NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



147 



timber, cut in the fall or in winter before the sap 

 starts. It should be cut green, and the staves sliould 

 be shaved out to a proper thickness. Then have tiiem 

 boiled in three or four waters. This will take out 

 the taste of the wood, which is very injurious to the 

 butter. Tlie boiling seasons the wood, so that it 

 can bs worked in a few days after. The tub 

 should be made of all heart slulf; if there is any sap 

 left on the slaves or bottom, the pickle will all leak 

 out; even if there is not more than a half of an inch 

 wide in a tub, and it will spoil the butler. When 

 you are making maple sugar, if you can store your 

 sap in your butler tubs, there is nothing more con- 

 venient, and that will take out all the taste of the 

 wood better than any other process. I have known 

 them to be filled a few times with hot sap or syrup, 

 after fdling them a few times with cold sap, which 

 does the work more effectually. 



When the sugar season is over, fill the tubs with 

 salt that you intend for your cattle through the sum- 

 mer; then fill them with water, and let them soak 

 with salt and water until they are perfectly satu- 

 rated with salt. Then the tub will not take salt 

 from the butter next the staves, which keeps the 

 butter perfectly sweet and it retains the color. But 

 if the butter is put into the tubs, without their being 

 thoroughly cleansed or salted, the butter will often 

 spoil all around the edge of the tub; and often in- 

 jure the credit of the dairy. 



To carry on a dairy successfully, it is of great 

 importance to have a farm well adaj)ted to the work, 

 and the dairy-house well-arranged in every partic- 

 ular, both for comfort and convenience; and to have 

 first rate cows, and plenty of good rich and 

 sweet feed for them; with a good, comfortable and 

 convenient place for them, where they can be kept 

 warm and dry in the winter; and clean and comfort- 

 able yard in the summer, with a good supply of 

 good pure water; and a trough of salt where they 

 can have free access to it at all times. In this way, 

 you will avoid over doses of salt and water, which 

 is injurious; but suflicient quantities are indispen- 

 sable. 



Ice should not be used, if it can be avoided, for 

 it is very injurious to butter. 

 Yours truly, 



FOEMEKLY A BuTTEK Dlw\LEU 



IN F. H. Market. 



Remarks. — We commend the foregoing valuable 

 article to the attentive perusal of dairyists, for il 

 treats on some subjects that are neglected by writers 

 on butter-making. As damp dairies are injurious 

 to butter, it is of great importance to keep up good 

 ventilation when water is let into the dairy to cool 

 the milk. It will be a new idea to many that the 

 use of ice will injure butter, but it is a well estab- 

 lished fact. It will not only effect its texture, but 

 its color also, as it will bleach out its yellow hue. 



Beautifying the Homestead. — We claim it to 

 be the duty of every man who is a farmer to plai;t 

 fruit and ornamental trees, to cultivate and grow 

 the vine, as well as all useful vegetables; to beau- 

 tify and adorn his grounds and garden with flowers, 

 plants and shrubbery, and so arrange his yards and 

 grounds as to give his habitation as Eden-like an 

 appearance as possible. Should our farmers be tlnis 

 true to themselves, and dutiful to nature, then with 



truth, of our country it might be said, in the lan- 

 guage of the poet, 'tis 



"The l:ni(i of the myrtle, the cypress and vine, 

 Where all but the spirit of man is divine." 



For the New England Farmer. 

 IS HE BLIND ? 



Many are the circumstances which constrain us, 

 in view of the actions of men, to ask the question, 

 "Is he blind T' 



There stands a father, in the presence of his sev- 

 eral sons, complaining of his occupation, and bitter- 

 ly lamenting that he had not, when a young man, 

 been given to some trade or some mechanical occu- 

 pation. And what is the cause of this complaint? 

 Why, he says he cannot make a living by cultivat- 

 ing the earth. And he does not shrink from exert- 

 ing all the influence a farther has power to exert 

 over his sons, to make them despise the very call- 

 ing which was honored by the first command which 

 the Creator addressed to man. Is not that farther 

 blind ? Does he know, — does he consider, that he 

 is influencing his sons to choose some occupation 

 which shall be altogether and entirely uncertain ? 



There are many men in the land who are blind 

 to their own errors of action in the alTairs of life, 

 and blindly do they contribute by their influence to 

 the hazards, if not to the ruin, of their children. — 

 In no way are more young men directed in the way 

 of sorrow and disap}!ointment, and perhaps the way 

 of crime also in the end, than by the influence of 

 those fathers who are so often heard complaining of 

 the difliculty of making a profit by farminff, and 

 who, indeed, are not farmers in a just and true 

 sense, but only men who have farms, which they 

 do not cultivate like men of true understanding. 



I can look about me in every direction and see 

 men who have farms but are not farmers, whatev- 

 er they may be called. It is true, they call them- 

 selves farmers. But would people be willina to 

 call a man a carpenter because he could use a hand- 

 saw enough to cut a board in two ? It would cer- 

 tainly be improper. And is that man a farmer 

 who only knows how to perform certain formal 

 acts which are necessary to farming? 



Suppose that a man says he is a carpenter, and 

 we find he cannot decide the difference between the 

 different kinds of building materials wliich ought 

 to be used in building a house; shall we be disposed 

 to call him a carpenter ? And why should a man 

 be regarded as a farmer, merely because he calls 

 himself a farmer; while he knows little or nothing 

 of the properties and powers of the various soils, 

 in using which he is to produce certain results in 

 the form of absolute crops ? Is he a farmer, while 

 he is so ignorant of the uses of his farm ? 



Let a man come to us with the pretence that he 

 is a painter, who is ignorant of the principles of 

 compounding colors to produce certain desired shades 

 or tints, and knows not how to prepare his oils, and 

 mix his oils and paints to make a body or give a 

 gloss; we would consider it all wrong to class him 

 with painters; and especially if he thought to ap- 

 |)ly his paints to a floor oi other part with a mop, 

 because in earlier times persons had sometimes ap- 

 plied their paint with a ])iece of cloth, while the 

 paint was perhaps mixed with skim milk instead of 

 oil. And why should a man who knows not how- 

 to compost manure so as to raise a cabbage, a tur- 

 nip, or even a hill of beans, be called a farmer? — 

 True, most men raise more or less of such things, 



