386 FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



Mr. : I saw a statement that an acre was threshed in two hours. 



Dr. McNabb: I have husked corn and like the crop better than any other^ 

 but husking and shelling corn is hard work, and I should think it might be 

 threshed. My only objection to the plan is that it destroys the symmetry of 

 the cob. 



CONDENSED MILK. 



BY MR. EWING, 

 [Read at the Charlotte Institute, February 17, 1887.] 



Mb. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen — While we attempt to present 

 the merits of this infant industry, we wish to do so from the stand point 

 of a farmer, and view the question as a business enterprise, that we may 

 compare our views and experiences, and thereby benefit ourselves and attain 

 a maximum degree of profit. 



Condensed milk has been used more or less for the last thirty years ; first 

 in France, and to supply the place of milk in localities where it could not be 

 had, being largely in demand for armies, navies, etc., but science and experi- 

 ments have improved the process, and consequently the product, until now 

 we find it in use in large cities where the local milk man's dilutions of water 

 and chalk have become unsatisfactory and a genuine article of condensed 

 milk meets with much favor, and in the Southern States where milk will not 

 keep fresh, and where ice is expensive we find that orders for condensed milk 

 are large. One dealer in Atlanta gives the Lansing factory orders for car 

 load lots, and the demand is constantly increasing in various ways, as food 

 for children and a substitute for adulterated syrups on pancakes and in cook- 

 ing fancy cakes and confections. 



The milk for the manufacture must be pure and free from odors, such as from 

 roots, turnips and carrots especially, and the milk cooled as soon as possible 

 allowing the animal odor to escape and not take up the odors of vegetables 

 or of the kitchen. After it is cooled to 60 degrees or lower, it is put in ten 

 gallon cans and conveyed to the factory with teams, each team making a 

 trip of twelve miles or less, as the case may be, gathering the milk on the 

 route to the factory; there it is weighed and credit given to each person, 

 and a statement of the weight, price and amount with the cash, is placed in an 

 envelope and sent by the teamsters to each person who sends milk once each 

 week, the price paid being 81.20 per hundred pounds, from the 10th of 

 December until the 10th of April, 81.00 from the lUthof April until the 10th 

 of June, $0.80 from the 10th of June until the 10th of September, 81.00 

 from the 10th of September to the 10th of December, making an average of 

 $1.00 for the year. 



When the milk is weighed it is strained into a cool vat, 33^ per cent of 

 pure cane sugar added, and then pumped into an air tight copper globe 

 which is furnished with coils of steam pipes inside to do the beating, with a 

 condenser at the top and two heavy plates of glass for the operator to watch 

 the operation. There is attached to the apparatus two heavy vacuum pumps 

 adjusted to draw about 24 inches vacuum. When each batch is brought to 



