366 



Preserving Butter. — Saw-Mills. 



Vol. VIII. 



bee, like other domesticated creatures, relies 

 upon man for help and protection ; and it is 

 certainly entitled to it. After being forced 

 from the solitude and securities of its native 

 forest, it may well claim all possible protec- 

 tion from the increased dangers to which 

 civilization exposes it. M. R. 



Lancaster co., Pa. 



Preserving Butter. 



Hartford, June 12tli, 1844. 



Sir: — In answer to your inquiry. What 

 has been your practice in putting up butter, 

 especially for preservation in hot climates, 

 or for long voyages? I will cheerfully state 

 that I have had considerable experience on 

 this subject, and in some particulars, good 

 success. There are many things required 

 to insure good butter. The butter itself 

 must be well made; that is, worked enough, 

 and not too much, and salted witli rock salt. 

 This being well done, and the buttermilk all 

 expelled, the butter may be packed in good, 

 white-oak, well seasoned casks, well filled. 

 In cool climates larger casks can be used. 

 In hot climates it is best to have small casks 

 — say from 25 to 30 lbs.— so that too much 

 need not bo exposed while using. Then 

 put these small casks into a hogshead, and 

 fill up the same with strong pickle that will 

 bear an egg, and the butter may be shipped 

 to the West Indies or Europe, and kept per- 

 fectly sweet. I have never found saltpetre 

 or sugar of any benefit. Butter of my pack- 

 ing has opened as good in' the West Indies, 

 as it was in Connecticut. I will remark, 

 that to keep butter in ice-houses, when it 

 remains frozen, will answer, if the butter is 

 to be continued in the same temperature ; 

 but if it is exposed to warm weather after 

 being taken from the ice-house, it will not 

 keep as long as if it had not been exposed 

 to so cold a temperature. 



Yours, respectfully, G. Fox. 



Hon. H. L. Ellsworth, 



Commissioner of Patents. 



Saw-Mills. 



The English gentleman who introduced 

 the use of mahogany, by causing a candle- 

 box to be made of it, gave the world a great 

 luxury; but he who invented the saw-mill, 

 performed an act far more serviceable. A 

 mahogany tree, when in logs, has been sold 

 for nearly fifteen thousand dollars;* a pine, 



* The highest price that we have known to be paid 

 in this country, was at about the rate of five thousand 

 dollars for a tree in lo?; the one referred to in the text 

 was purchased for £3,000, in England, by a celebrated 



which will produce a hundredth part of that 

 sum, in the roost distant market, is of rare 

 size and quality; but to the mass of man- 

 kind, it is more valuable than the other, be- 

 cause it is, what that is not, a necessary of 

 life. The sawing of trees by machinery, is 

 not, probably, of remote origin. The first 

 saw-mill of which we have any knowledge, 

 was erected at Madeira, in the year 1420: 

 and we hear of another at Bref-lau, seven 

 years later; but their multiplication in dif- 

 ferent parts of Europe, appears to have pro- 

 ceeded slowly. A mill of this description 

 was built near London, in 1633; but it was 

 demolished soon afterwards, that it might 

 not be a means of depriving the poor of em- 

 ployment. About a century later, a branch 

 of the York Building Company made large 

 purchases of pine tmiber, erected mills, and 

 introduced various improvements in the man- 

 ufacture and transportation of lumber. But 

 the popular feeling against machine-saws 

 was still strong. A saw-mill set up at Lime- 

 house, near tlie year 1768, was destroyed by 

 a mob. The first built in New England — 

 and very likely in America — was at " Aga- 

 mentico,"* in Maine, in 1623, or the year 

 following, under the direction of Sir Ferdi- 

 nando Gorges. "I sent over my son," says 

 the Lord Palatine, " and my nephew, Capt. 

 William Gorges, who had been my lieuten- 

 ant in the fort of Plymouth, with some other 

 craftsmen, for the building of houses and 

 erecting of saw-rnills." The next, probably, 

 were on the Piscataqua, as the settlers there 

 had one or more in motion as early as 1630; 

 at which time, there were no grist-mills, and 

 the lumberers procured their bread-stuflTs 

 prepared for baking, either from England or 

 Virginia. The first mill in Massachusetts, 

 seems to have been that on the Neponset, in 

 Dorchester, in 1633; but whether it was 

 built for grinding or sawing, cannot be as- 

 certained. The earliest for sawing, in the 

 colony of Plymouth, we suppose to have 

 been on the Herring brook, Scituate, erected 

 in 1656, and destroyed twenty years after- 

 wards by the Indians. There was one on 

 the Saco, as soon as the year 1653, and one 

 on Mill river, Taunton, six years afterwards. 

 By the year 1681, there was a second in 

 Plymouth Colony, at Swansea; and in 1685, 

 as many as four were in operation at Cape 



piano forte manufacturer. Of the pine, a plank nearly 

 six feet in width, made from a tree which grew on the 

 estate of the Duke of Gordon, is preserved in that na- 

 bleman's castle as a curiosity. In Maine, pines six 

 feet in diameter near the ground, have sometimes been 

 found, while those of four feet diameter are not un- 

 common, 

 t The ancient name of York. ' 



