202 



NEW ENGLAND FAUMEll, 



Jan. 11, 1832. 



clusivoly by tlie Afjricultnral Society, it was per- 

 haps more a duty that the mode of mamifactuie, 

 (if peculiar,) siiould he pubhshed, than after a lar- 

 aer premium was offered, wliich although award- 

 ed by a Coirnnittee of the Society, was contributed 

 by iudividuuls, and as much perhaps with the ob- 

 ject of attracting good butter to the mai-ket, as en- 

 lightening the farmer in its manufacture. 



In the publication of the Bath and West of 

 England Society's papers, vol. 5, page 67, No. 19, 

 an essay of fiftVfonr pages was published by Dr 

 Anderson, on the mode of making butter, very 

 minute in its directions. Thirteen years after an 

 abridgment of this was published in the Massa- 

 chusetts Agricultural Repository and Jourjial for 

 1806, vol. 2d, page 70, and is I believe the only 

 essay full and practical on the subject imblished in 

 this "region. Occasional comiuuniciitions of new 

 modes, bolli of making and preserving butter, have 

 appeared iii your valuable record, but few, if any 

 with a name, or with entire directions, merely e.x- 

 periments communicated ou the supposition that 

 those who wish to try them, know already how to 

 make butter. 



The grand watch word of the dairy, should, like 

 the Indian's solution of the three articles he liked 

 best, be a repetition, cleanliness, cleanliness, cleanli- 

 ness ; this, conunenced with the hands that milk, 

 and never forgotten in any of the changes from 

 the strainer to the market stall, and the butter will 

 be good, if the cows are only ordinary ; but if the 

 stock be well selected, the food well adapted, and 

 all facilities for the work from cellar to salt be 

 well provided, the butter will of course be better, 

 and the gradation will then be good, better, best, 

 instead of the present degrees of good, not so good, 

 too bad. I send you a very sensible letter from a 

 thoroughly experienced and successful cultivator, 

 in answer to some inquiries made by Mr Sullivan, 

 tho Corresponding Secretary of the .Massachusetts 

 Society for Promoting Agriculture, in relation to 

 the management of a dairy and stock, which will 

 serve as a model of the sort of iutormation desired 

 in relation to the management of cows, as well as 

 in the accuracv and comj)leteness of the details. 



w. w. 



Brooklino, 32J Maroh, 1631. 



Dear Sir— It would give me nnich pleasure to 

 answer your questions upon the subject of the 

 dairy, could I do it with satisfaction to myself or 

 benefit to the pid)lic. My farm is so small it is 

 not suited to that object. Yet, although my know- 

 ledge of the subject is so inadequate to your 

 purpose, I will cheerfully give you as nearly as I 

 can the result of the little experience I have had. 



I keep only two co\\'s ; one would be sufficient 

 were it not that a part of the time we should lack 

 a supply of milk, and they are better contented to- 

 gether than single, and were I able to sell all the 

 surplus milk, they would be as profitable as any- 

 tliing my farm would produce. A main object 

 has been always to have an abundant supply of 

 injlk for my men to drink in the summer season, 

 as well as for all other uses of the family, these 

 calls being various will not admit of a precise cal- 

 culation. Of late years I have had no regular op- 

 portunhy to sell all the siu-])lu9 ; part we have 

 made into butter and part disposed of otherwise. 

 Formerly we had a man call regularly for what 

 we had to spare, for which he paid never less than 

 12h cents a gallon, which affords data in part for 

 the qutmtity produced. In lookuig over the ac- 



ount for 1819, 1820 and 1821, I find we delivered the land if otherwise rlisposed of. The cows I do 

 averaging the three years, 735 gallons a year. — ; not consider naturally above mediocrity ; if their 

 As to the quantity otherwise used and disposed of, profit is greater it is to' be attributed to good keep- 



it must in some measure be conjecture ; 1 think I 

 am within bounds to say it could not average less 

 than 6 quarts a day, making 547 gallons a year.— 

 Total 1282 gallons at the moderate price of 12i 

 cents a gallon, amounts to $169 25, to which add 

 the proceeds of two calves, $15 33, gives .$175 58, 

 or $87 79 for each cow. 



I have never observed particularly as to the 

 quantities given at the three divisions of time you 

 describe, but generally they vaiy very nuich from 

 each other ; they also vary very nuich in this jiar- 

 ticular according to the season of the year in 

 which they calve — for instance, if they calve ou 

 the 1st of December, the food for the first three 

 months will he hay, if in May, grass, which -jrill 

 vary much the quantity. Of my cows, the One 

 which goes dry the longest, (at least two montbs,) 

 gives the most milk on the whole ; the other wduld 

 give it the whole time did we continue to takje it 

 ii-om her ; the first also produces the best calf, and 

 is the most profitable cow. I 



So various are the qualities of land of wliicli 

 farms are composed, also their location in regard 

 to a market for the produce, that no particular 

 rule will ap])ly to all. It does not admit of a 

 doubt vv-ith me, that farmers within a reasonable 

 distance of a market, will always be best rewaitled 

 by generous feeding, and I think the saine efiect 

 will generally follow. 



As to the application of milk to butter and 

 cheese, I have no practical knowledge. The man- 

 ner of kee])ing my cows and the cost is as follows. 

 I have taken about three acres of mowing land, 

 which is always supplied with water, by a brook 

 passing at the foot of it. The cows are juit iutit 

 it, when the gi-ass is three or four inches, which is 

 about the 10th of May, varying a little according 

 to the seasons ; this affords a plenty of food till J 

 have cut the grass from an adjoining lot of about 

 two acres, and the grass ha.s again started to a 

 suitable heighth; I then change the jiasture, giving 

 lime for a further growth in the first, which is 

 again fed, and late in the autunm, for a month per- 

 haps, they are allowed to feed on other mowing 

 land and in these ways they get aU their food tor 

 six months. I calculate the cost as follows : 

 The three acres would produce 4 tons of Hay, 

 which I value, standing in the field, at eight 

 dollars a ton, .$32, $32 00 



This pasture affords food for 17 weeks, tho re- 

 maining 9 weeks I value at $1.50 per week 

 for both cows, 



which always insiu-es reward. 

 Very respectfully. 



Your obedient servant. 



HoM. Richard Sullivan. 



The other six months I keep tliem almost wholly 

 upon rowen, which 1 estimate at 5 tons, and 

 value it, in the barn, at $10 per ton, 



A little meal, at times most needed, 6 bushels in. 

 the whole, at 60 cents, 



Green vegetables valued at the same. 



1.3 50 

 45 50 



$102 70 

 Taking this from the proceeds of the milk and calves, 

 which, as belbre stated, is $175 58, leaves $72 88 profit. 

 So that over and above what the produce of the 

 same land would bring, I gain a clear profit of 

 $72 88, which more than furnishes the ample sup- 

 ply for the use of my fannly. 

 To recapilulate. — The proceeds of two cows for 



one year, $175 58 



Deduct the cost of keepinj them the same time, 102 70 



Balance, $72 83 

 being a net profit over the value of the produce of 



REMARKS ON FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES^. 



Continued from page 198. 



The editor proceeds to consider ' upon what 

 principle the flavor of particular fruits may be im- 

 ])roved, and deems all improvements ' entirely due 

 to the increased action of the vital functions of 

 leaves.' The nature of the stock does not, he ar- 

 gues, at all influence the flavor of the fruit of the 

 scion. ' Those who fancy, for instance, that the 

 quince, [used as a stock to the pear] cofmmlHi- 

 ites some portion of its austerity to the pear, can 

 sciucely have considered the question physiologi- 

 cally, or they would have seen that the whole of 

 the food communicated from the alburnum of the 

 quince to that of the pear is in nearly the same 

 slate as when it entered the roots of the former- 

 \Vhatcver elaboration it undergoes, must necessa- 

 rily take place in the fohage of the pear ; where, 

 far from the influence of the quince, secretions 

 natmal to the variety, go on with no more inter- 

 ru[)tions, than if the qinnce formed no ])art of the 

 individual.' The fluid or sap collected by the 

 iDoIs, when elaborated in the leaves, is so modi- 

 fied by the combined action of air, light and 

 evaporation, as to acquire the peculiar character 

 of the final secretions of the individual from 

 which it is formed. ' From these secretions,' as 

 discharged by the foliage into the system of the 

 j.lant, ' the fruit has the power of attracting such 

 |)ortions as are necessary for its maturation. Hence 

 it follows, that the more we can increase the pe- 

 culiar secretions of a plant, the higher will be- 

 come the quality of the fruits and vict versa. 

 Pruning and training, luidthc exposure of branches 

 to the most light in the gumiie.st aspects, promote 

 the former effect.' 



The next subject considered is, ' the mode of 

 multiplying improved varieties of parts, so as to 

 continue in the progeny exactly the same qualities, 

 as existed in the parent.' Seeds will not perpetu* 

 ate a variety undeviatingly ; buds will. ' A plant 

 is really an animated body, composed of infinite 

 multitudes of systems of life ; all indeed, united 

 in a whole, but each having a power of emitting 

 descending fibres in the form of roots, and also of 

 ascending in the form of stem. The first of these 

 buds is the embryo [in a seed] ; the others are 

 subsequently formed on the stein emitted by the 

 embryo. As these secondary buds develope, their- 

 descending roots combine and form the wood, 

 their ascending stems give rise again to new buds. 

 These buds are all exactly like each other ; thejr 

 have the same constitution, the same organic 

 structure, iind the individuals they are capable of^ 

 producing are, consequently, all identically the- 

 same ; allowance of course being made for sucjl- 

 accidental injuries or aherations tus they may sus- 

 tain during their subsequent growth. It is upon 

 the existence of such a remarkable physiological' 

 peculiarity in plants that propagation entirely de-. 

 pends ; an evident proof of which may Ije seen inn 

 this circumstance : take a cutting of a vine con- 

 sisting of the space which lies between two buds,l 

 an iuternodium, as botanists would call the piece. 



