ON THE DAIRY. 



27 



in a region famous for its dairy products. He started off to make butter, with an assurance that he 

 would astonish the natives. He was fully versed in all the learning- of the '"Herd Book" — could 

 give a minute detail of the genealogy of the most celebrated cows for many generations. The 

 Oakes Cow, the Nourse Cow, that yielded near twenty pounds of butter per week, were but pig- 

 mies in his estimation — pretty good of the kind, to be sure — but then they were nothing but na- 

 tives. He was going to gather a herd that would show what could be done. He would not 

 accept as a gift a cow that would yield less than two pounds of butter per day. Accordingly, 

 he purchased his cows according to their parentage, paying from $100 to $200 for each animal, and 

 began his operations. He employed expert foreigners to superintend his concern. At first he did 

 not succeed, because his place for setting the milk was not constructed according to rule exactly. A 

 change was made in this. Then things did not go quite right, and he thought it might be, becauge 

 his dairy woman was not acquainted with the usages of the neighborhood ; and so he struggled on 

 for several months, changing this and altering that, scarcely making butter enough for the consump- 

 tion of his own family; and what he did make, of the most ordinary quality. And to complete the 

 farce of visionary fanning by a gentleman, he called upon one of his better experienced neighbors 

 "to bring him some butter fit to be eat," for, said he, "some how or other, our folks can't get the 

 knack of making it." 



Butter made in Orange County, New York, has the highest reputation in the market — so much 

 so, that most New York butter passes under that name. Here the milk is churned, and not the 

 cream. It is said "to give a peculiar firmness and fineness of texture, and wax-like appearance 

 when it is fractured, which butter made by churning the cream seldom or never has."' The art of 

 making Oranbe County Butter is said to be in the women, and not in the cows or pastures — 

 you take a good dairymaid from there, and she will make equally good butter, hundreds of miles 

 distant. In churning the milk, it takes about one quarter part more to produce a pound of but- 

 ter, than it does when the cream is severed from the milk. 



On examining the products of Mr. Hall's Dairy, of Chemung Co., who took the first premium in 

 the N. Y. State Society, 1846, we find 19 cows yielded 3169 lbs. of butter, in one hundred eighty 

 days, or about 16S lbs. to a cow. In the same time, our fifty-six cows yielded 9174 pounds of but- 

 ler, or 164 lbs. to a cow. This comes so nearly up to the products of N. Y. State, that we are sat- 

 isfied our farmers, by proper attention to selecting their cows for the dairy, can, if tliey will, do as 

 well as the best. Let them apply their true Yankee tact in this matter, and they may challenge 

 ithe world. 



Note. As a matter of curious information, we have collected in a condensed form, the products 

 of several of the most extraordinary cows in Massachusetts, that have come to our knowledge. 



The.se cows show a product of more than two pounds per day. eacli, for a period of three months. 

 We think it would be difficult to ocUecl together such a herd. 



