74 



SILK MANUAL, AND 



THE hari.e:ia]v dairy. 



BY H. C. 



Milk, next to bread, is undoubtedly one of the 

 most general and im})ortant articles of human diet. 

 None is more universally salutary, and none more 

 nutritious. To children it is next to indispensa- 

 ble ; aged persons who are accustomed to it, find 

 it extremely conducive to their comfort ; and re- 

 turn to its use with even a stronger relish than they 

 had for it in childhood. It is an important condi- 

 ment with much of our food ; and it is cajiable of 

 being used in almost countless variety of delicious 

 and nutritious forms. 



Of the various animals whose milk is employed 

 for human food, the cow, both in respect to qual- 

 ity and quantity, is most generally preferred. Goats, 

 asses and mare's milk are used ; but for conveni- 

 ence, nutritiousness, and quantity, the cow is above 

 all others to be chosen ; and, as far as food is con- 

 cerned, may be considered among the greatest 

 blessings which Divine Providence has bestowed 

 upon mankind. As matter of diet, there is noth- 

 ing which in proportion to its weight contains so 

 much nutriment ; and as a beverage, to a simple 

 and unadulterated taste, none can be more grate- 

 ful. ]n the country, where it can be had pure 

 and in abundance, it ought to constit' te a great ar- 

 ticle of fo d for children and young persons; and 

 the miserable and pernicious and perfectly innu- 

 tritions substitutes of tea and coffee, ought to be 

 kept entirely out of their reach. In cities, how- 

 ever, pure milk is almost as difficult to be procur- 

 ed as pure water. In New York city, for exam- 

 ple, the milk is first deteriorated, if vve may be al-, 

 lowed to state, in the cow's udder ; that is, where 

 cows are fed upon distillers' swill, with scarcely 

 any meal, and with hardly hay enough to form a 

 cud, the milk produced is of a very inferior qual- 

 ity ; besides, with a large pro])ortion of the milk- 

 dealers, though not all, it undergoes the ruleable 

 and established dilution of one quart of water to 

 four of milk ; in addition to this, if it goes into the 

 hands of the grocers, as in general they are too 

 modest and humane to sell anything like strong 

 drink, it commonly undergoes another application 

 from the town pump. Indeed, we state from the 

 best information, that there are grocers in this city, 

 who, without any aid from the cow, or at least the 

 slightest possibility, have offered the milk-men, 

 when the supplies of the miik-men for their cus- 

 tomers fall short, to furnish them from their own 

 (the grocers) resources, what they tnay need to 

 make their supplies sufficient : that is, they iter- 

 ally manufacture the milk, as we sometimes say, 

 '' out of the whole cloth." The process, we un- 

 derstand, is this : to take some Indian meal of the 

 white groud seed variety, and pass some scalding 

 water through it ; and this water, dashed with a 

 slight touch of milk, as Broomfield calls it, " three 



times skimmed sky-blue," can be offered at five eta. 

 per quart ; and at this rate is actually vended to 

 the poor wretches, who want their cent or their 

 two cents worth for their tea and coffee. Now 

 whether this he or not be a real Yankee trick we 

 shall not venture to surmise, but the ingenuity of 

 its performance belongs to the veritable city of 

 Manhattan. It is, however, all of a piece with 

 many of the London tricks, which London cream 

 is readily manufactured out of flour or mag-nesia 

 and milk to a consistence to suit the most fastid- 

 ious. The adulterations of hutnan food, howev- 

 er, where it is susceptible of being adulterated to 

 a profit, are most obvious and enormous, and it 

 would be quite fortunate if all of them were as in- 

 nocent as the above. 



The adulteration of milk, the price obtained for 

 it, and the frauds practised in its disposal, induc- 

 ed William Harley of Glasgow, an active and en- 

 terprising citizen, a few years since, to form a 

 milk establishment, of considerable extent, in the 

 neighborhood of that city, for the supply of the 

 market with this article, in a pure and cleanly 

 condition ; and, indeed, so far as depended on hu- 

 man skill, of the very best quality. This dairy at- 

 tracted very extraordinary attention from its novel 

 and convenient arrangements, and the admirable 

 manner in which the whole business was conduct- 

 ed. It was visited as a matter of great curiosity 

 by vast numbers of people, including many of the 

 nobility, and several of the princes and sovereigns 

 of Europe ; and as far as concerned the object of 

 furnishing an article of the best quality, and in the 

 best condition, and with scarcely the possibility 

 of adulteration, until it left t!ie hands of the vender, 

 its purposes were admirably accomplished. It 

 was not, we believe, e(ju;illy profitable to the en- 

 terprising proprietor ; the establishment was evi- 

 dently conducted on too expensive a scale to be 

 expected to yield large returns. Harley hasgi^'cn 

 a detailed account of the establishment, and of his 

 own experience in the dairy business. It is a 

 book containing much valuable information ; and 

 I have thought it would be both interesting and 

 useful to the readers of the New York Farmer to 

 have an account of it. 



I shall not undertake a particular description of 

 the building. The largest amount of cows kept at 

 any one time was two hundred and sixty. The 

 largest building contained stalls for one hundred 

 cows. There was an appendage which deserves 

 particular attention. At the end of the house was 

 a large tank or reservoir, as a depository for the 

 cows' urine ; it was fifty feet long, six feet wide, 

 and six feet deep. The surface of the tank was 

 on a level with the bottom of the cellar ; it was 

 covered with flat brick work, arched, leaving a 

 space in the centre of the arch four feet square, 

 for taking out the sediment. This aperture was 



