134 



Book Farming. 



Vol. V. 



proof positive, lie told me, when I made but- 

 ter again, to keep some of it uncovered with 

 tlie wet cloth — for, you see, it is our practice 

 to cover the butter with a wet cloth to keep 

 tire light and dust from it — and I should see 

 tlrat it kept colour better than that which was 

 constantly covered, and would keep good 

 longer. He said, it was their practice to put 

 by a piece of butter of the last making, to 

 try how it would keep, and he showed me 

 four small lumps of the four last weeks' mak- 

 ing, and it 's a fact, they were all good and 

 of fine colour ! But he told me this would 

 not be the case, if they were to put water 

 into the churn as we do; indeed he says, they 

 never allow the least drop of water ever to 

 touch the milk or cream or butter, on no ac- 

 count whatever, not even to wash the butter 

 while making; the whey is all beaten out 

 with what they call a spatterer, or some such 

 name, upon a hard and smooth piece of board, 

 held in the left hand by a knob, without 

 sponge or cloth or any thing else, and this is 

 done, both before and after salting — never, he 

 said, again allowing a drop of water to touch 

 the milk or cream or butter from first to last ! 

 Well, but the best on't is to come — this milk- 

 house, that is so cold now, he declares will be 

 warm in the winter, requiring no fire in it to 

 keep the milk from freezing ! Of course that 

 I shall believe when I see it ; it is very possi- 

 ble in that he may be mistaken, but of a 

 truth I have seen so many good contrivances 

 about him, that I begin almost to doubt my 

 own infallibility, and that's a thing I never 

 expected to have to say, any how. 



But I must not forget to tell you how he 

 had got his butter-plump made ; you know 

 that ours are small at the top and increase 

 gradually to the bottom; now his was made 

 with a bilge to it, larger at about one-third in 

 height from the bottom than tiiere, and taper- 

 ing afterwards to the top; and it is a certain 

 fact, for I tried it, he has not one-half the 

 labour of churning in it that we have in ours ; 

 he says there is more room for the plunger to 

 work up and down, throwing the cream far- 

 ther to right and left; and it must be so, for 

 it is a certainty that his butter is not, some- 

 how, so long coming as ours, although he 

 often brings forty pounds at a time in this 

 small plump; he, however, thinks that this is 

 in some measure owing to his capital milk- 

 house, which is never too hot or too cold. 



After all, perhaps you will think that his 

 theory, as he calls it, of dunging is about as 

 curious as any thing, and it would certainly 

 do you good to hear him talk so learnedly 

 about it — there, says he, is the carbon gas,* 



♦Carbonic ncid gas, nearly twice as heavy as com- 

 mon air. Hydrogen gas, the lightest of all ponderable 

 things. 



and the hydrogen gas — one light and the 

 other heavy, so heavy that you may pour it 

 from one bottle into another as easy as water, 

 and while the hydrogen goes up, the carbon 

 goes down to the roots of the plants ; and a 

 great deal more about it that I can't remem- 

 ber, if I could be sure that I understood it ; 

 but the upshot of it is, he says we should 

 spread our dung on the top of the land, and 

 not plough it in, but let the crop grow over 

 it; and he argufies, that to leave it so is not 

 to waste it, for that part of the dung which is 

 to go to form the crop will not rise in fer- 

 mentation, but the other, the hydrogen, will, 

 and if it remained behind, it would be an in- 

 jury rather than a good to the crop, as it has 

 already done its duty ; he is going, therefore, 

 to sow his wheat and top-dress it in the spring, 

 thinking that he shall not then lose about one- 

 half of the dung, as he now does, by its being 

 washed away by the winter rains. Now, I 

 guess that's something new, isn't if? And 

 when I tried to reason against it, by telling 

 him I was sure he was wrong again, as the 

 dung could do no good if it was put only on 

 the top of the crop — for how could itl — he 

 only said, " and yet you dung your young clo- 

 ver in the spring, and your upper meadows 

 just as the grass begins to shoot, and don't 

 you see how it makes the crops grow !" Now 

 what could I say to this, for by gum it is ex- 

 actly the fact. He tells me he shall rot his 

 dung all winter, by taking it now and then 

 from the cattle-yard, and making a heap in 

 his wheat-field, all ready to carry abroad in 

 the spring, just as he serves his clover; and 

 when he asked mc why it should not do as 

 well for one as for the other, what could you 

 or any one else have said to him f I 'm sure 

 I don't know. 



But I was tickled with the idea of pouring 

 what he called gas, which is nothing but air, 

 you see, out of one bottle into another, and 

 wanted him to tell me more about it; and 

 hang me, if he didn't tell me the most curi- 

 ous thing in the world ! Says he, " if you 

 was to breathe into your lungs the same air 

 that you breathe out, you would soon be poi- 

 soned;" but I told him I always thought I 

 did do so, for how could what I breathed out 

 get out of the way time enough, so as to be 

 clean off before I took another breath, and 

 didn't I draw it in again, or at least some 

 part of it ] But he told me no, and then said, 

 " there are the same two kinds of air which 

 come out of your lungs as are contained in 

 the dung, the carbon gas and the hydrogen 

 gas, and when you breathe them out, the car- 

 bon, being heavier than the air of the atmo- 

 sphere, falls down over your chin ; and the 

 hydrogen, being lighter, rises over your head ; 

 and so a sort of middle path is left, by which 

 the pure air is drawn in for the supply of the 



