their milk in a most
cleanly manner in sealed
cans, can command 70 c.
(7d.) jier litre, or 45 c.
(4.id.) per half-litre, de-
livered at the house. Milk
from the suburbs or the
town itself, " baby's milk,"
as it is called, is much
more expensive ; 35 c. to 1
franc (3|d. to lOd.) per
litre, or 4d. to Is. per quart. The treatment
of milk destined for the Parisian market is the
in a water-bath (Fig. 310) filled with cold
water. In the evening (."> — 7 p.m.), when the
;!0.s.— Milk PAILS.
following : — The morning's milk amives at the
depots, from whence it is sent to Paris, at 8 or
10 a.m. It is
then poured
into tin pails
(Fig. 308),
which are placed
in the water-
bath (Fig. 309),
which has been
previously
heated to the
boiling-point.
After the milk
has reached
206° Fahr. it
is cooled as rapidly as possible by jiouring it
back in the railway-cans, and putting these
:. 309.— HoT-WATEK Bath fob Milk.
evening's milk arrives, it is placed directly in cold
water and kept there to cool. Afterwards the
morning's and evening's milk are mixed in a large
iron vessel (Fig. 311), in which a .sieve (b) with a
high sideboard (h) is hung on two hooks (cc). The
milk is poured from the cans through the sieve,
and the cans (p) are filled again directly by the tap
(r) . Then the cans are packed in railway-ears (Fig.
312), and go by the night trains to Paris, where
they are immediately distributed to the retailers
by carts. In great heat, sometimes funnels (Fig.
313) are emploj'ed, filled with ice. The ends of
these funnels fit exactly in the raihvay-eans, and a
Cold-water Bath for Milk.
small tul)e (/) allows the air to escape when milk
is poured in. In the lower part of the funnel at
BUTTER IN FRANCE.
509
a — h a perforated tin disk, uud at c — d a fine metal
netting' are placed, whieli can be taken out for
cleaning.
Milk-setting.
In France the utensils for milk-setting are still
very undeveloped in shape, and often positively
i"\^. :_;il.- iliLk.-nixLNG Can.
bad. We only mention the earthenware milk-pots
of the Bretagne, &c. (Fig. 314), the Bessin (Fig.
315), and Isigny (Fig. 316). Flat dishes are also
used a great deal. For taking the cream off, shells,
tin and wooden spoons, sometimes perforated, are
employed. The newer methods of milk-setting
have as yet found few fi-iends in France.
BUTTER-JIAKING.
The most famous French butter is made in the
Bessin district of Normandy, and is known as
"»•#■#»-.
finest quality. The process is described by Mr.
II. ^I. Jenkins in the following manner: —
" In this district the cows are milked morning
and evening, and in some cases three times a
day, into jug-shaped vessels, made of copper lined
with tm, and holding about i, gallons each. The
milk is taken to the dairy, and that from
the several cows being more or less mixed
together, it is strained through a sieve lined
with clean linen into earthenware buckets.
These buckets
are placed in a
row in the milk-
house, generally
on a course or
two .of brick-
work raised
above the gene-
ral level of the
floor, and the
milk is then set
for twelve hours. The cream skimmed after
the first twelve hours is not mixed with what
is taken ofi: afterwards until immediately before
churning, and in some instances butter of ex-
ceptional delicacy for Paris is made entirely from
the twelve hours' cream. Some farmei-s let the
milk stand twenty-four hours in summer and
forty-eight in winter, and others even longer still,
but it is almost needless to add that they do not
get the best price for their butter. Nor does the
'■(■/-'■."•'^^
Fig. 314.
Fig. 315. Fig. 316.
EAUTHENWAHE JIlLK-POTS.
Fig. 312. — R.iu,\VAY JIiLK-VAN.
Isigny butter. The best dairies in this district
(Fig. 317) are built and arranged with sjjecial
regaixi to cleanliness and uniform temperature, and
no pains are spared to produce an article of the
increase in quantity which they obtain compensate
them for lack of quality.
" The cream is churned twice or three times
a week in a barrel churn. Generally the true
Norman barrel churn is used (Fig. 318). It has
fixed dash-boards, and they do not extend to the
circumference of the chum. Thus the only corners
where butter or buttermilk could lodge are very
small ones at each end of the dash-boards. The
510
DAIRY FARMING.
dash-boards are perfectly plain laths, and the ehurn
altogether is a model, of siniplieity and effective-
ness, comiiletely illustrating the truth of the con-
clusion arrived at
by the judges
of dairy appli-
ancesat Bristol —
' that numerous
and large dashers
are a mistiike/
According to the
size of the churn,
it is furnished
with one or two
large openings,
which are opened
and shut by one
of the usual con-
trivances em-
jjloyed in other
barrel churns.
There is also a
vent-peg jilaced in or near the head, and intended
to be used as a ventilator if necessary, and a
spigot placed in the bulge midway between the
two large openings of a large churn or opposite
the large opening of a small one. This spigot
plays an important part in the process of butter-
making.
" The churn is about half filled with cream, at
a temperature more frequently guessed at than
tested — of about 57"' Fahr., and the best butter-
makers do not churn at a
greater pace than from thirty
to forty revolutions per minute,
according to the season. As a
rule, the butter comes in from
twenty to thirty minutes,
and the cluuner listens most
attentively so as to detect in
an instant the slightest altera-
tion in the sound of the
churning cream. An altera-
tion being detected, or even
being thought to be detected,
the churn is at once stopped, in such a position
that the spigot is at about the level of the cream
in the ehurn. The spigot is then carefully with-
drawal, and the adherent matter minutely examined.
If this is still cream, the churning is renewed and
the sound carefully attemled to ; but if, on the
A XOKMAN DAIliV.
contrary, there are particles of butter on the
spigot, no larger even than a pin's head, the
churning proper is finished. A quarter of a tui-n
of the handle
now brings the
spigot to its
lowest (nearest
the ground), and
immediately be-
neath it is placed
a sieve over a
vessel to receive,
or over a con-
duit to carry
away, the butter-
milk. The spi-
got being then
slightly drawn
out, the butter-
milk eseajies and
filters through
the sieve, which
retains even the smallest particle of butter which
may be carried out with the buttermilk. When
most of the buttermilk has thus been withdrawn
from the churn, the small quantity of escaped
butter is replaced in it, and fresh spring water
is also put into the churn until it is half full.
Three or four turns are then given, and the
mixture of water and buttermilk is again with-
drawn as before. This process is repeated, often
seven or eight times, until the water which comes
out of the churn is as bright
and as clear as when it was
put into it.
" These various washings
and turnings completely cleanse
the butter from the butter-
milk from which it had been
separated during the process of
churning, and at the same
time they consolidate gradually
the particles which have been
individually thoroughly scoured.
At the end of the process the
butter may be seen floating as one mass in a
small lake of clear water. When removal from
the churn by means of large wooden spoons or
spatuhe, the butter requires no more working
than is sufficient to solidate it and express the
particles of clear water from its interstices. The
BUTTER IN FRANCE.
511
butter tluis made goes direct to Paris, and 1
am infoniifd on hig-h autliority that the farmer
jI'.i.- Lump ok Buttek.
liUTTiiH-JtASKET.
receives for it as much as iis. and upwards per
English pound, according to the season.
" The mere fact of such high prices being given
for first-class butter implies that there is compara-
tively little of it. In fact, it may be safely
asserted that none of it comes to England, and
that the butter which is still good enough to com-
mand higher prices than our own on the London
market is made with far less care and skill than
that just described. A careful inquiry into the
manner in which butter is made in the several dis-
tricts of Normandy has convinced me that, other
things being equal, the quality of the butter
depends upon the earlier or later period at
which the ^cashing in the churn is commenced.
This is so far recognised by some of the dairy-
farmers that they have their chm'ns fitted
with a glass window to enable the eye to see,
and thus assist the ear to hear when the butter
first begins to be formed."
The butter of Isigny is formed into conical
lumps (Fig. 319), wrapped in a piece of clean
linen, and put each into a wicker or wooden
basket lined with straw and sewed up with
some coarse linen (Fig. 320). The superior
brands of this butter go mostly to Paris, the
good and middling qualities are bought up
by dealers, assorted, salted, and exported to
England.
The butter of Gournay has also a very good
name, and fetches, after Isigny, the largest
prices in the market. The fabrication resembles
very closely the one just described. AVhen the butter
has formed into pellets of the size of a pea, the
stopper is taken from the small opening of the
barrel churn, and the buttermilk allowed to run
out through a hair-sieve to collect the small par-
ticles of butter, which will come out, though one
is careful to cover part of the hole with his fingers.
Then the stopper is put back, the butter on the
hair-sieve having been returned, and cold water is
poured into the churn. After turning a few times
the water is drained off, fresh water added, and
tliis is repeated until it runs off quite clear.
The butter de la Prevalais (Hie et Vilaine) is
also well known enough, but is an inferior produc-
tion, only made marketable by an immense amount
of labour bestowed on it, which might be much
lessened if the dairying was reformed there in
23rinciple. The cows are milked at 3 — 5 a.m., and
again at noon, but not in the evening. Special
dairies are very scarce, and mostly the milk is
kept in the kitchen. The milk is set in unglazed
earthenware pots, containing 2 to 4 gallons. Of
com'se they require a daily boiling in water and
a great deal of scrubbing to keep them clean.
With the exception of some dairies which make
sweet butter for neighbouring towns, the milk is
allowed to turn sour before churning. Whether
sweet or sour butter is made, a part of the milk is
added to the cream for churning. The churns used
are the common cylindrical or slightly conical tubs,
and their movement is sometimes made easier by
Fig. 321.
simple mechanical means (Fig. 321). When the
butter has formed into pellets, they are taken out
with a spoon and put into a flat wooden dish (Fig.
322), where they are worked by hand for a long
time, but without using any water. Indeed, this
512
DAIRY FARMING.
butter is very often overworked, and therefore not
durable but greasy.
Fiuistcre has a dairy industry rich in original
details. Considering that these are the result of
sujierstition or
ignorance, it may
be believed that
dairying in these
districts is still
at a very low
point. Wc will
only mention that unsalted butter is deemed
unhealthy, and is therefore salted immediately
after making. Also skim-milk in an unboiled
state is thought injurious to the health, and
together. In other cases the milk is not skimmed
imtil after it has turned sour, which comes to
nearly the same thing, as the souring of the milk
causes the separation of a portion of the curd from
the whey. The objects in view are to increase the
quantity of so-called butter, and to obtain a con-
stant supply of curd, which is a staple article of
food for the Breton labourers who are fed on the
farm, and indeed for people in more affluent cir-
cumstances. It need not be said that the money
return from such an attempt to do two things
together — namely, cream-rising and curd-separat-
ing— that ought to be done in succession, is not
favourable to the pockets of those who follow it ;
but the Breton is, more than any other Frenchman,
Classijication of French Cheese.
I. Fromages de consistence
moUe.
(Soft cheese.)
II. From.ages de consistence
solide ou pute ferme.
(Hard cheese.)
1. From;iges frais.
(New cheese.)
Maigres, mous k la pie.
a, la creme, double creme, Neufch&tel, Bondons.
de Rouen, Malakotf, &c.
Coulommiers, Gournay, Mont d'Or fruis.
2. Fromages affines.
(Improved cheese. ]
Maroilles, Rollot, Maquelines, , Compiegnes, Neufchatcl.
Camembert, Livarot, Pont I'EviJque, Jlignot.
Brie, Coulommier, Troytjs, Ervy, Barberey, Chaource.
St. Klorentin, OUivet, Epoisse, Laugres.
Mont d'Or, Saint Marcellin.
Senecterre, G^rardmer ou Gerome.
1. Fromages presses et sales.
(Pressed and salted cheese.)
HoUandes frangais, fromage de Bergues.
Fromage du Cantal ou d'Auvergne.
Septmoncel, Gex, Mont C^nis, Gerome sec.
Sassenage, Roquefort et fa(;on Roquefort.
!. Fromages cuits, presses et sales. ) Q^^.es fran^ais, Port du Salut, Rangiport.
(Cooked, heated, and pressed cheese.) ) •" " ■ o i
may not be brought to the market without being
boiled, wherefore it is boiled in pots until the
surface is covered by a thick skin. In this state
it is brought to the market, and the price is put
the higher the thicker the skin. Another kind
of milk is prepared by boiling whole milk -with a
little old, soured milk; it is called le gros lait.
The churning is only done once or twice a week.
The production of butter in the Finistere is very
considerable.
Some French methods of butter-making are
none of the best, and Mr. Jenkins speaks of them
in the following manner : — " In the different parts
of Brittany, butter is made by systems which
vary between that of Isigny, already described, to
the churning of a mixture of cream and curd. In
the most pronounced of the latter methods the
milk is actually curdled by artificial means, so
that to a certain extent curd and cream may rise
obstinate in his adherence to old practices, which
even time and tradition should allow to be more
honoured in the breach than the observance."
CUEESE-MAKING.
Pom-ian gives the above table of cheese made
in France.
Mi(i(/res,mous a la pie (Skim-milk, New (^heesc) .
Fig. 323.
Fig. 324.
Cheese-moulds.
— The milk is U'Et to stand until soured, when the
cream is taken off and the curd tilled into a form
of wood, iron, or earthenware (Figs. Z12>, 324-, 'i'lh),
FRENCH CHEESES.
513
and placed on a table on which the whey is col-
lected and drained off (Fig-. 3£6). From a gallon
"7 / / / / / / / ^^7Z
Fig. 32G. — CHEESE-TiVBLE.
of milk about one pomid of this cheese is made,
which is eaten fresh with a little salt added.
Fromagehlanc (White Cheese). — Tliis cheese is
made by the great milk-dealers of Paris from the
milk left unsold on their hands. The skimmed
milk is left alone for twenty-four hours to three
days, according to the season, but before it gets
thick. The milk is warmed to 77" Fahr.,and then
the rennet is added. When thick the curd is care-
fully put in successive layers into wooden forms,
consisting of a hoop, the bottom of which is
covered with wickerwork. These hoops are VI
inches in diameter, and about 2 inches high,
and are placed on little straw mats. After the
whey is drained off, the cheeses in their hoops
are put into tin receptacles made for this purpose
(Fig. 327) for transportation. In the shops these
cheeses are kept on perforated tin plates, so as to
allow the whey to run off, which is still let out by
the cheese.
Fromage a la crhne (Cream Cheese). — In Paris
cream cheese is universally liked, and almost every
Fig. 327.
visitor during the season has seen the people
carrpng in baskets the heart-shaped forms of
wickerwork containing the favourite fromage a la
crhne. Fresh curd is allowed to drain very com-
pletely, and afterwards thoroughly mixed with
cream, for which operation a small tin trowel is
used. When the mass has become a homogenous
paste, a wickerwork form (Fig. 328) is lined out
with a piece of fine linen and
filled with curd, which is pressed
down with a trowel or spoon.
In two hours the cheeses have
acquired enough firmness to
keep their shape, and they are
sold as soon as possible, to be
eaten with some fresh, sweet
cream. In the summer months large quantities of
this cheese are daily sent to Paris from the depart-
ments. There they are generally made of whole
milk.
Fromages ile NenfcJuUel frais (Fresh Neufchatel
Cheese) . — This cheese is of cylindrical shape, about
3 inches high and 2 inches in diameter. To whole
milk about half its volume in cream is added
from other milk, and it is then coagulated with
rennet. The curd is left standing until the whey
is mostly separated, and then filled in the forms,
breaking it as little as possible. It is slightly
pressed by putting a small weight on the top,
and the linen wrapped round it turned every hour.
When it has acquired the necessar}^ consistency, it
is taken out of the form, wraj)ped in thin blotting-
paper, and placed on straw, where it keeps for ten
to twelve days.
Coidommier frais (Fresh Coulommier Cheese).
— These cheeses have a diameter of 5 inches, and
are rather more than 1 inch in height. They are
made like the foregoing, some makers preferring,
however, to mix the cream with the curd when the
latter has been already put in the forms.
Fromages snisses, Bondons cle Rouen, Mala-
i'offs, and Anciois imjieriaii.r. — These are all made
in the same way, and their difference lies only in
the shapes, as may be seen, for instance, in the
Bondons {a), the Malakoffs (i), the Imperiaux (e).
Fig. 329. The most important ones of this class
are the suisses. Whole milk is warmed to about
77" Fahr., and rennet added. The curd is worked,
mixed with cream, slightly pressed, and the whey
allowed to run off. The action of the rennet must
be a slight one, so that the curd does not get too
514
DAIRY FARMING.
hard. The curd is collected into cloths and hung
uj) for the whey to drain off. Afterwards it is
j)ut between two boards or hurdles and wei<jhted to
effect this purpose still more completely. The curd
is now rolled in a cylindrical form and wrapped
in paper; larger quantities are, however, much
better made with the apparatus sliown in Fig. 330.
fc L-
Fig. 330.
While the little- wooden piston paper rolls are
arranged in the little tin cylinders, the curd is
fdled in, and the cheeses are taken out when
hardened sufficiently. When the whey is quite
drained off, the cheeses are packed in boxes con-
taining a dozen of them, and sent to the place of
consumption as rapidly as possible. These cheeses
are even made by machiner3\
Fromage de Camembert. — This cheese (Fig. 331)
is about 4 inches in diameter and 1 inch in height.
The making has a great many nice points, and is
considered difficult. The rennet is added to the
whole milk at about 78" Fahr., as soon as possible
Fig. 331.
Fig. 333.
after each milking has been poured into stone
pots (Fig. 333), containing about 15 gallons.
Great care is taken to secure a imiform texture
of the curd by employing the rennet with all
possible precaution. The vases are then covered
up and left standing for four to six hours, when
the whey must have separated from the curd. The
tin forms are then placed on mats of bamboo
splints; the first (Fig. 333) are 12 cm. high and
of the same diameter. With a spoon the curd
is fdled into the forms in such a way that they are
full with four spoonfuls each. In summer the
curd lets off more whej^ in the form than in winter,
and sometimes they have to be filled up with curd
from the next cheese-making. After some time
the forms are turned, and at the same time the top
of the cheese is salted. The next morning the
cheeses are taken out of the forms, rublied all
around and on the lower side ^\•ith salt, and placed
on boards, where they remain for one or two days.
In some districts, instead of the stone jugs,
smaller earthenware pots are used, which are
wheeled on a kind
of rolling chair
(Fig. 334) to the
form tables.
When the salt-
ing has been done
as above mentioned,
the cheeses are re-
moved to the
sechoir or Jialoir
(drying-room), and
put on shelves
which have been
covered with straw.
This room must
have exclusive ar-
rangements fiir ven-
tilation. The cheeses stay here twenty to twenty-
five days, and are at first turned every day, later
on every second day. !Monld apjicars on the third
day, with brown Wwy dots, which grow in about
eight or ten days into a rank white vegetation. The
cheese becomes a dark yellow in colour. ^Vhen the
cheeses have arrived at a certain state of softness,
\\hich can only be ascertained by experience, they
are taken into the cave de perfection, or cellar. This
cellar must be kept somewhat damp and of a very
even temperature; no draughts are allowed. Here
the cheeses remain twenty or
thirty days, and are turned
every day or second day.
The treatment at this stage
is a very complicated and
difficult one, and on it de-
pends the success of the dairy.
Fromage de Livarof. — In
the Calvados, where this cheese is made, the milk
is set in earthenware conical dishes (Fig. 335),
and the cream taken off after twenty-four hours.
Fig. 334.
Fig. 335.
FRENCH CHEESES.
515
The milk is llion slowly lienfcd nntil a very
line skin forms at the surfaeo, wliich is taken
away and tlie rennet added. The forms are tlie
same as Tised for the Camemherts, but larger
(15 cm. diameter) and ])erf orated. They are
made very like the Camcmberts, only the curd
is thoroughly cut up before boing^ filled in the
formsj and the cheeses are wetted with water when
being turned in the sccliorr, or with salt water,
should they have not yet enough salt. After
having been eight or ten days in the cave, their
top and lower sides are bound up with horse-tongue
leaves {Ti/pha calij'ol'ui) in order to keep the cheeses
in shape. They remain altogether three or four
months in the " cave/' and are coloured before
the sale. This cheese is generally made in July,
August, and September, and in some cases it is
made from new milk with cream added, like the
Neufehatcl or the Stilton.
Fromnge de Punt I'Evcqne. — This cheese was
made as long ago as the thirteenth century. Several
different kinds are made : — First qualiiy are called
fie commando, or delait donx; they are maxle cither
with milk fresh from the cow, or even mixed with
the cream of the last milking. Second qnalit//. — ■
With the fresh morning's milk the two last milk-
ings from the day before (noon and evening) are
mixed after the cream has been taken off. Third
quality. — The skimmed milk is used from the three
milkings of the day before.
The first quality is made in tbe follo«ang
way : — The milk is put on the fire until a little
more than tepid, and then the rennet is added.
The action of the rennet ought to be completed in
about a quarter of an hour, and then the curd is
cut up with a wooden sword, and pressed with a
dish to make the whey separate. For ten minutes
the curd is covered, and then heaped on mats of
bamboo splints and left there to drain, after which
it is filled into the square forms made of wood.
In the first twenty minutes the forms are turned
seven or eight times, and then taken to another
table, where they ai"e turned as often again during
the rest of the day. After forty-eight hours the
cheeses are taken out of the forms, salted with dry,
fine salt, and salting on one side in the morning,
on the other in the evening, is continued until the
cheeses are sufficiently salted. They are afterwards
placed on drying hurdles covered with rye-straw,
and left to dry in an airy place for two or three
days, during which time they are turned once a
68
d;iy. Now they are broiiglit to the cellar and
packed tightly against each other in lx)xes. The
treatment the cheeses receive in the cellar is the
following: — They are turned every second day for
two weeks to four months, those containing much
cream taking the least time for curing. Genei-ally
about one-twentieth part of boiling water is jjoured
into the milk just before adding the rennet, as the
people believe this to make the cheese soft. Of
course this is not correct, and can only tend to
spoil the quality.
Fromarje de NenfcIi(i(cL — We have already
described the making of Neufchatels for consump-
tion in their fresh state ; but the making of cured
Neufehatels is also a considerable industry. Fresh
milk is brought to a room wliieii ought to be kept
at a uniform temperature of 59'^ Fahr., and poured
into pots containing about 4 gallons each, when
rennet is added, and the pots covered up with some
woollen stuif to keep them warm. Twenty-four
hours after the addition of the rennet the curd
and whey are poured into a wicker basket or per-
forated wooden dish lined with a piece of linen,
and left there twelve hours to drain. Now the
curd is wrapped in the linen on which it lies, put
into a perforated wooden box, and pressed by put-
ting weights on the top. After again twelve hours
have elapsed it is worked into a stiff paste with
the hands. This curd is filled into little tin cylin-
ders of 2J inches in diameter and 3 inches in
height, smoothed on both sides and taken out
again. Then it is salted on both ends by strewing
some fine salt on them, and afterwards treating
the sides in the same way by i-oUing them lightly
between the hands, which are covered with salt.
The cheeses are left to drain for twenty- four hours,
and are placed afterwai'ds in another room on dry
straw on shelves, so that they do not touch each
other. During the next two or three weeks they
are turned often enough so as not to lose in shape
and stick to the straw. At the end of this time
they are covered by a blue mould, and then they
are taken into another room, where they are put
on straw as before, but on their ends, and turned
from time to time. Another three weeks elapse,
when red spots begin to be visible on the cheeses.
In this condition they are marketable, but not
entirely cured until two weeks more. In this
state they can be kept about two months.
Fromage de Brie. — This well-known cheese
rejiresents a great French industry. It is made in
516
DAIRY FARMING.
several (li'iiardnciils, l)iit, in tlic ^■rcatcsl tccluiical tiiii. in dianictcr. Those forms (Fifj. .337) are fin
perfection in tlie clej)artments de la Meuse et hoops (l), resting' on a small mat of rushes (b)
Marne. We give the description of the dairy placed on a table (a). The hoops are filled by
Maison-du-Val near Revit;ny (Meuse), as de- carefully cuttinp: slices from the curd with a per-
scribcd by Professor Ponrian : — forated tin spoon (Fig. 3.'5s). After some time
The milk is collected in vans, on which tin the hoous are changed for others which are less
Fi'', 3oG. — MiLK-HEATiNc; Apparatus.
cans of 2 to 4 gallons capacity are placed. The
milk is strained and then poured into large
copper receptacles, where it is heated by steam,
the receptacles having double bottoms (Fig. 33G).
AVhen the wished-for temperature has been arrived
at, the receptacles are ojicned and the milk runs
in a kind of
gutter into the
cheese - making
room, where it
is received in
buckets and
poured into re-
ceptacles, where
the rennet is added. In about two hours and
a half some cream has risen, which is taken off,
as it would be detrimental to the uniformity
of texture in the cheese. This represents only
about 3 lbs. of butter per 100 gallons of milk.
About fifteen minutes or half an hour after-
wards, when the whey appears sufficiently clear
above the cm-d, the latter is jait into forms which
are made of three sizes — viz., Kiln., l;2in., and
Fisj. 3.37.
high, and can be made smaller or lai'ger .as con-
venient (Fig. 339). The next morning early the
cheeses are taken into another room, and after
leaving them for a few hours to settle, the hoops
are opened and the fop as well as the rim of each
cheese is salted and the hooji put on again, changing
the mats for dry
ones at the same
time. After six
hours the cheeses
are covered with
small straw mats
and turned, and
after an hour the
hoops are opened and the lower side salted. The
cheeses are now put on fresh straw mats and placed
for two days on shelves, salting and turning them
each day. The making of the cheese until this point
can be seen very well from the annexed engraving
(Fig. 340). After the second day the cheeses are
taken to the drying-room, where they are turned
every other day, giving them a fresh mat every
time. The cheeses get covered now with a coating
FRENCH CHEESES.
517
of wliito iiinuld, wliic'Ii turns into lilue <;'radualh',
:iud after a \vook tlu'y may he taken into the cellar,
which is arrang'cd for extensive ventilation. Everv
second day the cheeses which lie on shelves are
turned, and from time to time fresh mats are ofiven.
The blue mould turns first yellow, then red, and in
about two weeks the curing is eomjileted. The cellar
ought to be kept at a temperature of 5^3'^ — o?"^ Fahr.
Fromage ila Coulommiers. — This cheese is, in
fact, a " Brie," but of smaller shape. It is only
6 inches in diameter, and is made and treated in
exactly the same way, ripening, however, in a few
days less than " Brie."
Frumanu de Mont d'Or. — The milk is brouy-hi
conveyed to the drying-room, where thev arc laid
without hoops on shelves covered with straw. This
drying-room must be well ventilated. On the
shelves the cheeses arc turned every two or three
hours, and moistened each
time with a solution of
salt. The curing lasts six
to eight days iu summer,
and about twice as long
iu winter.
Frowiif/e de Gi'mme a
pale molle (Soft Geroine Cheese;. — This cheese
(Fig. 3-i^) is identical with the German
" Schachtel Kase " (box cheese) described later on.
W^-
I'ii
to the dairy twice a day, and is immediately put in
earthenware vases containing already some rennet,
and after the coagidation is complete the curd is
put with a spoon into the tin hoops (Fig. 34-1),
which are placed on larger
wooden hoops which are covered
with a matting of rye-straw. The
hoops have two sizes, the diameter
is in both 5 inches, but the height
3 to 4 inches in one case and
1 inch in the other. The forms are placed in
rows on inclined shelves, and the whey allowed
to nin off. After two or three hours the cheeses
are turned, and this is repeated during the next
twelve hours, when the smaller hoops are substi-
tuted, and after another twelve hours they are
Fromage Roqiieforf. — This celebrated cheese is
made from sheep's milk. The plateau of Larznc,
which is the home of this industry, has a
diameter of about 16 to iO English miles, and its
height above the sea is about 900 metres. The
top is almost denuded of vegetation, wdiile the
mountain-sides are covered with a thin but good
grass. On this pasture the sheep used to be solely
fed, but the increased demand for Roquefort cheese
has already, since the beginning of this century,
occasioned the cultivation of crops of luccnie, sain-
foin, clover, and artificial grasses. Since that time
the milking qualities of the sheep have been im-
proved. In 1785 about 150,000 sheep were kept
in this district, 50,000 of which were in milk ; to-
day the first number has risen to 050,000 head.
518
DAIRY FARMING.
and the fubrifutioii of llomifrdi't cheese, once
limited to the phiteau ol' Lar/ue, h;is sjiread I'roin
that centre very considerably.
The sheep are milked eveniiifr and niornini;,
seven persons beinjjf necessary for milkinj^- iOi)
head. The foam of the evening's milk is first
skimmed off, and the milk left staiulino; for three-
quarters of an hour, when it is strained throui>-li a
piece of linen and poured into a kettle made of
copper and tinned on the inside. Here it is
heated up to a certain point (not boiled, however),
which varies very much according to the different
weather, &c., and which is one of the nice points
of the i)rocess. The hot milk is distributed in
gla/.eil eartlienware pots, and the er(!am taken nlf
next morning. The morning's milk is poured info
the ketfle, the eveiiiug's milk added, and bofli
wanned a little, when the rennet is mixed with the
contents. As soon as coagulation is complete, the
curd is cut up in all directions with a wooden
knife, and the whey which separates is taken off
immediately during this operation. The curd is
then lightly squeezed with a dish to extract still
more of the whey, until no more ap])ears, and then
it is worked with the hands. The forms, made of
glazed earthenware, are Hat, perforated cylinders
with bottoms, and about 8 inches in diameter.
The height of the forms is i inches. Three layers
of curd are put in each form, and between the
first and second and the second and third finely-
ground pain moisi, (moulded bread) is strewed.
The last layer is shajied dome-like, so as to reach
about ;3 inches above the rim of the form. By
putting several forms on the top of each other the
cheeses are pressed, and the dome serves to fill the
forms exactly. The next two or three days the
fdled forms pass into large wooden boxes, being
turned twice a day. These boxes are kept warm
and damp by placing repeatedly in them vases
filled with hot water. Afterwards the cheeses are
brought for two or three days into the drying-
room, which lies towards the north and is well
ventilated, where they are laid on shelves sjiread
with dry cloths and turned twice a day.
The pain moisi spoken of above is prepared
with great care, as the quality of the cheese partly
depends on it. A paste is made of equal parts
of wheat, summer barley, and winter barley ; a
good deal of very strong leaven and some vinegar
are added. This mass is kneaded very thoroughly
and baked rather long. Tho luavcs arc kept in
a warm i)lace until mould has (piile la'. en liol]
of them ; the crust is then takin oil', and the rest
ground in a hand-mill and sifted.
The cheeses are mostly taken at night to
the caves to obviate their being exposed to heat.
These caves are formed by nature in the above-
mentioned mountain, and their temperature is
maintained at^y^ to iC^ Fahr.,and their humidity
at about GU ])er cent., by the water appearing in
them and the draughts created by the many
fissures and holes in the rocks. The word
" cave " comprises in this case not only the cave
itself, but also a room where the cheeses are re-
ceived from the dairy and the salting-room, both
the latter being built above the cave.
The cheeses received from the dairy are put on
the straw-covered floor of the room designed for
this purpose and left there twelve hours. Then
they are taken to the salting-room, and on each
a handful of salt is spread on one side, three
cheese being laid on each other. vVfter twenty-
four hours the pile is turned, and the other sides
salted. After forty-eight hours they are rubbed
strongly with a coarse towel all over, and piled
up again. In this state they remain lor two days,
when they are taken back into the receiving-room
for the raclaye. With a knife the glutinous
coating of the cheese is scraped off, and also
another whitish coating immediately beneath the
first. After this has been done the loaves are
taken back into the cave, where they are ke]]t in
piles of three for eight days. Then they are put
on their rims (Fig. 3 IS), but in such a way that
they do not touch each other. They get a
yellowish or reddish skin in the cave. Exterior
white mould must be scraped off" when it appears ;
this is the case every week or two. After thirty
or forty days they are cured, and may be sold.
They keep for several months afterwards.
Modes of Datuy Fauming.
As we have before stated, French dairying is
in some districts carried out to a great extent in
connection with arable farming and the growth
of green crops, amongst which lucerne holds a
foremost position. Mr. H. AI. Jenkins tells ns
that "in the two westernmost departments of
Normandy — the celebrated dairy departments of
La Manche and Calvados — much less than one-
fourth of the whole cultivated land is in permanent
grass of all qualities; in the Lower Seine and the
FRENCH CHEESES.
519
Onie, lietu'OL'ii ono-lil'tli ami ono-sixtli, and in tho
Eui-e scarcely more than onc-tcutli. lu Brittany
the permanent grass is even less extensive.
" In Cornwall," by way of contrast, "one-third
of the whole cultivated area is in permanent grass,
in Devonshire the proportion is considerably more,
and in Dorsetshire amounts to one-half. In
Somersetshire two-thirds of the agricultural land
is in permanent grass, but in Wiltshire nut much
more than one-fourth.
"In the treatment of dairy-cows the farmers
of each district jjursue the same method; but there
priiportion of the lucerne are always reserved
fur hay.
" An intermediate practice is to be found in
some districts, where lucerne is pastured during
the summer by dairy-cows, which are tethered
or folded. In the latter case the cows are placed
at night in a small fold near the homestead, and
not unfretpiently the hind sleeps in a movable hut
placed close to the fold."
It is a commonly accepted fact that in Eng-
land the extensive employment of green crops
and artificial grasses, whether in soiling or
Fig. 343.— FiNisHiXG Eoqiefokt Cheese.
is the greatest possible contrast between the prac-
tices of the grass-laud and the arable dairy districts.
In the best district for Camembert cheese (Pays
d'Auge) and in the butter district of Isigny (le
Bessin) the cows are always kept on the pastures,
except for a short time before and after calving.
On the other hand, in the arable regions of Eastern
Brittany and in the neighbourhood of Paris, cows
are kept in the sheds all the year round, except
for a short time in the moruing and afternoon
in summer. Again, the food is nearly always
the natural jiroduce of the soil, the substances
generally known as ' artificial ' foods being seldom
used in France for dairy-cattle. Bran, however,
is largely used in the aral)le districts, where,
also, the whole of the natural grass and a large
grazing, however well it may be adapted to the
production of a maximum quantity of milk, is
more or less inimical to the production of sound
cheese, though it is not so to the production of
a large quantity. But in France the case is
different, and the soft cheeses of that country
are none the worse for being produced almost
wholly away from permanent pastures. With
butter the same difliculty is not to the same ex-
tent experienced, though it is also true that there
is somewhat less trouble with it when it is made
from milk that is produced from old pasture land.
In soiling cattle with green crops the difficulty is
lessened by letting the green food become " wilted"
a little between the cutting and the feeding;
that is, alluwin<>- it to be sun-dried for a short
520
DAIRY i'ARMING.
time, and not feoJing' it to the cows immediately
it is eut.
SWEDEN.
Sweden, with its mouutainous country and cold
climate, wliioli affords but a limited area to the
successful raisinnf of cereals, has for a long time
devoted much attention to dairying, but fifteen or
twenty years ago its products were not so famed in
the market as they are now. Sweden has made
an immense step in the advancement of dairying
during that period. About the year 1818, however,
Major Gussander invented a new method of milk-
sotting in very shallow tin pans, which became
popular throughout the country, while until then
won, 1(11 milk-dishes had been almost exclusively
in use. This method is still in use in many
l)laees, not only in Sweden, but also in some parts
of Germany ; but as it is now almost entirely
supplanted by the Swartz method, we need not
describe it. The Swartz system itself has been
fully described and illustrated in the ch;iptcr on
butter-making (see p. 2'Ji).
In Sweden and Norway there are many
factories which make butter, and either sell their
skimmed milk, or make skim-milk cheese. Whole-
milk cheese is rarely made. Amongst the Swedish
dairy products there is one that is totally unknown
in England, and a short description of it may be
interesting : — -
Long-m'ilk [Threail-milk ; Swed. Fil,n-l\[fil!c).
— This preparation is made in the whole of Sweden,
and is a favourite dish with the people. It seems
externally not to differ from oitlinary milk ; it has
quite the colour of it, but it is so slimy that it
may be pulled out in long threads or ribands, and
it is just possible to wind the contents of a small
tub on a stick. It has also the valuable quality
of keeping for weeks and even months sweet
and eatable. This very cemarkable substance, the
nature of which is yet unexplained, is produced by
feeding to cows some dried or fresh Flngulcida
vidijaris (butter-wort), a small plant found in early
spring almost everywhere on hillsides, swamps,
and wet meadows ; or it will do as well to put a
few handfuls of the plant in a pail with fresh milk,
which after a few days will have thickened and be-
come " long-milk." When this is once obtained it
can be propagated like yeast by jiouring about 4
inches deep of long-milk into a milk-pail and fdl-
ing up with fresh milk ; in two or three days the
whole will have become long-milk. Strange to
say, the Piiiguicula vuhjtrls seems not to have
this i^roperty everywhere, for the writer has tried
the experiment repeatedly with the plant from the
Alps and from the plains below, and alwa^'s un-
successfully.
Mjsost. — This is a kind of whey-cheese of
sweet taste, which consists of a little fat and
casein, the albumen, sugar, and salts of the milk.
It is made in the following way : — Directly after
the cheese has been taken out of the kettle, the
whey is heated to the boiling-point as rapidly as
possible, but not stirred, and the whey-C vam taken
off as soon as it rises to the surface. After this
the Hald is stirred with a wooden, lon.i^-handled
spatula until two-thirds are evaporated. To
accelerate this, the whey is sometimes continually
dipped out and poured back again from a height
of about 2 feet with large wooden spoons. Then
the whey-eream is added again, and if a superior
quality of mysost is wanted, some cream or butter-
milk is likewise added. The stirring is continued
until the bubbles which rise form a foam on the
surface, but from the moment when bubbles appear
the fire must be lessened. In four or five hours
the whey is turned into a kind of paste, which is
poured into a wooden dish and there pounded with
a wooden instrument until it is quite fine, after
which it is filled into smiU square wooden forms,
where it remains one or two days, and it is then
sold for immediate consumption, as it does not
keep lung.
RUSSIA.
Russia has no less than thirty millions of
cattle on her vast domains in Europe, but how
great the augmentation of this large number might
still become is shown by the fact that she has only
300 head per square (geographical) mile, while
England has no less than 1,300. The Russian
cattle are composed of many breeds, the most im-
portant of which are the following : —
I. The Jlolmogorij breed derives its origin
from Dutch cattle, which were brought into the
province l)y the command of Peter the Great. It
still resembles the Dutch cattle very closely in
appearance and qualities, but it is thoroughly
acclimatised and has grown much less fastidious as
to quality and kind of food. Cows of this breed
give on an average no less than 600 gallons of
milk per year. The breed has been crossed with
many of the indigenous breeds, and in this way
DAIRYING IN RUSSIA.
521
several suh-broods have boon producod \vlioi50 bovc-
ditary qualities are now fixed.
2. Tbe Taroslmo breed are (if modium size,
but give a good quantity of luilk, wbieb is rieber
tban tbat of tbe Iloimogory cows. Tbey yield
about 500 gallons per year.
3. Tbe common liitssian breed, distributed fiver
all districts of the country, is very different in
its qualities, according to tbe locality in wbieb it
is found. On tbe wbole it may be said tbat tbis
breed bas neitber milking nor fattening qualities
wortb speaking of, but proof bas been given that
with careful selection and feeding a wonderful
development may be attained.
4. The Ul-raine breed is esteemed jirineipally
for working purposes, as the yield of milk is not
great.
5. The Komolaya breed, which is hornless,
gives about 260 gallons of good rich milk per
annum.
Russia has imported many animals of renowned
breeds ; the Shorthorn, Dutch, Friesland, Angeln,
Breitenburg, Algiiu, Simmenthal, and others are
represented, and herds of them are kept at the
expense of the government, on the farms affiliated
to the different agricultural colleges and schools.
The export of cheese has been greatly reduced
of late years, and the Russians explain tbe falling
off by saying tbat the consumption has largely
increased amongst the lower classes, with whom
cheese was formerly considered a luxury. The
lack of persons who know how to make marketable
products is the principal reason why tbe dairy
industry has made only slow progress in Russia.
Government bas made and is making praiseworthy
efforts to overcome this difficulty, and dairy-
schools for men and women have been estab-
lished in different provinces.
For butter-making tbe milk is set generally
in wooden or earthenware vessels, but of late
Swartz's method of deep-setting and cooling has
been adopted on many farms. IMany different
kinds of chums are in use, but the old high coni-
cal churn, in which is a rod with a perforated
board attached to its end, is still very common.
The methods of making a few of tbe more specially
Russian dairy products are as follows : — -
Paris Butter. — Tbe kind of butter which is sold
imder this name at St. Petersburg, at high quota-
tions, is generally called Petersburg butter on
the Continent. Perfectly sweet creani^ which bas
been allowed to rise in about twelve Imurs, is
skimmed from its milk and poured into a tin vessel,
wliicb is steeped in boiling water until the cream
bas assumed a temperature of 158" to 103" Fahr.,
but extremes of 1-iO" and 190" are sometimes
used. The cream is slowly stirred all the time to
acquire xiniform beat, and then directly cooled to
53" to 57" Fahr., whereupon it is churned. Of
course the cream must be quite sweet to stand
tbe beating, otherwise it would coagulate. The
churning of such cream is easy, and it ought not
to be agitated too strongly. The taste of the
butter is very sweet and delicate, and has a peculiar
flavour which is much appreciated by tbe gour-
mands of tbe capital.
Tworog. — Milk is allowed to stand until sour,
then it is skimmed and poured into a pot, wbieb
is j)laced on a warm stove. After twenty-four hours
tbe curd is poured on a sieve, where it is allowed
to remain until all the whey is drained off. The
curd is afterwards put into wooden forms, which
are closed by a well-fitting cover which is pressed
down by weights. To keep the tworog fresh
some water is poured on the cover. Tworog is
eaten in large quantities by the rural population,
and also employed to bake a kind of bread, tbe
Wotruschki. Also sheep's milk is employed to
make tworog, especially in Bessarabia, where flat
loaves of salted tworog are made in two sizes ; the
smaller are called Brinsa, tbe larger (2| — 5 lbs.)
Katcbkawal.
Koumiss. — This, the favourite alcoholic drink
of tbe nomadic tribes in South-eastern Russia, is
made from mares' milk. Tbe excellent effect
it bas on weak constitutions, and on persons
brought Aovra very low by disease and exposure,
was known long ago to the nomads; but it is
only during the last thirty years that the medical
faculty bas made any use of it. Up to this day
its effects are not closely studied, but it may be
stated that it is a rich food, easily assimilated,
and of very beneficial effect on tbe energy of the
physiological processes in the human bodv.
Tbe iH-ejiaration of koumiss is simple. Some
old koumiss is poured into a vessel, and fresh
milk is added. The whole is stirred violently for
fifteen minutes, and then again for a few minutes
every few hours. The next morning some more
milk is added, and the same treatment is pursued
during the day. In the evening the koumiss
may be passed through a sieve (to bold back tbe
DAIRY FARMING.
casein) and filled into liottles. Some of it is,
however, reserved to be used as ferment for a
new leaven. In three days after bottling the
koumiss may be used, but it may be readily kept
another fortnight and even longer, growing stronger
all the while. The bottles must be strong and the
stoppers secured, otherwise the bottles will burst
and the stoppers be driven out by the force of the
carbonic acid which is developed. The tempera-
ture of the room in which koumiss is made ought
not to be below 60° Fahr.
DENMARK.
Dairying is in a state very near to perfection
in Denmark, the chief incentive being the great
facility for exportation which the country pos-
sesses. An excellent breed of dairy-cattle, the
Angler, has also contributed in no small measure to
the success of Danish dairying ; this breed came
from Schleswig-Holstein, and is now to be found
everywhere in Denmark. The exf)ort of butter to
England has been going on for a long time, and of
such excellent quality is it, that it is commonly sold to
the consumers under celebrated French names, as if
it were made in France ; but the principal cause of
the rapid development which has made the Danish
daily interest what it is now, is the export of
butter to hot countries. Year after year since
1870, when this industry began to grow in im-
portance, it has extended, and still there is no limit
to the quantity which the tropics absorb. The
Danes have notably develojied their butter industry
wonderfully, but they have also improved their
cheese-making very much, and have created another
export article — skini-milk cheese. These different
dairy products are made in the following man-
ner : —
Butter for Exportation. — The method on which
this is made is not alone applicable to export butter,
but it is certainly the best method of obtaining
a perfectly sweet, durable article of first quality
for any purpose whatever. Milk from sick cows,
diseased milk, colustrum for eight to twelve da\-s
after parturition is condemned; it may not be used for
butter-making. The first condition is the setting of
the milk at a low temperature, after S wartz's method .
The cream is taken off after twelve hours, never
later. The morning^s milk is skimmed in the
evening and put in a tin can, which is placed in
the water-bath to keep cold until the morning,
when it is mixed with the cream from the eveninji''s
milk and churned. The cream must be churned
every day, and if there should not be enough of it
to fill the churn sufficiently the missing quantity
may be supplied by sweet milk. In winter the tin
can with the cream is placed in warm — not hot —
water, and stirred until it has acquired a tempera-
ture of 52'^ Fahr. Now the cream is poured into
the churn, which in the winter is previously rinsed
with hot water, the colour is added, and the
churning begins. The cream ought to be 52^
Fahr. before churning, and 59" after it, and the
time occupied about forty minutes. The butter
must not be brought in contact with water, and
the rinsing of the sides of the churn, which is
done to obtain the small particles of butter at-
tached to them, may only be done with skim-milk.
The churns most generally in use in Denmark are
called the Holsteiu or Danish churns, of which an
illustration is given in Fig. 181, page 315. They
are very convenient and efficient. The churning
is stopped when the butter has been formed in
little pieces of the size of a jiea, which are collected
by the aid of a hair-sieve. Immediately afterwards
the butter is taken to the butter-trough and
kneaded there by pressing pieces of about 2 lbs.
with crossed hands against the sides of the wooden
trough (Fig. 34'4), turning them over and pressing
again four or five
times. Now the
butter is weighed,
and the pieces
piled on the top of'
each other, with
about 3 per cent,
of salt strewed
between the layers.
To impregnate the
butter evenly with the salt, pieces of about 3 lbs.
are taken from the pile, by cutting them off so
as to cut through all the layers, and with crossed
hands are kneaded ten or twelve times (Fig. 315) .
Now the butter is left alone for some time to
assume the necessary firmness. If it lies too long
in winter it gets hard and crumbling, but if the
right moment is hit, the butter will be just right
after the fluted roller of the butter-kneading board
(Fig. 3-10) has passed over it ten or twelve
times.
In summer the butter requires application of
cold before it is kneaded on the boaixl, and it is
therefore formed in elongated pieces of about
DAIRYING IN DENMARK.
523
2 lbs. each and put crossways (Fig. Sll) in a tin
can {Fig. 3-i8), in the bottom of which a piece of
board has lieen placed, and flat pieces of wood
loosely arranged
all round, so that
the butter can-
not come in con-
tact with the tin
(Fig. 31.9). This
can is placed for
a few hours in
cold water. Im-
mediately after
the butter leaves the kneading-board it must
be packed in the wooden casks in which it is sent
to the market.
PacJcing Bidier for TS.rportation to Hot Cli-
mates.— As before mentioned, this is one of the
principal features of the Danish trade in dairy
produce. The butter arrives in barrels at the
packing-house every day from the farms. In sum-
mer the barrels have an envelope of strong packing-
cloth stuffed with straw to protect them from the
heat. They are ojiened and classed by an expert,
then the butter is cut iu pieces and well mixed
again and re-salted on large rotary kneading
machines (see Fig. 180, p. 313). By the aid of
machinery the round tin boxes, which must be
perfectly air-tight, are filled -wath butter, whose
surface is scraped and polished with a wooden
Fig. 346. — Butter-kneading Board.
spatula. The lids of the boxes are then soldered
on, and afterwards painted and supplied with a
label. The house of Busk & Co. alone exports no
less than 2,500,000 lbs. of butter jier year, packed
in 1 lb., 2 Ib.j 4 lb., 8 lb. and larger tins.
69
Export Cheese.— IXxa skimmed milk is heated
to 90" Fahr., and 1.5 per cent, of quite fresh
buttermilk added. Tiie buttermilk must not be
heated along with the skimmed milk, otherwise
the cheese becomes bitter. Colour and rennet are
now added, the wooden tub into which the milk
Fig. 347.
Butter in Can,
Fig 34',P.
Bl'TTEli IN C'.UI.
has been poured from the kettle in which it has
been heated is covered np, and the curd cut very
slowly after twenty-five minutes, when the coagula-
tion should be perfect. With the " lyra," an instru-
ment consisting of a wooden frame spanned with
brass wire, this cutting up is done first in one
direction and afterwards in the other. For ten
minutes this is continued, and then half of the
whey is drained off. Now the movement of the
lyTa is accelerated to get the curd broken up into
pieces of equal size. When this is done the curd
is allowed to settle a few minutes, and then the
whey is drained off as much as possible. Now
enough of the curd is taken to fill one of the
roimd wooden forms (Fig. 350) which are in use,
and thoroughly kneaded
for a few minutes in it.
After this the curd is
pressed with the palms of
the hands, so that the
whey which has collected
can be poured off (Fig.
351), and the form will then only be half full.
The upper layer is now loosened again with the
fingers (Fig. 352), and more curd is added and
kneaded until the form is nearly full. A
cover is then put on the form and weighted
with about 20 lbs., and the cheese frequently
turned. After twelve hours it is laid in strong
brine, where it remains three days and nights,
being turned twice a day, and a handful of salt
strewed on the upper side of the loaf. It is then
350.— C'HEE-iE
OR "YaT."
' Form,"
524
DAIRY FARMING.
taken outj dipped in water, dried and wiped with
a towel, and taken into the ceDar, which is kept
dai'k and q-uarded against draught. A temperature
of 59'' Fahr. is desirable. In the first five weeks
the cheeses are daily turned and wiped with a
towel ; later on they are brushed a few times in
the week with a soft brush, and also turned
once a day. By this treatment the cheeses
ripen in a very short time, are mellow, and of
good flavour, and the rind is thin, dry, and
elastic, occasioning no loss, as there is no need
of scraping it.
Skim-milk Cheese. — Another kind of skim-milk
cheese of very superior quality is made in the fol-
lowing way : — The milk is heated to 93* Fahr.,
and the buttermilk added when the milk has
reached S 6 '' Fahr.j
then clear but
soured whey is
added (20 per
cent.), the whole
stirred for five
minutes, and when
it has reached 93"
Fahr. rennet and
colour are em-
})loyed. In thhty-
five minutes the
mixture ought to
be coagulated,
when it is cut up
slowly, and care-
fully stirred for
fifteen minutes. The eurd is then allowed to
rest for three minutes, the whey drained mostly
off, and the stirring continued for five minutes.
Now the course of work alternates in the
following way : — Rest seven minutes, stirring
five minutes ; rest fifteen minutes, stirring
five minutes; rest twenty minutes, stirring five
minutes ; rest thirty - five to forty minutes.
During the last two stiiTings the curd is heated
to 91° Fahr. by adding hot whey. Now
the whey is drained all off, the curd put on
a ]>erforated table, gently kneaded with the
hands and filled into the forms. The cheese
is turned in the form several times during
the next four or five hours. The next morn-
ing it is put in brine for three days, and
tuvnwl three times a day, while fresh salt is
strewed on it.
Fig. 351.
POUBING OFF THE WhET.
GERMANY.
SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN.
The largest part of this province is under a
peculiar system of cropping : fallow, three to four
winter or summer grain-crops, pasture. The fields
are enclosed by a mound on which a hedge is
grown. This arrangement is of course very favour-
able to cattle-grazing, and it must be remembered
that in Germany fields are generally not enclosed.
All over the province the cows are grazed
during the summer, mostly on ground laid do^vn
with grass and clover. In the "Marsch'" the
pastures are used to fatten cattle which are sent
to England. In some places the cattle are tethered.
The grazing lasts from the 15th of May to the
1st of November.
In the winter the
feeding is done
\\ith oats and
barley, straw, hay,
and all kinds of
artificial food. The
heifers are timed
to have their first
calf when they
are two and a half
years old. The
cows ai-e milked
twice, rarely three
times per day,
and on the aver-
age 410 to 480
gallons of milk may be counted upon j^er head,
and year, some cows giving as much as 1,000
gallons.
The milk is made into cheese and butter. The
latter is well and favourably known in the market,
and great efforts have been made to reach again
the first rank, which Sweden and Denmark have
now occupied for some time. Especially the larger
estates and farms have taken the lead in this
effort. The dairy is generally superintended by a
married coujile. The husband (Ilaushiilter) over-
looks the feeding, milking, and treatment of the
cows, and the wife (Meierin) makes butter and
cheese alone, or in larger dairies with her help-
mates, the dairymaids or apprentices, of whom
some are generally found at the better dairies, as
all the daughters of peasants and farmers learn
dairy-work. Two dairy-schools are erected for the
Fig. 352.
Loosening and Kneading.
DAIRYING IN GERMANY.
purpose of tlicoretico-practical instruction, and a
consulting chemist on dairy matters, who is at
the same time director of the Dairy Experimental
Station at Kiel, furthers the scientific development
of this branch of agriculture. In those parts of
the country where small farms are prevalent,
associations have been formed, and generally one
of the comjjany builds and works the dairy, while
the surrounding farmers undertake by contract to
furnish the milk for ten years at a price which is
in a certain proportion to the price of butter at
Hambiu'g.
Butter. — Butter is made almost without excep-
tion from soured cream. But the degree of acidity
is attended to with great care, and the cream there-
fore watched attentively. After skimming, the
cream is heated to 100° to 120* Fahr., poured
into a wooden tub which stands in the milk-room,
remains about twenty-four hours there, and is
frequently stirred with a stick. When the cream
is " ripe " it ought, if a stick is inserted and
taken out again, to nin off quite slowly, spin-
ning a thread, and leaving a shining coating
equally distributed on the stick. If the room
is too warm the process of souring is too fast,
and if too cold it is too slow, and either cold
or hot milk must be added to attain the desired
temperature. Sometimes cream is not heated
before pu.tting in the tub, but in this case is
mostly allowed to stand for tliirty-six hours before
churning. This is why such cream must be always
watched. Butter made from soured cream has
a i^eculiar taste which is much liked in North
Germany.
Skim-milk Cheese. — The cheese of Schleswig-
Holstein, made from skim-milk, is generally of an
indifferent quality, and certainly much below the
Danish article. It is made in different ways, but
the following may be said to be one of the best
methods : — The skimmed milk is poured into a
kettle and heated by fire or steam. In large
dairies a wooden tub of about 3 feet in depth, and
sometimes large enough to contain 300 gallons, is
used. When the milk has reached 'd^° Fahr., the
rennet is added and the tub covered up. In about
an hour the milk is coagulated, and is broken up
in pieces of the size of an egs;. Then the curd is
allowed to settle for a few minutes, after which it
is again stirred a little, and when settled again the
whey is drained off. Now the curd is worked for
ten minutes with the hands and then put in the
forms. The cheeses are either salted in the curd, or
by placing the loaves for two or three days in a
salt-bath, after they have been twenty-four hours
in the press.
Hanover.
This jirovince has a groat variety of soils and
climates. It has mountains, plains, and sea-shore ;
and its agriculture is therefore very diversified.
In some districts the cattle are grazed during
the summer, in others they are kept all the year
through in the stables, but fed with green fodder
during the summer. In the neighbourhood of
towns, where a good deal of artificial food is used,
larger stables are not infrequent, where the cows
give over 650 gallons per head a year. In the
small stables, where inferior cows are kept, and
inferior feedmg the rule, 300 to 500 gallons may
be taken as an average. In Ostfriesland the milk
is made generally into butter and skim-milk
cheese; some farms make Edam cheese, but in
several districts the milk is churned, when the
yield is too small to allow of cream-churning every
day or every other day. The small farms are
rather advanced in dairying, and have profited
much from their Dutch neighbours. In the other
parts of the province dairying is still in its infancy.
The milk is set in earthenware, glass, or metal
dishes, and left standing until it is quite sour and
thick. The cream is then churned, and the curd
formed by hand into small hand-cheeses of about
four ounces each in weight, which are very much
liked by the population. In some instances persons
make a business of it to buy the curd of the
peasants, and turn it into " Handkjise " (hand-
made cheese). Larger sizes, but of the same make,
are known in this case under the name of " Harz-
kase," because they are mostly made in the Harz
mountains. On some farms the method of Swartz
has been introduced, and there the skim-milk
is turned into Limburg cheese, the fabrication of
which vnW be described further on. In the Liine-
burg district the j)roduction of milk only suflices
for the nourishment of the people, who have not
yet learnt how to save. We find many places in
Germany where the same evil exists. In other
districts calves are fattened and sent to Bremen and
Hamburg, and most of them are bought from sur-
rounding farms. In the district of Hildesheim a
dozen dairy-factories have been established.
Harz Cheese. — When the cream has been
taken off the sour milk, the latter is poured into a
526
DAIRY FAimiNO
copper kettle and wanned witli a rapid fire to 88°
Fabr.j which makes the whey separate from the
curd. Now the whole mass is poured into a,
wooden tuL, where it is left standing for three to
six hours. If it shoidd remain in the copper
kettle durin<4' that time, the latter would oxidise.
After some hours the curd is put into coarse sacks,
and these are jiut on an inclined table, where the
whey can run off. Then some stones are put on
the sacks to get out most of the whey, or if this is
not sufficient the sacks are pressed. The curd is
now poured on a table and well mixed with salt at
the rate of 1 lb. of salt to 40 lbs. of curd. After
this it is passed through a curd-mill, and kneaded
on a table until it has turned into a tough paste ;
then the forms are filled, and after standing some
time the cheeses are taken out and put on boards in
an airy room, where they are daily turned until
they leave no wet sjiot where they have stood.
This generally lasts some days, and afterwards
they are packed pretty tightly in a case, but never
more than two in one pile. The cellar where they
are now kept must be cool and dry, and during
the curing they must be taken out once a week
and rubbed a little all round with the palm of the
hand to destroj' the fungi which invariably appear,
and would make the cheese bitter if let alone. This
kind of cheese ought to have a humid, soft,
yellowish rind.
Prussia.
In this province cereal crops are extensively
raised, and large tracts of sandy soil form one of
the principal features of the country. Many large
estates exist. Most of the cattle are alreatly im-
proved by crosses with imported foreign stock. The
improved breeds are represented in the province in
the following order : — Dutch, Oldenburger and
Ostfriesen, Broitenbm-ger and Wilst<?rmarsch,
Angler and Shorthorns, Algaiier and Moutafuner,
Simmenthaler. In the summer the cattle are
almost everywhere grazed; in some districts are
very good pastures, so that oxen are fattened on
them. In the wnter roots are fed, with straw,
hay, and artificial food. A good deal of potato
refuse from the distilleries is fed. In one part
of the province large dairies are established, and
the Tilsit cheese, made after the Limburg fashion,
is well known in the trade there. Factories on
the principle of association have become quite
numerous of late, and the Swai'tz system is in use
in all the dairies of newer date where its applica-
tion was possible. la all the dairies the principal
object is the making of line table-butter, which is
sent to Berlin in great quantities, and also direct
to consumers in small casks containing about
20 lbs. each.
Ostpreusnsclie Geutme. — This kind of cheese is
of very simple make, and only adapted for house-
hold use. The soured thick milk is warmed by
adding hot water, or over the fire, to 86*^ Fahr.,
and the curd taken out with a jjcrforated ladle
in large pieces and put on a hau'-sieve to drain.
When this is done it is eaten with fresh milk or
with cream.
POSEN.
This province contains very large farms, and,
on the other hand, also very small ones. The large
farmers breed all kinds of imjiroved races of cattle ;
there may be found Dutch, Oldenburger, Berner,
Swiss, Algiiuer, Montafuner, Voigtlander, Schein-
felder, Simmenthaler, Ba^Teuther Scheeken, Wils-
termarscher, Angler, Ayrshire, Shorthorn, &c.
The Shorthorns have not had much success, be-
cause they do not give enough milk, and for fat
cattle there is no very good market. The Dutch
cattle and other closely-related breeds have sho\\Ti
too much inclination for ])leuro-pneumonia, and
therefore the attention of the farmers has been
drawn, with very good results, to Bavarian and
Swiss cattle. The cattle of the peasants are of
very bad quality, are fed very poorly, and their
milking and flesh-forming propensities are pro-
portionately small. On the large farms the food
is not of first quality, as straw plays the principal
part in it, siqjplemented by the products of distil-
leries, beet-sugar factories, &c. Mangels, jwtatoes,
and rape-cakes are frequently fed.
While the jx^asants keep the milk until it is
sour, and make bad butter and inferior little hand-
made cheeses, the larger farms let their milk gene-
rally to a cheese-maker, who makes butter and
Limburg cheese. Some large farms work the
dairy by their own people in very good style. The
Swartz system is employed, or iron enamelled
milk-pans, which are frequently cooled with
running water. All these large dairies send their
butter to Berlin and other large markets, but the
quality of the butter of small makers is very in-
ferior, and averages less than half the jirice that
the butter of Schleswiu-Uolstein commands.
SILESIA AND BRANDENBURG.
527
Silesia.
The soils and agritniltural capaLilltics of tliis
province are very varied, but with the exception
of smaller portions of mountainous and ewampy
country, it may be said that it enjoys generally
favourable circumstances. Grazing is limited, and
the feeding on bmall farms rather indifferent.
The large farms have augmented their herds since
sheep-raising has become unprofitable. More
green crops have been raised, and the produce of
the technological establishments combined with
almost every farm are used as fodder.
Dairying was, until a few years ago, in a de-
plorable state. At the small farms the milk was
kept until quite sour and the cream churned, while
the milk was either eaten or made into the small
ordinary hand-cheesos. In larger dairies the milk-
rooms were a little better, the butter was washed
before salting, and there was less salt mixed with
it. But otherwise there was no improvement,
until cheese-makers came from Switzerland and
South German)' and rented the milk on the farms.
Instead of the old earthenware milk-dishes, tin,
wood, or glass dishes began to be used, and better
chm'ns were introduced. Swartz's method is now
also introduced. The cheese made is generally
Limburger of skim-milk, but also Emmeuthaler is
produced at one or two dairies. Artificial butter
from Aienna, and ordinary cooking butter from
Galieia, are extensively imported.
Schlesischer IFeichquarg. — This cheese is quite
a specialty of Silesia. The soured milk is warmed
to 100" to 105® Falir., and the curd collected on a
sieve and then filled into a sack, which is suspended
to allow the whey to drain off, and afterwards laid
on a kind of ladder and pressed by straining a
board over it. The board is tightened from time
to time, after the curd has been shaken up. After
tweuty-f om' hours most of the whey is extracted, aud
the cm'd is now mixed Avith salt, aud sometimes
a little caraway-seed, and well kneaded with the
hands in a trough. When this is done the eurd
may be eaten fresh with potatoes or bread, and it
is mixed for this purpose with milk or cream ;
others add some garlic or onions. Otherwise the
curd is left standing for a few days to undergo a
kind of fermentation, and it shows in such eases a
yellowish, transparent, rough skin. Six parts of
skimmed milk yield one part of " Weichquarg."
SchlesiscJter Sauermilchkase (Silesiau Soui'-milk
Cheese). — The salted cm'd mixed with caraway-
seed, made as described before, is formed by tho
hands into little flat loaves of l. to 6 oz. weight,
and laid on straw to dry, in summer in a shady
place in the open air, and iu winter near the stove.
During the drying tho cheeses become covered by a
transparent wrinkled skin, and in this state they
are often eaten, or they are dried until quite hard.
This drying must, however, be conducted slowly,
as the cheeses arc otherwise ujit to crack, and in the
cracks mould would appear. AVhen the cheeses are
thoroughly dried they keep a long time, Init before
they are eatable they must undergo another treat-
ment. For this purpose they are put in layers
in a barrel or pot, between layers of damp straw
or brewers' grains, or wrapped in wet linen rags.
The cheeses regain here the humidity lost by their
drying, and begin to decompose, which shows it-
self by the rind becoming dark yellow and soft.
Every four to six daj's the cheeses are re-packed
in this way after having been cleaned \vith hot
water, and in three to eight weeks they are ripe
for eating. If they are kept warmer the ripening
proceeds more rapidly.
Brandenburg.
In this province also the development of dairy-
ing is of modern date, and large districts are still
in the old way. There the cattle are worthless,
the meadows are in a bad state, green crops are
not raised, and the soil is continually impoverished
by grain crops. A rational system of feeding
is practised only exceptionally. The dairies are
consequently in a very primitive state, and the
peasants make inferior butter, but a few associa-
tions which have been formed produce good
marketable butter and cheese.
Mdrkiscker PressM-se. — This cheese is matle
by filling fresh salted curd — j'l't'P'ii'ed from soured
milk by heating to about 100*^ Fahr., but not
higher — into a small bag, which is tied up and
pressed very strongly for forty-eight hours. Then
it is cut in oblong pieces and treated like the
Silesian Weichquarg, by curing in barrels or pots,
interlayered with damp straw.
Koclikiise or Topfkdse (Potted or Cooked Cheese) .
— Curd made from sour milk is put in a warm place
for a few days until it begins to get soft, and then
is mixed with salt, caraway-seed, and butter (half
an ounce to the pound), aud put over the fire. It
must be stirred all the time, and when the whole
mass is melted to a uniform paste it is iilled in
S23
DAIRY FARMING.
pots, where it stiffens to a tniusparent jelly-like
substance which may be ealen at once.
PeOTINCE on TItE RlIIXE.
This province has a good deal of clay land,
some of it being very strong; 10 per cent, of
the total area is permanent pasture, and 7 per
cent, meadows, which are well kept and in many
instances watered. In the lower part of the pro-
vince Dutch cattle are prevalent ; some farmers have
introduced Shorthorns to produce more meat, and
in the other districts of the jirovince native breeds
are to be found. Birhcnfeld cattle show still in
their massive forms the infusion of Bernese blood
effected at the beginning of this century. Wester-
wdlder are middle-sized cattle, and give much milk
of a very good quality. The cattle in the Eifel
mountains have of late been much improved by
crossing with imported Swiss or Bavaiian bulls.
In some parts of the province the cattle are grazed
during the summer, in others they are fed in the
stable. The growing of green crops is very ex-
tensive ; amongst them are clover, lucerne, sain-
foin, rye, Trifolium incarnatum, vetches, maize,
turnips, mangel, carrots, and swedes. In the
winter all kinds of cake, brewers' grains, pulp
from beet-sugar factories, &c. &c., are added to
the straw and hay. On the smaller farms, which
belong to peasants, the cattle are not so well fed,
but on the whole the improvements have been
marked of late years.
In the well-selected herds of Dutch cattle, the
average yield of milk may be taken at 550 gallons
per year, but cows are to be found that give no
less than 26 quarts of milk daily, in the flush.
The cattle-dealei's generally promise a certain
amount of milk after calving for each cow which
he sells in-calf ; if it turns out to be less, he pays
back a certain sum for each quart below the
promised quantity. It speaks volumes for the
milking capacity of the breed that dealers promise
up to 17 quarts per day after calving.
The province of the Rhine, containing many
large towns and a considerable factory population,
is adapted to selling fresh milk direct to consumers,
which is done on a large scale. The Swartz
method has been introduced on many large farms
where butter is made, but on the small holdings
the milk is still kept in earthenware and wooden
vessels containing 3 to 5 quarts, until it is quite
sour. The butter is, therefore, mostly bad. ^Vll
the more so as the milk is generally placed in
the living-room, where, with tobacco-smoke,
cooking, &c., and without ventilation, the air is
quite the reverse of pure. In general the princi-
j)al product is butter, wliile the soured milk is used
for feeding, but many farms produce also cheese,
made after the Gouda (Dutch) or Emmenthal
fashion. The sale of dairy products in the whole
province is easy and profitable, and rising prices
have been the rule for fifty years. The pro\ince
cannot supply its own wants, and butter as well
as cheese is largely imjsorted from the neigh-
bouring countries, France and Bavaria.
RheiniscJter Kdse (Cheese from the Rhine). —
The fresh milk is poured into a wooden tub and
the rennet added. In three-quarters of an hour
the milk ought to be coagulated. It is then
broken up softly with the hands, and water at
the temperature of 120° Fahr. in a quantity equal
to one-tenth of the milk previously emjjlojed
is now added. In a quarter of an hour the whey
is drained off, and the curd well pressed against
the bottom of the tub with a little board one foot
long and a quarter of a foot broad held in both
hands. Now the curd is cut up with a knife,
in pieces one inch square, and kneaded Avith the
hands before the forms are tightly packed with it.
These forms are made of tin, and are square, but
twice as broad as the\' are high. The curd is taken
out of the forms again, and re-packed in one form
of double size containing about 10 lljs. After
this the form is put under the press, and frequently
turned for the next twelve hom-s, when the cheese
is taken out and put for three days in a salt bath.
The cheese is cured in a cool drpug-room, and daily
turned and put on a fresh dry place on the boards. In
four to sis weeks it is sufficiently ripe to be saleable.
Maimer Hand-Kdsc. — This cheese, which de-
rives its name from being made in the neighbour-
hood of Mayence, is very much like the other hand-
made cheeses, only that it is richer. The curd is
prepared in the way which has been described
before (Harzkase), but when it has been pressed,
salted, and crumbled, it is moistened with sweet
milk or cream, before it is formed into the small
disks of biscuit size. The further treatment is
identical with that of the Harz cheese.
Westphalia.
The greatest part of this province is in tlie
bauds of small owners. There arc many factories.
WESTPHALIA AND BAYARTA.
329
and the province is tliickly populated. In some
parts the cattle are grazed throughout the year,
in others only during the summer months, and in
yet others they are fed entirely in the stahle.
A great deal of the milk is sold fresh to the
towns; the remainder is generally used for making
butter, fattening calves and pigs, and some for
making cheese. The butter has a very good
market in the industrial towns. The system of
Swartz is adopted in many dairies, but on small
farms the old earthenware dishes are still in use.
Westfalischer Kdse (Westphaliau Cheese). —
This cheese is made from skimmed milk. The
cream is not taken ofE until the milk has acquired
a slightly sour taste. After this has been done
the milk is put on the fire to coagulate. The
curd is now put in a sack of coarse linen and
pressed, so as to extract the whey. When no more
whey runs off, the curd is crumbled with the
hands and put in a wooden tub, where it is allowed
to ferment for eight or ten days, but before it is
covered with a thick crust it is taken out, salted
butter and a third part of fresh curd mixed with
it, and formed into loaves or cylinders. In the
forms it remains until sufficiently hard.
Nieheimer Cheese. — These cheeses, made around
Nieheim in Westphalia, are well known on the
Berlin market, where they are also called Frankfort
cheese. The milk is kept until sour and the cream
taken off. The milk is now heated to about
130° Fahr., and poured into a sack of coarse
linen, where it remains to drain for twenty-four
hours. Then the curd is poured on a table and
rubbed with a small board until quite fine. It is
now spread 2 inches thick in small trays, and put
in the cellar to ferment, where it is frequently
turned. After three to eight days this process is
finished, and may be judged by the aspect of the
curd, which must be a homogeneous yellowish
mass without white specks of unfermeuted curd.
Now salt, caraway-seeds, and milk are added,
and the cheeses are made with the hand. The
finished cheeses are put on boards, covered thinly
with straw, and left to dry in a cool and airy
room. The packing of the cheese is done between
layers of hops, which have been already used for
beer-brewing, but afterv, .irds dried again.
Bavatua.
The climate of the country is on the whole
good, with the exception of the mountainous
parts, and especially the Alps, which form the
southern boundary-line of the kingdom. In the
northern provinces the grape-vine is extensively
cultivated, and also tobacco, which speaks well
for the climate ; but towards the south it is more
elevated and cold. It may be understood that
the dairy interest is therefore principally concen-
trated in the last-mentioned parts.
Bavaria has several breeds of cattle. The best
milkers are the Ahjduer, which are to be found in
the mountainous district of Algau. The cows are
light or dark grey, and not very large — about
850 lbs. They yield about 500 gallons of very good
milk per annum. This breed has long been exported
to all the countries of the Continent, and its fame
is great. In crosses and pure-bred herds it is to
be found on a great many farms.
In the north of Bavaria dairj-ing is not in a
very flourishing state, because the breeding of
draught-oxen is the first consideration. The milk
is generally put in earthenware dishes and allowed
to become sour. The cream is made into butter,
and the sour milk is either used as food or made
into the small hand-made cheese, as described in
the dairying of the Prussian provinces. On the
large farms, of course, the dairymg is better, and
the milk is sometimes rented to a cheese-maker.
The latter custom is very common in the south
of the country. In large and sometimes even in
small villages, cheese-makers work on their own
account, and buy the milk from the peasants ; also
the larger farms commonly sell their milk in this
way. Butter-making is in a very bad state in
Bavaria ; even in the best dairy districts second
and third qualities are the rule. The small farms
especially melt great quantities of butter to pre-
serve it. This is generally used for cooking
purposes. The butter is never salted. In places
where no cheese-makers are, on small single farms,
&c., the waste of milk is frequently deplorable.
Very often the cream is taken from the milk and
the skimmed milk given back to the cows, and the
families of the peasants drink astonishing quanti-
ties of milk, and in some cases two cows are re-
quired for each member of the household. Almost
all the dairies of larger farms are pretty well
appointed, and furnished with tin or wooden
milk-dishes ; also the Swartz system is employed
by many, though it was only introduced a few
j-ears ago.
The Government employs a chemist, who makes
530
DAIRY FARMING.
a specialty of resoarclios on dairyin;;, in order to
give advice on dairy matters to all the farmers
who apply for it. He furnishes plans and esti-
mates for new dairies, or arranges old ones. If
necessary, he visits the farms in question. He
also lectures on dairy questions at farmers' clubs,
&c. As he is paid by the Government, his whole
work is absolutely gratuitous to the farmers who
consult him.
Bachtein Kiise. — This cheese is a modifica-
tion of Limburg cheese, which comes from Liege,
in Belgium. It is generally made of half milk or
skim-milk. The milk is put in a kettle and heated
to about 90° Fahr. in the summer, in the winter
to 95° or 96° Fahr., and so much rennet added
that the milk is coagulated in forty to forty-five
minutes. After this has been arrived at the curd
is cut into squares of about 3 inches with a wooden
sword ; it is then allowed to rest for ten or fifteen
minutes, and then is broken up with a stick
into pieces about the size of an egg, and put in
the forms, which consist of perforated wooden
boxes. Here it remains a few hours, until most of
the whey has run off, and then is taken from the
forms and cut into square pieces ; these are laid on
a table with a rim about 6 inches high, and from
this point the treatment and curing are identical
with those of the Limburg cheese, as described
elsewhere.
Romadour Kcise. — The fabrication of this
cheese closely resembles that of Baekstein, but as
Romadour is made from whole milk, the rennet is
added at a higher temperature. The curd is also
cut into squareSj but these are halved again so as
to form pieces whose long sides are of equal
dimensions. This cheese must be turned every
day when curing, and requires a good deal of
care. When three-quarters ripe it is wi-apped in
tinfoil, which makes the ripening more equal.
Schachtel Kiisc. — This cheese is very delicious,
but as it does not keep long when once ripe, it
is hardly ever made in large quantities. The fresh
milk is w-armed to 95° Fahr., rennet added, and
after half an hour the curd ought to be formed.
This is cut up slowly and carefully, and stirred
gently until the pieces are about the size of a
hazel-nut. Now the tin or wooden forms (6 to
8 inches in diameter) are filled, and after a
quarter of an hour the contents turned. This
turning is repeated several times during the day,
and next morning the cheese is put in the drying-
room, and daily salted for the next three to five
days, when it is put in the cellar to be cured.
Every second day the cheese must be rubbed over
with the hand a little and turned. In eight to
twelve weeks it is ripe and eatable. By wrapping
it in tinfoil for a few weeks before ripening it is
much improved.
"WtTRTEMBETlG.
This country is blessed with very good soils.
Large farms are rare, and the peasants own their
small farms. Green crops of all kinds are exten-
sively raised. The greatest part of the milk produced
is sold in a fresh state to the consumers. Also large
quantities are used for feeding young pigs. In
the small dairies the treatment of milk, generally
speaking, is still in a very backward state. In
large dairies, where the milk is often I'ented by
cheese-makers, mostly Baekstein cheese is made;
in some instances also Emmenthaler. The country
does not produce enough butter or cheese for its
own use, and imports largely, while the export
amounts to next to nothing.
Ilohenhelmer Kiise. — At Hohenheim, near
Stuttgart, a special kind of cheese is made in the
following way. The evening's milk is skimmed
on the following morning, and the morning's milk
added to it in the kettle. It is then warmed up
to 107° Fahr., coloured, and the rennet added in
such a measm-e that coagulation is complete in
about an hour and a quarter. ^The curd is then
cut into square pieces with a wooden sword, and
further broken up with the hand. After a few
minutes' standing the whey is drawn off and some
caraway-seeds added, and the curd made still
finer, until the pieces are of the size of a bean.
Now the curd is filled in cylindrical tin forms of
4 to 6 inches diameter, which are perforated.
The cheeses are turned, at first very frequently, by
upsetting the form, which has been covered up
■\vith a little board. After eight or ten hours the
cheeses are put in lower wooden forms and salted
every day for four hours. After this has been
done, they are put in the cellar, and take about
three mouths to be perfectly cm-ed.
Saxony.
The Kingdom of Saxony contains a large pro-
portion of mountainous country and a large popula-
tion. The culture of the arable land is therefore
forced to a cousiderublc degree. Grazing is only
MECKLENBERCi SCIIWKRIN AND IIKSSK.
j;31
allowed in the aiituniii ; in suninicr, (-lover miiiI
{grasses; in winter, niani;el, imtatoes, e:ilil)ai;v, ^c
Artitieial food is universally em])lr)yed. As,
g'eiieraliy, good cattle are imported, the avera^-e
ot" milk per cow from the larger farms may be
computed at 400 to 700 gallons per year.
About half of the milk produced is used as
such. Flat wooden milk-dishes are employed
generally, but newer methods, as for instance
Swartz's, are the rule on larger farms, which sell
their milk to a cheese-maker, or work their dairies
on their own account ; there mostly Bact^tein
cheese of skimmed milk is made, and the butter
sold direct to the towns. Cheese-making is little
developed in Saxony, and large quantities of better
cheese are imported. Butter is in such demand,
that only a little more than half that is required is
produced in the country, while the rest is imported.
The small farmers produce hand-made cheese,
but a great deal of milk is used by them for
rearing and fattening pigs.
^Mecklenburg Schwerin.
Tills grand-duchy contains mostly large farms.
The small farms are not owned by the peasants,
bnt are rented by them, and generally descend
from father to son. In 1873 Mecklenburg con-
tained ^7:1,795 head of cattle, including 200,126
cows. In the summer the cattle are mostly
grazed. The country possesses no breed of its
own ; the so-called native cows are a mixture of
all kinds of breeds, and they are very inferior
as to form. Angler are bred very frequently ;
Breitenburger, Ostfriesen, and Dutch, are to be
found also, but Ayrshires have lost the position
they once had. The principal food for the winter
is straw, with some hay or oil-cakes.
The milk is mostly used for making butter,
the remainder for feeding purposes, and cheese-
making is rare. The milk is kept in glass or
stoneware dishes, rarely in wooden, bnt is treated
in the same way as in Holstein. The butter is
mostly sent to Hamburg, in wooden casks. At
Raden there is a dairy-school and dairy experi-
mental station,* which were founded by a few
large landowners.
* The Expenmental Dairy Station here alluded to is on
the fine estate of Graf von Sfhlieffen, who for some time past
has devoted much energy, money, and intelligence to the
improvement of agriculture, and particularly of dairying, in
North Germany. The station has heen for some years under
70
IIksse.
The grand-duchy of Hesse contains a great
number of small holdings, but large farms are also
to be found. The dairies are as yet mostly of an
inferior kind. The milk is kept in low cellars with
deficient ventilation ; in the winter it is put in the
general living-room, sometimes the bedroom, and
is set in earthenware pots containing two to three
quarts. Some of the larger dairies have, however,
better appliances. Butter is made from soured
cream, and is well washed with water. The thick,
sour milk is eaten in towns and in the country,
but mostly it is fed to pigs or young stock, or
hand-cheese is made from it. Some time ago
factories were established ; these buy the curd
from the peasants and make the cheese from it.
The sale of all dairy products is very easy and
remunerative, because of the many large towns in
the neighliourhood, all united by railway's.
ILniil-mitile Cheese. — This kind of cheese is
made in Hesse in the following way : — When the
milk is coagulated, which may be accelerated by
wanning it, the curd is poured into a piece of linen
and the whey pressed out. The curd is then
mixed with salt, and often caraway-soeds, and
kneaded carefully until it has become a tine mass.
The forming of the cheese is done by taking a
piece of curd on the palm of one hand and beating
it with the other; the cheese are 2 to 3
inches in diameter, and about 1 inch thick. The
cheese must present an even surface and have no
fissures, as otherwise the curing does not proceed
regularly, and mould would appear. In summer
the drying is done in the open air; in winter, next
to the stove ; and occupies five to ten days. The
dried cheese are then laid in pots or wooden
the management of Dr. Wilhelm Fleischman, whose valuable
and long-continued researches into milk and its products are
highly appreciated in many countries. In the month of
March, 1877, it fell to our lot to pay a visit of two or three
days' duration to Schlieffcnburg, during which we were much
interested in looking into Dr. Fleischnian's dairying arrange-
ments. The salient product of the Raden Dairy is butter for
the English market, and the Swartz system of cream-raising
is followed put in its integrity. This system we have described
at some leugth at p. 293. Besides butter, skim-milk cheese
is made for local consumption, and almost the whole of the
work in the dairj- is performed by students, wlio have come
to profit by the tuition of Dr. Fleischman, whose services are
paid for by Government, the remainder of the expenses of
the station being defrayed by the students' fees, and the
deficiancy, if any, by the several noblemen and gentlemen who
were instrumental in creating the station. The results of this
system are very satisfactory. [En.]
hSi
DAIRY FARMIXC;.
buckets, and put iu the cellar, where they are
washed with water and brushed after ten to twelve
days, and are put back into the pots. This treat-
ment has to be repeated two or three times, when
the mould is growing strong. In eight to twelve
weeks the cheese are ripe, and cont;iin only in the
centre a small nucleus of curd.
Jf'eisser Kcise (White Cheese). — The poor
townspeople and the peasants eat this kind of curd
in great quantities. It is simply curd from sour
milk, well kneaded and mixed with salt. It is eaten
like butter with bread or potatoes, and in some dis-
tricts the people mix it with milk, cream, or garlic.
Schmicrkdse. — The salted curd, made in the
way just mentioned, is mixed with a small quan-
tity of over-ripe hand-made cheese, frequently
half a year or a year old, which has a very strong-
taste and smell. When it is mixed to a uniform
paste it may be eaten, which is done by all classes
of the population, and it may be therefore called a
national dish.
AUSTRIA.
Austria has in its provinces so very many
varieties of soil and climate, some of which are
almost incompatible with dairying, that it is not
to be wondered at if its general status of dairy
products is inferior. This is still easier to explain,
when we consider that by far the largest part of
the population is in a state of civilisation which
does not coincide with the care and cleanliness, as
well as the fineness of taste in eating, which are
certainly necessary to promote the production and
consumption of dairy products of a better class.
Austria has many valued breeds of cattle,
which not only suit her wants, but are exported in
such numbers, that we may say Austrian success-
ful stock-breeding is princijjally founded on the
needs of the neighbouring countries. The principal
Austrian breeds are the Hungarian Steppe breed
(Ste[)pe = plains), which is closely related to the
Russian cattle of the plains. These jjlains are
often dried up f(jr months in the summer, and
yield hardly anything, also the changes of tempera-
ture make themselves felt, and iiuindations often
cover the land. This breed is the hardiest of all
European cattle, but it is also dreaded as the
bearer of the rinderpest, which seems to have no
such deadly effect on it, however, as only about
20 per cent, die of those attacked, while of the
other breeds up to 7U per cent, succumb. These
conditions have prevented any crossing with the
Hungarian Steppe cattle being successful. They
are of grey colour, and are easily known by their
immensely long horns. The cows give very little
milk — about lot) gallons per annum, of very rich
quality — but often not enough to nourish their
calves. The breed does not possess any good feed-
ing qualities, but is excellent for draught.
It is difficult to give a short description of
Austrian dairying, considering the many different
nationalities, climates, &c.; suffice it to say, there-
Fig. 3.53. — Austrian Mh.k-cooler.
fore, that some parts of the country have no
dairying which may be classed as such, as they
only produce butter and cheese, which is, in most
instances, nnmarketable. In the Steppes the cattle
and food are of a kind which makes dairy-farming
impossible. In the northern and western pro-
vinces dairying may be well compared to that
in south Germany, possessing all its faults and
making its mistakes in the treatment of milk
and butter. The small farms rarely make good
cheese, and never butter of first quality, as the
cream is generally churned in a sour state. Dairy
associations are rare as yet, but cheese-makers
frequently buy the milk of villages and large
farms. On the latter the dairies are mostly better
ajipointed, some setting tlieir milk after Swartz
SWISS CIIEESE-MAKINO.
J33
or otlier approved nu'tluids, and making' good
cheese. The principal kinds of cheese made in
Austria are those described already : Backstein,
of half new milk and half skim milk ; Limbiirger,
of whole milk ; Emmenthaler and Swiss Gruyere,
made from half milk. In small quantities Ouar-
geln (hand-made cheese), Schachtel cheese, goats'-
milk cheese, &c., are also produced.
The annexed engraving (Fig. 35-3) shows an
Austrian mode of cooling milk, which is very simple
and, in some respects, novel. It consists of a vat
or tub through which cold water is constantly
circulating. On the surface of the water floats a
circular wooden plate, provided with a number of
round holes, into which are inserted the vessels con-
taining the milk. These are made of sheet zinc, two
feet long, and each, according to the Wiener Landw.
Zeitung, contains a little over a gallon of milk.
It takes about fifteen minutes to cool the milk
down to a temperature slightly above that of the
surrounding water. "When not in use the cylin-
ders are turned upside down, on a wooden rack, as
shown in the engraving, to drain and dry.
SWITZERLAND.
Tlie cheese-making of Switzerland is already
very old ; but only during this century it has
developed to a considerable fame and importance
in the markets of the world. After 1820 associa-
tions began to be founded, with the object of
producing better and more marketable cheese
during the winter months. On the mountains
similar associations had been in action for manv
years during summer-time. From that period
dates the development of Swiss dairying. These
associations exist now to the number of several
thousands; and either sell their milk to a con-
tractor who makes cheese, or work the factory
themselves with hired labour.
The milk is generally set in the round wooden
dishes, containing 8 to 10 quarts, which have been
used since time immemorial. In some Swiss dairies
the Swartz system has, however, been adojited, and
seems to be gaining ground.
The best-known kinds of cheese made in
Switzerland are the following : —
Emmenthaler.
Urseren.
Gregerzer (Gruyere).
Bellelay.
Spalen.
Vacherin.
Saanen.
Schabrieger.
Formaggio della pagUa (in
Battelmatt.
the Valmaggia Tessino) .
Eiiimi'iitlml C/ii'e>ie. — Of all Swiss cheese this
is the most important, as it is sent to many parts
of the world. It is generally made of whole
milk; but in summer, when the pasturing on
the Alps has just commenced, a quarter or half
the milk is set, and the cream taken off after
twelve hours. These cheese are of very large
size — SO, 100, 120 lbs. on the average — and they
have commonly a diameter of 3 to 4 feet, with
a depth of about 6 inches, a size and shape whose
appearance is striking. In some very large
factories a cheese is made in the morning and
in the evening from fresh milk, but mostly
only one in the morning. For this purpose the
evening's milk, which has been set, is skimmed
in the morning. The morning's milk is poured
into the kettle, the cream from the evening's
milk added, and the whole heated up to 107°
to 1 12° Fahr., during which time it is well
stirred at the surface until no more flakes of
cream can be seen. When the above-mentioned
temperature has been arrived at, the skimmed
evening's milk is added and the heating stopped,
when the contents of the kettle have a tempera-
ture of 86° to 98°. The rennet used generally
consists of pieces of calves' stomachs, steeped for
twenty-four hours in whey; the liquid is poured
into the milk and thoroughly mixed with it. In
thirty or forty minutes the milk ought to be
coagulated, and is then cut up ■n'ith a wooden
sword into squares. Then a shallow wooden
dish with a handle is emploj'ed to break up the
curd evenly in pieces, of the size of a small apple.
Now a curd-breaker, Fig. 354', is used to stir the
mass, until the curd
is reduced to pieces
the size of peas,
when the work is
stopped and the
curd allowed to settle for ten minutes. After that a
good fire is made under the kettle, and the contents
stirred until a temperatm-e of 130° to 140° is
reached. Now the kettle is taken from the fire
and the stirring continued until the curd is "ripe."
To know this is of course solely a matter of prac-
tice. Some cheese-makers know it by biting the
curd, others by feeling it and squeezing it between
their fingers, and it takes about forty to sixty
minutes stirring to arrive at the proper point. At
the close the contents are stirred for a minute, so
rapidly that a deep funnel is formed in the centre.
354.— Swiss Ci;rd-breaker.
534.
DAIRY FARMING.
This makes the curd settle down in a compact
massj which can be easily taken out with a cloth.
For very larc^^e cheese, machinery is sometimes
employed to lilt out the curd and transport it to
the press; 17 to 18 lbs. of pressure for each jx)und
of cheese are employed for twenty-four hours, and
then the cheese is taken out and put in the cellar
to be cured. Under the press the cheese is fre-
quently turned, and the wet cloth ehanji^ed for a
dry one. Mostly two kinds of cellars are employed,
one of which is subterranean and therefore cooler
and damper.
Cheese is either directly salted after leaving- the
press, or it is commenced with after one to three
days. The saltinj? is done by rubbing with dry
salt, and after a fortnight the cheese is brought
into the upper cellar. The salting is done every
day at the b.'ginning ; for a few months every
second day, and afterwards less often. For large
cheese, often a year, and even longer is necessary
for ripening, and about 4 to 5 per cent, of salt
is required. A good Emmenthal cheese ought to
show when ripe a homogeneous mass without cracks,
and contain round holes of the size of j>eas, which
must contain a little liquid. It ought to melt on
the tongue without leaving any crumbly matter,
and have a pure, agreeable, rather sweet taste.
Skim-miUc Cheese. — In some dairies of Switzer-
land skim-milk cheese is made during the winter,
when so little milk is at disposal that no large
Eramenthaler cheese can be made. The Swiss
skim-milk cheese is rarely good; it is made too
much after the same fashion as Emmeuthalers,
without taking into consideration that all the
cream has been taken off; the curd is too rapidly
coagulated and worked and heated, and in conse-
quence the cheese is generally hard or tough.
Gruijcre Cheese. — The making of the Gruyere
differs only a little from the Emmenthal method.
The rennet is added at a lower temperature (8()"
Fahr.), and the curd is heated up to iJiU*', 1:35",
and even to 110"^ Fahr. The forms used are
similar to those employed for the Emmanthaler--,
but in this case they are concave, so that the
sides of the cheese-loaves have a convex sha])e.
BaUelmatt. — Fresh milk is directly coagulated
with rennet, the curd broken \\\> and heated for
forty-five minutes, and stirred for tifteen minutes
afterwards. The curd is then taken out and hung
u]) in a cloth. When most of the whey has
driji]ieil off' the curd is juit in a wooden form and
daily salted. This cheese is only made for local
consumption.
Sc/iii//;ieyer. — This cheese is also called Kra'ii-
tcrkaKc, and is made in large quantities in the
cantons Claris and Orisons ; in the first-mentioned
department alone about :J,. 500, 000 lbs. are annually
made. The milk is thoroughly skimmed, after
having been set as long as possible, and then
heated in a kettle up to the boiling-point, when
cold fresh buttermilk (up to 20 per cent.) is
added. The heating is continued, but not so
strongly as before, and sour whey atlded, and the
kettle taken from the fire. After the whole mass
is coagulated it is stirred up a little and left to
cool, when the curd is put in large wooden per-
forated boxes, or in sacks, and pressed with large
stones. The Zicger now undergoes a kind of fer-
mentation, which is most favouitibly conducted at
a temperature of 60" to 6:i'^ Fahr., and lasts from
three to six weeks. If the temjJerature is too high
the Zieger is apt to be decomposed, while at a low
temperature it gets blue and tough. After the
fermentation is concluded the Zieger is ground
in a mill, and at the same time 5 per cent,
of salt and % to %\ per cent, of dried Meli-
lutm ccerulea Lam. is added. This kind of
clover gives the cheese its peculiar taste and
bluish green colour. The mass is now firmly
beaten and stamped in the small wooden forms
which have been laid out with a fine cloth. After
eight days the cheese, which are conical in shape,
(5 to 6 inches high, and 3 inches in diameter), are
taken out of the forms and scraped with a knife.
In cool, dry rooms they are kept for at least six
months, but they are only ripe after a year. For
eating, they are grated to a fine powder, and either
strewed on bread and butter, or some butter is
mixed with the powder to form a paste.
Vacherln is a kind of cream-cheese, which, as a
rule, is made only in winter. Saanen is a skim-
milk cheese, and hard, so that it can be grated ; it
is made in loaves of 16 to 21 lbs. Ursereii is made
in the canton Uri, in thick loaves of 50 to 60 lbs.
It is made of milk, half of which has been
skimmed.
'nUi ALPS.
Dairying in the Aljis has an originality all
its own, caused by the peculiar conditions under
which agriculture is followed there. These con-
ditions are created by the natural situalion, the
ALPINE DAIRYJNCi
5:j5
form of ground, and tlic climate, and are con-
sequently the same all over this large tract of
mountainous country, whether it belong to Franco,
Switzerland, Italy, Austria, or Bavaria. The re-
semblance is in all these countries so great that
we may class them under one head.
Al})iculture in its present form is already of
very ancient date, and as its exclusive object is
and long has been production of cheese and butter,
the following ancient mode is still adhered to at
the present day : — The winter is passed in the
stable in the valley, and the cattle are fed there
with hay which has been miule on the meadows
which lie in the valley ; these meadows are drained
by open ditches when necessary, and well manured
with stable dung. As soon as the grass has grown
a little in spring, maybe in April or at the be-
ginning of May, the cattle are grazed on the
meadows, but not more than a fortnight or three
weeks, otherwise the growth of grass would be
too much checked, and the result would be a
small hay crop, on which the heitl must dejjend
in the winter for its nourishment. Therefore the
cattle are removed as soon as possible to the pastures
situated on the lower parts of the slopes of the
mountains. These sheltered pastures, where vege-
tation is much more advanced than on the higher
ones on the mountains, are called " Maisass " —
mayseat, from " Sitz im Mai" seat (residence)
in May — which is quite appropriate, as they are
generally first used in the month of May. We
have once found such a pasture called in an old
parchment of the fourteenth century " Apryensatz'-"
— Aprilsass, seat in April — and this place is still
known by its early vegetation, so that it can still
be sometimes pastured in April. But this is an
exceptional ease ; generally the Maisass is pastured
from the end of May or beginning of June until a
fortnight or four weeks later, as also here the crop
of hay which is expected from a Maisass must
not be imperilled by late grazing in spring.
By the end of June, or beginning of July,
the cattle are again moved, this time to the
" Hochalpe " — high alp. There they remain
generally four to six weeks. Even then, in the
height of the summer, not unfrequently a fall of
snow compels the herds to seek warmer quarters
farther down the hill for a few hours, or even
days, until the snow has melted again, as they can-
not graze on pasture covered with snow, and soon
fall ofE in milk unless better feeding-ground is pro-
vided. Sometimes there is a second " IIochal])e"
situated still higher, where the cattle only remain
one or two weeks. When the grass runs short,
or the weather begins to get cold, the cattle are
removed to the " Maisass," and from thence to
their home in the valley, but the time of their
arrival hither differs very .much. Sometimes the
hay collected at the "Maisass" is fed when the
cattle return to it, and though they sometimes
remain at this station until long after snow is
on the ground, they generally return direct to
the valley by the middle of September to graze
on the meadows and liare fallows, and return again
to the " Maisass " to feed there on the hay, when
all the grass in the valleys is done. Sometimes,
on low-lying alps, the cattle remain there from
the first, when they have grazed on the meadows
in the sjiring, and return to their winter quarters
towards the end of October. This is the ease if
no "Maisass" belongs to the "alps."* Also
the farmers who live in the plains, but send their
cattle to an " alp " for the summer*, bring them
directly to the " Hochalpe," — of course, later on
in the season.
This description of the grazing has been ne-
cessary in order to explain the large flow of
excellent milk obtained in the Alps. The cows
are fed iu the winter on generally very good hay
from the valleys ; the calves are timed to come,
if possible, in February and March, and the cows
are turned out to graze on the meadows in spring,
and so the milk-secretion is very much increased
by green food. Later, when the good effects of
this are on the wane, the milk production gets
a fresh stimulus from the nutritious grasses and
herbs on the " Maisass.'^ Further on there is
another change to the fine short grass and the
aromatic herbs of the " Hochalpe." Here the
milk is richest in flavour, and contains most milk-
sugar ; its delightful sweetness and flavour, unat-
tainable by any other feeding in the world, are
imparted to the cheese, which is then at its highest
state of perfection if well made, but this is not
always the ease. By this method of feeding the
milk-secretion is not only brought to the highest
point in quantity and quality, but is also main-
tained a very long time in this state. In this
system of changing pasture lies the secret of Alpine
success ill the production of milk.
* Alp, German " alp," or " alpc," is a pasture-ground in
the Alps grazed by one licrd.
536
DAIRY FAR.MIXG.
Of course the value of tlie Alj)inc pastures is
very variable ; some arc very dang^erous for cattle,
liecause of cliffs and precipices. Such " alps " are
reserved to goats or sheep. Also a great deal
depends on the state of cultivation which the
"alp" is in. With not many exceptions alpi-
culture is still in a crude stage. Drains, though
often necessary and easily made, as there are
plenty of stones to be had, are hardly ever made ;
there are very few irrigating aiTangements, though
there is generally plenty of splendid water, and
manuring is mostly not practised at all. Generally
the pure manure — litter is not to be had — is
thrown on a heap beside the stable, and left there
to rot. It is only very slowly that some districts,
especially in Switzerland, begin to utilise the
stable manure on the Alps.
The pasturing is conducted in the following
way '. — In the morning the cattle are driven from
the grazing-ground to the " Alphiitte'' or " Senn-
hiittc" — chalet — where the cows are milked and
given a little salt or bran boiled in whey, some-
times a little hay, etc. After that they are allowed
to rest for a few hours in the stables, and then are
taken ont to the pasture, where they remain until
the evening, when they are driven to the hut and
milked, to be sent out again directly afterwards.
On very hot days thej' remain in the stables dur-
ing the hottest part of the day, and in very rainy
or cold nights they are kept in the stables as well,
especially if there are no woods on the " alji,"
where the cattle can find protection from the sun,
and shelter from the rain. It is certainly a draw-
back to Alpine dairy-farming that the weather is
so very changeable, for milk-production is very
uncertain, though large on the average. A few
cold days, or much rain, or great heat, when the
cows do not feed so well, bring the secretion very
low, while warm nights and pleasant days with a
cooling breeze cause a considerable increase. These
fluctuations often amount to 10, 15, and even
20 per cent., and always make themselves felt
within the next twelve to twenty-four hours, a
fact which throws some light on the physiology of
milk-secretion.
It is not so very long, perhaps only a few
hundred years, since the time when stables were
unknown in the Alps, so that the cattle had to be
out in the open air in all kinds of weather, and
even now calves and heifers are rarely housed
while on the mountain — though they have the
highest and roughest pastures allotted to tliem.
The stables are rarely built alone ; generally they
are under the same roof with the dairy and the
lodging for the herdsmen.
The coloured plate of Alpine dairying represents
two of these " Scnnhiitten," and they are built
with little variety all over the Alps; indeed, these
are drawn from nature in the neighbourhood of
Tegernsee, in the Bavarian Highlands. Their
situation i.s generally on a plateau or a soft incline,
where the best pasture, dry ground, and a good
spring of water may be found. Also a sheltered
spot is preferred. The " Sennhiitte " seen in the
foreground of the picture is built of solid beams of
l>ine-wood, which have been roughly hewed square,
and fitted together with long nails made of beeeh-
wood. A solid roof covers the hut. It consists of
beams of one foot and a half diameter, covereil by
wooden tiles 3 feet long, about 1 foot broad, and
1 inch thick, roughly slit from straight-grown
pines. The tiles are kept fastened down by several
poles stretching across them, and weighted by a
number of heavy stones of from 50 to 100 lbs.
in weight. This is absolutely necessary, as the
roof would be blown off very often by the severe
thunderstorms and gales blowing with incredible
force on these heights. Fire-wood for cooking
purposes is piled up against the wall on one side of
the house, and a man in the costume of the
country is leaning up against it. The door, and a
bench fastened to the wall on the other side of it,
are guarded from inopportune visits of the cattle
by a rough bench and a gate, at which the dairy-
maid (Sonnerin) in her picturesque and neat
costume is placed. The roof projects so far as to
cover the whole verandah.
The systems of dairying vary very much in the
Alps; sometimes Gruyere cheese is made, especially
when there are large quantities of milk to dispose
of, when the "alpe" belongs to an association, or
when the milk is let. On small " alpes," or where
there are several proprietors, generall}'' sour cheese
and butter are both made. The milk for butter-
making is generally set in pans of glazed earthen-
ware, containing 2 or 3 quarts, or in large wooden
dishes. The cream is often taken off after twenty-
four to thirty-six hours and directly churned, or
left standing in the cellar until a sufficient quantity
has collected for churning.
The liutter on the Alps has wonderful kccjiing
quiilitics. It may be kcjit there from two to three
THE ALPS AND ITALY.
r.;57
months and yet imt hr iMiK'iil, Imt it will not keep
in the plains or valleys. It is "generally kept in
the same room with the cheese, which impairs its
otherwise excellent flavour; it is not salted, but
very often melted and kept for winter use. Gener-
ally speakino-, we must not look to the Alps for
perfect methods of dairying.
On some aljis milk-sugar is still made. For
this purpose whey is boikd down until only a kind
of brown syrup remains in the kettle, which is
raised so high above the fire that the flames can
only reach the bottom, otherwise the sugar woukl
be burnt. This syrup is poured in flat dishes, and
after twenty-four hours the sugar is crystallised
like yellowish sand ; this is washed in a little cold
water, dried, and sold.
Whey-cheese is eaten with great relish by the
inhabitants of the Alps ; it is therefore most
generally made. Whey is heated to about 1-10^'
Fa'ir., when the whcy-eream rises, which is taken
off ; then some sour whey is added and more heat
applied until the albumen rises, when near the
boiling-point, in a compact mass to the surface.
It is now taken off rapidly and hung up in a cloth
to drain. After this it is either eaten fresh, or
salted and eui-ed, or salted and smoked. For the
two latter methods it is j)aeked during one or two
weeks in sacks, or wooden boxes perforated with
holes, and pressed by putting heavy stones on it.
Buttermilk is often added to the whey to make
this kind of cheese richer.
The labour of the Alpe or Sennhiitte is done
either by men or women. Sometimes there is a
man in the dairy (Senn) who has a helpmate
(Beisenn) and others besides, who milk the cattle
(Melker) and attend to their pasturing (Hiiter).
If the " alpe" is small there is generally' a woman
(Sennerin), who acts as dairymaid and attends to
all the other work.
ITALY.
In the northern provinces of Italy all the con-
ditions are fulfilled which make it possible to feed
milch cows in a pirofitable way. Extensive irriga-
tion works produce, in combination with a warm
climate, heavy crops of succulent grass and vege-
tables. In the south it is not so. The burning
sun is not relieved by water, and generally the
cows are very poorly fed. It will not be astonish-
ing if we find a great difference between the
dairies of the north and the south, which is, in
fact, the ciise. In Lomliardy, for inslance, the
meadows are irrigated throughout the winter, and
may be cut eight or ten times in the summer, or
they are watered only in summer and mamu'ed
with urine, so that they can be mowed five or six
times. In other places the soil is cropped with
cereals, then laid down with grass, cut three or
four times a year, and grazed in the autumn.
When this has been done for two or three
years another cereal crop follows. These artificial
meadows are well stocked with clover, especially
with white clover, which is much esteemed because
it is said to give the milk a certain flavour, very
desirable for Parmesan cheese, which is generally
made in these districts. In the south grass is
rare, and the cows are fed mostly on leaves, weeds,
refuse from vegetables, &c., and the bad nourish-
ment stops not only the proper development of the
cows, but affects also the quality of the milk in a
degree we should hardly believe possible, and
renders the production of good cheese an impossi-
bility. While dairying in the northern provinces
is in a high state of perfection, it is, with few
exceptions, very bad in the south, and there is no
hope of a speedy development, because all the con-
ditions are very unsatisfactory for dairy-farming.
The butter industry in Italy is yet in its in-
fancy; the bad butter everywhere is a sufficient
proof that it is not much eaten in its fresh state,
and for cooking purposes only olive oil is employed.
The following is a list of Italian dairy pro-
ducts, including all the more important and
famous ones : —
Cream — Latte-miele.
Butter — Fresh butter.
,, BxuTi vestiti.
,, Mascarpom.
Cheese— Parmesan (Formaggio di grana).
,, ChiavarL
,, Cacciocavallo.
,, Stracchino di Gorgonzola.
,, Pecorino dolce.
„ Provote.
,, Ricotta (fresca, saltata, et affumicata).
,, Provolomi.
,, Pecorino.
,, Calvenzano.
,, Mazzolino.
,, Pecora e capra.
„ Guincata.
, , Gruyore.
,, Dutch.
And the methods employed in making several of
the more important and better known of the fore-
going are briefly as follows : —
538
DAIllV FARMING.
1. Latle-m'tele. — Cream is put in a vessel sur-
rounded by ice, and then beaten until it rises,
when an equal weight of white pounded sugar
is added and beaten in.
2. Burri vestili. — A j aste made from curd
is formed in cylinders or other shapes, and filled
with butter. The sort of cheese from which this
paste is made decides the name of such butter,
for instance — in, pastadi cacciocarallo.
3. Miitscnrpoiii. — Cream is heated over a slow
fire until thick, a little sour whey or vinegar is
added, and the mass filled into a cylindrical form.
Parmesan Cfieese.—'i\\e milk is set and the
cream taken off after a certain degree of acidity
in the milk is attained. The skim-milk is warmed
in a kettle to SUO'". to 860^ Fahr., and the rennet
added. The kettle is then covered up and with-
drawn from the fire. After forty-five to sixty
minutes the milk ought to be coagulated, when
it is turned and cut up rapidly while a hot fire of
dry wood is made under the kettle. After a
quarter of an hour more wood is added to the
fire, and the curd stirred until a temperature of
l^S"^ to 13;J" Fahr. is reached, when the kettle
is taken from the fire and left untouched for a
quarter of an hour. Afterwards nine-tenths of
the whey is drained off, and cold water care-
fully added until the hand can bear the tempe-
rature. The curd is then balled together with
the hands, a cloth slipped under it, and it is
lifted into the wooden form, where it remains
xintil the evening. This cheese is not pi-essed.
The next day the cloth is taken off, and the cheese
put in a cool cellar, where it remains for four
days. After that the loaf is turned and salted
once daily for twenty daj's, and the same treat-
ment is repeated once every second day for a
similar period. After these forty days the cheese
is taken out of the form, scraped with a piece
of iron, washed with hot whey, and put in the
store, a large high and dry shady room. Here
the loaves are turned, first twice a day, and oiled
once a day with linseed oil ; later on this treat-
ment is only repeated every second day.
Generally the dairies sell their cheese after
the salting is finished, and the merchants under-
take the curing, which requires great care, in
their own storehouses. Parmesan cheese ought
to be three years old before it is used. In the
first year it is called nniggengo, in the second
vecc/iio, and in tiie third sirarecchio.
Chlarar'i Cheese. — Milk is heated rather high,
100" to 12U^ Fahr., the curd stirred a little,
filled into cloths, and put into wooden forms
in which it is pressed slightly. After a few
days the cheese is taken out of the form, and
salted and turned every few days. This is one
of the simplest and oldest methods of making
cheese.
Cacciocarallo Cheese. — The name of this cheese
seems to imply that it is made from mares' milk,
but it is not so, and though it may seem strange
at first, the name is most likely derived from
the shape of the cheese, which adapts it to
be slung over horses' backs when carried away.
Cacciocavallo may now be found having all ima-
ginable shapes. Some resemble vegetable mar-
rows, or melons, others look like bottles, or fiasks,
or animals' heads.
As the thermometer is hardly in use in the
south Italian dairies, the statements as to the
temperature of the milk before adding the rennet
are very different. We may say, however, that
it lies between 85* and llU^' Fahr. The rennet
is emjjloyed in a very primitive way ; mostly
the stomachs of young goats and lamlis are dried
without having been cleaned, a part is cut in
small pieces, wrapped in a linen rag, and sus-
pended in the milk until it is coagulated. The
curd is then broken up and stirred until the
whey has sufticiently separated, when most of it
is drained off, and a part put on the fire and
poured in a boiling state over the curd, which
has been put in a wooden tub. In this state
the curd is allowed to ferment, in a cool place,
until it rises like bread-paste. A great deal
depends on choosing the right moment to stop
this process, which generally is arrived at after
eight to fourteen hours. The rii)eness of the
paste is tried by dipping a piece of it in boiling
water, when it ought to draw out in long threads.
If this can be done, the whole curd is put in a
wooden vessel filled with boiling water, cut to
pieces with a wooden knife, and the paste drawn
out in long tough ribands, which are formed into
a kind of ball afterwards by winding them round.
^Viien a sort of nucleus is formed this way, it
is easy to give any desired shape to the cheese
by winding on different parts of the ball. By
kneading, turning, and pulling the shape is
rounded and finished. Now the cheese is put
for two to fdiir hours in cold water, and after-
ITALIAN CHEESE-MAKING.
539
wards for twcnty-foui' to forty hours in a solu-
tion of salt. After this it is hung' in the smoke
until it has received the desired light-yellow
colour. These cheese are made of very different
weights, from half a pound to twenty pounds ;
they are considered a great delicacy with the
Italians, who not only eat them with bread but
also with macaroni, risotto, and other favourite
dishes. Caecioeavalla is a very bard cheese of
rather indifferent taste, reminding of young Par-
mesan ; it dries uj) easily when once cut, and
then has a rancid oily taste. It contains but
few and small holes, and on breaking it the
concentric layers show the way in which it was
formed.
Strachiiio di Gorgonzola. — This cheese is made
in loaves of the proportions of Cheddar, and
of 20 lbs. to 40 lbs. in weight. The milk is coagu-
lated warm and fresh directly after milking, so
that it is thick in ten to twenty minutes. Now
the curd is slightly broken up and left alone until
it has sunk to the bottom, when it is still more
cut up with a wooden instrument, always drawn in
one direction. After this it remains untouched
for an hour, and is then cut in squares. When
the whey has collected pretty clear over the curd
it is drained off, and the curd is left to hang in a
cloth until all the whey has run off ; after this it
is filled in the wooden forms, which can be made
smaller. The filling is done in the following
way : — -Curd which has been made the daj' before
is crumbled and jjut in alternate layers with the
fresh curd, which is also crumbled, with the provi-
sion that the first and last layers are from the
fresh curd. The forms are then covered up and
left standing for sis hours, when the top of the
cheese is loosened three or four inches deep,
covered with a cloth, and the loaf turned upside
down. After twelve hours the cheese is again
turned, and after twenty-four hours the cloths are
taken away, fresh forms substituted, and the
cheese taken to a room whose temperature is about
65° to 70"^ Fahr., where it is placed on a table
thinly covered with straw. For the next three or
four daj's the loaves are turned several times a
day, then the forms are taken away and the cheese
placed for twenty-four hours on a table strewed
with salt, where it is turned several times. For
the next twenty-four hours it is put back into
the forms. This alternate treatment is repeated
from ten to twenty times. Afterwards the cheese
71
is kept six to eight weeks in a cellar, where it is
turned, wiped, and salted repeatedly. These
cheese are very highly prized, and are very deli-
cious food ; when they are ripe blue mould per-
meates them throughout, and they resemble, alike
in flavour, appearance, and consistency, a hue
specimen of a rich and ripe old Stilton.
Pecoriiio Cheese. — This cheese is made from
sheep's milk, which is rather abundant, as there
are a great many sheep in Italy, especially in the
mountainous parts, where they have cheap feeding
on the mountain pastures in the summer, while
they are grazed in the plains during the winter.
The fresh milk is poured into a copper kettle, and
the rennet added at 77'^ to 8i° Fahr. There are
different kinds of rennet in use : the stomachs of
lambs, young goats, calves, the dried flowers of
thistles [Cijnara Si/lrestris), artichokes, &c. Whep
the coagulum is formed it is broken up and rapidly
stirred for a few minutes ; then it is allowed to
settle for ten to fifteen minutes, and then stirred
until the curd is broken up in small particles,
while the kettle is heated to about 100" to H0°
Fahr. This is done verj- differentlj- in some dairies.
When the curd has been allowed to settle at the
bottom of the kettle il is taken out with the hands
and put in wooden forms, which are perforated at
the bottom and at the sides so that the whey may
run off. After twenty-four hours the cheese is
taken out of the forms and put into a solution of
salt, where it remains one to two days, when it is
washed and dried, and then put into a very dry
room, which is only ventilated in summer nights.
In the beginning the cheese is washed every second
day with water and salt — in summer with water
and vinegar — and later on it is rubbed with olive
oil twice a week. The Peeorino is rarely good,
mostly bitter, rancid, and dry, and its size not
very large.
Provofe Cheese. — Provoteis made from buffaloes'
milk, which is small in quantity and very rich, and
contains no less than 8 per cent, of butter-fat.
The method of making Provote is very simple.
The milk is coagulated with rennet and broken up
with a wooden knife. The curd is now put in hot
water, and formed there directly into a loaf ; this
is put first in cold water and then in a salt-bath
for seven to eight hours. This cheese is mostly
eaten fresh, and Italians from the south consider
it a delicacy, while strangers generally do not
like it.
510
DAIRY FAllMlNd.
liicoUa. — This iiruduet is made from whey
(whey cheese), by heating it up to the boiling
point, having first added a little sour whey. The
albumen which rises to the surface is taken off,
and either eaten fresh {fresco), or salted and
cured {mlata), or salted and smoked [affumicata).
To make it more palatable, often some milk
or buttermilk is added to the whey before
heating it.
BELGIUM.
Fromage de Limburgis usually associated with
Belgium, and it is perhaps the only noticeable
thing in the country's dairying wliich has not been
elsewhere described ; it is, however, made in other
countries as well, to wit Bavaria, Wurtemburg,
&c., either in its integrity or with unimportant
modifications. In the Province of Jjiege the
manufacture of it is a sjieeiality, and, as in the
case of other noted kinds of cheese which have
been more or less successfully imitated in districts
other thau those in which they originated, and
whose name they bear, it is probably not made with
equal success elsewhere. It is a specially distinctive
feature in the neighbourhood of the town of Herve,
for which reason it is not uncommonly spoken of
as Fromage de Ilerve ou de Limburg. "When
perfect it is a light yellow in colour, and has much
of the consistency of butter; it is, however, in
many cases made from milk from which a portion
of the cream has been removed, in which event, as
in the case of any other kind of cheese, it cannot
be regarded as a first-rate article. According to
Pourian, Limburg cheese may be kept in the cellars
or vaults eight or ten months, to ripen ; the making
of it ordinarily commences in August or Septem-
ber, and it is ready to be sent oif at the end
of May. The method of making it differs but
little from that of Baekstein cheese, described on
page 530.
THE NETHERLANDS.
The Dutch cattle are to be found distributed
almost in all parts of the civilised world, and
before the shorthorns came in general use no
breed of cattle was so generally known. The
reason of this is principally the excellent milking
qualities of the breed. The Dutch cattle are all of
one common origin, but different feeding and
crossing have caused the develoi)ment of several
distinct grou])s in the breed. The two groups
called Niirl/i and .V'k/A Jlollmul cattle are the
most nearly perfect in shape, and yield and form
the beau ideal of milch-cows. The If'eslfriesen
is somewhat coarser and heavier; they used to be
the best cattle of Holland, but by injudicious
crossing and by disease they have degenerated.
The Groningen have a great reputation for their
milking qualities. They are conspicuous by their
broad hips and large udders. The Zeelanders are
heavy cows, which do not give quite as much milk
as the other breeds, but are very good for fattening
purposes. To develop the latter quality, extensive
crossing has been going on for some time with
shorthorn bulls, and this measure has had good
effect.
All Dutch cattle are cither black-and-white,
grey-and-white, or red-and-white.
The keeping of cattle in the Netherlands is con-
ducted with jiroverbial care and cleanliness. Indeed,
there is no other country where dairying is in such
a flourishing state; the populations of large dis-
tricts living sometimes entirely from its proceeds.
The milk is of course of great value, and very often
the calves are killed directly after birth ; keeping
them for a few weeks and then selling them to
the butcher, as is generally done on the Continent,
would not pay for the milk consumed. Calves
reared for the herd receive new milk for two or
three weeks, then skim-milk for a time, and
later on buttermilk, whey, cooked linseed meal,
&c., are gradually substituted for milk, and at
the same time some hay is given. After ten
or twelve weeks grass feeding begins, but
throughout the summer some nourishing mash
or drink is given w-hen on the pasture. During
the next winter the calves are fed on hay of
middling quality, as the best is given to the
cows, and they are allowed as much exercise in
the open air as the weather permits. In the
next winter the heifers (one and a half years
old) are chained alongside the cows, and receive
better food; and they are timed to have their
first calves when they are two and a half to
three years old.
The cows are kept in the stables during the
winter, and are grazed during the summer. On
the pasture a shady and sheltered spot is selected
and fenced in, where the cows are driven twice a
day to be milked. Wooden milk-pails, neatly
I)ainted, are used, and the milk strained directly
through a fine horsehair sieve into barrels or larger
TREATMENT OF MILK IN HOLLAND.
5-H
pails (Fig. 355) painted while oil the inside, and
blue or green on the outsidc; and containing about
very often oidy by pouring the milk in vats
or open barrels, where it can cool. This cooling
is done, because it is thought absolutely necessary
to obtain first-class butter. AVhere the milk is
cooled with water, the pails or vases are placed
in wells or troughs, in the kitchen or in the
Jr-J
Fig. 355.— JIiLK-PAiL.
Fig. 356 - Milk vase.
4 gallons, and to prevent splashing a round and
flat disc of wood swims on the milk in the pail.
In some districts, however, metal vases (Fig. 356)
tinned on the inside are in use, of a shape which
is quite unsuited for the purpose, and requires
Dutch cleanliness to keep them iu a pure state.
They are carried in neat baskets, which secure
them well, and placed on a small hand-cart to take
Fig 357 — Weli 1 I I LI nl. Milk
them to the dairy. Sometimes the milk is cooled
by placing these vases and also the pails, which
are made of tin in this case, in cold water, but
MILK-DISHF..S. =■■
stables, neatly built of brick ^nnd cemented. If
underground they are supplied with covers to
prevent dust or dirt falling into the milk. The
annexed engraving (Fig. 357) shows the method
of cooling in a well, which is only used in
summer, when the milk cannot be sufhciently
cooled in the ojjen troughs. The milk remains
in these cooling baths until it is of the same
temperature as the water, and is then taken to
the daily and poured into the pans or dishes for
cream rising. Wooden dishes and also differentl}^-
shaped earthenware vessels
(Figs. 358 and 359) are used
for this purpose.
The dairy is generally very
well built, and all the precau-
tions to provide for fresh air,
dryness, and cleanliness are
observed. The milk-pans are
arranged on shelves, and a
smaller tub is used for collect-
ing the cream, while a larger
one receives the skim-milk.
The cream is taken off after
twenty-four hours, and put in
the above-mentioned tub or
barrel, where it remains until
it has soured and thickened.
In the summer this process,
if necessary, is accelerated by
adding some buttermilk, in
the winter by warming the
cream. The skim-milk is
poured into the milk-barrel or
tub for further use. The ar-
rangement of the milk-room in a Dutch dairy is
seen in the following engraving (Fig. 360).
The churns are generally of a very ]irimitive
Ui
DAIHV FARMING.
kind : a rod witli a perforated disc attached is
moved up and down in a tub or barrel. The
motive power is, however, applied sometimes in an
original nmnner, as may be seen in Fig. 361, and
besides this dog - wheels and horse - power are
cmploved. Regularity of motion is quite correctly
thought a great deal of, and is held as indispens-
able for rapid churning and a full yield.
When the churning is finished, the butter is
taken out of the churn with a large wooden per-
forated dish, and put into a wooden ]ian, where it
wood, and are endless in variety of shape and
pattern. The packing of larger quantities for the
export trade is subject to a very stringent law,
made with the object of maintaining the fame of
the butter in the consuming countries. _On!y
oaken barrels of certain sizes are used, and these
are branded by the authorities. New barrels are
filled for a few hours with a strong solution of pot-
ash, and afterwai-ds with one of alum. Some
farmers put the barrels for several months in
water previous to using them. Used barrels
Interior of a Dutch Dairy.
is kneaded slightly; water is afterwards added,
and the working begins in earnest. After some
time the stopper is taken out of the bottom of the
pan, and the buttermilk allowed to run off
through a sieve into the cask placed under the
pan (Fig. 36^). The butter is now kneaded with
fresh water, and the process is repeated eleven or
twelve times. In summer, when the continued
kneading would make the butter soft, it is stopped
after two or three times, until by lying in cold
water the butter has hardened again.
A very strict law requires that butter shall be
sold in given weights, and it is generally brought
in one-pound pieces to the lotal markets. The
forms used for printing llic Imtter are made of
undergo a frequent .«crubliing and filling with
water before they are used again. The barrels
are filled with layers of butter, which are strewed
with salt, and on the last layer some brine is
jxmrcd.
ClIEESE-MAKINO.
Dutch cheese-making is in a very advanced
state, and its products are celebrated all over the
world. Considering the importance of cleanliness
and accuracy, it is not to be wondered at that
these two qualities, which may be claimed by the
Dutch nation, tend to make their dairy industry a
success. This cleanliness attends all the processes
from the milking to the sale of the products, and
might bo copied liy all natimis with profit. In
CHURNING AND WORKING BUTTER.
34;}
the south of Holland sweet-milk and skim-niilk
cheese are made in the followinon way.
Sjj/ced Clieese (Komynde Kaas) is made in
round loaves^ about 9 inches high and 18 inches
Fig. 301.— XuvEL Method of Churning.
in diaineter, weighing about 20 lbs., and coloured
red on the outside. The milk, from which the
cream has been taken off, is poured in large
barrels or casks, and left standing until the curd
sinks somewhat to the bottom, which is generally
the case in half a day. Now the milky whey
from the top is poured through a sieve into the
kettle where it is heated, and then added again
to the remainder of the milk in a tub, so as to
bring the whole mass to about 9.3" or 99" Fahr.,
when rennet is added. During this the mass is
well stirred, and this is continued until the coagu-
lation is perfect, so that the wooden spoon or
stick used for stirring stands upright in it. Now
the curd is worked for some time with the hands,
and then put in a linen cloth, which is placed on a
stretcher, under which a low tub stands to receive
the whey drained off by kneading, squeezing, and
jiressing with the hands. When no more whey
can be extracted in this manner, a very simple
press (Fig. 36.3) is used to complete the work.
Tiie hard cake of curd which is obtained is
now put in another tub and kneaded with the
feet until transformed into a stiff paste. The
forms used are made of oak with perforated
bottoms and covers fitting closely. The curd
is put in in layers, the first being pure curd,
but the others being first well mixed with
pounded caraway-seed and a little cloves,
while on the top of each layer a few cloves
are strewed. Every layer is pressed tightly
into the form, for which hands or feet are
employed. The cheese is now pressed in a
simple cheese-press (Fig. -364) for twenty-four
hours, the cloths being changed at first every
two or three hours. It is then taken out of
the form, placed on a small board, and
placed in another press for some time until
it has assumed the consistency wished for.
The salting is done by placing the loaves
in shallow troughs and strewing salt over
them, adding to it until the cheese is salted
enough, and has a good skin. The right
moment when this is the case can only be
learned by practice. Now the cheese is washed
in cold water, scraped, polished, coloured with
annatto, rubbed with colustrum. The salting
and curing of the cheese are often done
in the cow-stables during the svnnmer, when
the cows are being pastured.
Sweet-milk Cheene (Zoetemelksche Kaas). —
This cheese is more generally known under the
name of Gondii. The milk is poured in a wooden
tub or a copper kettle and mixed with rennet, coagu-
lation being
completed in
about tliree-
quarters of an
hour. The
curd is now
softly broken
up and left to
settle for three
orfourminutes;
after that it is
stirred again,
always gently.
When the whey
has mostly
sejiarated the
curd is allowed
to settle, and the whey is then baled out. Now some
heated whey or water is added to warm the curd,
and after a quarter of an hour it is drained off
again. After this the curd is thoroughl}' worked
Fig. 362. — Working Butter.
544
DAIRY FARMING.
with tlio hands, and all the remaining whey
pressed out, when it is cut in small jneces, rubbed
still smaller between the hands, and filled in the
Fig. 363.— Simple Cheese-pbess.
forms (Fig-. 3C5), which are perforated. These are
put under a press which can accommodate up to
sixteen of them, and the pressure, light at first, is
increased gradually in the following twentv-four
hours. The cloths are also frequently changed,
and the cheese turned, especially at first. After
this the loaves are put in a wooden or stone trough
filled with brine, and there they remain three to
five days, according to the proportion of salt it is
desired to give. The upper surface of the cheese
is strewed with a handful of salt every day after
the loaves have been turned in tlie salt-'bath,
where they swim. When they are taken out of
The
Fig. 3G4.— ■\VooDEM Cheese-press.
the salt-bath they are washed with warm whey,
dried with a cloth, and put on shelves in an airy
and dry room. They are turned at first every day,
and later twice or three times a week, and wiped
with a cloth dipped in warm whey. In four or
six weeks the Gonda cheese is generally sold to
the dealers, but by keeping them at least three to
four months they are much improved in taste.
Generally, however, this cheese is eaten
when not perfectly cured. The whey is
poured in an open cask, and the cream,
which rises after a few da\'s, is skimmed.
Afterwards the wiiey, as well as butter-
milk, are used for pig feeding.
Mai) C/icexe (]\Iaikaas). — In the be-
ginning (if summer, when the grass is
very tender and juicy, sweet-milk cheese
is made in the way just described, but
the loaves are smaller. This cheese is
eaten or sold as soon as cured, because
later on it loses its fine flavour, aud
docs ncit keep so well.
Jews' Cheese (Jodenkaas). — This kind
of cheese is made by comparatively few
dairymen ; it is looser and less salted
than the sweet-milk cheese described,
and also flatter in shape.
Privi/ Councillors' Cheese (Heemraads-
kaas). —This absurd name is given to a sweet-milk
cheese of a very small kind, and coloured extra-
ordinary. This cheese
is allowed to get some-
what old before using
it, and it is employed
generally as presents.
In North Holland
sweet-milk cheese is
almost exclusively
made, and all the agricultural energies of the
population are concentrated on this branch of
farming. No less than about 10,000,000 lbs.
are exported annually. The meadows and pas-
tures are kept in first-rate condition, and yield
heavy crops.
The North Holland cheese is best known
under the name of Edam, and its red or
yellow balls grace the windows of every cheese-
monger in many countries. Cheddars also are
made in North Holland, as well as some other
English kinds of cheese.
Edam Cheese. — The larger sizes of this cheese,
weighing from 10 to 20 lbs. are not made now,
but principally small ones from 4 to 8 lbs. Fresh
milk is poured into a kettle or tub, and the rennet
added; should, however, the milk have cooled
dowm too much, it is warmed again by some hot
'.
.1-
v^f
a
.i\
\l
w-
a a
I
Sectiox u
f
a. a
ClIEESE-l-OllM.
holes.
EDAM CIIEESK-MAKINC.
i-Jo
milk, before the rennet is nsed. The coagulation
ought to be perfected in a quarter of an hour.
The breaking up of the curd is begun with even
before the milk is fully coagulated,
and conducted very carefully, making
frequent pauses to allow the curd to
settle. Now the whey is baled out as
lar as possible, and the baling-dish,
with some weights on it, is used to
press the curd. The whey is again
drained off, and after waiting a few
minutes the curd is well mixed and formed into
balls by hand. These are rubbed into fine particles,
and tightly packed into the forms (Fig. 366) . This
is repeated, and the curd again filled into the
forms. When this has been done the curd has
(Fig. 308), which has only one hole for the whey
to run off. This form is only used to keep the
shape of the cheese. They are now arranged in
boxes, and salted heavily every day
for nine to eleven days, the larger
kinds up to twenty days. Afterwaids
they are laid in a bath of brine for
twenty-four hours, washed, dried, and
put in the •cnring-room, where they
are treated just like the Gonda cheese.
The brine-bath has now superseded the above-
mentioned way of salting in many dairies. In
the curing-room the cheese remains four to five
weeks, being daily turned, before it is ready
for sale. During the week before selling it is laid
in fresh water for three to five hours, brushed
Implements for Edam Cheese-making.
The press with sis forms under it. The tub in which the cheese is made. On it stands a cheese-form, leaning against
it the baling-dish, the curd-cutter, and a wooden iiistrxunent for pressing the curd in the tonus.
already assumed the shape of a ball, and can be
taken out, wrapped in a fine linen cloth, and put
back into the form. These forms are put under a
press (Fig. 367), where they remain five to twelve
hours. When pressed long they get harder, and
can stand a longer transport, but take also longer
to ripen, while the reverse is the case when they
are pressed a short time. In the latter case
they are better fitted for local consumption. After
pressing, the cheese is put into auothtr form
off, dried, and put back in the curing-room to be
turned daily. To improve its colour sometimes
young beer is employed, with which it is rubbed
every day during the last week. Before sending
the cheese away it is rubbed with some linseed-oil,
to give it a polished, smooth appearance. The
colouring of the skin is done by rubbing them
with Tournesol rags, which are prepared in France
by dipping pieces of hempen cloth in the juice of
Croton iinctorium. H. L. de K.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Pigs, Goats, and Poultkv.
' Origin of the Pig— White Breeds— Berkshires— Essex— Other English Breeds— Poland-Chinas
'^ —Management of Pigs— Goats — Poultry.
-r^
,^-uOST writers agree that the
'>-,!^ differeut varieties of do-
mesticated swine in this
and other countries have
been derived from the
y "" ,^ , order Pac/ii/derma(a, genus
Sus, the common wild
swine of the ancient forests. Ages
ago, these animals roamed at large
in Britain, where they formed common,
and often dangerous, objects of the
chase for the nobles of the land.
Reminiscences of the wild boar still remain in
the names of places in some parts of the
country, as, for instance, in the moorlands of
Staffordshire, " Boar's Grove " and " Wild-boar-
clough" are to this day the names of farms or
localities in which, so far even as present aspect
goes, it is very probable the wild boar was com-
mon in the olden times. The wild boar, it is
true, long ago became extinct in these islands,
except in a few remote localities, yet to this
day he is hunted in the forests and mountains
of France and Germany, while in various other
countries of Europe and Asia he is not at all un-
common. In these olden times a large portion
of England was covered with forests, in which the
oak was, it is said, more general than any other
kind of tree, and acorns formed, in the autumn
and early winter, a sumptuous feast, on which
the wild boar fattened; the beech -tree flotu-
ished, too, in those ancient forests on the lime-
stone, as the oak did on the clays, and beech-
masts served the boar for food; grasses and the
roots of plants he fed on in other parts of the year.
His keen scent told him where the latter were, and
his long and powerful snout soon brought them up
to light. The snout of the domestic pig, though
still powerful for mischief, is much less vigorous
than that of his wild progenitor; domestication,
removing the need for so prominent an organ, has
already reduced it much in length, if not in width,
and, along with the need for work in search of food,
it has lost its pristine usefulness. The pig of to-
day has no need to " root " for food ; he is fed
regularly in the yards and sheds, his rambles at
large being confined to the stubbles in autumn
and to a pleasant hunt for acorns near the hedge-
rows, so that in some of the more cultivated breeds
the snout has an absurdly helpless look, nearly
hidden as it is by a prominent forehead and well-
developed chaps, and it is next to impossible to
root with it.
By many of the ancient nations the pig was
held in abhoiTence, and to this day the feeling pre-
vails among the Brahmins and Buddhists of India,
and the Alahommedans everywhere. The Mosaic
Law declared the pig to be an unclean animal, and
the Jews were fcjrbidden to eat of it. The ancient
Egyptians had a still stronger antipathy against it,
according to Herodotus, who tells us that if a man
touched one, even by accident, he presently hastened
to the river, and without undressing, plunged him-
self into the water to be purified. Unclean him-
self, the pig promotes cleanliness in others. The
Egyptians were forbidden to sacrifice him to any
other deity than Bacchus, and to the moon when
at the full, at which time they were permitted to
eat of his flesh. But the ancient Greeks and
Romans thought highly of the pig, and the
Chinese of the present day use it largely as an
article of food. Modern notions commonly agree
with the ancient one that the pig is an imclean
animal — in his habits of life, that is, but not
BRITISH BREEDS OF SWINK.
047
unclean to eat. We hardly think he merits all
the abuse and contempt that are thrown at him.
It may be true that in habits he is scarcely decent
at times, as in feeding he has no delicacy, yet he is
a very useful member of the community, and he
provides us with many a tasty dish. The truth is,
the typical pig is the victim of conditions, and is
regarded as a sort of hereditary scapegrace in the
community of domesticated animals ; consequently,
self-respect with him is at a low ebb, and though
thinner-skinned than he used to be, he still has a
rebellious disposition, and goes in for a good deal
of unseemly conduct. His propensity to root, we
suspect, will remain in force so long as he has a
snout that is fit for the duty, and he will wallow
in the mire still longer when he gets the chance ;
j'ct, despite all his delinquencies, we could ill
afford to do without him.
In the British Islands there are many varieties
of pigs, and these, again, are locally divided into
sub-varieties, but with many of the latter the
differences are so slight as to be scarcely worth
notice. As a rule, the pigs of Scotland and the
north of England are white in colour ; those of the
midland counties and in Wales black-and-white,
red-and-black, or red-and-white, commonly enough
white, or red, or black, though the two latter are
not so numerous as the white ; and in the southern
counties they are most commonly black. Of the
white ones in the north there are three tolerably
distinct varieties : the large, the medium, and the
small ; in the south the black pigs may be similarly
classed, though perhaps the varieties are somewhat
less distinct as to size; while in the midlands they
are of the mixed and indistinct character that
might be expected in a neutral zone. AVe are not
aware that the origin of these differences in coloiu"
has been, or can be, determined so as to exclude all
doubt on the matter, but the positive colours found
in the southern and midland counties are supposed
to be owing to foreign blood, while the wjiite
colour of the northern ones is said to be that of
the ancient breed of the island. There is no
certainty, we think, in these conjectures, but they
are probably correct. It is, however, in any case
true that Neapolitan and Chinese pigs have been
imported into this country, and they have greatly
helped in improving the build and usefulness of
our native breeds; selection in breeding and care
in treatment have done the rest. In the days of
the Ancient Britons the pig was a raw-boned,
72
thick-skinned, rakish-looking animal, weird and
gaunt, with long legs, light quarters, a narrow
back, and a figure-head that was surpassingly
ugly ; whereas his descendant of to-day is plump
and symmetrical, short-legged, iine-boned, with
well-developed hams and shoulders, a broad back,
and deep thick sides, and a face which has lost its
ferocity.
The white breeds are known under the generic
name of " Yorkshires," though they are, and
perhaps always have been, equally common in
various other counties ; the large white breed, from
which the others have been obtained by crossing
and by selection, are specially known under that
name, while the sub-varieties, though also known
as Yorkshires, are sometimes known by the name
of other counties in which they are bred, as
Cumberland, Leicester, or Lancaster.
The Large White Breed. — Up to the middle of
the present century it was a common thing to find
at our leading agricultural shows huge specimens
of this variety (Fig. 369), some of them weighing
I'ig. 309.— L.vBGE White Yoekshike Pig.
as much as a fair-sized heifer, but in recent years
they have been dropped out of sight as a rule,
chiefly because they were slow to mature and
large consumers of food, leaving consequently little
or no profit for fattening, though at the same
time they produced bacon of good quality and
were pi'olifie breeders, the litters often numbering
sixteen or eighteen ; and now the quality of early
maturity is cultivated in connection with smaller
size. The famous Robert Bakewell is said to have
been the first to improve the white pigs of
Leicestershire, and these in turn have improved
the Yorkshires by crossing. Bakewell pursued
with pigs the system he had with such marked
success applied to Longhorn cattle and Leicester
sheep, viz., selection ; discarding the coarser ones,
he bred only from such as were symmetrical and
compact in form, and fine in skin and bone,
518
DAIRY FARMING.
cultivating at the same time tlie properties of
early maturity and aptitude to fatten.
The Small W/iite Breed.— This breed (Fig. 370)
affords a striking contrast to the foregointj, not in
Fig. 370.— Small '!i unK^riiii], 1'ig.
size only, but in the period at which they mature,
in quality, and — if the expression is applicable to
pigs at all — in delicacy of character. It is
supposed that this variety has been chiefly obtained
from crosses with Chinese pigs, and it is commonly
known as the small Yorkshire breed. Being small
in size, indifferent breeders, and less hardy than
most other kinds, these small Yorkshires are not
as a rule profitable, and so are not adapted for
practical dairy-farmers. There is, however, a gooil
and constant demand throughout the country, and
specially in Loudon, for these small and dainty
porkers, and the price they fetch is the highest in
the market. But this small white breed has a
special value for breeding jiurposes — for carrying
on the improvement of the larger breeds, for
reducing the hugeness and the coarseness of the
largest sort, and for providing a model which,
differing more or le.ss so far as size is concerned,
breeders everywhere are striving to copy. Crosses
with other breeds— Berkshires, for instance —
have produced animals that were excellent for
fattening. One of the most striking peculiarities
of the small white pig is its puggy, dishy snout,
of which, when the animal is fully fattened, all
that can be seen are the upturned nostrils, which
sometimes nearly meet the projecting forehead ;
the eyes are completely hidden, their position
being indicated by creases in the fat, and the head
is set on much below the level of the shoulder.
T/ie Medium W/r/fe Breed. — This breed has
hardly yet attained the dignity of a distinct
variety. Having been produced by modern crosses
between the large and the small breeds, the type is
not yet fixed, and individuals here and there are
found to lean too much to the one or to the other
branch of their diverse ancestry; by judicious
selection of true specimens to breed from, the type
will soon lose its nondescript character, and varia-
tions will in time cease altogether. This type
promises to become one of the most valuable in
the country for tenant-farmers' use ; it has the
early maturity and the facility to fatten of the
small breed, while avoiding the coarseness and late
maturity of the large one, and it is moderate in
size, fattening nicely into twelve to eighteen
stones, yet the longer it is kept as store, within
limits, the larger weight it will fatten into. Its
face resembles that of the small breed, but it is
less concave on the snout and somewhat longer,
while the frame is longer and larger, and less
abnormally developed in the shoulders. It is one
of the best of our bacon pigs.
T//e Berkshire Breed. — This, perhaps, is the
most famous breed we have, and the most general
of any distinct species in the British Islands.
Formerly these pigs were of various colours,
generally "a tawny, white, or reddish colour,
spotted with black;" but now there are two dis-
tinct varieties, the one wholly white, and the other
black, with a little white as a rule on the nose, on
the feet, and on the end of the tail, and a pinkish
hue on the skin. The Berkshires are understood
to owe their tj^pe to the influence of Chinese blood,
of which breed there are both white and black-and-
white varieties : hence the two varieties of Berk-
shires ; yet they have been less changed than some
breeds have by the infusion of foreign blood, and
their improvement is mainly owing to the care and
attention that have been bestowed upon them
through a long period.
Mr. John Coleman, formerly Professor of
Agriculture and farm manager at the Royal
Agricultural College, Cirencester, describes the
black Berkshires in the following terms : — " Head
moderately short ; forehead wide, nose slightly
dished, .straight at the end — not retrousse, as in
the small breeds ; chaps full ; ears slightly pro-
jecting, occasionally pendant, and covering the
eyes. Prevailing colour black, with white blaze
down the nose or white star on the forehead ;
sometimes uniformly dark : but this is the excep-
tion, and never the dead black of the Suffolk or
Essex. The pink tinge should be always apparent.
The eye is not sunk and closed as in the breeds
remarkable for feeding properties, but large, intel-
ligent, and denoting activity. General effect
pleasing. The head is well set ; the neck, of
moderate length, is full and muscular; the
BRITISH BHKKDS OF SWINK.
>!■!)
elioulders well set, so that we have a perfectly
regular outline. There is not the extraordinary
wealth of China seen in Suffolk, but the fore-
quarters are well proportioned. Occasionally we
find a slight deficiency in the girth, caused by the
flatness of the fore-ribs. The back is fairly level,
and the ribs, as a rule, tolerably sprung : a less
perfect ban-el, however, than is to bo found in the
Essex and Suffolk blacks. Loins wide and well
covered ; quarters often rather short and drooping
— this is probably the weakest point in the breed.
The tail is usually set lower than the hips, which
gives a somewhat common character. The gammon
full and deep; under-lines somewhat irregular; the
flank often light. The carcase stands on short
legs, and the bone, whilst stronger than that of
the small sorts, is well-proportioned, and by no
means stronger than is necessary. The strength
and character of the coat varies according to se.^
and management. The effect of confinement and
close breeding is to reduce the hair. We have a
great objection to bristles, which indicate a thick
skin, coarse offal, and slow feeding; but we also
equally dislike the thin, weak, soft hair, which is a
sure evidence of delicacy, especially in the boar ;
here, at least, should be plenty of hair, otherwise
the offspring will be sadly deficient. In the sow
tine long hair is desirable; too much and too strong
hair is indicative of coarseness. But if the pig is
required to work for its living, and to officiate as
scavenger of the farm, there must be constitution ;
and we cannot have this without hair. The great
merit of the Berkshire over most other breeds
consists in the larger proportion of lean meat, and
the distribution of fat and lean when properly fed ;
Fig. 371. — Berkshire Pig.
consequently a given live weight realises a larger
proportion of available meat than any other breed."
As Mr. Coleman has said, the hind quarters are
weak and drooping, sloping downwards from the
hips to the tail, so that the top line is not level,
as it ought to be, from the neck backwards ; this
fault, though much more marked than in other
breeds, is not by any means a feature which cannot
be removed, or at all events greatly reduced, by
careful breeding against it. In the anne.^ce I
engraving we give a Berkshire prize-winner, in
which the fault we speak of does not exist, but
the quarters, instead of sloping, are nicely rounded
off, while the top line is as level as anyone can
desire in a pig. As their name implies, the
Berkshire pigs first became celebrated in one of the
southern counties, but they are now, as the Short-
horn cattle are, known in all the civilised countries
of the earth ; yet, so far as England is concerned,
they are chiefiy found in the southern and western
counties, and are not at all common in the northern
ones. Besides the Berkshires, there are several
varieties of black pigs, most of which bear the
name of the county in which they are a speciality,
as the Essex, the Suffolk, the Dorset, &c. ; but so
far none of them have attained anything like so
widespread a popularity.
The Essex Breed. — The old Essex pig had a
" roach back, long legs, sharp head, and restless
disposition" — four very undesirable qualities; it is
now a shapely and valuable breed. While travel-
ling in Italy some forty years ago, the late Lord
Western saw and admired the breed of swine
called Neapolitan, which " found its greatest
purity in the beautiful peninsula, or rather tongue
of land, between the Bay of Naples and the Bay
of Salerno — a breed of very peculiar and valuable
qualities, the flavour of the meat being excellent,
and the disposition to fatten on the smallest
quantity of food unrivalled." He brought over a
male and female of this breed, and he engrafted
the stock on the Essex, and, it is said, on the
Suffolk and Berksliire too, in so successful a
manner that, as he said himself, " my herd can
scarcely be distinguished from the pure blood."
The improved Essex, which had great success at
the agricultural shows, were produced by a further
cross of Lord Western's Essex-Neapolitans on
Sussex sows, under the care of ]Mr. Fisher Hobbes,
who became an even more famous breeder of pigs
than Lord Western himself; for though all the
improvements sprang from the Western herd, his
lordship bred in-and-in to such a degree that his
breed " gradually lost size, muscle, constitution,
and consequently fecundit}'." After his lordship's
death, Mr. Hobbes bought the best of the breeding
sows at Western, and by their aid he continued to
improve his own and the pigs of the count}'.
550
DAIRY FARjIIXG.
AiKitlier br.UK-li ol' llic breed is suid to have Ijceu
imjiroved by a ))air of black sows wliich Mr. Coates
procured from Turkey about the year 184-6; these
were bred to a Chiuese boar, and tlie proojeny in
turn liad the infusion of Neapolitan blood ; lastly,
they were engrafted on good specimens of the old
breed of the country, and so the breed has bjcu
built up.
Early maturity and excelleut (juality of Hesh
are the leading merits of the improved Essex, and,
while they retain the symmetry of the Essex-
Neapolitans, they have more size and vigour, a
stronger constitution, and an increased fecundity.
Their only defects are : a lack of hardiness, that is
probably owing to the climate in which they are
bred ; and a too great proneness to fatten, on
account of which the fertility of the sows is often
diminished, unless it is prevented by judicious diet
and plenty of exercise. For crossing with and
improving inferior breeds, the Essex swine of to-
day are very valuable, and in the United States, as
well as in various countries of Europe, they have
made their mark ; while in our own country the
Berkshires, the Devonshires, the Oxfords, and the
Dorsets have derived many of their merits from
Lord Western's Neapolitan importations, whose
in(luen?e, commencing in Essex, is now seen in
Fig. 372. -Essex Pig.
every parish in the midland and western counties
where black jjigs are found. The old Essex pigs
had more or less white on them, but now they are
invariably black; their heads are perhaps come as
near being handsome as a pig's head possibly can ;
they are moderately fine in bone and short on the
leg; the quarters are well-proportioned, and they
arc symmetrical withal. They attain great weights
at an early age, and have a small percentage of
oifal. The engraving gives a good representation
of an improved Essex sow.
Tke Devon and Boraet Breeih. — These two
counties are now proud of their pigs, and with
reason, for they have really excellent varieties of
the i)oreine family. Whatever differences there
may be betvreen the pigs of the two counties are
to be attributed to merely local influences, for both
have derived their chief improvements from one
and the same source -^ the im[)roved Essex.
Though the })igs of one county may be somewhat
inferior to those of another, in the eye of an
impartial judge, yet there is reason enough for
each one thinking its own the best — the best, that
is, for its own use. This, however, is merely a
question of climate, and it is reasonable to infer
that the pigs that have been bred for generations
in a given climate are the best for that climate,
providing they have been improved equally with
other pigs. The Devons and the Dorsets may not
be so shapely as the Essex and Berkshires, yet
have they much in common, so far as quality is
concerned, and they are all of the same colour —
black. As a rule, it may be taken for granted
that we can take the old stock of a county, and so
improve it by careful selection and by judicious
infusion of distant blood, that it will become as
valuable for practical purposes as any wholly alien
breed could possibly be ; yet this is a rule to which,
as in the case of horned stock, there are possibly
one or two exceptions. The Berkshires and York-
shires among pigs, like the Shorthorns and Here-
fords among cattle and the Leicesters and Shrop-
shires among sheep, are probably better stock than
most others which they could possibly supplant ;
yet, at the same time, it would be better in the case
of such pigs as the Devons and Dorsets to seek to
improve them by crossing rather than supplant
them altogether, and especially so when we
remember that eross-breds are usually more
vigorous than pure-breds, and generally more
profitable to feed for the butcher.
T/ie Shropshire Breed. — This breed is not
famous for symmetry or beauty of any kind, but
it is a good practical sort, with no pretensions to
fancy. The colour is various, but generally a dark
red-and-blaek. These pigs are extensively sold in
the markets of the adjoining counties; bred in
Shropshire, they go in large numbers to be fattened
in other counties. The Welsh pigs have much in
common with the Shropshires, and are .sent about
the country for the same purpose.
The remaining sub-varieties of jiigs in the
British islands are mostly of a nondescript
character, in each ease more or less resembling the
distinct breeds which have helped to improve them ;
and they are known less for any distinct merits or
TIIK I'KOI'Tr KliO.M SWINH.
551
cliaraeteristies than liy the iianio ol' llic (•(Hinty to
which they happen to bching. As in cattle and
sheep, so in pigs, a great improvement in breeding
has been brought about during the past half
century, so that all our varieties are now much
better than they formerly were, while between the
best of them there is so little to choose on the
score of usefulness that it becomes a mere matter
of fancy which of them a farmer had better own.
The Yorkshires, Berkshires, and Essex are held in
high estimation in America, and in that country
there is also a very good breed, called the Poland-
China, of which we give an illustration (Fig. 37''5,
i'.^. :.;7:i. -r"i.ANii-L'iiiNA Pitt.
Poland-China Hog) . This breed is the result of a
cross in which the Chinese blood figures promi-
nently ; we are not aware, however, that it possesses
merits equal to those of the best English breeds.
Poultry on arable farms and pigs on dairy-farms
are very useful to pick up various odds and ends
of food that would otherwise be wasted. In this
way many of them find the greater part of their
own living, which is so far a clear gain to the
farmer. Pigs are, in fact, members of that humble,
though necessary, fraternity called scavengers,
doing in their way a lot of dirty work, and con-
suming many of the coarser products of the farm
and garden which could not else be made use of,
except in the rough-and-i"eady way of using them
as manure, and sometimes not even in that. What
use, for instance, could be made of diseased potatoes
and the surplus garden stuff, of the animals that
die now and again on the farm, or are for other
reasons unfit for human food, of the slops and
broken victuals of the house, and the whey and
buttermilk of the dairy — were it not for the pigs?
Where all the food they eat has to be bought
for them, it is doubtful if pigs will yield a j^rofit,
unless a man has a famous breed of them, is
successful in his management of them, and can
sell the young ones at fancy prices. But when
they are half kept on waste materials, or, rather.
on i'diiil (li:it no other animals would eat, it is
possible with good management to make a fair
profit out of the breeding, rearing, and even
fattening of pigs on a dairy-farm.
As a rule, certainly, dairy-farmeis in England
complain that pigs are not worth keejjing; others,
again, limit the profit to the fertilising matter
contained in the excreta ; while yet others say that
breeding only pays, and that buying pigs to fatten
seldom results in anything but loss, look at it
which way we will, and that it would pay the
dairy-farmer better, or, rather, be less loss to him,
if he ran out his whey on the land along with the
liquid manure. Many dairy-farmers keep very
few pigs — just enough for their own bacon —
because they believe there is no profit in fattening
them for sale, and they rear instead a number of
calves to drink the whey, or they give it to the
dairy cows to drink. It is true that many cows get
very fond of whey, and that when slightly acid
it is a capital thing for the production of a large
quantity of milk; yet, if it is very sour we consider
the milk produced by its acid keeps sweet a shorter
time, and such whey ought not to be used with-
out discretion.
It is true that the feeding of pigs for sale will
not always jiay. It happens sometimes that corn is
too dear; at others that store pigs are, while the
price of pork and bacon is low, and so fattening
cannot pay; yet, when both corn and store pigs
are moderate in price, and fat pigs are selling
fairly well, the business of fattening can be made
to pay very well. A good deal depends on the
sort of pigs we fatten ; we might as well try to
fatten a hurdle as some of the sharp-backed, lanky,
long-legged, and longer-snouted animals we see,
whilst others fatten readily and rapidly on a
small quantity of good food. We have had pigs
that gave us a clear 2s. Gd. a week for the whey
and trouble over and above the corn they ate, and
having the manure as extra profit; and we have
had others that did not pay for the corn, the whey
and troul)le being quite thrown away.
Some think it is best that a farmer should
breed all his own pigs and fatten them, and this
plan, no doubt answers well, if a man is lucky; but
it sometimes happens that a man has no luck at
all with breeding sows — his buildings are poor, his
pigs the wrong sort, or he has no gift of manage-
ment— and in this case he had better buy his pigs
as he wants them for fattening. In buying pigs
552
DAIRY FAR^[LNG.
for this purpose, it is well to buy them lean, so
that we can see tlieir faults ; and, indeed, we do
not want to buy condition, but rather make it
afterwards. In the first place, the pig's should
have frame enough to fatten into good weights ;
they should be long-bodied, and not very short on
the legs ; the ribs should be well sprung, showing
a broad chine, and giving plenty of room for the
commissariat department inside ; the back should
be straight and long, and squarely joined to the
quarters, which should not droop ; lastly, the head
should be short and wide instead of long and
narrow, and the skin and hair should not be rough
and coarse. A little experience in buying and
fattening ])igs will soon tell anyone the best sort
to buy, jjartieularly if he loses money a time or
two in them ; this, indeed, is the surest way of
sharpening a man's judgment.
In the breeding of pigs, we may take it for
granted that it is just as easy to have a good sort
as a bad one, and that this point makes all the
difference between profit and loss in the business.
The best plan is to get hold of a couple of gilts of
a downright good sort for breeding, for pork or
bacon as the case may be, for early maturity, for
hardiness, and for ability to fatten on a small
([uautity of food ; and there are plenty of breeds
answering to this description. A boar of the same
breed, though haply of a difi^erent family, should
be used if it is desired to keep the breed pure, and
he should come of as good, or even better, a family
than the gilts ; but if it is desired to breed pigs for
the butcher only, purity of breed being a matter
to which no importance is attached, it would be
quite as well to use a good boar of a different
breed, for a raw cross of this kind often produces
the most vigorous offspring; and a similar result
may be attained by using a boar of the same
breed, providing the relationship, if any exists, is
very distant : and, indeed, in this case purity of
breed is maintained as well.
Early maturity is seldom found except in com-
pany with the other good points which all meat-
producing animals should possess, and it embraces
as well the property of early fecundity, which is
one of no mean value among domesticated farm
stock, especially among pigs. Gilts that come of
a good stock in one or other of the improved
breeds will usually be ready to put to the boar at
eight months old, so that they will have their first
litter at or before the time thev are a vear old ;
this result will, however, dejicnd on their havin;:^
been well reared on good food from the beginning,
for, however well-bred a pig may be, its early
maturity and early fecundity are both reduced if
it is reared on short commons, or is expected from
an early age to find its living in the lanes. If we
have good blood to start with, the rest depends on
a generous diet and kindly treatment. Nor are
the offspring of very young animals at all inferior
to those of older ones after a time, providing the
parents are well reared from the start, and are
well attended to when they are giving suck : it is
a mere question of food and treatment ; and when
we think it over, we see no good in developing
superior qualities in animals by careful breeding
if they are afterwards thrown away by neglect. It
must, however, be borne in mind that over-feed-
ing, especially with carbonaceous or fat-forming
food, is a common cause of barrenness, not in pigs
only, but in all other animals.
During the time a gilt is jiregnant she ought
to be under rather than over-fed, at all events in
the early period of gestation ; later on she may be
liberally fed, and during the whole of the period,
except the last week or so, she ought to take a fair
amount of exercise : she is, in fact, all the better
if allowed to roam about almost at will, and the
offspring will be the healthier for it. It is also a
good thing during this period that she should be
noticed and handled, talked to and made familiar
with, an attendant being near, as this treatment
makes her better-tempered and more manageable
when she farrows. After parturition she must
receive as much as she ■will eat of food whose
quality is good, and this treatment must last until
it is near time to wean the litter.
The shed or stye in which a sow farrows should
be pretty roomy, with a sloping floor to carry all
wet away, and a rail running round by the wall,
nine inches from it, and nine or twelve above the
floor; this latter contrivance is to prevent the
young pigs from being crushed against the wall
when the mother lies down — an act which she
generally performs without much warning or
ceremony. A boarded floor some five feet
square, that can be taken up and laid down at will
in a corner of the stye, will be found useful,
because it is warmer and drier than any other
kind; but in any case there must be plenty of
straw, which should be cut into six-inch lengths,
to prevent the young pigs getting entangled in it.
MANAGEMENT OF TKiS.
553
and so the more easily trodJeu on, as well as to
make a tidier bed; and all cold winds and draughts
must be carefully guarded against. In cold weather
it is best to take the little grunters away from
their mother as they drop, in a basket, with a piece
of flannel in it to cover them with, and keep tbem
in a hamper lined with flannel of some sort, and
near a good fire, until the sow has done farrow-
ing ; but when there is no danger from cold, and
the sow is fit to be trusted, the young ones may be
left with her " to founder for themselves," the
attendant looking in at them frequently to see
that all is right. In other cases — as with a siw
whose manners are
dangerous, or when
the cold is severe
and cannot be pro-
perly excluded — it
■will be wise to have
the young jjigs in
a hamper in a
warm room for
several days, fre-
quently taking them
to the sow to suck,
but not leaving
them with her until
they are able to
take care of them-
selves. As a rule,
sows are very care-
less, particularly
young sows and
old ones that are
fat and heavy, and
they will with the
grossest supineness trample or lie down on the
young pigs if they are not prevented, and the
little ones are unable to look after themselves.
At this period, and for some little time before
it, the sow's food should be such as will promote
to a moderate degree the secretion of milk, and
nothing is better for this purpose, and at the same
time as cheap, as skim-milk with ground wheat,
the latter scalded before it is mixed with the milk,
and the whole given to the sow varm, say at a
temperature of 70" to 80" Fahr., but never cold.
There is more merit in this simple expedient of
warming the food than many who had not seen it
tried would be dispo.sed to admit, and we can
recommend it with confidence. In two or three
days the young pigs will be well on their legs and
the sow may receive any kind of food there is for
her, providing it is both good and plentiful; skim-
milk, buttermilk, or whey, thickened with a
liberal allowance of barley, rice, or palm-nut meal,
or a mixture of these, with perhaps a little pea or
beau-meal added, and whatever oatmeal can be
spared. AVe have heard objections urged against
maize-meal as food for sows that are giving suck,
on the ground that the young ones are liable to
die ; and, no doubt, there have been cases of this
sort where the meal has been fed to the sow in a
raw state, but we know it is perfectly safe to use
it, providing it is
well scalded with
boiling water some
time previously.
Any kind of food
for pigs — corn, that
is — is improved by
being scalded, and
maize specially so ;
the mere cooking
makes them easier
of digestion and
more nutritious.
All this is simple
enough, and well
worth the trouble,
which is not much,
after all. Put the
meal in a tub, and
pour enough boiling
water on it to soak
the whole of it, and
cover the tub with
a thick rug, or a close-fitting cover of some sort,
and leave it alone till the food is wanted.
It is seldom worth while to try to rear more
young pigs than the sow has teats for, and it
happens sometimes that she will have one or two
more ; in these cases the weakest go to the wall,
and it is better to kill one or two of them at the
onset, or else rear them by hand. There are,
however, patented contrivances, consisting of a
vessel from whose side india-ruLber teats project,
by means of which it is not very difficult to rear
j'oung pigs without any help from the mother; the
food is placed in the vessel, and the pigs suck from
the teats, after a little w^hile, almost as freely as
from the sow's teats. Lambs and calves, and
Fig. 376.
Pig Troughs.
T>-A
DAIRY FARMING.
even i)uppies, may also be reared in this way. In
the section on Rearing of Calves, at page 61, we
have given an illustration of Tucker's feeding-pail ;
llluN PlliGEEV.
the artificial mothers for young pigs are different
in form, but the same in principle. They are, of
course, only necessary for about three weeks, at the
end of which time the pigs will be able to eat their
milk, thickened with a little cooked corn, from an
open trough. From the real mother they will
continue to suck for some time after they are able
to eat from a trough, and the trough for them
should be placed inside a partition, through which
they have access to and fro, while the sow is kept
to her own part of the stye. A circular trough, as
in Fig. 37-1, is very suitable for young pigs; or it
may be a straight one, similarly divided into
intervals by iron rods, as in Figs. 375 and 376.
These troughs are of
cast-iron, and are made
in different sizes, suitable
for young or old pigs,
and for few or many.
Very neat piggeries,
consisting to a great
extent of iron, are made
by the ISt. Pancras Iron-
work Company. In Fig.
377 is seen a pair of
them, suitable for fatten-
ing pigs, for sows with
litters, or for stores of
any kind. It will be noticed that the feeding-
troughs are fitted with flaps, which, suspended
from above over the centre of the trough, fasten
to either side of it; this arrangement is very
useful when the food is being poured into the
trough, for the pigs can be kept out of it the while.
and there is no risk of spilling the food. The
floors are of grooved bricks, non-absorbent, which
carry off all wet and prevent slipping. The yards
may have a light roof
thrown over them if it
is desired, as seen in
lig. 378, and the whole
.--tructure is strong, light,
rigid, and easily taken
td pieces for removal.
At the Hartington
(;!heese-factory, in Derby-
shire, is a very useful set
of piggeries, well suited
to lai'ge establishments.
There is a row of them,
twelve or fifteen in
number, and similar in form to those seen in
Fig. 377, except that the communication from
yard to yard in each case is close to the door-
way under the shedded roof, and the door fits
both openings, so that the -pigs can be confined
under the roofs and all the yards thrown open to
each other, or, when the pigs have access to the
sheds and yards both, the yards are closed each one
from the other. The pigs of any particular pen
can be got out in this manner by simply confining
the intervening ones in their sheds for the time
being. But the method of distributing the food
to the troughs of each yard separately is what is
chiefly remarkable. An iron pipe, some four or
i:i;v WITH L'i>v£i;i;d
five inches in diameter inside, runs the whole
length of the sheds, along the front of the wall
outside, and a little higher than the troughs inside;
an endless chain runs down the inside and up the
outside of the pipe, and is worked by a windlass; a
sponge or mop is on the chain, fastened to it in a
FATTEXIXG PIGS.
555
given place, and going down the inside of the pipe;
from the upper side of the pipe is a branch-pipe
leading to each trough, and by stopping the sponge
each time just beyond the branch-pipe, the food is
made to flow into the troughs, each in its turn, so
that a man can feed all the pigs by simply turning
the windlass. At the upper end of the pipe is a
tub containing the whey, which runs down the
pijie freely till it comes to the sponge, when it is
diverted into the trough. When the feeding is
about to commence, all the pigs are shut up in the
sheds, and the corn is distributed in the troughs by
the attendant, who afterwards fills the troughs
with whey in the manner described, and when all
are full the pigs are let out of the sheds into the
yards. It is a labour-saving plan, very effective
and very simple, and the credit of the invention is
due to Mr. Naden, a member of the committee.
In the fattening of pigs the kind of food to be
used is a matter of importance. Whilst a pig is
growing up to the size at which we should
commence to fatten him, it is advisable to give
him nitrogenous food in order to develop frame
and muscle ; but when we come to fatten him, he
must have food that is rich in fatty matters and
starch. In the former case, beans, peas, and
lentils would be very suitable, in conjunction with
roots; in the latter, palm-nut, maize, barley, and
rice meals would be well adapted. If the pigs are
growing, it is desirable to keep up the condition
they had when weaned, and to this end a mixture
of the two kinds of food may be used with
advantage. There is plenty of choice, and the
farmer will be guided in a great measure by
market values of different kinds of food; but in
any case a mixture will be found to answer quite
as well as, if not better than, any single kind.
Many pig-feeders recommend that the food should
be sour when fed to the pigs, and it is true that
they feed well on food in this condition. Acidity
is easily brought on by boiling or steaming the
food, and letting it stand for some time before
using it, stirring it occasionally. In this way
potatoes, turnips, or cabbage may be boiled and then
have a quantity of corn stirred among them, and
left for a few days or a week; the corn would receive
the cooking and softening which aid in its diges-
tion, and it is probably true that acidity keeps the
jjigs' digestive organs in good tone. If roots are
pulped and the corn mixed with them, and the
mass allowed to lie for a few days, the fermenta-
73
tion that sets in answers the purpose of cooking
the food, but is longer over it.
The less exercise a fattening animal takes the
quicker it will fatten, and feeding pigs should be
confined witliin as small a space as is consistent
with health and comfort. The only pigs that
ought to have exercise ad lib. are boars and breed-
ing sows, and the young ones that are intended for
these purposes. Confinement is against nature,
and not conducive to health; but then obesity is
a form of disease or degeneration of the system,
and in the fattening of pigs there must be agree-
ment between cause and effect; in addition to
which, it is well to complete the process in the
shortest possible time. The floors on which fatten-
ing pigs lie should be dry and clean, and the styes
should be warm, though well ventilated. We
think pigs are better without straw or other litter
to lie on, particularly if they lie on boards. They
always keep a clean corner to lie in when they
have no litter, and if the corner is boarded they
crowd on it close together, and are dry, clean, and
comfortable, keeping each other w-arm ; but when
they have litter, they are kept clean and dry only
by a plentiful and frequent supply of it. The
atmosphere of the place is certainly sweeter with-
out the litter, for when straw becomes wet a slow-
ferment sets in and nauseous odours are evolved ;
in winter the litter may be useful to help in keep-
ing the pigs warm, but in summer they are better
without it, and in any case it only keeps warm the
side they happen to lie on, which is always warm
when the spot they lie on is dry and clean.
Fattening pigs grow all the faster if they are
washed once or twice a week, and scrubbed with a
brush each time, and they quickly learn to like it.
This plan keeps the skin clean and its pores open,
and lice cannot prosper. Some persons recommend
that they should be '' well groomed with brush
and linseed oil,'' which will cleanse the skin and
kill the lice; but we prefer washing with water
rather than the oil, because it is cleaner and
cheaper. Though commonly dirty when left to
his own resources, a pig really likes to be clean,
but he does not know hnnself how to set about it ;
and as the leading objects of pig-existence are to
eat, sleep, and grow fat, cleanliness and wai'mth
are means to an end.
For some time to come it will be found
necessary to put rings in pigs' noses to stop their
rooting. All store pigs should have plenty of
556
DAIRY FARMING.
exercise, and sliould go out in llie fields to eat
grass, of which they are very fond, and which is
good food for them, especially clover ; in Cali-
fornia it is a not uncommon practice to grow
large plots of alfalfa, or, as we term it, lucerne,
purposely for pigs to pasture on, and they
even use it for pig-food in winter, as we use
clover-hay for cattle. But pigs cannot be allowed
to go out to grass without the nose-rings on, or
they will soon make a terrible mess of the land.
An effectual method of ringing pigs is seen in
Figs. 37!), 380, 381, and 3S2. Fig. 379 shows
the pincers and nng when the latter is about
to be inserted in the snout of the pig ; the sharp
points are easily pushed upwards, and when
through, the ring is quickly doubled by closing
the pincers. In Figs. 380 and 381 the ring is
seen in both its open and closed form. In Fig.
382 is seen a pig-holder, which is simply slipped
over the snout, enclosing, as will be observed,
both the upper and the under jaws ; the pig is
easily held in this way by the left hand, whilst
the ring is inserted by the right. The holder is a
capital thing whatever sort of rings may be
employed ; it should be made of stout iron, and
the form seen in the engraving should be preserved,
so that it may slip easily over tlip nose, and be out
of the \v;iy when the ring is inserted.
GOATS.
By the efforts of the Baroness Burdett-Coutta
and others, goat-keeping has recently received a
considerable impetus in England. But although
this is a suliject for congratulation, when we are
pointed to the herds of goats upon the Continent
as an example, it must not be forgotten that the cir-
cumstances are altogether different. Where there
are large expanses of coarse and scanty herbage
in mountainous districts, while flesh-meat is far
less in demand than milk and its products, the
goat may thrive and pay better than any other
animal. But in a cultivated country highly farmed,
it cannot possibly compete with the milch-cow,
which can be fattened and sold to the butcher when
she ceases to be profitable at the pail. To be brief,
the quality of the flesh is an insuperaljle obstacle
to the goat ever taking a place in England as
regular dairy-stock, while its destructive propen-
sities are another very serious objection. The male
kids must be eaten very young, or are uneatable at
all ; and the flesh of the female when past milking
is practically of no value.
Nevertheless it is possible that in some cases a
few goats might be a profitable investment, apart
from the mere cottager and villa resident, to whom
the goat would often be a great help, but
with whom we are not here concerned. "Whenever
goats' milk is wanted, about half-a-crown per quart
has generally to be paid for it ; and as it is becom-
ing more valued than formerly, there is a possible
I^rofit here. We do not of course mean that any
one could in the least dejjend on selling milk at
that price; if it were so the ease would be clear
enough. But where there is likely to be anydemand,
inquiry might be worth while ; and it is needless
to say that a far less price would yield very great
profit. Again, while goats' milk makes bad butter,
it makes excellent cheese ; and it is just possible
that it might answer to attempt imitation of the
Roquefort and some other of the choicest kinds,
which, it is well known, are made in part from
goats' milk.
Goats differ as much in their milking powers as
cows, if not more, and this must be kept especially
in view in selecting any of such stock. A foreign
Nubian variety is found to be much the best milker,
and its crosses are also good at the pail, giving
occasionally as much as four quarts jht day. But
whether such stock can be procured or not, such
care as is posf;il)le should lie taken to -secure satis-
GOATS AND POTTLTRY.
factory aninials. They should nut he iillnwcd to
breed until a year and a half old, or hoth de-
fi^'eneracy and early loss of milking' power are apt
to result. The natural breeding season is in the
autumn, when the kids will be dropped in spring ;
but there is also a secondary spring- season. The
period of beat in spring is not, however, so long or
so well marked as in autumn, and has to be watched
for carefully if it is to be utilised ; which is advis-
able for a portion, in order that they may bo in full
milk through the winter. The kids are often
allowed to suck several weeks ; but it is better to
take them away very soon, as with calves, and
bring them on as soon as possible to skim-milk,
meal, and other food. Long-haired animals are to
be avoided for mileli stock, almost as a general
rule.
Little need be said as to the general manage-
ment of goats. They will do upon very coarse
food, if there is enough of it ; but unless the fences
are very good, and there are no trees in the enclosure,
must always be tethered to prevent their doing
damage. Otherwise they may be fed and treated
very much as other stock, giving as far as milk
goes quite as much return for it — ^varyiug with
good animals from three pints to over four quarts
daily. They must, however, never be tethered out
permanently in the open, as they do not stand rain
well. Li a stable with the run of a yard they will
thrive capitally ; and it is very rarely the milk has
any hirsine tlavour : if it has, the breed had better
be changed.
POULTRY.
In 1855 the eggs imported into England from
France were only worth about a quarter of a million
sterling ; in a quarter of a century they have reached
the value of about two millions — multijslied nearly
eight-fold. In considering this, it must also be
remembered that the French eat themselves many
times the average number of eggs we do, as is the
case in all Roman Catholic countries. It is at
least certain that Paris alone consumes eggs valued
at a million and a half sterling every year, and
some one has calculated — we do not know how—
that every Frenchman on an average eats about
160 eggs per annum. It is not wonderful that
such facts as these have aroused much attention,
and that in the recent long agricultural depression
wistful eyes have been turned by English farmers
towards the two millions annually sent out of the
country for produce, .some of which at least might
be produceil at home. We say some of it, because
we have great doubts whether England can ever
equal France in this branch of production. Our
climate is not nearly as good for fowls ; and poultry
is especially a small-farm production. The fowls
cannot be attended to wholesale, like sheep — and
there comes the ditRculty.
There is profit, however, as many farmers have
foimdjin fowls and eggs; and this kind of produce
is sold by so nearly the same machinery as disposes
of the proper products of the dairy, that a few
words at least should be added on the methods by
which that profit may be gathered, in tins short
chapter, on secondary or subsidiary stock.
The first thing to attend to, as in the dairy
proper, is breeding, or what is equivalent to it. We
have here in view no " fancy " procedure whatever,
though the poultry-fanciers have produced, or at
least preserved and developed, breeds it is a real
misfortune farmers know so little of. But many
farmers never even see that their stock is young,
whereas no hen pays as a layer after she is two-and-
a-half years old, except in a few cases. We knew
a case where a farmer consulted a poultry -breeder
about his fowls, which " ate their heads off." The
breeder found many birds years old, and tbe first step
was a general slaughter, after which young fowls
were introduced. This one step alone altered the
balance-sheet to the tune of £30. Again, hens
vary in laying powers, even in the same breed,
just as cows do in their yield of milk; and further
still, the progeny of the best layers also make the
best layers, in the same way. A dairyman who
cares about his poultry will therefore take some
pains to ascertain his best birds, and set eggs from
them only ; by which simjjle procedure he can soon
gather a strain which will lay 110 to 150 eggs per
year. It is needless to point out what a revolution
such laying would work in the egg-return, on some
farms.
If eggs alone are wanted, it will be best to
keep only non-sitting breeds, of which Minoreas or
Andalusians, Leghorns, Houdans, or Hamburghs
will do well on the farm. If necessary the eggs may
be hatched in incubators, which have now been
much improved, and answer well in clever hands ;
or a few may also be kept of some sitting breed.
If table-fowls are important, then the old English
Dorkings, or Houdans, or a Brahma-Dorking cross
may be tried. Pure-bred fowls useless for showing
558
DAIRi' FARMING.
can now l)e easily ohtainwl at a Ikw jii-ii'c ; and
after all ii? said ag'ainst " fancy " birds, as a rule
they will pay better, selected with intelligence,
than average farm mongrels. But any decently fine
farm stock can be greatly improved by jwrchasing
every year merely one or two young cocks of the
breed selected. Thus, if the cocks are Minorcas,
the farm stock will gradually be converted into
hardy black fowls which seldom or never sit, near
the Minorca type ; while if Dorkings be used, there
will soon be a splendid race of fine table-fowls.
Often, when there is any one on the farm who cares
about it, it will be best to make up every year a
special breeding lot of the finest Ijirds. No farmer
would expect to make his other live-stock pay
unless he saw to such things ; and he cannot
expect fowls to pay either, unless he will give the
same ordinary thought and care to them.
The next most important thing is, that the
eggs laid be " realised." In a case we shall
never forget, in which we were consulted about
an absence of eggs which seemed mysterious,
our final advice was to put a lock on the fowl-
house, and keep the key. There was an ample
supply at once ! and it was plain the eggs had
been sold. This was in a suburban garden; but
it is almost needless to remark how, on m;.n\'
farms, half the eggs laid never reach the owner.
They are not often sold, probably : but one farm
hand and another takes home one now and then,
and the final result is again unsatisfactory. But
this is not the fault of the fowls. And such
petty pilfering is far less likely to take place,
if it is evident the owner really cares about his
fowls, than if they seem left to care for themselves,
with no one to think "particularly about them.
As to poultry "not paying" on many farms,
what would pay treated as they are ? But we
have never known a farmer yet, with a carefully-
selected stock, and who did care for them in
the points we have mentioned, who did not con-
sider he made at least some money by them.
The management of poultry in detail must
be sought in some one of the many excellent
works on the subject ; but one or two other
points need mentioning. To get a constant supply
of eggs, a number of early pullets must be
hatched for winter laying; and a further number
hrttched in -May or June, which will not lay in
winter, but come on later when the others have
exhausted themselves. A lot of March pullets
will always give winter eggs if well reared ;
but they must have really good meal and grain
frequently, and not be left, as we have seen
on many farms, with a saucer of sour bread-sops
to last half a day. For table-fowls also, chickens
available from Christmas to .spring ai-e most re-
munerative. In some localities young ducklings
pay best of all. But in any case, some thought
should be taken so to arrange the breeding as
to benefit by the highest prices of the year.
In the case of fowls, again, this depends
immensely upon proper (hexsiuf/, which appears
unaccountably neglected by I'^nglish farmers,
while it is brought to perfection, like packing
butter, by the French. We have known similar
fowls in all respects, sent up to London, realise
respectively 3s. 6d. and 6s. per couple, the nice
preparation (which really cost no more) making
the difference. This is at the bottom of a good
deal of the uncertain " returns " some farmers
have complained about : if they always sent up
their birds artistically dressed, there would often
be a different tale.
If a lot of fowls are housed next a green
crop, with no other green food neai", they will
often eat it bare. What else could be expected ?
They prefer grass, however; and if a strip of
turf, or a bank, is within nearer reach, that
will take the brunt of the attack and save the
rest. Newly-sown seeds, again, occasionally want
guarding for a week or two; but if this is not
grudged to birds, which return nothing, it ought
not to be grudged to fowls, which do. ^lany
must not be allowed, again, upon grazing pastures,
though a few do not matter. The manure in the
hen-houses is very valuable ; and when mixed with
twice its bulk of dry earth, ashes, or soot, is good
for almost anything.
Poultry are perhaps best adapted, as a rule, for
small occupations, where they can have a larger
share of attention and get better looked after.
But whenever they are selected with judgment, bred
well, fed well, and properly looked after in other
respects, they will pay the farmer, and work in
well with the other practices of a dairy-farm.
5"jH
CHAPTER XXXVII.
The Commekck of the Daiuy.
OM-fftsliinned rheese-Fairs-Fictitious Prices and their Results -The System of Consigiiment-Advances-Prejudices -Hart
Business Habits of Farmers— The Butter Trade.
'HE great bulk of English
' cheese and butter is still
sold after the manner of
past generations, with little
or no improvement of the
kind we see in most other
branches of agricultural
The cheese fairs of
ns a rule, are still held
where they have been held for
generations : in a wide street of the
thief market towns. To some of
the larger fairs — as that of Derby, for instance
— farmers in some cases take their cheese long
distances, say twenty or thirty miles, carting it all
the way. The loaded carts are started from home
on the day before the fair, some of them reach-
ing the town the same night, others stopping a
few miles short of it ; others, again, that have not
so far to go, leave home in the small hours of the
morning, and streams of carts are seen pouring
into the streets as the night gives way to dawn.
The carts and waggons are ranged up each side of
a street that is wide enough for the purpose, back-
ing to the pavement on either side, and the shafts
pointing across the street ; horses that have
travelled some distance with the loads are some-
times taken to where they can be fed and groomed,
leaving the carts behind, while others are fed
where they stand in the streets.
If the trade is dull there is plenty of time to
feed the horses. The buyers stand here and there
in knots, with a tantalising air of unconcern in the
business of the day, while the sellers wait and
chat together with ill-concealed anxiety ; the
buyers' policy is that of masterly inaction, the
sellers' that of patient vigilance; the buj-ers some-
times saunter carelessly off to breakfast, and the
sellers in no good spirits do the same ; they return,
and the armistice continues until a fresh batch of
buyers comes in by train, or the letters or tele-
grams arrive, or some not yet determined wave of
impulse starts the trade. But when the trade is
brisk, when the demand equals the supply, and
when prices are high, the bulk of the business is
over before the townsfolk awake, and long strings
of carts waiting their turn at the warehouses are
seen when the blinds are pulled aside.
The fluctuations in a cheese fair are sometimes
remarkable ; the trade may start briskly and come
to a sudden stop, or it may not start at all for
several hours, and then go like wildfire ; sellers
sometimes refuse prices in the morning which they
would only be too happy to get, but cannot, in
the afternoon ; at other times they offer their
cheese at a given price to start with, and make
several shillings more at a later hour ; some bring
their cheese home again, and sell it next fair at
less money — or at more, as the ease may be.
Much depends on meeting with a customer who
wants your particular line of goods ; if you miss
him, he buys elsewhere and wants no more. There
is an art in selling cheese ; one man will make a
good price early, and another cannot get a bid in
the day for the same quality of goods ; so much
depends on knowing your men and how to use
them. But the dealers have two marked advan-
tages over the farmers : they are constantly in the
trade, and know the tone of it to a nicety, which
farmers seldom do, and there is a sort of com-
mercial freemasonry among them, which we never
find among farmers ; if the trade is dull, the
560
DAIRY FARMING.
dealers combine to make it duller, and the farmers
never do to make it brighter ; if the markets are
up, the dealers agree to hide the symptoms, and
the farmers find them out too late.
But many farmers sell their cheese at hunie to
a regular customer, and some of them have a queer
way of doing their business. It is quite natural
that a farmer should like to talk to his neighbours
about the price he has made of his cheese — if he
has made a good price, but not without; and it
has been some men's practice to make the dealer a
present of a five or a ten pound note providing he
gives a certain figure for the cheese. They talk
then to their neighbours, and the latter, thinking
their cheese is worth the same, will take no less,
and so miss a chance which they may never have
again. Some years ago we went a round among
the farmers with a Manchester cheese merchant;
one of the farmers whose cheese he bought
threw into the bargain three handsome store pigs>
on condition that the price of the cheese was so
much — a shilling or two more than the merchant
had intended to give. Now, this sort of thing
does a lot of mischief at times, and at best it
is very childish. Somehow or other, farmers are
fond of throwing dust in each other's eyes, and
seldom miss a chance of doing so ; and the middle-
men chuckle over it, and reap a rich harvest
out of it. We are glad to believe, however,
that farmers are becoming alive to the folly
of divided interests, and to the expediency of
bringing producer and consumer into direct
intercourse.
Other farmers, again, who prefer not to take
their cheese to a fair, send it in to the factor with-
out a price having been agreed uj^on — send it in, in
fact, half a ton or a ton at a time as it gets
ready, or as the dealer happens to want it — draw
money on account, and balance up once a year.
This is a free and easy way of disposing of one's
cheese, but as a rule it answers fairly well, which,
indeed, is the condition of its going on. The
system, however, if it merits the name of system,
is satisfactory, as a rule, only under sjsecial
circumstances : the farmer himself must have a
taste for wearing leading-strings; the dealer
must have tact enough to know how far he
may go with safety; and the cheese must be of
good and uniform quality, in which case the
dealer can always place it to advantage : he has,
in fact, regular customers for it, and have it he
must. The system answers best of all when the
cheese is consigned in this way to a cutter-up,
without the help of a wholesale dealer ; in this
case the shopkeeper has his regular customers
who like the cheese, and it is to his interest to
supply them with it, as it is to the farmer's
that it should continue to give satisfaction.
In recent years a practice has grown up in
some places for farmers to consign their cheese
to some firm or other who sell it on commission,
and warehouses have been started to carry out
the system. It has not, as yet, become very
general, nor do we think it ever will. The chief
drawback to it in the case of dealers who act as
commission salesmen is this : the farmer is never
certain that his own cheese will be j)ushed as it
ought to be into the notice of the best customers
the salesman has; the salesman, in fact, having
cheese of his own to sell, cheese that he has
bought out and out, will naturally, however
strictly honest a man he may be, wish to sell
his own cheese to the best advantage, and it is
requiring too much of human nature to expect
him to push commission cheese while he has
similar cheese of his own to sell. And, again, it is
not by any means impossible that the commission
cheese should be employed as a bait to push off
some inferior cheese of the salesman's own at a
better price than it would command alone. Further,
it is unreasonable to expect a man to take as
much pains in selling commission cheese as he
would in selling his own, even though he sold
them independently of each other ; and it is
straining the princijjle and instinct of honesty
too far to ex23ect a man to push commission cheese
with vigour while he had cheese of his own that
wants selling. The system, no doubt, will answer
better in warehouses in which there is no other
than commission cheese, and even here the sales-
man may have his favourites among those who
send it in. It may be said that a farmer who sends
in his cheese to a dealer without a price, and a
dealer who receives the cheese on those terms,
place themselves in the position of consigner and
consignee in a commission warehouse ; but there is
this difference : the dealer gives no account to the
farmer of the sale of the cheese, yet it is to his
interest to sell it as favourably as if he had bought
it out and out, so that he may be in a position to
give the farmer a fair price for it and keep a
good profit for himself.
COMMISSION FACTORS.
561
The commissioa warehouses will do well, and
be a great boon to the country, providin<i; strict
fairness between consigners is observed by the
salesmen. No men, as a rule, are better qualitied
than farmers to make careful bargains, but in
cheese-selling they are nearly always at fault,
through not knowing the exact state of the trade,
and it follows that a good salesman in a ware-
house is in a position to sell ordinaiy farmers'
cheese to greater advantage than they can sell it
themselves. Yet we are not hard and fast in hive
with the system of farmers putting the sale of
their produce wholly into the hands of other men,
and we should like to see cheese exchanges in
every county town in the dairying districts, where
farmers and shojskeepers could meet on a stated
day in each week to buy and sell cheese from
sample, as wheat is sold. We think this system,
which answers so well with cereals, would be a
boon to the consumers as well as the producers of
dairy goods. It may be objected that it is easy
for a man to pick out a cheese or two that do not
fairly represent the bulk, and that the s3-stem would
lead to endless disputes ; to this we woiild say,
first, that it is easy to pick out a sample of almost
anything that does not represent the bulk, and
second, that if a man were to once become known
in this character, it would be far more to his
loss than any picking of samples could be to
his gain.
Old-established firms of cheese factors have
long had a hold on the goodwill of a large propor-
tion of the farmers by giving them advances of
money on the unripe, or even unmade, cheese. No
doubt it is a temporary relief to a farmer to be able
to get an advance of cash when he wants it, but
there is more loss than gain about it, for he loses
the control of his cheese, and is no longer in a
position to make the most he can of it; so the
factor gets it at a price which leaves him a very
substantial profit : he must be paid somehow for
his cash advances. The factory system of cheese-
making is calculated to relieve the farmer from the
need of prejudicing the sale of his cheese in order
to obtain an advance of cash; it is one of the
benevolent functions of the system to make
advances to those who need them, free from
discount, and without debiting the market value of
the cheese : aud, indeed, this is the best way of
lifting farmers above the need of borrowing at all.
And yet many of them will prefer to borrow at a
loss, rather than that any neighbour should get to
know how they stand at the factory ; they prefer
to get it from a factor on the sly, and ])ay dearly
for it, than from an association for nothing. In
this there is a good deal of false pride, and, as Mr.
H. M. Jenkins has well said : — " It is better for a
farmer to have a factory for his bank than a factor
for his banker." But it is difficult to uproot an
iild prejudice, however stupid aud injurious it may
be ; and farmers pay dearly for the jealousy they
only too commonly cherish against each other — a
jealousy we should much like to see the end of.
If there has been but little change in the
methods of selling cheese in England, there has
been even less change in the selling of butter. It
is true that in many towns market-halLs have been
built, and that butter is now sold in them where
erstwhile it was sold in the open market-place,
yet the selling itself is conducted as it ever was.
But there are still important market towns where
the butter is still sold out in the open, because no
hall has been provided ; the wives and daughters
of the smaller farmers trudge long distances to the
market, carrying their baskets of butter and eggs
on their arms, and they hold them sometimes
almost for hours in their hands, just resting on the
thigh, and now and again setting them down on
the bare stones of the street. In some eases wooden
benches are provided, and all who can find room
make use of them ; but we have often seen, aud
still do see, the country women holding their
baskets before them,. with no support provided, and
the snowy cloths are gently thrown aside, disclos-
ing a sight of the half-pounds of golden butter
neatly arranged, and perhaps a dozen or two of
choice eggs in a corner of the basket. In the
market-halls — as in the fine hall at Derby, for
instance — are long rows of narrow benches, on wliich
the baskets of butter rest, the saleswomen standing
behind, while the buyers walk in front of the
benches ; aud a very interesting scene it is.
We do not know that the mode of selling needs
altering in a country like England, where local
consumption of butter in very many places equals
the supply, but market-halls should be built
wherever they are needed, for it is no pleasant
thing, on a cold winter's day, or in drenching rain,
or when the dust is blowing about, to stand out in
the open street, and on a hot summer's day the
butter melts in the sun. In the northern counties
the half-pounds of butter are usually moulded with
56;J
DAIRY FAinilXG.
a special device — a cow, a thistle, a fox's head, or
anything we like, on the top ; by this device each
jierson's butter is commonly known, and in a sense
it serves the purpose of a trade-mark; but in many
parts of the country the butter is made up into
plain pound or half-pound rolls, with no dis-
tinguishing mark. Some persons are strong
advocates for registered trade-marks for butter, one
for each farm separately. We think this system
would be confusing in the extreme, except in cases
where large farmers make all their milk into
butter ; and, really, butter needs no mark but that
of quality.
The chief butter market in Ireland is the city
of Cork, and its Butter Exchange is said to be the
most extensive of its kind in the world. Four
hundred thousand firkins of butter, of an aggregate
value of upwards of a million and a half sterling,
pass annually through the Exchange, which is
governed by a body called the Committee of
Merchants, who frame and administer rules which
make the exchange a close one, wholly governed
by the dealers. The main object of these rules is
to uphold what is styled the " quality brand,"
which is awarded by competent inspectors accord-
ing to an understood standard, which ranges from
superfine to third quality in the mild-cured butters,
and from first quality to sixth in the ordinary
ones ; the firkins are " scratch-marked " as the
inspector decides on the quality of their contents,
and are next weighed and marked with the net
tare of the firkin ; lastly, they are branded by hot
irons with the gross weiglit, the tare, and the
standard of quality which has been accorded to
the butter inside. Through this ponderous process
the butter passes after it leaves the farmers' hands
until it is finally sold, during which period it is
entirely in the hands of the dealers, the farmere
losing at one and the same time the possession of
the butter and all control over its price and destina-
tion. The farmers, in fact, make the butter and
send it to market, or consign it to a dealer ; and
this is all they have to do with it, except to receive
the money for it afterwards.
But the most curious feature in the Cork
Butter Exchange is this : at eleven o'clock each
day a board of merchants are specially appointed
to fix the prices at which the different qualities of
butter shall be sold to the shippers and others
during that day ; these jirices are determined on
the simple bases of supply and demand, according
to the judgment of the board, and no butter is
sold during the day either under or over the price
which has been placed on the quality or class to
which it belongs ; in this arrangement of qualities
and prices the farmers have no voice, and they
must either accept both decisions or take the butter
away. The ojjtion of taking it away, however, as
we shall proceed to explain, is denied to many of
the farmers whose butter passes through the Cork
Exchange.
In the south of Ireland exists a system known as
" butter banking," the origin of which is chiefly
traceable to the impecuniosity of the small farmers.
At the period — now many years ago — when
the production of butter began to increase and its
price to improve in the country, and when Cork
began to rise in importance as a butter market,
certain dealers had almost exclusive control over
the butter of certain localities ; their commerce lay
in these districts, and they had. cultivated the
connection, as is commonly done, so that other
brokers and dealers were kept out and confined to
other localities, where in turn they had similar
influence. The butter industry was looking up, and
farmers were anxious to produce as much of it as
possible, in order to which the cash to laj' in a few
cows in the spring time of the year was an
important factor; and as this was the period when
one half-yeai-'s rent was due, following at the end
of the comparatively unproductive winter season,
farmers found ready relief in obtaining from the
dealer an advance of cash, which was to be repaid
later on in butter. In this way the dealer did the
farmer, as it would seem, a compound service : he
enabled him to pay his rent when it was due, to
buy a dairy cow or two, and to hold on for fatten-
ing such barren cows as he might have been
milking through the winter, instead of sacrificing
at a mere store price. It was not to be expected
that the dealer would help the farmer wthout
helping himself at the same time, and he commonly
stipulated to receive the season's butter at a price
considerably below what it would have made had
the farmer retained independent control over it.
No doubt the farmer saw the disparity, and strove
to balance it by increased production, and by
freeing himself as soon as he could from the need
of mortgaging his butter in the future. But the
dealers encouraged the banking sj'stem, because it
gave them command over their clients' butter,
though they too, unless they were large capitalists,
THE BUTTER TRADE IN IRELAND.
3G3
had in their turn to horrow from their bankers a
large portion of what they advanced to the farmers.
The system is still common, but keen competition
among buyers has diminished the profits which
were obtainable in the early days of butter bank-
ing, benefiting both producer and consumer.
A curious method of dealing iu butter is
carried out in some parts of Ireland. Dealers
attend the maidcets in the smaller towns, where
they buy butter fresh in lumps from the farmers,
who prefer to sell it weekly rather than pack it
away in a firkin until the firkin is full. These
dealers are known by the name of " slashers,''
because they attend the markets with a cart on
which is a large square tub, into which they
slash the lumps of butter they buy. They take
the butter home, where they wash it, first in cold
water, to complete what has been imperfectly done
by the farmer, and next in warm water, which
enables them to mix up the different qualities
into a mass of one uniform texture, colour, and
quality ; it is then salted, put into firkins, and left
to harden as it cools. The effect of this manipula-
tion is to do away with the granular appearance
which good butter has when a piece of it is torn
asunder, and to make it greasy to the touch, and
of third-rate quality. It is difficult to imagine
a more grossly improper way of treating so delicate
a product as butter, and it has the effect of mak-
ing the farmers themselves careless about pro-
ducing an article of more than third-rate quality,
for however good they may make it, they only
receive a third-rate price for it ; consequently they
leave as much buttermilk in it as they can, to
increase the weight, and this must be washed out
by the dealers at home. Such butter, though
wholesome and clean when the dealers sell it out
again, is only fit for cooking uses, or for sale
among the lowest oixlers of the people, and the
system from beginning to end deserves no other
than unqualified condemnation.
Formerly the chief markets for Cork butter
were in foreign countries and our own colonies,
and the butter for this trade required to be
heavily salted to preserve it. But the high
prices paid for butter in England have of late
years diverted the trade to English markets, and
now little or no Irish butter is sent to the colonies,
and very little to foreign countries. The foreign
trade, however, the little of it that remains, is
profitable to the dealer of capital. His system is
74
to fill his stores as early as he can in summer,
when prices are at the lowest, and as autumn
comes on he begins to sell out his summer butter,
filling up all the time with autumn butter, as the
buying and selling prices then nearly balance each
other, and winter finds him with a large store of
butter, not too long kept, for which he has paid
only summer prices, but which he sells out at
winter prices, when butter is scarce, which are
some 20s. per cwt. above the summer ones, and
when the low prices of spring again comes round,
his stores are empty, and he is prepared to repeat
the process. In a trade of this kind, however,
there is the risk of the butter turning rancid on the
dealer's hands — a point he watches closely ; yet if
the butter is well-made by the farmer, the butter-
milk properly got out of it, and the proper
quantity of salt well got into it, if it is packed
nicely in good casks and stored in a suitable
temperature, the danger of its " going off " is very
small.
In many parts of Ireland it is the custom of
small farmers as well as large ones, even of those
who milk only one cow, to put their butter in
a firkin. It will be easily understood that the
small farmers are some time in filling a firkin
of 70 lbs., that there may be some difference of
quality between the layers which represent each
week's churning, and that the first layers require
heavy salting to make them keep througli several
weeks in the heat of the summer. When the
cask is full, Paddy, or his wife, or the two of them
most commonly, jog off to the next market with
the cask of butter in a donkey cart ; and an lyish
butter market of this description is one of the
quaintest commercial sights in the British Islands.
But the system is bad, the butter inferior, and the
people poor; they can hardly be otherwise. The
butter is bought by small dealers, who sell it to, or
by local agents who act for the large dealers, and
these have the trouble, which a better system of
production and sale would avoid, of sorting out the
different qualities, so as to present it uniform for
sale to the shippers. Great efforts are now being
made to induce the Irish cottiers to improve their
methods, but the task is one which will require
a generation or two to complete; and, as the
matter stands, the number of cottiers is so great
that local consumption does not help them as
it does the small farmers in England, Scotland,
and Wales.
GENERAL INDEX.
Abekdeenshihe or Polled Asans Cattle, 36
Abortion, or slippinsr, 65
Acid in cbeese-niaking, 210; cheese improved
by, 210 ; wlien to be imparted, 210 ; over-acidi-
fied cheese, 211 : will not ripen, 211; lactic
acid counteracts taint in milk. 211 ; acid must
not be allowed to form when whey is on curd,
211; should be developed in curd, 212; de-
stroys or curtails action of rennet, 212; bow
serviceable when in moderation, 213; em-
ployed by Cheddar cheese- makers, 213
Action cf lime, wlien beneficial and when pre-
judicial, 140
Adulterations of seeds, 174
Advantages of g:ivin2: cake to beasts. 113; im-
provement of arass landi thereby, 144
A«^ration of soil by draining, 118
Albumen of milk, 182
" Alloy,'" the meaning and application of term, 14
Alluvium and alluvial deposits, 107
Alps, I he daii-ying in. 534 ; pasture lands on,
535; secret of success in production of milk,
535 ; management of cattle, 53o ; butter-
making, 536; milk-sugar, 537; whey-cheese, 537
Americ.ius, careful in manufacture of cheese, xi.
American cheese, quantities sent to England, sx.
American cheese-making, recent chan.,'es in, 487
American daiiy-cattle, value of, 411 ; prices
fetched by cattle of various breeds, 412
American dairy products, 413; gross produc-
tion, 413; statistical returns of, 413; local
butter markets and domestic trade, 414; pre-
paring and packing butter for homo con-
Biimption, 414
American factory cheese, defects in, 209
American factory system, 465; co-operation in
dairying, 465 ; co-operative cheese- makins",
by J. G. Pickett, of Wisconsin, 465 ; Norton's
cheese-factory at Goshen. Connecticut, 465 ;
Jesse Williams, iuaugurator of system in New
Tork, 466 ; history and progress of the enter-
prise, 466 ; extension of the system, 453
American milk trade and city supply, 424 ; rail-
way trans jiortation cans, 424 ; delivery cans,
425 ; Aldemey dairy, 42b
American systems of creaming, 295; "cream-
eries,'' 295; milk-pajis for large farm-dairies,
295; cooler, 296; bench for running off mi.k,
297 ; rapid cooling of milk a safeguard, 298
Americans eat much butter, but little cheese,
::C5
Analyses of feeding- stuffs, explanation of, 176
of products of Graminse, 172
of Viixious samples of niilk, vi.
Anderson on eshau-tion of the soil, 129
Animals can be bred up to certain results, 2
Annual meadow-trass, 1Ij8
Annual value of exports of condensed milk from
United States. 18^9—1879. 339
, Anti-sucking devices, nose-piece, &c., 64
Applying lime to soils, time and mode of. 141
Arable dairy-farminL;, 47 ; succession of crops, 48
Aroma (tf butter, how produced. 314
Articles for equipment of creamery, with prices,
49 i
Artificial butter, as an article of commerce, sx,
feed' ug, things necessary to remember in, 46
manures, question about use of, 130
Artificial or oleomargarme butter, 323 ; its
manufactuTP, 3.3 ; washing process, 323; dis-
integrating process. 32 i : melting process, 324 ;
pre sing process 324 ; churning process, 325 ;
comparison of constituents of oleomargarine
an I butter, 325 ; will supersede inferior kinds
of butter, 326; "bntterine," 326; used in
adulterating real butter, 326 ; sale should be
c<)ntrolled by Act of Parliament, 326 ; how to
detect pi-esence of, in butter, 327
Ash of some cultivated plants, 128
" Austin " ogitiitor, 219
Austria, dairy- fanning in, 532 ; cooling milk in
Austria, 532
Aylesbury Dairy Company, 349
Ayrshire breed popular everywhere, 8 ; breed of
cattle, 18 ; Buchanan's remarks on, 18 ; sup-
posed origin of breed, 18; pugnacious and
spiteful in disposition, 18 ; extension of the
breed, 18: recent improvements in. 19; action
of Cork and Kerry Agricultural Societies in
favour of. 19
AjTshires and C^'armel Islanders bred for milk, 2
as butchers* beasts, 19
Bacon and Hams, importations of, xxi.
Badness of English cheese, to what due, xiii.
B.ikewell, Robert, of Dishley, as a breeder, 13, 29
Barley grasses, 171
Barn, American octagon, 87 ; basement, 88, 89
Barter. Richard, of St- Anne's Hill, near Cork,
record of dairy operations by, 360 ; hints on
dairy management by, 363 ; cows, management
of. 362; milk, 363; dairies, 363; cream. 363;
churning, 363 ; firkins, sweetening of, 363
Bavaria, dair> -farming in, 529 ; breeds of c ^ttle,
52y ; butter-making, 629; chemical researches
on d;iirying, 530 ; Bacbstein Kase, 530 ; Roma-
donr Kase, 530 ; Schachtel Kase, 530
Belgium. d.arying in, 540
Best times and ages to buy Ayrshires, 22
Black medick, or nonsuch, 157
Black peaty soils bad for pasture, 147
'* Black leg '' in calves, treatment of, 63, 73
Bleeding fat calves b^-fore killing, 63
Bone earth in forty gallons of milk, 133
BoriiginaceEB, plants mcluded in order, 160
Botanical description of plants, 154
Borden, Gail, and condensed milk, 329 ; his in-
quiry into its production, 329 ; first application
for patent, 330 ; conclusion axrived at, 3J0 ;
requirements for successful manufacture, 331 ;
his rules for suppliers, 333 ; method adopted
by, 334 ; factory at Brewster, 334 ; process of
manufacture followed there, 335 ; soldering
cans, 335 ; construction of building, 336 ; can-
washing room, 336 ; receiving, condensing,
and delivering room, 336 ; vacuum-pan, 33> ;
vacuum-pump, 336 ; application of beat to
vacuum-pan, 338; success in milk-coudensing
not uniform, 338 ; Willard on reasons for this,
338
429
Biailsford cheese- factory near Derby, 279, 280
Breed of cows selected, on what depending, 6
Breeding among members of one family, 5,
Breeding and gestation, normal. 65
Breeding and management of American cattle,
396; various crosses attempted, 396; cross-
bred buffrtloes, 396; " Jamestowns," 397;
Cheever's herd, 397; Fitch's, Mr. Thomas,
experience, 398; Jersey Ayrsliires bred by
Mr. Fitch, 399; cross between Jersey and
Swiss, 399; advice to dairymen in prize es.my
on daii'ying, 399 ; cost of raising a heifer, 4fXJ ;
management of milch-cows, 400; American
dairy-cows well housed, 400; fodder, 400;
roots in winter diet, 401 ; grain-feeding, 401 ;
systems of feeding, 401 ; Stewart's, 4ul ;
Cheever's, 491; BurnettV, 4J3; management
in Eastern States, 493 ; management in
Western States. 404
Breeding and selection of dairy-cattle, 1
Breeding for milk neglected in some families of
pedigree Shorthorns, 17
Breeding of pedigree stock an art, 3
theory of, 3
Breeds of cattle, i. ; important in dairy-farm-
ing, i. ; improved by man's judgm-'ut, iv.
Brewster milk-coudensing factory, 334
British strata, succession of, 95
stratified formations, table of, 97
Brittany cattle smaller than Jerseys, 26
Brome-grasses, 170; rough, 170; upright, 170;
barren, 170 ; soft, 170
Bronchial filaria in young cattle, 77
Brookland Dairy Farm, Stoke Newington, 350
Broom rape, 174
Built, brand, or pepper-brand. 173
Bureau creamery and refri iterator, 301
Burnetts manugement of butter-making Jer-
si^ys in Massachusetts, 4f'3
Butter, esteemed by civilised nations, xviii. ;
biiw obtained from milk, xviii. ; demand for,
always great and might be greater, xviii. ;
bow made by the ancients, xix- ; how used
by the an -ients, xix. ; used in lamps instead
of oil by ancient Christians, xix.
Butter, its composition, 192; becomes rancid
by keeping, 192
Butter importations from 1863 to 1878, xxi.
Butter-m.iking, 284; production of milk, 284;
structure of mammal-gland of cow, 284 ; for-
mation of milk, 285; cream globules, 285;
average sizes of globules, 286; raiding of
cream, 286 ; average specific gravity of milk,
287 ; why cream separates from milk, 287 ;
essential points in separation of cream aud
milk, 287 ; expansion and contraction of fats,
287 ; depth of pan, 268 ; deep and shallow
Betting, 288 ; growth of organic germs in
milk, 289; ice-water system, 290; butter-
makmg in England, primitive, 291 ; milk-
pans for setting milk, 291 ; tinned pans,
291 ; glass pans, 291 ; milk-rooms should be
kept clean, 292 ; mdk soon tainted by odours,
293 ; butter-workers, 310 ; selling butter. 312 ;
glacialine, 313 ; butter-preservers of viirious
kinds, 314 ; aroma of butter, 314 ; marketing,
319 ; judginif butter, 321 ; points for judging
butter, scale of, 321.
Butter-making in America, 436
in Cauada, 499
in private dairies. America, 413; Buell,
C.C, of RoL'k Falls, Illinois, statement of,
413; John S. Murray, Dellii, New York,
statement of, 443
Butter-markets in Ireland, 562; Cork Butter
Exchange, 5'j2 ; rules of, 562; "butter-bank-
ing," 5u2 ; " slashers" and their practices,
563 : supply of butter to colonies, 563 ; filling
firkins. 563
Butter, methods of selling in England, 561 ;
market halls desirable, 501 ; trade mar s for
butter, 562
Butter packages in United States, 458 ; *' Opti-
mus " butter-tub. 458; Halsted's air-tight
glass butter-jar, 458; Perkins' refrigoiating
butter packa«;e, 458 ; Koehler's improved
butter-tub, 458 ; Perrin's butter package, 459 ;
Waterbury's 1-lb. butter-box, 459
Butter trade at Cork, 359
Butter- workers, American, 455 ; triangular
butter-worker, 455 ; Howe butter worker,
455; Emvka butter- worker, 456; Cunning-
ham's butter-worker, 45 > ; Lilly's rot iry
butter- worker. 453 ; Blanohard's butter-
worker, 457 ; Sands' perforated worker and
washer, 457; Nesbitt's butter-moulder. 457
Butter-workers used in churning, 3lu, 311
Butter-yielding capacity diflerent in different
kinds of creaui, 307
" Bntterine," or oleomargarine, 'SZH
5GG
DAIRY FARMING.
t^ABBAOF, RKQAKPED AS CaTTLE FoOD, 155
CaMwell on 'Composition of Fodder and
Milk," 4-t
on Ferments," 332
Calf-hoiisea, construction and manaijement of , 62
California, dairying in. 378; statistics of 'lairy
development, 378; natural divisions of State,
378; Sierra Neviida district, 379; interior
district. :J80; North-Coast district, 380;
cheese-factories in, 381 ; milk farm at Bruno
Station, 380 : curious instance of prohts of
dairying in, 381
Calve-f growing, treatment of, 63
- — the rearing of, 59 ; rearinjj pays well, 59 ;
fe*''Unvr-paii for, 61
Cambr an rocks, clmraotcr and localities of, 100
Camden, the historian, on Cheddar cheese, ^15
Clovers, 156
Canada as a dairy district, 382 ; development
of cheese-making in, 3'*2 ; dairymen's a'sso-
ciitions, 382 ; St. Lawrence Eiver outlet for
Cana'lian produce, 3S3 ; shipments to Port-
land, Maine, 38i ; direct shipments to Great
Britain, 383
Canalian diirying, 497; climate of Ccnada,
497; advantages over United States, 497;
Quebec, 498; Montreal, 498; Ontario, 498;
fomge crops, 49>S ; rout crops, 499 ; cheese-
factories in Canada, 499 ; He' tie and Inglis's
cream t ry, 499; syst'''u of management fol-
lowed, 500 ; cheese-making in Canada. 50J
Cans, &c., for ti-ansport of nnlk in America,
427; ''Lester" can, 427; crystal jar, 4^7;
"Warren" milk-bottle, 427; packing-box for
bottles 427
Capabihty of bull to transmit peculiar proper-
ties. 4
Carbon and nitrogen in milk and beef, vii.
Carboniferons limestone, iMl
Care shown by French in making butter, xi.
*' Careful breeding,'' in what it consists, 4
Carrots and parsnips, 159
Cat' s-tail or Timothy grass, 165
Centrifugal cream -extractors, ::03
Chalk, upper and lower, localities of, 105
Characteristics of good dairy district, ill
Characters of soils from various formations, 100
Charges on exports of American cheese, 423.
Charleston, S. Carolina, daii*y exports from, 419
Cheddar, situation of, 215 ; long famous f. r
cheese-making, 215
Cheddar system of cheese-making, 215 ; theory
of, 216 : brought into definite shape by Hard-
ing, 216 : I onsiderati'^n of method, 217 ; essen-
tial and non-essentials, 217 ; size and shnpe,
217 ; distinguishing characteristics of system,
218; process employed at Marksbuiy, 218;
Cocker's cheese-tub, 212; press, 219; ecrew-
openiupr vat, 219; h'eaking the curd, 220. curd-
knife, 221 ; skimming-dish. 221 ; breaker, 221 ;
Cheddar ^hovel l-r. aker, 222; srahling, •.;22 ;
drawing off whey. 22;i ; cutting cunl, 2ij ; salt-
in^,223 ; cheese in pn.-ss,224; curing cheese, 224
Cheese a luxury in Ireland, 359
Chet-ee- factories, how managed in America, 439 ;
co-operative plan. 4j9 ; associated dairying, 439;
individual or lorporate enterprise, 439
Cheese-f victories in England. 252 ; origin of,
252 : society lomiedin Derbyshire to promote,
252; sca^-me of niHuanement proposed, 2.53;
fii-st factory in Derby, 253 ; mauA^er fbtaiued
from America, 253 ; opposition to the new
venture, 253 ; Jenkins*, H. M., remarks on and
early experiences of, 256 ; present position of,
267 ; causes of ncu-success, 267 ; first efforts not
sustained, 267; estrangements of managers, 268;
hurrying process, 268; want of esprit de corp-*,
268; cheese injured in factories, 268; milk-
suppliers in fault, 268 ; ill effect of artificial
manures, &.C., on milk, 269; want of care in
couliiig milk, 269 j carelessness fatal to pro-
gress, 270
Chee^e-fa<;tory system in United States, xxi.
Cheese fairs oE Kngland, 559 ; scene at, 559 ;
fluctuations in trale at, 559 ; practices of
dealers nnd farmer:^, 559; sending cheese to
fad or, 560 ; consignments to dealers on com-
mission, 560; commission warehouses, 5i>l ;
che*-8e -factors, why popularamong farmers, 561
Cheese, h"w properly iJescribed, xiv.
Cheese longest making, when, 211
Cheese made yearly in Biitish Islands, x. ;
truest etiiudard of human food, xiv.; ho*
firoperly des^-nbed, xiv. ; a most concentrate 1
ood, XV. ; valuable in assisting digestion, xvi.
Cncese-making, 196 ; cheese in the olden time*,
196 ; art, of, not perfect in modern iimes, 1£;6 ;
differences in, 237
Choese-makin'/'npparatus, Travis's, 2J6 ; Pugh's,
236; Keevila.239
Cheese-making appliances in America. 459 :
Chiids and June/ w.igh-can, 459 ; Fairbanks'
factory scalt*, 430; '* Union dairyman" cheefe-
vat, 460; Baluh's ''Oneida" cheese-vat, 460 ;
agitators and curd-knives by Whitman and
Burrell, 460; Jones, Faulkner,* Co.'scnrd-
drainer, 4'Jl ; curd-miU. 4J1 ; Hubbell gang
pre-^s, 461 ; Wilson self-bandaging cheese-
hoops, 461 ; Freeman hoop, 462; Naylorpres",
432: Miller A; Sons upright gang press, 463;
Millar's i)atent cheese-hoops, 44>J ; seamless
cheeae bandage, 463 ; pelf-bandaging cheese-
hoop, 463 ; Harris's cheese-box machine, 464
Cheese- making, faults in, 201 ; decomposition,
201; coobugand aeration. 201; cleanliness. 2j2 ;
temperature, 2o3 ; rennet, 204
Cheese-mflkincr in America, 415; conditions
goTemmg, 415; " comer" in cheese traie. 415;
home consumption on the increase, 415
Cheese-making in Britain,whj unsatisfactory, xii.
in fanada. 500
Cheese-making in 'actories. 270 ; requisites, "270 ;
constant supply of cold water, 270 ; manager's
duly, 270 ; purity and quality of milk, lirst
considerati -ns. 273; cleanliness, 273 ; cooling
an-l aerating milk, 273 ; factory milk-can, 274;
weighing-can, 274; making cheese, time for,
274; factory milk-vat, 274; agiiators, 274;
aeration, 275 ; treatment of moruim; milk, 275 ;
rennet. 275; coagulati'-n of milk. 275 ; test of
coagulation. 276; cutting the curd, 276; steam-
ing curd, 276 ; sour whey, why used in coagu-
lation, 276; borrowed acidity assists renne',
277 ; acidity prominent feature in Cheddar
cheese-making, 277 ; cooking process perhaps
carried too fai-, 277; straining off the wht;y,
278 ; placing curd in vats, 278 ; press f<ir fac-
toiy use, 278 ; sloring for ripening, 278 ; self-
turning cheese-shelves, 279
Cheese-making, must not be hurried, 211
Cheese- ma king, special room for, 78, 79; when
done at home, requirements for. 79
Chemical relations of beef and milk, vi.
Chemistry, a few important facts in, 135
ChenopodiaceiE, plants included in order, 161
Cherokee ludians, butter-making among, 443
Cheshire cheese, 225; excellent as food, 226;
shape and weight, 226 ; mode of making
usually followed, 226 ; milk-vats, 226 ; cooling
milk, 227 ; heating evening's milk, 227 ; coagu-
lating milk, 227 ; curd-breaker, 228 ; curd-
drainer, 223 ; curd-mill, 229 ; cheese-vat, 229 ;
cheese-oven, 229; cheese-press, 23 J; cheese-
stand, 230; lift, 230; drying-room, 230; ripen-
ing cheese, 232 ; sending to m rket, 232
Chicago city, miifc supply in. 42s
Chillingham cattle and Shorthorns, no affinity
or resemblance b 'tween, 16
Cliimney in hny-stack, &c., 182
Churu, Thomas & Taylor's patent eccentric, 454
Cii-.rning by mechanical power, 3i7
cream in making butter, 308
Chums, American, of various kinds, 450
Churns, dirterent kinds of, 315; HoUtein vertical
churn, 315 ; plunge dash churn, 316 ; churn-
dash. 317; rev. -Iving barr.l churn, 317; Vic-
toria churn, 317 ; streamlet churn, 317 ; Davis
oscillating churn, 451 ; pendulum churn,
451 ; Whipple's rectangular clairu, 452 ; Bul-
lard's oscillating chum. 452; B ancbard
dash chum, 4^5 ; Blan<-hard cylindrical
factory churn, 45:J ; horizontal barrel chum,
453; "Queen of the Dairy" box chum, 453;
Carver s churn, 4'>4
Cincinnati, Ohio, Chamber of Commerce of, 423
Clay, properties and character of. 96
CLiy soils, etVect of draining on, 117
Cleansing or after- birth in cows, 67
Climate, soils, and rainfall in American dairy
districts, 3.S3
Climates best adapted for dairying, 110
Close in-and-in breeding, results of, 13
Clover dodder, 173
Clover, mixed top dressing good for, 146
occasionally grown, 157
or trefoils (genus Tri'olium), 156
Cluett's improve-i milk-vat, 226
Ooal-measure<, localities of, 102
Cold irr.i';--] mhI witli few rushes, good for
cln"''--> II !• I ' - tl : spoiled by drainage, 241
Cold li.i < ■■ M m butter-m.iker, 310
Collin-. I, . : .1 ! I'liarles, successful breeders
of till": Ll:"iii;.lJ , j;ystem pursued by them, 12
Colourmn for cheese, 220 ; aunatto, 220 ;
Nicholls' liquid preparation, 220
Colustrum, 195 ; composition of, 195 ; purgjitive
influence on young calf, 195
Comfrey, prickly and common, 160
Commerce of the l>airy, 559
Common bird's-foot trefoil, 153
Common or creeping rooted bent grass, 166
Common red, purple, or broad-b ave'l clover, 156
Compurison of cheese, bread, and flesh-meat, xvi.
of EtigliBh,Iri».h. and Continental butters, 361
Conipositse, plants included in order, 159 ;
characteristics of blossoms, 159
Composite breeds, examples of, ni.
Comi)osition and formation of soils, 99
of fodder and milt, rebition between. 44
of milk, 190 ; casein, 191 ; lactic aci.l, 191 ;
milk globules, 192
Compost-beaps, 152 ; management of, 153;
valiialde as supplementary manure, useful in
certain castas f>r mea/low and pasture lands,
153 ; injnreil by being placed under cover, 153 ;
reasons for this. 153
C<mcentration of farm buildings, desirable, 80
Condensed milk, important element in dairy-
farming, first produced by Mr. Borden, i. ;
how produced, x. ; sngar, why ad<led. xi.
Condensed milk, 328 : wide demand for in
Certain cases, 328; valuable adjunct t> food
supply, 328; difference between condensed
milk and cheese, 328; where an'i by whom
first manufactured, 3;i9 ; good conden-*ed milk
wholesome, 331; cau^e-i of decomposition and
decay of milk, 331, 333 ; various methods and
recipes for makiu<;, 334
Condimental foods for calves, 61; formula for,
by Pringle, 62
Connecticut Hoard of A^culture on winter
feeding for nilk, 403
Consequences of continual and vigorous in-
breeding, 5
Construction of cattle-sheds in America, 87 — 91
Consumption of fooil by Ayrshires 23
Consumption of milk in British Islands, ix.
Continental dairying, 503
Cooley syst^-m of creim-raising, 290, 296
Cooley's milk-can, 296; portub'e creamer, 297;
his experiments in setting milk, "..'97 ; creamer
useful and simple, 298; system desirable for
British dairy-farmers, 298
Corn-meal aud wheat-bran, experiments on
value of, as milk-producers, 404
Cother stone cheese, 248
Couch-grass, 171
Covered sheds for manure desinble, 152
yards for young .^tock, 81 ; prime factora
in consideration of, fcl ; shelter, bl ; litter, 84 ;
Cow-sheds in London and large towns, 344
octa-OHal, why not likely to commend
themselves to English farmers, 90
Cow's teats, treatment of, when sore, 57
Cream-globules of milk. 27
*' Cream Hill Farm " (T. Sedewick Gold). Litch-
field, Co. Connecticut, 431; stock kept on
farm, 435 ; transport of product, 435
Cream in milk, how ascertained, 271, 272 ; cream-
gautie, 272; testing' relative jMirceuta^es, 272;
least percentage, when found, 272 ; variations
in cream, 273
Cream, raisimr of. 2-6
treatment of, for butter - making. 307;
churning, 30iS ; washing and working. '105
Creameries, when first established, 474 ; quau*
tity of butter made at, 4S2; " Sprint " system
of coolingand setting, 4S2 ; GarduerB Weeks*
factory, 48:1 ; system of management, 4SS ;
Finck's basin creamery, 483 ; description of
premises, 483 ; Gaddi^, McAdam, & Co.'s
cre-imery, 48i; McAdam Cooler, 484; Cun-
ningham butter- worker, 484 ; Cunningham
roller, 4S5 ; salting, 485 : packing butter for
market, 485; " Westcott " return-pail, -185;
"Pbiladelpliia" pail, 485; creamery in Wis-
consin, 4^ ; skim milk of creameries mado
into cheese, 136 ; introduction of oloomar*
garino, 486
Creeping or bearded soft grass, 167
Crested dog's-tail grass, 170
Crimson, scarlet, or Ituliau clover, 157
Crop cannot rise above lowest element in food-
supply, 1 19
Crops suitable for arable dairy husbandry, 49 ;
ryo, 49 ; winter vetches, 49 ; rye grass aud red
clover, 50; maize, 50 ; turnip.s, 5.> ; kohl-rabi,
51; cabbages, 51; lupin, 51; prickly comfrey,
52 ; lucerne, 52
Crosses of shorthorns and Ayrshires, 20 ; better
for butcher than pure shoithorns, 21
Cruciferfie, examples of, 154 ; charajtoristics of,
154; useil as food fi.r cattl-', 155
Cultivated grasses, List of, 172
Curd, treatment of, in cheese making. 204
Curing cheese. Three points in, 20d ; moisturo
in cheese properly cured, 209 ; ripening in
darkened room, 210 ; cheese should be turned
daily, 210 ; heating cheese-room, 210
(iKNKHAl. INDKX.
5(17
Cutting off hoi-ns of cuttle, :i5
CyperuceEB, characteristics of, 16^
Dairy at Marksburt, 218
l>ftiry boards in America, coustitntiou of, 417
liairy book-keepiug and account books, 231
Dairy c ittle of America, 392 ; early restrictions
on killing animals, 392; origin of "native"
Rtock of United Scrttes, 393; attempts to im-
prove the breed, 393 ; American shorthorn
nerd -book, 393 ; shorthorns iu America, 393 ;
importation of Devous, 394 ; Jerseys in
America, 394 ; American Jersey herd-book,
395; Avrshires, iutro UicUon of, 395; Here-
fords, first importation of, 395 ; Guernseys
and Swiss cattle, 393
Dairy cow machine for production of milk, 42
Dairy cows, selection of, 6
Dairy farming in France, modes of, 518 ; treat-
ment of diiiry cows, 519
Dairy homesteads and btiildings, 78
Dairy implements and machinery in America, 446
Dairymaids, rule of thumb followed by, 203
Dairy management and appliances, xi.
, general system of, 45
Dairy produce, importations of, xx.
of America, 1770-1880, exports and destiua-
tioD, 420 ; exports from NewYork, 1 877-1878, 421
Dairy shows, London, Frome, &c., 1878, xi.
Dairy work in American factories, 475 ; Whites-
boro" factory, a suital'le example, 475 ; de-
livery window, 475, milk vats, &c., 475 ; curing-
house, 475 ; Truxtou factory, 476 ; Newville
factory, 477 ; system of manufacture, 477 ;
" self -heater" vat, 477; milk vat and heater,
478 ; steam generator and engine, 479 ; veils
for rennet, 479 ; cutting the curd, 479 ; curd
knife, 480 ; curd lump, 480 : drawing off whey,
480; saltiug, 480; Gang press, 480 ; marking,
480; ripening, 480; weighing, 480; packing,
480 ; dealers' visits and inspection, 481 ; " hot-
weather" cheese, 481 ; "floatmg curds," 4S1 ;
whey, bow utilised, 481 ; whey cream butter, 4S1
Dairying in the North, 2t8
Dairying of America, 3G5 ; increase in popula-
tion, milch cows, &c., since lS3a, 365 ; growth
of foreign tr.ide iu dairy products, 365 ;
statistics of, 365 ; growth and advance of
American dairying, 366 ; location of dairy in-
dustry, 366 ; map of dairy products, 366 ;
growth of United States in area, population,
aud milch cows, 367; milch cows, ratio of, to
population, 367; growth of agricultiure and
value of products, 337
Dairying, soils and climates suitable for, 108
Darnel, or poison or branded darnel, 171
Darwin on mtrodnction of fresh blooi, 5
Decomposition of milk, agents producing, 331
Deep alluvial lands require little manure, 145
Deep setting of tnilk in America, 435 ; cellars,
ice-houses, aud springs for, 436
Deerfoot farm, Worcester Co., Massachusetts,
4i0; herds, 440; dairy management, 440;
butter-making, 441 ; tran-^port of butter, 441 ;
butter-milk t-nd skim-milk, 441; clotted
cream, 442 ; Burnett's centrifugal crejm-
separator, 442
Deltas of rivers, formation of, 94
Denmark, dairv farming in, 522; butter for ex-
portation, 522 ; packing butter for espurta-
tion, 523 ; skim-milk cheese, 524
Derby cheese factory, 256 ; early experience,
256 ; balance sheet, lirst season, 257 : report oi
committee, 258 ; early difficulties, 258; chauges
in the system, 2 0; progressof the system, 2 j1
Derby, first English cheese factory estabHshed
in, 253
Darbysh-re Cheese Factory Association, Eules
of. 255
Derbyshire cheosp -making, 233 ; method simple,
233 ; " sweet curd " system, 233 ; old-fashioned
cheese-kettle, 2;}4 ; curd, how formerly broken,
231 ; pole press, 234 ; screw press, 234 ; stone
press, 235 ; curd breaker, 235 ; compound
Ipver press, 235 ; treatment of evening milk.
237 ; time to add rennet. 237 ; cutting curd,
237; salting the cheese, 238; simple expedient,
238; cheese-room, 23S; cheese-room stove, 238
Descendants of grandson vt Bolingbroke, 15
Development of mammal gland, 1^
Devon cattle, 33; characteristics, howacqnired,
33; self-colour, proof of antiquity of breed,
33; at the Smithtield Show. 33; " Southam-
mer breed " of, 34; milk, rich quality, 34; as
beef-makers, 34
Devonshire cream known far and wide, 34
Devonshire cream, 320; butter, how made from.
321
D.'w. depositi(
1 of, hn
used, 12.i
Diarrhoea, or white scorn*, 75 ; treatment of, 77
Ditt'erenco between good and ill-bred animals as
feeders and producers of milk and flesh, 1
Differences between cattle, how produced, ii
Discharge of drains compared with rainfall, 121
Diseases and accidents of calves, 74
of cattle. Books relating to. 77
of grasses and cereals, 172 ; arise from
parasitic fungi, 172 ; how caused, 172
Distinctions between eafs-tail aud fox-toil
grass. 165
Distinctness of type, how secured, 4
Dividends of cheese factories, 482 ■
Docks and Sorrels, 161
Dog-power, as used in churning, 318
Dorset butter, 320; liow ma<le, 320; butter-
mould, 320 ; popular in London, 320
Dorset cheeses and cheese-making, 245
Drain, Fall of the, 12 {
Drainage, Computation of taMe for, 122
Draining, 113 ; necessary for water-logged Innd,
113 ; arran;ements for, between landlord aud
tenant, 113 ; systems of draining, 113 ; ancient
systems, 113; modern systems, U3 ; laud-
ditching, 114; "slug-draining," 114; " mol^.
draining," 114 ; sheep-drains, 115 ; bog-drain,
115; draioing-tools, 115; draining-tiles, 115;
depth of drain-pipes, 116; stone drain, 116;
time practical object of, 117; requirements
in commencing, 118; pipe-bed, management
of, 119; cost of, 121; why necessary, 124
Draining of wet land foundation of good hus-
bandry, 112
Drains, arrangement of on land, 120
the location'of, 123 ; titles of, 123 ; sources
of injury to, 125 ; action of, 125
Drift, what the term denotes, 107
Droppings of cattle, effect of on grass, 143
Duncumb on cattle of Herefordshire, 31
Dung, relative value of, 149
Durham cattle, ancient record on, 11
Dutch cattle iu Metropolitan dairies. 344
Dutch cheese-making, 542; spiced cheese, 543 ;
sweet-milk cheese, 543 ; May cheese. 544 ;
Jews' cheese, 544; Privy Councillors' cheese,
544; Edam cheese, 514
DutiesofGovernment respecting food 8upply,Tiii,
Early breedbbs of Durham Shorthorns, U
Earth's surface, original condition of, 92 ;
gradual cooling of, 92
Economical manuring, main point in, 139
Effects of food and exercise on dairy cows, 43 ;
Sturtevant's conclusions on, 43
of introduction of fresh bloud, 5
Eggs and poultry, importations of, 1862 and
IS78, xxi.
Elements of fertility most required on land, 132
of plant-food, 134
Elgin, Illmoi^, and Nor!h-West dairy market, 418
fnglish do not excel as butter-makers, 320
Enstilage, or storing gi-een fodder. 185
Kocene, characteristics and localities of, 106
Ergot, or Ergot of Rye, 173; its dangerous
effects and qualities, 173
Escutcheon, the, 6
" Escutcheon," remarks on and explanation of, 6
Estimates and costs of creamery, 4&6
Exemplification of drainage by plans, 120, 121
Exhaustion of soils, 128 ; causes of, 128
Exports of cheese from Cana la, 502
of dairy pro luce from America, 419
Extremes of heat and cold bad for milch cows, 110
Factory system of chfese-making. i.
cheese-making, extension of in England, 26 1
False oat-grass, or common oat-like grass, 167
Familiar crucifers, examples of, 155
Farm-buildings, need of good, 78
Farm dairying, American, methods and pro-
cesses, 433; milking, how done, 433; cow
stables, 433 ; carrying milk to dairy, 434 ; farm
butter-making, 436
Farm-house cheese-making. 202
Farm-yard manure, how to improve, 132 ; quan-
tity and quality, how regulated, 148 : collec-
tion of drainings from. 148; best system for
protecting, 149; collection of in box-feeding,
149 ; American system of collecting, 140 ; ma-
nagement of, an important department of
farm practice, 143 ; protection of manure
heap from rainfall ; contains everything need-
ful for plant lite, 150 ; manure heap in comer
of field, 152
Farmer should seek to augment quantity, and
conserve quality of n-anure produced, 15^
Farmstead of Tattenhall Hall, b6
Faults in cheese-makinif. 201
Feeding and treatment of daii-y cattle, 4:;
cattle : system adopted by W. V. S. Beek-
mon, ot Saugerties, New York, 443
pail for calves. 61
on straw or hay during gestation, 46
stuffs, comi)osition o', including roots,
green fodder, hayi*. seeds, and cereals. 175
Fertile nnd barren soils, composition of, 128
Fertilisation of plants grown in sand, 138 ; result
of omission of certain fertilisers, 139
Fertilising elements removed from land per acre
in six-course rotation, 132; contained in twelve
tons of farm-yard manure per acre, 132
Fertility of laud. Iiow kept up, 144
F- ..■■.,. -m-.--^. M9
Fii. -I iir> IiihI, where found, 142
- iM'ni,;| I ur.s, where found. 10^
Fir-i . iii— ._'r,i-^ Imd, how deHucd, 143
Flat-stalked me-idow grass, 168
Flavour of ripe cheese due to decomposition, 213
Fleischman. Dr. Wilhelm, 531
Flesh and fat-formers in various kinds of food, XV.
Flesh-forming aud li.nt pi-,, lunn- . lementH, re-
lationship of in :i!t iti. ,;il I. r.iin_'. 4)
Floating foxtail un-l li.'hi IwnmiI, l<>.5
Floating sweet gra-is <•]• wuti-r -ru^s. 16S
Folklore of cattle of Midland Connti.'s, 30
Foods for cattle, proportion of different ele-
ments in, 47
Forage plants and weeds, 154
Formation of soils, illustration of, 99
Foot and mouth disease, 71 ; treatment, 72
France, dairying in, .503 ; Jenkins's remarks on
butter trade, 503 ; butter, how sent to market,
50) ; cheese-making, 5U6 ; soft French cheeses,
507 ; Gruyfere and Roquefort cheeses, £07 ;
milking, 507; transport of milk, 507; milk-
pails, 5u8 ; hot and cold water baths for milk,
503; milk-setting, 509; butter- making, 50J ;
Isigny butter, 509, 511; churning, 509; Gor-
man barrel chum, 5i)9; Goumay butter, 511 ;
butter de la Prevalais, 511 ; Finistfere dairy
industry, 512 ; butter-making in Brittany,
512 ; classification of French cheese, 512 ;
cheese- making, 512 ; Maigres, 512 ; Fromage
blauc, 513 ; Fromage h la Criime, 513 ; From-
ages de Neufchatel frais, 513; Coulommier
fniis, 513; Fromages iSuisses, Bondous, &c.,
513 ; Fromage de Camembert, 514 ; Fromage
de Livarot, 514; Fromage de Pont TEveque,
515; Fromage de Neufchatel, 515; Fromage
de Brie, 515 ; Fromage de C^ulommiers, 517 ;
Froma'^'e de Mont d'Or, 517; Fromage de
Gerome a pate niolle, 517 ; Fromage Eoquef ort,
517
Franklin Co , Massachusetts, dairying in, 372
Fuller, on *' worst fault " of Cheddar cheese, 215
Fui'ze, Whin or Gorse, 158
Galloways, 35, see Scotch Galloways.
Garget, mammitis, or inflammution of udder, 70
Gas-lime. &c., not beneficial to plant Hfe, 141
Gases in milk, 193
from manure, escape of arrested by gypsum,
151
Germans, careful in making butter, &c., xi.
Germany, dairy larmmg in, 524
Glacialine, an antiseptic for butter, 313
Glazed windows best for diaries, 220
Glob lies in milk, 193
Gloucester cbeese-making, 239 ; characteristics
of cheese, 240 ; piiiuting cheeses, 2iO
Goats, 556; useful in mountainous district*,
55f> ; profitable for cottager aud villa resident,
556; price of miUt, 556; milk makes bad butter
but good cheese, 556 ; Nubiim variety bjst
milker. 556 ; management of 557
Golden Vein Mild-Cured Butter ' 'ompany, 358 ;
system of packing adopted at, 358
Good stock kept as cheaply as poor stock, 1
Gorgonzola and Roquefort cheese, 247, 5;jy
GraminBB, importance of, to man, 161
Grass best food for production of milk, 4?
management of, on strong clays, 146
ploughing out and re-layiug, 146
Grass lands, improvement of, 141
Grass lands, Sir H. M.Thompson's remarks on,
103
Grass-seed, should be bought, not saved, by
farmer, 174
Gra'^s'^s. leading characteristics of, 162; inflo-
rescence of, 162 ; culm, 162 ; joiut, 162 ; hiiule,
162; spike, 162; spikelet, 162; outer glumes,
162 ; florets, 16J ; flowering glume, 163 ; awn,
163; lodicule, 163; stamen, 163; grain, 103;
careopsis, 163
Grasses of American pasture lands, 383 ; most
in favour with American dairymen, 383;
Timothy, 384; red top or fine bent, 3S4;
508
DAIRY FARMING.
orcborcl gra^fi, 3S-t ; sweet-Bcnted vernal Rrase,
38t; Kentucky bene grass, 384; p'ain^ resrion,
386 ; pmssea in«li|,'enons to, 386 ; Rocky Moun-
ta n retrion, 386; sheep's lescue smiss, 386;
■' Gama"or " Gramma" grasses. 387; Buffalo
(Fiass. 387: pras'-e^ in southern states, 388;
Bermuda prass, 388; Guinea grass, 389; tall
in<^adowoat grass, Z<9 ; grasses of northern
and eastern states. 389; wliite clover, 389;
red clover. 389 ; alsike clover. 390 ; alfalfa or
lucerne, 390 ; hay crop of United States, 390;
Indian com in United Slates. 39)
** Grasses," term as under^itood by fanner, 164
" Great American Desert," at present a beef-
producing district, 376
Great points of an Ayrshire cow, 2ri
Greater birds-foot trefoil, 15S
Gre> n cliaff, proportion of. with straw chaff, 53
Green sand and gault. localities, etc., of, lOj
<f rowing calves, treatment of, 63
Guenon theory, the, 6
Guiding ideas in the use of fertilisers, 133
Gypsum as a ftrrtiliser, 131
HaIKT or downy 0\T GRA.SS, 166
• Half cream "or " skim" cheese, 221
Hall's, Collinson. dairy farm at Brentwood, 350
Hanover, i^airy faroiini? in. 525 ; Harz cheese, 626
Hardin system of milk-settin?. 299; milk-rooler,
2y9; inventor's description of system, 299
Harding, Joseph, of Marksbury, 216 ; pamphlets
on cheese-making by, 216
Hav-bams, 181 ; made of ii-on, 182
HaV-loaders. 180
Hay-mnkers (machines), 179 ; artificial, 184
Hay -making, 177; artitieial, 18i
** Hay-tea " for calves. 61
Hemlock and fool's parsley, 159
Herefords, S) ; early history of, SO : origin of
white faces, 31 ; characteristics of breed, 32;
steers used for farm work, 32 ; not good
milkers, 32 ; Duckham's opinion of, 32 ; fatten
on little food, 33 ; favourites abroad, 33
Hesse, Dairy fiirmingin,5^1 ; haui-made cheese,
531; Weisser Kase, 5:i2 ; Sihmierkase, 5;J2
High milking and quick fattening, v.
situation forfarm buildings, ad vantages of, 79
•'Holms," the, cheese factory association, 2->t;
bye-laws of, 265 ; b:ilance sheet, 267
Holstein, vertical churn, 315
Home-made cheese in America. 445
Horen tynnmnites, its causes and treatment. 71
Horse-forks for lifting hay, 183 ; on framework,
183; onpl^s. 183
H^rse-power churning, 318
Horse-rakes, 180
Hor 'ford, Professor, inventor of condensed milk,
329
Hoskins, Dr., on scalding milk, 293
HosUyns, Chandos Wren, on ilmining, 119
Humus, what it is, 98
"Hyant," 'quarter evil," or "black le?," in
calves, 63. 73
Hybrid or alsike clover, 156
IcELAvn ANo Imsn Mos<5. 174
Ice-water system of setttiug milk, by Swartz,
293 ; cans for setting milk, 294 ; process in
summer, 294 ; temperature of cooling-room,
294 ; great merit of the system, 295
ligneous rocks, composition and localities of, 10 )
lU consequences <-f not manuiing grass lands, 145
Hlinois, dairying in, 374; piimping windmills
in, 374
Illustration of difference between good and poor
dairy cow, 2
Imports of i-heese from America and Europe,
xxi.; quantityandvalueof froml863tol878, xxi.
Improved Americ lu dairy b;irns, 149 — 151
farm house, diiry and piggeries. 232
Improvement of laud and its products, how
effected, 111
Improving influence of shorthorns in all
countries, 17
"In-breeding" attended with mischievous re-
sults, 4
Indiana, dairying in, 373
Indications of good constitution in cows, &c., G
■ of richness of milk in cows, 7
Indigestion in young calves, 75
Inflorescence of grasses, how des ribed, 1G4
Influence <>f first male on herd. 6
of wind, and rain on bay, shown by analyses
by Voelcker, 178
Influences bemng on milk secretion. 19t- in-
dividua ity, 194 ; breed. 194 ; period of lacta-
tion, 194
luheritunce of prajicrties of anp.?Bto;H, *
Introduction of fresh blood necessary, 5
Iowa, chief north-western dairy state, 375
Ircbind, dairy furming in, 356 ; dairying in small
farms, 356 ; primitive character of manag**-
mont, 356 ; housing cows in winter considered
xmlucky,356; house-feeding rare. 357 ; letting
cows to dairymen. 357; annual yield of milk
per cow, 357; churning in north and south,
357; salting, 357; defects in Irish dairy
firming, 357 ; improvements required in farm
buildings, 358; fraudulent niani, ulation of
butter. 358; "cocks'' in Cork trade, 358;
co-operation in butter-making, 358 ; dairy
farming in connection with large towns, 35£) ;
improvement in manufacture des rixble, 359 ;
improved utensils, and more careful treat-
ment of milk, cream, and butter, wauted, 361
Irish butter, makers of should stride to improve
quality, 359; how to effect this, 359
Irish dairy cattle, the Kerry breed, 38
Italy, dairying in, 537 ; Italian davry products,
537 ; methods of cheese making, 538 ; Chiavari
cheese, 53S ; Cacciocavallo cheese, 518 ;
Stracluno di Goi^onzola, 539 ; Pecorino
cheese, 539 ; Provote cheese, 539 ; Eicotta, 540
Jersey and Goernsey Cattle, 25; difference
between cattle of these respective islands, 25
Jersey, its cattle, climate, and soil, 26 ; its agri-
culture. 26
Joaas's fermented straw chaff, 5t
Ji>ne3, W. Bruce, on dair>ini; in Ireland, 360
Judge French on " farm draiuag.^, ' 126
Judging cheese. 283 ; scale of points for. 283
Juucaceee. reacmblance of to grasses, 164
Kaksas, Nebraska, and Missouri, dairying
IN, 376
Keeping cows indoors constantly, results of, 9
Keevil'd cheese-making apparatus, 239
Kerry breed of cattle, 38 ; " Dester " variety, 38 ;
yield of milk, 39 ; fatten rapidly, 39 ; effects of
crossing with other breeds, 39 ; essentially a
cottier's cow, 40
Kilbum, trials of cream separators at, 303
Kuehn's iuvestigaiions on influence of food
on milk, 45
Kyloes, or West Highland cattle, 37
LABOnR-SAVIliTO APPLIANCES IN CHEESE-MAKING,
Labiu-num, seeds of, poisonous, 159
Lactic acid, 191 ; its composition, 193
Lactometer, 270; may be easily cheated, 27';
how to be made useful in cheese-factory, 271 ;
test by, not absolute, 272 ; must be used with
great nicety, 272
Ladders in bams, examples of, 60, 81
Lancaster cheese-makiug, 250
J^and, influence of, on qnaUty of milk, 272
Laval's centrifiigil cream -separator, 303 — 305;
construction and action of, 304
Lawrence's refrigerator for milk, 311
La;^'umiuo3a3, or le;<uminou3 plants, 155 ; plants
included among, 155; papilionaceo is corolla
of , 155 ; structure of corolla, 155 ; pod contain-
ing seed, 155 ; characteristics of leaves, 15G
Leicester cheese-m:»king, 241 ; excellent in
quality, 241 ; method of making, 241 ; ripen-
ing, 242 ; colouring, 242 ; quality, 242
Leicestershire cheese commands a bigh price, xii.
Letter from Sebright to Banks on breeding
cattle. 3
Lewis's, Hon. Harris, dairy farm at Frankfort,
Herkimer Co., New York, 412; diury-baru,
442; dairy -house and management, 442
Lias, its formation and localities, 103 ; lower
lias, lOt; middle lias, lOt
Lice or pediculi in cattle, 74; dressing for, 7i
Light thin dry soils un<»uitable for dairying, lOD
Lime in agriculture, use and abuse of, 139 ; part
played by, in a-rr;c\iltural operations, I'iii;
lequired by all plants as food, HO; action ot
lime oii soil twofold, 140
Limestone, properties and chara'^ter of, 96
Limits placed on dairying, and by what, 110, 111
Linseed-cake will prevent " bla^k le,i^," 03
or cotton-cake for cattle, 14 J
Liquid mauiu-e not sulficieutly valued, 151
tanks in farm-yards, 84
Little Falls, Herkimer Co., New York, an
example of American cheese markets, 416 ;
sampling cheese, 416; qunntity annually sold,
417 ; shipments by railroad, 417
Loamy, marly, and alluvinl soils best for dairy.
iug, 108
Localities held in repute for Shorthorns, 11
Locality, its iufluence on cattle, iiL
London dair>'men,cowkeepiniras practised by, 344
modem cow-shed, description of. 345
Longford cheese factory, 25 1; early experience,
256 ; balance-sheet first season, 257 ; changes
in the system, 260; progress of the system,
261; third season. 261; fourth Bcason, 262;
success, to what due. 262 ; objects of promo-
ters, 262; declaration of opponents, 262;
balance-sheet, 1873, 263
Lon>;hom cattle, 28; their origin. 28{ attempt
to improve, 28 ; crossed with Shorthorns. 29:
account of the breed by Lythall, 30; yield of
milk remarkable for quantity, 30
Loose boxes for cows at cilving-t'mc. GO
Lord ToUemache's farmstead at Peckfortou, 86
Lotus, plants of genus, 158
Low situation of farm-buildiugs, advantages
of, 80
Lucerne or purple medick, 157
Lupin s^eds, analysis of composition, 52
Lupins, 158 ; sometimes poisonous, 158
M' Adah's experience of Shobthobks ahd
Ayrshires. 23
M'Laren's experiences in fattening Ayrshires, 20
M agnesian limestone, characteristics of, and
where found, 102
Main drains and minor drains, direction of, 119
Making cheese without aci 1, 487; sweet-curd
process, 487; scalding curds, foimd desirable,
4S8; acid chee^^e, short-lived, 4S8; Cheddar
process. 4S8; lactic acid, a strong auti-eptic,
489; reaction of whey on curd ns-ertel by
Voelcker, 4^; heating milk fned.tates cheese-
making, 4&d ; Arnold's system of chees&-
making, 490 ; heat, 4^:0; setting the milk, 49U ;
cutting the curd, 491 ; stirring the curd, 491 ;
drawing the whey, 491 ; the rark, 492 ; oxi-
dation. 492; salting, 493; paints, 493; sour-
milk curd, 494; cunng. 4^4 , colouring, 494
Mammal-gland of cow, wnatomy of, lt?7; struc-
ture of, 285; capillary network of milk-gland,
285 ; arrangement of lobules and ducts, 285 ;
lobule of milk--land. 2r^
Management of grass lauds for milk, the same
as for beef, 148
Mangold or mangel wiirzel, 161
Marketing of butter, 318; butter-scales, 319;
gi\-ing overweight, 319 ; American butter-
carrier, 319 ; return butter tubs and jars, 319 ;
crate for butter pails, 319; butter best sent to
market in rolls, 320
Marsh bent-grass or creeping florin, X^G
Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and Ken-
tucky, dairying in. 376
Massachusetts Charitable Institution, 402
iViassachusetts, statistics of State of, 371
Meadow fox-tail grass, 165
Meadow hay, analysis of, by Voelcker, 54
Measure of goodness and permanence oi drain, 119
Mechanical power in churning, 317
Mecbi, Mr., of Tiptree Hall, on draining, 124
M eck leu burg- Schwerin, dairy -farming in, 531
Medicago, plants of genus. 157
Melilot, gives sweetness to hay. 158
Menti >n of cheese and milk in ancient
writings, xvii.
"Meres" or artificial ponds for water, 199
Memam's dairy-barn, 149
Mesozoic and cainozoic rocks, soils on, 103
Metritis, or inflammation of the womb, 69
Michigan, best dairy counties in, 373
Middlemen in the milk trade, 353
Milch-cows, management of, during gestation, 45
Milfoil or yarrow, 160
Milk adulteration, a short-sighted policy, viii,
and butter produced I'y good cows, 2
Milk-caus, coolers, and a'-rators, 447 ; More's
pyramidal str.iiuer, 447 ; milk aarator and
cooler. 417; milk-cans, 448 ; milk-setting, 448;
Whitman and BurrcU's rif rigeratingcreamery-
vat, 449; Ancut cooler and creaui-rats«-r, 45U ;
Fairlamb milk-can, 450 ; Baker's excelsior
cream-strainer, 4-50
Milk-cellar in North Carolina, 440
Mdk-condensing factories in United States, 338
Milk-fever or parturient apoplexy, 68
Milk, matters influencing prol-iction of, 197;
land, 197 ; herbagn, 197 ; food eaten by cows,
l;»8 ; effect of. on flavour of butter and cheese,
198; water, 198; cows yiebliug milk I'equire
pure water, 199 ; shelter, 200
"Milk mirror " or " escutcheon '* theory. 6
Mi'k produced on poor land, character of, 4^1
Milk production, estimate of in British Islands,
Milk secretion, physiology of, 189
Milk-shelves, revolving, for dair>, 201
GENERAL INDEX.
JC9
Mi)t, special commercial element in dairy
farming, v. ; the cheapest kiud of food, vi. ;
defiuition and description of. viii. ; matter of
first impurtance with dairy-farmers, 9 ; large
flow the result of domestication, 9
Milk-sugar or lactiue. 103
Milk supply, sheet-anchor (rf dairy -farmers, v.
Milk siphon, 5S
Milk trade, development of factory system, ix.
Milk trade, the, 3W; con'^equent changes iu
dairy-farming, 3H ; railway milk-cau, S12:
demand for milk in London fluctuating, 342 ;
wholesale price of milk, 343 ; the " bai'ii
eallon." 313
Milk, varying qualities of, 186 ; shown in diff'er-
eut breeds of cattle, 186 ; quantity yielded bv
Ayrshires, IS7 ; quality of, yielded by Alder-
neys, 187
Milking, calving, and calf-rearing, 15
Milking cows before calving, 46
Milking cows. 55 ; when done out of doors, 55 ;
better done under cover, 55 ; routine to be
observed, especially in winter, 55 ; twice a
day often enough, 56 ; should be done quietly,
56 ; hind-legs should be tied, 56
Milkiig-machines, 58, 446
Milking-pai;s, 57
Milking property sacrificed too much to beauty
and symmetry in Shortbonas. 2
Milking-macliiues in America, 416
Millstone grit, localities and character of, 102
Miller system of meal-feeding, 40t
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, dairy trade in, 418
Mineral or inorganic plant-food from lime, 140 ;
vegetable or inorganic plant-food prepared by
lime, 140
Mineral substances in milk, 193
Minnesota, dairving prospects in. 375
Miocene, scarcely existent in Great Britain, 106
Mixed diet, why dtsirable iu all cases, xv.
system of dairy and arable farming, 108
top-dressing for grass lands. 147
Mode of treatment recommended for grass
lands, 145
Modern farm-house, construction of, 78
Montana, dairying in, 37S
Morton, J. C. on frequency of drains, 119
Mowing-machines, 178
Mowing tbistles and weeds on grass lands, 142
Munster model farm and dairy school, instruc-
tion at, 362
NiTtTRAL ORDER IS BOTANY, MEANING OP, 154
Naturally dry soils suffer less in summer, 117
Navel-ill or omphalitis in calves, 74
Netherlands, the, dairy-farming in, 540; Dutch
cattle. 510 ; how kept, 540 ; milk pails, vases,
and dishes, 541 ; cooling milk, 541 ; Dutch
dairy, 541 ; law regulating sale of butter, 542
New Jersey and Delaware, dairying in, 371
New York as wholesale market of dairy products,
419 ; tabular statements of market, &c., 419
New York chief dairy State of America, 368 ;
Herkimer, cheese- producing county , 368 ;
Orange, butter-producing county, 368 ; cha-
racter of soil, 368; dairy statistics of New
York and Ohio, 369
New York City milk supply, 426 ; transportation
of milk by rail, 426 ; prices paid by consumer
and obtained by producer, 427
Nicholson's portable engine and boiler, 318
iiitrogen intheatmosphere, 133; costly element
of fertilisers, 133 ; when soil must be enriched
by, 133 ; whence it enters soil, 133 ; most valua-
ble ingredient of plant-food, 134
Nitrogen, phosphoric acid, potash and chlorine,
prevalent in what manures, 132
Norfolk and Suffolk polls, 36 ; derived from Gal-
loways, 37 ; Norfolk branch of race, 37 ; their
characteristics, 37
Nonnal solutions, meaning of tei-m, 135
North-western states, development of, as dairy
district-s. 373
Nouel's, M. Malnigie, ingenious theory, 15
Nova Scotia and maritime provinces, dairying
industry of, 502
Objections sometimes urged against Short-
horns, 17
urged against Avrshires, 23
O'Callaghan's polled Galloway, 15
Octagon basement in cattle shed, 90
Ohio, dairying in, 369
Old red sandstone and Devom'an rocks, 101
Old Stilton, why desirable after dinner, xvii
Oleomargarine butter, six ; manufacture of, by
whom invented, six ; progress of manufacture
in Europe and America, xx; keeps better
than genuine butter, xx ; dangerous rival for
genuine butter, xx ; useful iu making pastry,
sc.; process of manufacture, 323
cheese, mode of manufacture, xvii. ; by
whom devised, xvii. ; discussion and contro-
versy OS to merit^s, xviii. ; ])erfecily wholesome
article of food, xviii. ; legitimate addition to
our food supply, xviii.
Ououdasa Coxmty Milk Association, 430
Oolite, formation and localities of, 101
Orange County milk pan, 296
Ordinances regulating American milk ti*ade, 429
Oregon, dairying iu, 382
Organisations Oi dairymen in United States, 373
Origin of soils, the, 92—99
inquiry into, interesting, xxi
Outcrops of beds of rocks, 94 ; dip of strata, 94 ;
synclinal and anticlinal curves, 94 ; exemplifi-
cation of, 94
Over-lining of soil, 140
Pacific Railway promoting transit Op
butter, 378
Palseozoic strata, 102
Palmatin and stearine chief constituents of
butter, xviii
Parasites attacking dairy stock, 73
Parasitic plants ou forage crops, 173
Parsley and hedge and cow parsley, 159
Parturition and diseases or dangers incidental
to calves and dairy stock. 65
Approaching signs of, 66; treatment of
cow at this period, Q6 ; delivery of calf, 66 ;
assistance to be rendered, 67
Pastures on rich alluvial soil. 110
Paulet, Mrs., first maker of Stilton cheese, 342
Pea {Fiscine sativiim) and lentil, 159
Pennsylvania, butter- making in, 436; Sharpless's
Dairy, Chester Co., Penn., 436; cows, how
housed, 436 ; storing milk, 436 ; churning, salt-
ing and irinting, 437; Darlington butter,
437; Reeder's dairy, Bucks Co., Penn., 4)7;
ice-house, milk-room, &c.. 437
Pennsylvania, dairying in, .370
Philadelphia, milk supply in, 428
Phosphoric acid and iime, chief ingredients in
bones, 135
Physical fitness of Ayrshires for wet, heavy, or
clayey soils, 24
Physical properties of milk, 190
Pigs, 546; origin of domestic swine, 546; es-
timation of, by ancient nations, 546 ; varieties
in British Islands, 547 ; white breeds, or
"Yorkshires," 547; large white breed, 547:
small white breed, 548 ; medium white breed,
548 ; Berkshire breed, 548 ; Essex breed, 549 ;
Devon and Dorset breeds, 550 ; Shropshire
breed, 550 ; Poland China hog, 551 ; use of
pigs on dairy farms, 551 ; breeding and feeding
pigs, f 51 ; gilts, 552 ; shed or stye for sow, 552 ;
treatment of young ones, 553 : sow's food, 553 ;
rearing young pigs by hand, 553 ; piggeries
and troughs for pigs, 554 ; fattening pigs, 555 ;
exercise prejudicial to fattening, 555 ; washing
and grooming pigs, 555 ; ringing pigs, appli-
ances f- r, 556
Pilgrim, f'f Hinckley, on, Leicester cheese-
making, 241
Pitt, William, on longbom cattle. 29
" Plain" condensed milk in New York, 428
Plant growth under sand culture, 137
Plantaginse, plants included iu order, 161
Plantain, common or rib-grass, 161
Plants grown in barren land, dry weight of, 138
Pleuro-pneumonia or lung complaint, 72
Pliocene, Crags and Bagshot sands, 106
Poa-genus, or meadow grasses, 167 ; distin-
guished by panicles, 167
Points desirable in animals selected for breed-
ing, 6
of shorthorns, according to Thornton, 14
of Ayrshire catt!e, 21 ; udder, the mark of
milking capabilities, 21 ; treatment prior to
calving, 21
Polled Angus or Aberdeenshire cattle, 36
breeds, 35 ; chief merit of, 35
Polygonacete, plants included in order, 161
Poor land and good cheese, truism about, xii.
Pork and lard, importations of, 1862 and 1878,
xxi.
Poultry, 557 ; importation of eggs from France.
557 ; poultry keeping, subsidiary to dairy
farming, 557 ; breeding, 557 ; non-sittiuij
breeds for eggs, 557 ; table fowls, breeds for,
557; "realising" eggs. 558; management of
poultry, 558 ; dressing fowls for market, 558 ;
fowls on grass lands, 558 ; manure valuable, 55 s
Prepotency, property of, iv.
Prices of dairy products in United States, 421
Principles involved in breeding ]>cdigrco
cattle, 3
of breeding applicable to dairy cows, 5
of plaut growth, 137; application to offico
of fertilisorp, how stated, 137
" Prints." Philadelphia. 437
Process by which milk is produced in cow, vii.
Produce of American cows, iO-i -, comparison of
produccof Ayrshires and Shorthorns, 403 ; com-
parison of produce from various breeds, 411
Profit from dairy cow, whence derived, 42
Properties of well-made Cnoddar cheese. 217
to be secured in breeding, iv.
Proportion of elements in djSerent foods, 47
Protnicted labour, ca^ises of, 67
Prussia, dairy farmiug in. 526; Ost-preussi^che
Geumse, 526; Posen, 526 ; Silesia, 5J7 ; Schle-
sischer Weich<juarg, 527 ; Sehlesischer Sa ler-
milchkiise, 527; Brandenburg. 527; Markis-
cher Presskiise, 527 ; Kochkase, 527
Pugh's cheese-makin? apparatus, 236
Pure blood, only method of obtaining, 5
Quaking Grass, or Maiden's Hair. 169
Quality of milk yielded by Ayrshires, 23
Qualities of Ayrshire cattle, 23
of Shorthorns, 16
Quantities of milk yielded and butter produced
by Ayrshires, 22
Quantity of milk to pound of cheese, 482
Raden, experimental dairy station at, 531
Railway milk-can, 342
Rain on retentive soils. 126
Rainfall per acre, and dischai^e of drains, 122
Rape, its value as fodder and manure, 155
" Raw crossiu!?," consequences of, 5
Rearing young stock causes a diminution of
phosphates, 133
Records of cattle, &:c., imperfect in Britain, ii.
of dairy produce to be kept by dairy
farmers, suggestions for, 280
Reasonable exercise desirable for dairy cows, 9
Refrigerator for milk, Lawrence's, 341
Relative values of beef and milk, vii.
Remarkable shorthorn sales, 13 ; Collings* (1810),
13; Campbell's (1873), 13; Tbomtons (1877),
13 ; Duke of Devonshire's (1878). 14
Rennet as made at Marksbury, 220
preparation of in cheese-making, 2*H
Results of placing drains too far apart, or not
deep enough, 127
of experiments in water culture, 137
Rhine Province, dairy-farming in, 528; Rhein-
ischer kase, 528 ; Mainzer Hand-kase, 528
Rick cloth for stack, 181
Rinderpest iu metropolitan district, 344
Ringworm in calves and young cattl**, 73
Ripening of cheese, how prevented, 214
, faults in, 208
Kocks, formation of, 94; aqueous, igneous, and.
metamorphic rocks, 94 ; how to distinguish,
94 ; stratified and unstratified, 94
Rocky mountain region, good dairy district, 377
Rotating butter-worker, 312
Rothliegende, marls and sandstones of, 103
Rough cock's-foot grass, 167
Rough-stalked meadow-grass, 168
Rushes and sedges, 164
Russia, dairy farming in. 520 ; breeds of cattle,
521; butter-making, 521; Paris butter, 521;
Tworog, 521 ; Koumiss, 521
Rust and mildew. 173
Rye-grass, 171 ; common and Itahan, 171
414
i American dairy market.
Salt, action of, on acid and rennet, 214
for dairy use. 224
Salting cheese, 207; howsovemed, 2)7; injury
from improper salting, 208
Sand, properties and character of, 95
Sand-culture, experiments in, 136—138
Saxony, dairy-farming m, 530
Schleswig- Holstein, dairy-farming in, 524 ;
butter. 525 ; sklm-milk cheese. .525
Scotch Galloways, 35; why liked in England, 35;
distinguishing feature of race, 36
Scotland, cheese-making in, 250 ; Dunlop cheese,
251 ; Cheddar system introduced V-y Harding,
251 ; letting cows to " bowt rs," 251
Scour in cajves, fruitful source of, 63
Professor James Law on, 76
Second class grass land, how estimated, 143
Secret in makii^ well-fiavoured butter, xix.
Secretion of milk, 189; in males, 189
370
DAIRY FARMING.
Selection of animals from which to breed, 6
S-lfturning cheese shelves, 279
Shallow drain'n.', only argument for, 120
Stiorthorn crosses on longhom stock, good, 8
Shorthorns, a noble breed of cattle, iii. ; why
cosmopolitan and Englishman's shaiow, iii. ;
adapt themselves to any soil and climate. 8;
origin and early history, 10; formerly called
"Durham cattle," 10; new era in history of,
11 ; purity of their blood, 16
Silurian rocks, character and localities of, 100
Similarity ol processes of coagulation and diges-
Situation desirable for farm buil 'ings, 79
Size of escutcheon, how regarded, 6
— ~ of t Je of main drain, table for, 122
Skill in selecting stock necessary to success. 1
Skim-milk cheese, new method of making,
4Jr4
Skimming milk, methods adopted for, 305 ;
vanous kinds of skimojing dishes, 306
Slender fox-tail or black bent, 165
Slipcote cheese, bow made, 247
Smithson, Sir Hugh, the " Yorkshire grazier," U
Smooth stalked meadow grass. 168
Smut, its indications and characteristics, 173
Snow and ice for cooling milk, 302 ; consttructiou
of ice-house, 302
Soft grass, or meadow soft trass, 167
Soil, perfect for a^rricultural purposes, where, 93
Soiling system, '1 he, 48
Soils, sandy, sandy loam, loamy, clay loam,
strong clay, 99 ; meant to be exhausted, 139
Solids in milk, proportion of, 282
Southern and southern-central states of Ame-
rica, an undeveloped winter dairying region.
Southern counties' dairying, 245
Specialities of dairy farming, v.
Specific gravity, average, of milk, 287
Spring Hill, Faii-fax Co. .Virginia, butter-makine
at. 438 ^
Spiings, how to deal with in drawing, 118
Statistics and reports of cheese factories. 470 ;
New York, returns from, 470; King Settle-
ment cheese-factory, 471 ; Schuyler's factory,
471 ; Wisconsin factories, 472; Massachusetts
factories, 472 ; factory at Winthrop, Maine,
472 ; Gwillem"s factory, Colorado, 472
in fattening Ayrsbires, 20
of dairy interests in America, 365
of population, agriculture, and dairying in
Canada, 501
Stilton cheese, highly prized. 242 ; comparative-
ly modem, 242 ; remarks on in Men-
shall's " Rural Economy'* and Pitt's "Agri-
culture of the County of Leicester," 242 ;
Paulet's receipt for making. 213; method as
described by Webb, 243 ; supposed secret in
making, 214; rennet for, how prepared, 244;
hoop for Stilton cheese. 244 ; price, 214 ; imi-
tations, 245; characteristics of true Stilton,
245
Stock on grass lauds in England and America,
Stomachs, first and third, impaction of, with
food, 71 ; treatment. 71
Straining, cooling, and aerating milk, 417
Straining, or after-pains, how caused, 67
Straw, the right use of, 53 ; how to prepare as
cattle-food, 53
Streamlet chnm, 317
Subjects to be treated in the work. sxii.
Substances, besides water, requisite for growth
of plant, 135
in soils, composition of, 95
— — that will augment manure heap, 152
Suburban dairyman, advantages of 343
Success in dairy farming, how attained, liii.
Supply of food, a limitation to dairying, iii.
Support, how gained by plants, 128
Sussex cattle, 34 ; probably offshoot of Devon-
breed, »4; better for beef than milk, 34;
breed showing progress, 35
SwHrtz system of setting milk, 290, 293
Sweden, dairv-farming in, 520 ; loug milk, 520 •
Mysosti, 520
Sweet-scented vernal grass, 166
Switzerland, dairying and cheese-making in,
533; Emmenthal chetse, 533 ; Skim-milk
cheese, 534; Gruyfere cheese, 534; Battelmatt,
5W ; Scbabzieger, 534 ; Vacherin, 5:J4
Syracuse, New York, its organisation for milk-
supply, 430
System of manufacture, chief element of
success in cheese-making, 216
Tables for calculating bihadstion op soils
By caovs and enrichuent bt uanlthes. etc..
131
Taint developed by carrying milk in closely-
lidded cans, 214
Tainted and sour milk, treatment of, 225
milk, mischief arising from in cheese-
making, 213
Task of breeder, why rendered difficidt, 4
Tattenhall HjUI, farmstead of, 8.5
Teats and udders of Ayrshire and Aldemey
cows, difi'erence in, 187
congenital closing of, 71 ; cracks and sores
on, 71
Teeswater cattle, why celebrated, 11
Temperature for curing cheese, 22 1
Tether-pegs for cattle. 26
Texas and New Mexico, butter-making in, 445
not a district for dairy-farming, 376
Theory of cream-raising, Arnold's. 289
Thistle pest in gra^s, how to eradicate, 142
Thompson. Sir H. M., on manigement of grass
lands, 142
Tilton's experiments on milk and cream products
of Dutch cattle, grades, and Jerseys, 27
Time for cows to calve, 45
Town dairies and the milk trade ; 313; Holland
Park Farm. 346
Travis's apparatus for cheese-making, 236
Treatment of Ayrshire cattle in England, 20
of cattle by President of American Jersey
Cattle Club, 403
Trias, or new red sandstone, 103
Triticum, plants included in genus, 170; allied
to genus lolium, 170
Trochar and canula, 71
Trustworthy niap of soils desirable, 107
Tufted hair grass, 166
Tunks and Tisdall's Farm at Holland Park,
346 ; farms at Epsom, 349
Turnips of various kinds, 155
Types oi dairy cattle, whence obtained, ii.
Udder, inflammation of. how cadsed. 70;
treatment iu such cases, 70 ; fineness of skin
on, 188 ; position of teats on. 188 ; milk ducts
iu, 189 ; arteries and veins of, 189
Umbelhferro, plants of order, 159
Umbilicus, chronic swellings of, 75
Uuderdraining, theory of, 116
Upward action of water from drains, 126
Urea in milk, 194
Uterus, inversion of the, 6S
Utioa, New York, as a dairy market, 417
Vagina, protrusion or inversion of, 68
Value of, and dependence on, escutcheon theory,
6
Variety iu American factories for cheese-making,
how explained, 473
Vetch or tare, and kidney vetch, 158
Villa-dairying, 351 ; ideal picture of villa-dairy
farmer, 351; villa-famiing and dairying, with
what view undertaken, 3^1 ; cows bf^st eait«d
for, 352 ; large cows not desirable, 352 ; Jersey
cow profitable, 352 ; Ayrshire and Kerry cows
when euifable, 352 ; Norfolk polled cow. 353 \
good milker necessary, 353 ; cows should be
kept apart from horses. 353; construction of
cow-house, 353 ; stall for two cows, 354 ; iron
fittings for stalls, 35* ; liquid manure tank,
355; quantity of land required, 355; winter
feeding, 355 ; good churn for, 355 ; June grass
best for butter-making, 355; change of diet
good for cow, 355 ; taint in milk and butter,
Voelcker's analyses of milk and cheese, liv.
de8crii)tion of butter, xviii.
Waide's butter-worker, 311
revolving barrel churn, 317
Victoria churn, 317
Warmth aud acidity allied in cheese-making, 212
Washing and working in chu- niug, 30J
Water, how it enters into drams, 127 ; action of
on earth's crust, 92 ; denudation and disinte-
gration. 93
meadow grass, 169
culture, experiments in, 131; with what
made, 134; statemt-nts respictiog. by Prof.
S. W. Johnston. 135; in what they consist,
135 ; how carried out, 135 ; by Wolfe, Nobbe,
and Knot, 136
Watering-places for cattle, 200
Watf-r-level in wet lauds, effect of lowering, 124
Weakly or dehcate animals, mistake to breed
from, 4
Wtalden and Purbeck beds, lOt
Weldon's cream-rai.siiig apparatus, 300
Welsh cattle, 40 ; Glamorgans nearly extinct, 40 ;
Pembroke or Castlemartin cattle', 40; Angle
sea cattle, breed worth preserving, 41
Wensleydale, dairying of, 248 ; mode adopted iu
making cheese. 248 ; rennet or "prezzur,"249;
new mode of making, 249
West Highland cattle, or kyloes, 37
West Virginia as a butter-mak ug district] 370
Westplialia, dairy farming m, 528 ; Westfilia-
cher kase, 529 ; Nieheimer cheese, 529
Wet soil exposed iu sun and wind, evils result-
ing to, 126
Wet soils, how classed, 116 ; method of drainage
appropriate to each class, 117
Wetness of soils, how caused, 116
Wheat-sbraw chaff, analyses of by Voelcker, 54
Whey, sour, use of, 220
White, Dutch, or honr-ysuckle clover, 156
mustard, &o., and charlock, 155
Why covered-yard feedmg produces richer
manure, 150
people do not relish milk now, viii.
wheaten bread should bo eaten with
chee^^e, xv.
Wild chicory or succory, 160
Wil.i oats, 167
Willard, X. A., on cheese factory practice, 473
on condensed milk, 331
Wiltshire cheeses and cheese -making, 245 ;
method of making, 2W; curd-mill, 246;
cheese-turner, 240; Wilts "truckles," 246;
mode of making in moderu dairies, 247
Windley cheese factory, 265; balance sheet. 266
Wintering calves, system of, 64
Wisconsin, dairymg in, 374
Wood meadow-grass, 168
Worst kinds of pasture lands, light sandfi,
strong clays, black peaiy soils, 146
Wurtembersf, dairy lorming in, 530; Hohen-
heimer kase, 530
Yellow or golden oat-orass, 106
Tellow rattle or horse-penny, 174
Ca53Ell, Petter, Galpin & Co., Belle Sz-uvaqb Works, London, E.C.
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