1854. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



197 



tors, to the lower floors, and distributed to the 

 various stalls. Every part of the establishment 

 was perfectly clean, and kept in thorough order. 

 Mr. William Euiutt, the superintendent, who 

 knows, by the way, as much about hor8es,as any 

 man in New York, has his various troops under as 

 good discipline as a military academy. A fine of 

 one dollar is imjiosed upon every ostler who leaves 

 a bucket or shovel insiglit, when not in use, and I 

 think more dirt may often be found in one stall in 

 a farmer's barn, than could be scraped together 

 from the whole estiildishment. But five horses 

 were, at the time of my visit, disabled from work, 

 of the whole number, and only seventeen have 

 died in two years past. Their average allowance of 

 food is one hundred pounds, or two bushels of 

 meal per week, and about eight pounds of hay per 

 day, for each liorse, and yet they are all kept in 

 the finest condition. A car, drawn by two horses, 

 and with scats for twenty-eight persons, leaves the 

 stable every two and a half minutes through the 

 day. The time allowed down is thirty-eight min- 

 utes, and up forty minutes, and notwithstanding 

 the difference in the number of passengers wlio 

 stop the car to get in or out, at any point on the 

 route, the time of running seldom varies one min- 

 ute. Each team runs three times down and back, 

 daily, making for evex-y horse twenty-one miles a 

 day, at once without unharnessing. Forty cars 

 are emplo3'ed, costing about $850 each ; and Mr. 

 Ebbitt informed me that the cost of the horses va- 

 ried froui eighty-five to a hundred and forty dol- 

 lars, each. Occasionally, by mistake they purchase 

 one which proves to be worth four or five times as 

 much, and when that fact appeai-s, the horse is 

 fitted for the market and sold for a higher sphere 

 of action. 



Mr. Ebbitt showed me one specimen of the ge- 

 nus horse which is worthy of a place in Bainum's 

 museum. It is a mare of full size, without a hair 

 to cover her nakedness, not even by way of mane, 

 tail or ej-elashes. She is of a mouse color, fat and 

 well formed, and at a little distance would pass for 

 a sleek-haired animal, were it not for her perfectly 

 ridiculous looking tail, which in grace and propor- 

 tions, resembles tliat of a cleanly dressed porker. 

 They say she "was ever tims since childhood's 

 hour," and has had two colts of the same style of 

 beauty. It strikes me that a few bottles of Bogle's 

 Hyperion Fluid might be used on her with a fair 

 opportunity to test its merits. 



The forty cars run each eleven trips a day, mak- 

 ing in all sometliing more than three thousand 

 miles of travel. 



The cost of constructing this route with a doul)le 

 track, and of equipping it witli cars, horses and 

 harnesses, together with the real estate, was some- 

 thing more than seven hundred thousand dollars, 

 and the stock has thus far paid ten per cent, div- 

 idends annually. 



The only waste noticed about the establishment, 

 is in the management of the manure, a groat part 

 of which passes off in liquid form into the river, 

 while the remainder is sold for §1000 a year, not 

 more than one-third of what should be received, 

 according to the number of horses. 



As a model city railroad, with the Ix^st Presi- 

 dent and Superintendent tliat can be produced, 

 the former by the v/ay a New Ilampsliire man, I 

 think this company is worthy a more particular 

 notice than a very hasty visit enables me to give. 



n. F. F. 



Cairies' CDipai-tmcnt. 



BEEAD-MAKING. 



We shall not presume to instruct our lair read- 

 ers in the art of bread-making. The process, 

 however, involves some scientific principles, whicK 

 we propose to explain, in continuation of our se- 

 ries of familiar remarks on chemistry. Wheat 

 flour contains two principal ingredients, gluten 

 and starch, besides a small per cent (4-100 to 

 8-100) of sugar. The outside uf the kernel of wheat 

 contains a larger proportion of gluten than the 

 finer flour. These two parts of the flour may be 

 separated easily by enclosing a little flour made 

 into a stiff paste, in a linen bag, and kneading it 

 in a basin of water, until the water that comes 

 through is no longer white. The starch by this 

 process escapes from the bag, and the gluten, a 

 tough, adhering mass, remains within. Many 

 ladies have noticed the different kinds of flour, in 

 the ease with which it is kneaded. The tougher 

 kinds contain the most gluten. The bakers prefer 

 the latter sort, because it admits of more raising. 



If flour were simply mixed up with water, and 

 baked without raising, it would make a very close, 

 indigestible and unpalatable Ijread, hardly worthy 

 of the name. To becomesoft, light and palatable, 

 the dough must be raised. This is effected, ordi- 

 narily, by one of two common processes. In mak- 

 ing what is generally known as raised bread, — 

 improperly so distinguished, because all bread is 

 raised either Ijefore baking or in the process, — the 

 dough is made up witli water only, it may be, 

 and a small portion of yeast, which is to act as a 

 ferment. In the making of cream-of-tartar or 

 sour-milk liread, the means of raising it are differ- 

 ent and act in a very diflerent way, chemically. 

 In the first, the fermentation of tlie yoast or leaven 

 is extended to the mass of fresh dougli. Tlie de- 

 composing gluten acts upon the sugar and rosolvea 

 it into alcohol and carbonic acid gas. This gas, 

 in the form of little air bubbles, is disseminated 

 through the loaf, and expands or raises it, being 

 prevented from escaping by tlie glutinous nature 

 of the dough. The alcohol formed by the fer- 

 mentation is expelled from the dough by tlie heat 

 of the oven. It has been collected sometimes, in 

 large bakeries, — but hardly pa\'.s for the trouble. 

 The dough somctimos liccomes sour before 1)aking, 

 in consequence of a second fermentation — the 

 acetous — by which the alcohol is con\erted into 

 vinegar, on the absorption of o.xygen hxnn the air. 

 It then becomes necessivry to introduce into the 

 dough some alkaline substance, as soda or salera- 



