AND HORTICULTURAL REGISTER. 



9 



PUULtSHED BY JOSEPH BRECK & CO., NO. B2 NORTH MARKET STREET, (.\o81cui.tui.al WABEHon«E.)-ALLEN PUTNAM, EDITOR. 



voi..x\i.] 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, MARCH 29, 184:). 



[tfO. 3«. 



N, 



FARMER 



THE HONEV BEE. 



Conclusion of Mr Oliver's Rimarks at the last .Igri- 



cutlural Miding. 



The Moth. — Grayish white or whitish jjrey mil- 

 ers are about from May to September. By quick 

 notions, they elude the bees, and gain entrance to 

 veak hives ; they deposite egijs under the edges 

 of the liive or on the comb, and afterwards you 

 vi!l see a small whitish worm, with a brown hard, 

 lead. This worm grows in size till it becomes as 

 arge round as a turkey's quill ; and it keeps its 

 lorfy wrapt up in a cocoon: its head is out, but 

 his is sci hard that the bees cannot sting it. Mak- 

 ng its silken liouse over its body as it goes along, 

 liis worm eats its way through the comb — destroy- 

 the work of the bees, discouraging them, and 

 inally causing their destruction, or at least their 

 xpiilsion from the hive. 



A lighted candle at night may allure and de- 

 troy some of them, but it will do the same to some 

 f the bees. The most effectual guard against 

 he moth is to make the hive as tight as possible ; 

 D keep the swarm strotig, by preventing swarm- 

 ngs; to wn.sh the floor-iioard frequently, and to 

 'fatch and kill as many of the millers as you can 

 nd. Thus you may lessen the evil, though you 

 annot avoid it entirely. 



The only diseases his bees have been subject to 

 re dysentery and vertigo. Dysentery he thinks 

 e has cured by cleansing the hive: the vertigo 

 oon passes off without assistance from the apiari- 



D. 



The louse, spoken of by Mr Buckminster, he had 

 ever seen, nor had he heard of it before. 



Feeding It is sometimes necessary to feed. 



^he best food is honeif — and if the hive is not well 

 applied, it is better to feed in autumn than in win- 

 er. A common swarm ought to have 25 lbs. of 

 •oney for its winter stores. To put honey outside 

 'f the hive, leads to fighting between bees of dif- 

 srent hives. A little tin box, with one end pass- 

 ing into the hive and making a sort of trough on 

 tte inside for them to feed from, does very well. 



The temperature of a hive in the coldest wcath- 

 r, is from 70 to 90'^ ; so that moisture will gene- 

 ally be trickling down the sides. This is often 

 nheaithy ; a glass vessel over a hole in the top of 

 he hive, would collect the vapor and condense it, 

 nd thus make the condition of the swarm more 

 omfortiible. 



In spring, when the bees first go out, it encoura- 

 jea and strengthens them, to give them some food. 



Vermont Sugar. — Next to Louisiana, Vermont is 

 he greatest sugar-producing State in the Union. 

 The amount of maple sugar made there in 1840, 

 was over 2,55.4 tons : this at 5 cents a pound, is 

 Torth ,$25.5,9f;3 20. The Montpelier Watchman 

 hinks this is very far below the quantity produced 

 ast year, and says that the produce this season 

 vill, at the low price of 5 cents, be worth one 

 nillion of dollars. 



DR. PLAYPAIR ON THE PROPERTIES 

 AND CHANGES OF MILK. 



Before the Society of Arts in London, Fob. 8, 

 1843, Dr. Lyon Playfair read a paper "On the 

 Changes and Composition of the Milk of a (,\>w" 

 — the substance of which, as reported in the Lon- 

 don AlhenKum of Feb. 25, is as follows: 



The principal object which the author had in 

 view in this paper was, to draw the attention of prac- 

 tical men to the C(mdilions which effect a change 

 in their dairy produce. An improved mode of an- 

 alyzing milk is described and followed. The 

 cow being in good milking condition, and at the 

 time fed upon alter grass, he ascertained the ave- 

 rage amount of her milk for five days, and then 

 proceeded to analyze It. In the first. day it was 

 observed that the milk of the evening contained 

 3.7 per cent, of butler, and of the following morn- 

 ing 5.(1 per cent. The deficiency in the first obser- 

 vation is referred to the con.=uniption of a greater 

 portion of the butter or its constituents, from res- 

 piratory oxidation during the day when the animal 

 was in the field, than during the night, when it was 

 at res: in the stall. When confined during the 

 day, and fed with after grass in a shed, the propor- 

 tion of butter rose to 5.1 per cent. When fed 

 with hay, the butter was 3.9 and 4.6 per cent. ; 

 when fed with portions of potatoes, hay and bean 

 flour, the butter was 6.7 and 4.9 percent.; with 

 hay and potatoes, 4.6 and 4.9 per cent. 



The author then examines Dumas's theory of 

 the origen of fat in animals, in reference to the 

 foregoing experiments, and concludes, in opposi- 

 tion that theory, that the butter in the milk could 

 not have arisen solely from the fat contained in the 

 food, while it may reasonably be referred to the 

 starch a.nd other unazotised elements of the food, 

 as maintained by Liebig. Experiments of Bous- 

 eingault are quoted in favor of the same conclu- 

 sion, and observations of dairymen in different lo- 

 calities. Potatoes are particularly favorable to 

 the production of butter, from the starch they con- 

 tain ; so is malt-refuse. Porter and beer are also 

 well known to be favorable to the production of 

 butter, both in the milk of woman and of the cow, 

 although these fluids do not contain fat. The 

 (|uantity of casein (cheese) in tho milk is shown to 

 be dependent on the quantity of albumen in the 

 food supplied on different days to the cow, and to 

 the supposed destruction of the tissues by muscu- 

 lar exercise. Peas and beans are the food which 

 yield most casein. Pasturing in the open field is 

 more favorable to the formation of casein, while 

 stall-feeding is more favorable to the formation of 

 butter. It is also known that the proportion of 

 butter in the milk of woman, is increased by rest 

 and the diminution of the respiratory oxidation. 



Cornstalk Sugar. — The manufacture of this has 

 been attempted with success in several parts of the 

 U. States. The Cincinnati Chronicle notices a 

 specimen made in Illinois, which was as good as 

 the New Orleans sugar. It is estimated that an 

 acre of corn will give 1000 lbs. of sugar. 



From the Farmer's Monthly Visitor. 



MY MOTHER'S BUTTER. 



It was as good as ever was made, and so were 

 her pies and symlmlls. Who is there, brought up 

 in the country, that has not the same foelinjv ? 

 Who but reverts to his youthful taste, and as his 

 memory furnishes forth the seascjus and times 

 when he enjoyed what he still thiidts the host of 

 butter, and of every thing else prepared bv a 

 mother's hand, and supplitid with an unequalled 

 mother's kindness ? 



All kinds of modes of making and preserving 

 butter, have been presented again and agiin. To 

 make it good is now so common, that we have al- 

 most forgotten that it can be otherwise ; and noth- 

 ing speaks more favorably of the admitted neat- 

 ness and excelling carefulness of our unparalleled 

 women. 



That man of self-esteem, Dickens, who was in 

 our ciuincry, admitted the surpassing excellence of 

 our females in literature, and had he been capable, 

 would no doubt have passed a higher encomium 

 upon them as wives and mothers. 



But I am leaving my starting point, and what I 

 thought I should have said ere this, which was not 

 about the mode of making butter, but rather of 

 keeping it for a length of time as good as new. 



My mother's mode was to have a barrel about 

 half full of brine, made from Turks' Island (not 

 English) salt, which is the purest as well as strong- 

 est. The butter when made, was divided into 

 lumps or rolls of about four pounds each, and put 

 into the brine, and kept below the surface of it by 

 a clean board, cut to fit, with holes in it. 



The butter, if well worked at first, never be- 

 came rancid in the least, and was better twelve 

 months after it was made than at first. The bar- 

 rel, of course, should be always in a cuol cellar — 

 cool in summer, and warm in winter. 



The main object in rendering butter proof 

 against spoiling, is to keep it from the air, and 

 when put away, there should be no buttermilk or 

 water in it. I am now speaking of firkin butter. 



The Arabs melt their butter over a slow fire, 

 which expels all th§ watery particles ; it will then 

 keep without salt; and the Irisii have adopted with 

 success a similar mode for exportation to the East 

 Indies. 



The mode of keeping butter in a convenientstate 

 for daily use, is what I thought miglit be new to 

 some of your readers, and which you can, if you 

 think proper, make them acquainted with. 



A Farmeb. 



No young lady of serisc, cares a fig for a dandy 

 beau, who prides himself more on the cut of his 

 coat and whiskers, than for the more enduring qual- 

 ities of the head and heart ; and what young man 

 of sense, would not prefer a wife who can cook and 

 wash, and sew and scrub, as a good housewife 

 does, to one who can sing fashionable music, drum 

 on a piano, talk sentimental nonsense, and repeal 

 whole pages of album poetry. — Lowell Cour. 



