BRITISH OXEN. THE POTATO ROT. 106 



ter facilitates tlie process of butter-making, especially when the cream is thick 

 and the weather hot ; that cream alone is more easily churned than a mixture 

 of cream and milk ; that butter produced from sweet cream has the finest flavor 

 when fresh, and appears to keep longest without acquiring rancidity ; but the 

 buttermilk so obtained is poor and small in quantity ; that the scalding of the 

 cream, according to the Devonshire method, yields the largest quantity of butter, 

 which, if intended for immediate use, is agreeable to the palate and readily 

 salable ; but, if intended to be salted, is most liable to acquire, by keeping, a 

 rancid flavor. The process of scalding is troublesome, and the milk, after the 

 removal of the cream, is poor, and often would be unsalable, from the taste it 

 has acquired from the heating. It also appears that churning the milk and 

 cream together, after they have become slightly acid, seems to be the most 

 economical process on the whole ; because it yields a large quantity of excel- 

 lent butter, and the buttermilk is of good quality ; and that the keeping of 

 butter in a sound state depends on its being obtained as free from uncombined 

 albumen or caseine and water as it can be, by means of washing and working 

 the butter when taken from the churn. 



By a newly invented block-tin milk-churn, now in use at Lisburn and other 

 parts of Ireland, butter can be made in ten jninutes at all seasons of the year, 

 la salting or curing butter, it is preferable to use vessels made from timber 

 which has been previously boiled four hours, to free it from the pyroiigneous 

 acid ; or else made of the lime tree, the wood of which does not contain this 

 acid. Butter will keep without salt if melted over a slow fire to expel all 

 its watery particles. To remove the bad smell and disagreeable taste of ran- 

 cid butter, and restore its sweetness, it is only necessary to beat it in a suffi- 

 cient quantity of water, into which put fifteen drops of chloride of lime for 

 every pound of butter. After having mixed it till all its parts are in contact 

 Avith the water, it may be left in for an hour or two — afterward withdrawn 

 and washed anew in fresh water. The chloride of lime has notiiing injurious 

 in it, and, therefore, the number of drops may be increased if thought proper. 



The hoofs and horns of a hundred head of cattle are daily consumed in Camp- 

 sie Alum Works in the manufacture of that beautiful yellow salt, prussiate of 

 potash, which Mr. Macintosh introduced among the calico-printers, who use it 

 extensively to produce very showy blues and greens. It is prepared by burning 

 the hoofs and horns in iron pots, along with potash and a requisite quantity of 

 iron. The residue, after this combustion, is lixiviated with water, and when 

 the solution is sufficiently concentrated, the prussiate of potash crystalizes. 



It would be well if some good cook, acquainted with a little chemistry, would 

 make some experiments upon the cookery of bone, which might be made to 

 yield many soups and other palatable and nutritious dishes. Professor Brande 

 observes that — 



'• Bone constitutes, upon an average, a fifih part of the weight of an animal, and one-third of 

 the weight of bone may be reckoned as good substantial food. The weight of butchers' meat 

 consumed in London annually is supposed to be 172,000,000 lbs. including .i."),000,000 lbs. of bone, 

 which would, yield 11,000,000 lbs. of dry gelatine, or real nutritive matter, which, at present, is so 

 far wasted as not to be applied to the direct support of human life. The bones of pork, game, 

 poultry, and fi.sh, not included in this statement, must ai.so be of great amount. From all or 

 any of those an excellent dry gelatine, or portable .«oup, might be prepared and sold for about 

 2s. per lb., equivalent to three or four times its weight of raw meat." 



Ground bones are employed as a manure for dry soils with the very best effect. 

 Mr. Huskisson, who estimated the real value of bones annually imported (prin- 

 cipally from the Netherlands and Germany) for the purpose of 'being used as a 

 manure, at £100,000, contended that it was not too much to suppose that an ad- 

 vance of between £100,000 and £200,000 expended on this manure, occasioned 

 500,000 additional quarters of corn to be brought to market. When bones are 

 intended for manure, they may be dissolved by pouring some sulphuric acid over 

 the bone-heaps, keeping them turned until they are thoroughly in contact with 

 the liquid. [Journal of the Transactions of the Highland and Agri. Soc. of Scotland. 



THE POTATO ROT has made its appearance in the great Miami Valley. One field of 

 eighteen acres, it is represented, is so badly injured tliat the owner has turned his hogs upon 

 It. The crop this season iu the west generally is said to be a verv abundant one, and generaiy 

 ol excellent quality, and we hope that it is not seriouiilv to be iuiured by disease. 

 (249) •'*'•' 



