THE GENESEE FAKMER. 



1Y5 



HOW TO MAKE BAD BUTTER. 



So many of our able correspondents have told us 

 Low to make good butter, that it may be interest- 

 ing to some of our readers to learn how to make 

 lad butter. Our respected friend Petees, of Gen- 

 esee county, furnishes the Rural Kew- Yorler some 

 excellent rules for the guidance of those who are 

 desirous of excelling in this particular branch of 

 rural economy. 



"The first step to be taken is, of course, to get 

 your cows. If you purchase in the spring, get 

 those which have been so badly wintered that they 

 can hardly get up alone. If you have to help them 

 up by the tail, all the better. If you winter them 

 yourself, be cautious not to give them any shelter, 

 no matter how bad the weather may be. If possi- 

 ble, don't give them a chance to get on the warm 

 side of the barn or shed during snow storms, or 

 cold storms of rain and snow. A little comfortable 

 care might be injurious when they come to be 

 milked in the spring. Keep them on nmsty, boggy 

 hay, or rotten straw, and fodder when most con- 

 venient, only not too often. If this system is faith- 

 fully adhered to, and the cow is fool enough to live 

 through and have a calf, the milk will be innocent 

 of anything but a weak thin cream. 



'•Having obtained the milk, there are various 

 vfiMjs for getting the creara. The most approved is 

 to put it through a strainer that will stop a good 

 sized potato, as by that means you secure such an 

 admixture of foreign substances as will insure the 

 adliesion of the particles, upon the same principle, 

 I suppose, that masons mix hair with their mortar 

 for plastering. If the weather be warm, set the 

 milk in some warm room, and, if possible, near the 

 sink or some other highly scented locality. As 

 cream is very sensitive to the odor around it, this 

 will secure the transfer to the butter of the strongest 

 in circulation — an important point. Do not skim 

 the milk, if you can help it, until the cream gets 

 mouldy and slightly rancid. The stronger it gets, 

 the stronger will be the butter. After skimming, 

 let the cream stand several days in a warm room. 

 This will help the flavor of the butter very much, 

 and go far toward producing the desired taste and 

 smell. 



"After the creara is churned, and the butter 

 'come,' take it out of the churn with your hands. 

 If they do not happen to be exactly clean at tlie 

 moment, do not stop to wash them, as butter-milk 

 is capital to whiten the hands, and make them look 

 clean and delicate. Beside, soap and water are apt 

 sometimes to make one's hands chap and look 

 rough. Work the butter by hand, especially if soft 

 and oily, and put in a good supply of coarse salt, as 

 salt is cheap ; and if you are not so stujiid as to 

 work it out in the butter-milk, it will help the 

 butter weigh, and keep it from being eaten too 

 rapidly when it gets upon the table. 



"Pack the butter in tubs, as fast as you can 

 make it ; put a cloth over the tub, and let it stand 

 in a damp, musty cellar. If the keg or tub gets 

 pretty dirty outside, it will help the sale, 



" In the summer, it will be important to let the 

 cows run in a scanty pasture, and by all means 

 compel them to drink from stagnant pools or ponds. 

 You will be in great danger of losing all your labor 



if they have goo<l feed and plenty of pure water — 

 though, if my previous instructions be faithfully 

 followed, the danger from the good feed and water 

 will not be so great. 



"There are many little matters, more or less 

 essential to success, to which I have not alluded — 

 such as not working out the butter-milk, a waste 

 of labor, as it tends to destroy the mottled appear- 

 ance of the butter, and prevents its becoming thor- 

 oughly rancid as soon as it otherwise might do." 



THE GOOD SELLS THE BAD. 



Editors Genesee Fakmer : — Much, very much, 

 has already been said, in the pages of the Farmer, 

 upon the importance of making good butter and 

 ( heese ; of obtaining for one's use, improved stock, 

 implements of husbandry, fruit growing, etc., etc. 

 All around, over and through — in the garden, the 

 barn, the shed, the out-house, the dwelling-house, 

 from the garret to the cellar, and from the cellar 

 to the garret — have your correspondents led us. 

 giving their views of the various things which par- 

 tain to the interest, comfort, convenience, and hap- 

 piness of the farmer. Most wUhugly and profitably 

 have we been led through the whole routine of the 

 farmer's life. Still there are some things that 

 claim our attention, of which little if anything has 

 as yet been said ; and of these I shall choose for 

 my subject, the manner in which butter, cheese, 

 and wool, are bought up in this part of the coun- 

 try ; and I have no doubt that farmers in other 

 parts can testify to what I am about to relate. — 

 For instance, here, situated between three and four 

 hundred miles distant from the city of New York, 

 (our main market,) live men who have served a 

 long and severe appenticoship among pine logs, 

 saw-mills, and lumber, and wlao have turned their 

 attention in earnest to agriculture. What I mean 

 by agriculture is, anything and everything per- 

 formed on a farm. Some of us take a great deal of 

 pains, and produce as good wool, butter, and cheese. 

 as can be found anyAvhere in the country. Orange 

 county to the contrary notwithstanding. Butter, 

 for the last five or six years, has averaged 20 cents 

 delivered at the depot of the New York and Erie 

 Railroad, This fdl, during the panic, it has 

 declined. When money goes up, produce invari- 

 ably goes down. This we can neither let nor 

 hinder. But I digress. 



In the city of New York live produce merchants 

 who hire A, B, and C, in the country, to buy but- 

 ter, wool, or cheese, or all three, as the case may 

 be, for a commission of one cent per pound. When 

 butter is quoted 23 and 24: cents wholesale, they 

 order to pay 20 cents and under as they can light 

 of "chaps." Poor butter is out of the question — 

 there is none. The small commission they receive 

 blinds their eyes. They can not tell a firkin of 

 prime butter from a soap-tub of lard. They pay 

 20 cents for that which is salted with two or three 

 ounces of coarse barrel salt to the pound, the rest 

 being composed of loppered milk and dairy grease, 

 the least particle of which placed between tlie mas- 

 ticators, and the under jaw allowed to perform its 

 office, would send the cold chills m beautiful waves 

 and ringlets along down their spinal column.- — 

 They pay 20 cents for Coon butter — " rings on the 

 tail " ; or, in otlier words, that which is taken in by 

 country merchants in exchange for goods, at all 



