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potash-yielding forest trees, will never deceive the farmer as 

 to the natural capability of the soil." 



The county, everywhere abounds in these forest trees, and 

 in poplars of the largest size. The top-soil is sufficiently 

 deep to produce the best of crops, and, under a proper system 

 of cultivation, would be inexhaustible. It is a soil well 

 adopted to all crops, but the rolling character of the surface, 

 together with its fine springs and water courses, adapt it, 

 especially to stock-raising and dairy establishments. 



4. Of Dairies. — Heretofore, on account of our inland 

 situation, and want of market facilities, but little attention 

 has been given to making butter and cheese. We have no 

 dairy establishments, the low price of butter, furnishing no 

 inducement to invest capital in them. Still our county, in 

 proportion to its population, is among the foremost in the 

 State for butter making, the number of pounds according to 

 the recent census, being 150,372. But the rapid progress of 

 the New Albany and Lake Michigan Railroad, will in another 

 year, give to our citizens a railroad communication with the 

 cities at the Falls of the Ohio, and under the encouragement 

 of these markets, our great natural advantages for dairy op- 

 erations will soon be laid hold of. The butter now made 

 here is sold at Bloomington, the county seat, or bought up 

 by provision peddlers. In summer it brings from eight to ten 

 cents a pound, and in winter, from ten to fifteen cents. 



The modes of making it are as various as the quality 

 of the butter itself. But our best butter makers, as soon as 

 the milk is drawn from the cow, gradually heat it until it 

 nearly boils, when it is strained into pans or crocks, and set 

 away uncovered (if protected from flies,) in a cool and well 

 ventilated place, which is usually the spring house. From 

 thirty-six to forty-eight hours afterwards, the cream is taken 

 off and collected in a large crock, and when it is thickened, 

 it is churned. When the cream is warm, or likely to heat 

 easily, the churning is done slowly, for if rapidly, the cream 

 is too much heated and scalds the butter. After the butter 



