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California Agriculturist and Live Stock Journal. 



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John Has a Way. 



pHE cows are coming, Jessie, dear, make haste and 

 see tlio biglil; 

 There are twi-uty milky beauties to be housed 



aud fed to-night. 

 The first one. with the snow-white horns, is jiist 

 as ul.l as May; 

 ■ She aud my ptt first saw the light the same soft 

 Summer's day. 



A tender creature was she, so weak and cold and thin! 

 Joliu said shi? was not tit to raise. I said it was a sin 

 To cast her off for Maybud's sake. Johu laughed aud 



asked me whether 

 I thought it best, upon the whole, to raise two calves 



together. 



But she was spared, and so was May. It sometimes 



seems to me, 

 In Starbi'igbt'B soft and gentle eyes, May's pleading 



glance I see. 

 I lovo the creature— you may smile— perhaps my 



fancies mock; 

 She's the fairest of the herd, as May's the sweetest of 



the flock. 



There's May, her arms 'round Starbriglit's neck; the 

 girl is uine to-day, 



A frolicsome and geuial thing, at study or at play; 



The darling of our failing years, the spring in our au- 

 tumn set, 



A fair whitu jewel blazing in our faded coronet. 



But see. John lets the bars down; in clover deep they 



stand. 

 With glossy flanks, and backs as straight as yonder 



talde land; 

 The fragrauce of their breath pours iu like ambergris 



aud myrrh; 

 They're just the neatest cows to milk, John says they 



never stir. 



They know his tone— 'tis seldom loiid; they know his 



touch, 'tis kind; 

 "John has a way," the neighbors say, to make dumb 



creatures mind; 

 Perhaps— I only know that I, through all these blessed 



years. 

 Have uever seen the moment when his voice has 



brought me tears. 



—[Hearth and Home. 



Fancy Butter Making. 



An Eastern "gilt-edgo" butter dairy is thus 

 described in an exchange : 



The dairy ■which is and wiU remain a 

 specialty on this farm, is a great attraction, 

 aud nothing is more noteworthy about it than 

 its thorough order aud cleanliness — two es- 

 sentials which are highly important. Every 

 modern improvement that experience has 

 proved to be of value in the best known dairy 

 regions of the county, is supplied. Water is 

 furnished in unfailing quantities from the 

 reservoirs which contribute to every needed 

 place on the farm, and the most perfect ar- 

 rangements for cooling in the Summer are 

 provided. The cooling j^ans used are the 

 deep ones, the old theory that the larger the 

 surface of fiiilk, the greater the quantity of 

 cream to be had, being now generally aban- 

 doned by the most accomplished dairj'men. 

 These pans are nineteen and a half inches in 

 depth, and eight inches in diameter, being in 

 shape like au ice-cream freezer. I saw the 

 tidy woman who superintends the dairy, skim 

 several of these pans, and took the measure- 

 ment of cream got from one of them, which 

 was a fair average. There was a depth of 

 eighteen aud a quarter inches of milk to be- 

 gin with ; the solid cream removed was of a 

 clear thickness of four and three-quarter 

 inches, or a trifle over twenty-tive per cent, 

 of rich cream ! None of the butter is worked 

 by hand, but passes through a butter worker, 

 an ingenious aud excellent contrivance which 

 has been used for some years in the first 

 dairies in Pennsylvania, and which insures 

 absolute cleanliness while doing its work pei-- 

 feotly. The butter made is eagerly demanded 

 iu New York, and brings readily there §1 a 

 pound, this being one result of "fancy farm- 

 ing." 



Curing Buttee. — S. E. Lewis, of Oxford, 

 N. Y., recently gave an address before the 

 Massachusetts Cheese Makers' Association, 

 which is reported in the Boston Cultivator, 



aud the editor says it was "the best and 

 most practical talk on butter making that we 

 have ever heard." Mr. Lewis at the close of 

 his remarks referred to the curing of butter, 

 and said butter, like hay, must have time to 

 cure before making. If butter comes white 

 in Summer, when too warm, you cannot wash 

 out the buttermilk at once, and after washing 

 it will still be white. The proper way under 

 these circumstances is to salt it at the rate of 

 Xy^to \y^ ounces of salt to the pound of but- 

 ter, and half work it. Then after 2-1 hours 

 move it over on the worker, then set it aside 

 for another space of 2i hours, or until the 

 third morning after curing, and you will have 

 liue butter and of good color. He thinks to 

 expose butter to light in order to get color, is 

 au error, and that handling and curing butter 

 is a difficult art. He said vei-y truly that the 

 greatest difficulty in the reform of butter mak- 

 ing is that everybody makes good butter. No 

 farmer ever carries poor butter to market, be- 

 cause no farmer's wife ever did admit that 

 she made "poor butter;" yet, notwithstand- 

 ing those denials, there is an immense 

 amount of poor butter that finds its way into 

 the market. 



he commenced feeding his cow on fresh clover 

 and from that time until the fifteenth of Oc- 

 tober she had no feed of any kind except what 

 clover was cut from one fourth of an acre of 

 ground. He says further that he raised one 

 hundred and fifty bushels of sugar beets and 

 carrots on one-eighth of an acre, and two 

 tous of hay on the balance of an acre and that 

 the roots and hay wiU keep the cow from 

 October until next June, so that on one and a 

 fourth acres he has kept his cow a year. Tho 

 cuw, he says, averaged through the Summer 

 eighteen quiirts per day. [What California 

 farmer can beat this?] 



Stuetevant's Twelve Propositions. — Dr. 

 Sturtevant's lecture before the Connecticut 

 State Board of Agriculture may be summar- 

 ized as follows: 



1— The butter product is largely governed 

 by food. 



2 —There is a structural limit to the butter 

 cajiacity of each cow. 



3 — When the cow is fed to this limit, in- 

 creased food cannot increase the production. 



4 — The superior cow has this structural 

 limit at a distance from ordinary food, and 

 is more ready to respond to stimuli than the 

 inferior cow. 



5 — Tho superior cow is seldom fed up to her 

 limit, while the inferior cow may be fed be- 

 yond her limit. 



6 — The character of the food has some in- 

 fluence on the character of the butter, but 

 breed has more. 



7 — There is no constant relation between 

 the butter product and the cheese product. 



8 — The casein is constant, and does not re- 

 spond to an increase of food. 



'J — The casein is constant, without regard 

 to season. 



10 — Increase in the quantity of milk is fol- 

 lowed by an increase in the total amount of 

 casein. 



11 — Insufficient food checks the production 

 of butter, aud tends to decrease the casein 

 and to the substitution of albumen. 



12 — Feed superior cows nearer the limit of 

 production than inferior cows. 



■■ # » ■ 



Cows StJCKiNG Themselves. — D. M. Worley 

 says that he has a plan for preventing cows 

 drawing the lacteal fluid from their own ud- 

 der which is far superior to any heretofore 

 recommended. He describes it as follows: 



Get your tin-man to make a half-inch tube 

 of heavy tin, well soldered, leaving both ends 

 open, of the proper length to reach through 

 the cows mouth in the manner of a bridle bit. 

 Punch eight one-eighth inch holes in this tube 

 near the middle, and one inch apart, as fol- 

 lows: two in the upper side, two in the lower, 

 and two in each of the other two sides. Solder 

 a small ring to each end, and it is finished. 

 Fasten a string or strap to one ring, put the 

 bit iu the cow's mouth, bring the strap over 

 her head and fasten it to the other ring, aud 

 she has done sucking herself. Two years ago 

 a neighbor who had a cow that sucked her- 

 self, and kept very poor, procured one of 

 these bits aud put it on her. She immediately 

 began to thrive, and they had one more cow 

 to milk. My bit made according to tho above 

 description cost just 10 cents. 



A correspondent of the Ohio Farmer writes 

 to that paper that on the first day of last June 



The recent method for improving skimmed 

 milk by the use of oleomargarine, will bo 

 likely to throw a considerable quantity of 

 oleomargarine cheese on the market from tho 

 creameries; aud while this new process, of 

 manufacture opens the way for utilizing the 

 skimmed milk in a better manner by turning 

 out a good-flavored, meaty cheese, we hojie 

 the distinctive title of "oleomargarine" may 

 be used in placing it upon the market. 



The oleomargarine cheese is said to have 

 remarkable keeping qualities, and that it re- 

 tains flavor much longer than whole-milk 

 cheese. If this be so, it is another reason 

 why the cheese should have a distinctive 

 name. — X A. VHllard, in Rural New Yorker. 



Kelattve Cost of BarrEE and Beef. — Did 

 it ever occur to any of your readers that it 

 takes more feed to make a pound of beef than 

 a pound of butter? A good cow in milk, well 

 cared for, will make two hundred pounds of 

 butter iu a season, worth from $(iO to $70; 

 but a dry cow, with the same feed, will not 

 gain as much in weight in the same time, nor 

 will, she be worth as much as the butter from 

 the dairy cow, and the milch cow is left. An 

 acquaintance of mine is fattening an ox, and 

 in sixty days he had fed him 900 pounds of 

 meal, at a cost of $15, with only 100 pounds 

 gain in weight — H. W., in Country Ge/tUenum. 



Ten Good Hints. 



The following pithy code of newspaper 

 by-laws is the best we have ever seen: 



1 — Be brief; this is the age of telegrams and 

 short-hand. 



2 — Be pointed; don't write all around a sub- 

 ject without hitting it. 



3 — State facts; don't stop to moralize; it's 

 drowsy business; let the reader do his own 

 dreaming. 



4 — Eschew prefaces; plunge at once into 

 your subject, like a swimmer in cold water. 



5 — If you have written a sentence that you 

 think particularly fine, draw your pen through 

 it; a pet child is always the worst in the fam- 

 ily. 



G — Condense; make sure you really have an 

 idea, and then record it in the shortest possi- 

 ble terms. 



7 — When your aricle is complete, strike out 

 nine-tenths of the adjectives; the English is a 

 strong language, but won't bear too much 

 "reducing." 



S— Avoid all high-flown language; never 

 use stilts when legs will do as well. 



U— Make your sentences short; every period 

 is a milestone, at which the reader may halt 

 and rest himself. 

 10— Write legible. 



None fob Him. — " Ish dere some ledder 

 here for me?" inquired a German at the gen- 

 eral delivery window of the postoffice. 



"No; none here," was the reply. 



" Vhell, dot is queer," be continued, get- 

 ting his head into the window; "my neighbor 

 gets somedimes dree ledders in one day, uud 

 I get none. I bays more daxes as he does, 

 und I haf never got one ledder yet. 

 comes dose dings?" 



What is it that a poor man has and a rich 

 man wants? Nothing. 



