562 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Dec. 



raisp tbeui to keey)? lie had notici'd that the 

 cows he 1)11 cha^i^d did not do as well the first 

 year as they did afterwards. They mat<t have 

 a tifiht with every cow in the herd to settle the 

 great (jue.^tion of supremacy, or be cored and 

 beaten aliout In others, so that tlrey cannot 

 fi ed or rest in yard or pastui'e in peace. Then 

 we are not sure of getting good cows after 

 spending much time in intjuiry and examina- 

 tion, as ic i.s not safe to take any man's recom- 

 niendaii )n of a cow, or to dep^^nd entirely on 

 appearances. He acknowledged that hin prac- 

 tice thus far had not eorret-ponded with his 

 theory. After we get fairly started in farming 

 and are really masters of our business, he 

 thought we should raise our own stock. It is 

 sometimes didiciilt, as we are situated, to 

 raise all the stock necessary to keep a lull herd 

 of milking cows, and are compelled to buy to 

 replace those that fail. He thought the true 

 way was to have the l>est cows come in early, 

 sai in February or LLirch, and to raise the mo- 1 

 likely heifer calves from the^e cows. He 

 thought we should generall) fatten and sell 

 cows at about twelve years old. We can, it 

 is true, keep them till they are bixteen, but at 

 that age tiiey do not fatten easily, and are apt 

 to prove almost a dead loss. 



Of other stock, also, he said we should try 

 to rai.-e what we want. He had raised a few 

 sheep that have paid as much clear profit a« 

 any stock. He keeps them, and also some 

 colts, with the cows. They seem to eat feed 

 that cows refute. Near his milking yard the 

 grass is very rank and the cows leave it. The 

 colts graze there an hour or two almost every 

 day, but he believed it is an injury to cows to 

 be pastured with celts, as the colts frequently 

 run and chase the cows, which are not spe- 

 cially built for speed. He thought it an in- 

 jury to use a dog in driving cows, for the same 

 reason. 



Most of our stock should be dairy cows. 

 He believed it would be best for this neighbor- 

 hood to devote our whole attention to dairying, 

 and make a tip-top article ; one that we could 

 sell to regular customers in the city where they 

 are willing and able to buy a good article. 

 Butter is a most delicate thing to make, but 

 with proper attention and the necessary facili- 

 ties any one can make it so that the flavor will 

 be right. 



Salt does not preserve butter ; it flavors it. 

 Fresh butter will keep as well as lard under 

 proper conditions. IMilk will become corrupt 

 and decay, consequently, the cream mu~t he 

 taken off at the right time. As there are some 

 particles of milk still in the cream, it must be 

 churned before these particles corrupt tb» 

 •whole mass, if we would have clear butter to 

 pack. It must also be made at a low temper- 

 ature so as to be hard. 



He foimerly .^oaked his tubs in water pre- 

 vious to u.>-ing them but now only washes them 

 out very (juickly with hot water, then wipes 

 dry and st;ts a di.-^h containing a piece of brim- 



stone, into the tub, drops a good live coal 

 upon the brimstone and puts on the cover, as 

 itis just as necessary to have the cover cleansed 

 as any part. 



Water in the tub is very bad. Any one 

 who lets butter stand for days in a pail knows 

 how the wood causes it to taste. It is just so 

 with a butter tub. The water in the wood ac- 

 (juires a very bad taste, which it imparts to the 

 butter. It is better to have moi.^tuie go from 

 the butter into the tub than from the wood in- 

 to the butter. Z E Jameson, SiiC. 



Irasburg, Vt., Oct. 18, 18G8 



For- the New Evcjlaml Farmer. 

 EXPERIMENTS IN PLOUGHING. 



Having recently ploughed three different 

 fields with a side-hiil plough. I send you a 

 brief report of my experiments. 



The first experiment was on a piece of five 

 acres, about equally divided into level and 

 side-hill, or slightly side-hill land The tim- 

 ber from this lra:t was taken oflf' for wood 

 some twenty jears ago, and grass had gradu- 

 ally worked in, forming, with laspberry bushes, 

 &c , a tough sod, which, with old rotten 

 stumps and a few stones, made it necessary to 

 employ a team of one pair of oxen and a 

 span of horses to break it up As ir had 

 never been plou:Thed or even harroweil, the 

 surface was rough wuh knolls and hollows. 



Ttie piece for my second expenmt nt con- 

 ,-isted of several acres of pasture la'.d. both 

 level and slightly side hill. The team rc- 

 (juired was a pair of average sized o.xen and 

 a ten-hundred hor.-e. The surface was not as 

 rough as the first lot. 



The third experiment was on a field em- 

 bracing both meadow and stuble ground, 

 ploughed together for convenience s.ike. A 

 part of this field was level and a part moder- 

 ate side hill. The team was the same as in 

 experiment number 2, although a stout pair of 

 oxen or a span of horses might have done the 

 work 



The first field mentioned I regarded as a 

 very diflicult one even for a comm.on or right 

 hand plough, and required a larger size than 

 that I happened to have, which is No. G of the 

 Gov Iloibrook Swivel Plough, wh.ch I used 

 on each of the three lots. But no with- 

 standing its small size and the unfavorable 

 state of the land, the sod was well reversed, 

 and th" surface pulverized and left in nearly 

 as good condition as stubble land. 



The surface of the second fit Id had been 

 packed quite hard by the feet of the stock in 

 grazing, and in places it was mossy and heavy. 

 Here J raised the sword or cutter, as can be 

 done on these ploughs, so as barely to cut 

 through the sod, and again I bad good success 

 in turning the sod and pulverizing the ground 

 turned up. 



On the last field I was much pleased with 

 the manner in which the convex mould board 



