THE GENESEE FARMER. 



211 



and here I would observe, that although pickle may 

 be easily worked out of butter, it is impossible to 

 work any in. Now, when you have worked this 

 pickle out, the saving power is gone for ever. " Why, 

 no ! " many are ready to say, " alter we work our 

 butter over we generally taste it, and it is true we 

 find it quite too fresh to be palatable for table butter, 

 but we then invariably add another dose of salt, and 

 then pack down."' Just so; but look here, my friends 

 — your first dose of salt hits absorbed all the moisture 

 in the butter, and it is now like any other oil, and will 

 not dissolve any more salt; and dry salt in its granu- 

 lar state is not a preservative of any thing, any more 

 than so many grains of dry sand — and I would nearly 

 as soon have my table butter saturated with the sand 

 as with the salt, provided the salt is not dissolved. 

 The finding' of so much dry salt in butter usually sold 

 in the markets, is the reason why there have been so 

 many ways tried to save butter without it. Pickle, 

 or brine, is a certain preservative of butter, if left 

 evenly distributed through it, in the manner it will 

 be by the above process. As each particle or globule 

 of brine will be in the position in which the salt was 

 deposited, of course the finer the salt the better, as it 

 will bring more butter in contact with the brine. The 

 finer the salt, the less time should be occupied in 

 working it in, as it will commence dissolving imme- 

 diately. Now, if the butter is worked after the salt 

 is fairly dissolved, these small globules of brine are 

 displaced, and brought in contact with each other. 

 The moment two or more come together they form 

 one larger, and so on, and as often as they come to 

 the outside they run olt" Many, mistaking this for 

 buttermilk, and having, very erroneously, got the idea 

 that butter can be kept from becoming rancid, even 

 without salt, provided that every particle of the but- 

 termilk is worked out, they keep on working until 

 they have deprived themselves of the only possible 

 means of ever keeping the butter sweet. This but- 

 ter has now become an oil, almost as perfectly as 

 though it had been rendered so by heat; and I shall 

 find few that will dispute me when I say, that no kind 

 of oil (except some essential oils) can long be kept 

 from becoming rancid. 



I think there is nothing so good to pack butter in 

 as wooden vessels. Many have tried stone crocks, 

 but they are perfect conductors of heat and cold, 

 whereas wood is not. Tubs with covers are the most 

 convenient, on account of inspecting the butter by 

 buyers; but when a dairyman once gets the credit of 

 his dairy well established, the best way is to put it in 

 firkins and head it up perfectly tight. 



I think it will pay every butter dairyman well, who 

 has eight or ten cows, to procure a press and make 

 cheese through the hot weather. I have found it so. 



South Rutland, Jefferson Co., JV. Y. H. H. 



BEETS AND CAKEOTS. 



Messrs. EniTOEs: — This article is a little out of 

 season, but I trust it will do no harm. I have no- 

 ticed many articles of late on the subject of beets 

 and carrots — the manner of raising, their value for 

 fiseding, &c. — but still 1 judge, from the many in- 

 quiries made, that this branch of husbandry is not 

 very well understood. 



Analyses show these esculents to be a little infe- 

 rior in nutriment to potatoes and apples, and much 

 leas so, poJind for pound, than hay, but a little more 



so than turnips. Still, we cannot always tell pre- 

 cisely the value of an article for food by its analysis. 

 The innutritions portion may act favorably, or un- 

 favorablv, upon the digestive organs. An occasional 

 change of food is desirable, for man and beast The 

 substance of the body is made up of many simple 

 substances, and scarcely any article of food supplies 

 the whole in the proportions which the body needs 

 them. I have heard persons condemn beets, because, 

 as they say, they are not worth their weight in hay; 

 and 1 have heard others say that carrots were worth 

 more per bushel for horses than oats. Now, I have 

 raised carrots (and generally beets, too) for feed, 

 nearly every year for the past twenty years, and my 

 experience is that no crops can be raised more sure 

 to pay well on the investment. They should, of 

 course, be fed on the farm. 



Beets are li ible to be injured early by insects — but 

 much less so than turnips — and if not totally de- 

 stroyed by them, I have never known them to fail ot 

 a fair crop. Carrot seed is a little liable to fail, from 

 causes which are not well understood, but I am satis- 

 fied that it is not always the fault of the seed; they 

 are, however, seldom or never injured by insects. 

 They will both grow in almost any soil not too wet, 

 but thrive best in a deep, dry loam. There is less 

 danger of sowing them too thick than many imagine, 

 though they may be so thick as to diminish the yield; 

 but analysis and experiment show small ones to be 

 worth more by weight than large ones. 



The greatest enemies to these roots are weeds; 

 and the great secret of success in raising them, is to 

 keep the weeds down. To do this economically, they 

 should be sown at a time when they will be likely to 

 come up quickly, and, as soon as they appear, the 

 ground should be stirred about them to keep the 

 weeds back. The rationale of this is, that diflerent 

 plants require different degrees of heat for vegeta- 

 tion; most grasses and weeds will vegetate at a lower 

 temperature than beets or carrots — consequently, 

 they are very apt to get the start, if the temperature 

 is too low for the beets and carrots. Then, there is 

 a great difTerence in plants as to their hardiness and 

 tenacity of life, and, if planted together, the strong- 

 est and most hardy will run out the weakest. Every 

 one knows that buckwheat will exterminate many 

 weaker plants. Beets and carrots, (especially the 

 latter,) on their first appearance, are very feeble, and, 

 if not protected from their more hardy neighbois, 

 will surely be run out by them, or so enfeebled as to 

 be worthless; but give them ten or fifteen days the 

 start of the weeds, and they will take care of them- 

 selves as well as corn and potatoes. To raise these 

 roots economically, they should be sown at a proper 

 time, on a deep, well pulverized soil, in straight, true 

 •Irills, so that, on their first appearance, the hoe can 

 be passed rapidly, close to the rows; what few weeds 

 are then left in the rows can do httle harm, and may 

 be pulled out, with little trouble, later in the season. 



The great difficulty is, that farmers, in their first 

 experiments, expect too much from these roots. My 

 own opinion is, that they are very healthy and 

 economical food for cattle, horses and sheep, but that 

 it will not do to rely upon them for fattening, or even 

 for sustenance. They should be fed with hay, stalks 

 or straw, and not too many at a time, especially at 

 first. If any one expects them to be as valuable, 

 per weight, as hay or grain, he is very foolish, as he 

 may know by experiment that from 600 to 1,600 



