Vol. 1.— No- 2. 



AND GARDENER'S JOURNAL. 



11 



For thw Genesoo Farmtr. 

 ON PRESERVING BUTTER. 



Addressed to Farm.ra and Citizen House-WiveE. 



Butter baa become an article of such prima- 

 ry importance, and such a leading material in 

 tbe daily consumption of mankind, that it 

 seems to ma that if one quarter of the atten- 

 tion had been paid to its improvement, that 

 (here has to subjects of minor importance, our 

 markets and tables would not so often be the 

 subject of complaint. 



I shall not attempt to give a chomical anal- 

 ysis of butter, or even directions for making 

 it, as it is only a good article that can obtain 

 buyers, or gain admittance to the tables of 

 private families, who provide for themselves, 

 but I would here observe that there is nut such 

 a marked difference in particular districts or 

 pastures, or in breeds of cows, or even skill in 

 the manufacturing, except as to neatness and 

 cleanliness, as most persons imagine. 



In buying your butter, the most sensible 

 question you can ask, is "how many cows do 

 you keep "," tne chance of a good article is 

 generally in favor of the larger number ; any 

 other inquiries are mere moonshine. Tasting, 

 smelling, seeing, and feeling, are the only true 

 criterions. Fresh, sweet, and clean, is all that 

 is required: the grand secrot is preservation, 

 and this is so simple thatno one who loves a 

 good article should ever complain of having 

 bad,rancid, or frewey butter. 



Butter is an oil, rather more appertaining 

 to animal than vegetable origin, and when 

 pure, does not contain the elements of sponta- 

 neous fermentation, or decomposition, and if 

 not exposed to the air, is as unchangeable as 

 gold, or the diamond itself; and the first pound 

 flat was made by the Scythians, who were 

 the first discoverers, 600 years before the 

 Christian Era, if properly prepared, and her-> 

 mettcally sealed, would be as fine and palata- 

 ble this day, as the best pound made in the 

 " Genesee cojuntry" this year. 



Allow rao to give one fact within my own 

 knowledge, to support this assertion. In the 

 jammer of 1827, I had presented to me a 

 piece of butter SI years old, and which to 

 t.a^te and smell, was as fine and sweet as tbe 

 day it was churned, and for aught I know, e- 

 ven sweeter, for it was the very cream of but- 

 ter. It had been prosorved under tbe follow- 

 ing circumstances. A farmer's wijfe, during 

 vary hot weather, had put a large roll on a 

 yewter plate, and tied it over with a white 

 napkin, and lowered it into a deep well to cool 

 and fit it for the table. In withdrawing it 

 the 3tjing broke, and it sunk to the bottom. — 

 Twenty-one years after, the well was cleaned 

 and during the opfejation, it got loosed from 

 its imprisonment, rote and swam on the sur- 

 face, to the no small annoyance and surprise 

 of the man who was in the well. It was 

 Carefully drawn up as the egg of some land or 

 sea serpent, but the good wife soon laid the 

 sjook, and explained the mystery. 



Now for the g.and secret of preservation 

 for the promulgation of which, I only ask my 

 readers to try it once, and they may forever 

 After do as they please. 



After butter is made, or comes ioto your 

 possession, K in warm weather, tbe first ope- 

 ration, is to put it either into a cool cellar or 

 ?nto eu-M well or spring water., nil tt oreotnen 



of as hard a consistency as it can readily be 

 worked with a ladle or paddle. In small por- 

 tions work out all the milk or whey that it 

 contains, which is best done in a wooden bowli 

 held in a sloping direction. You may even 

 work it with cold water, changing it till it 

 comes off clear, except in which case, it will 

 need an additional quantity of salt, and if you 

 will do it with the following compound, you 

 will decidedly find your account in it ; viz: — 

 Two parts common salt, (not too fine) one 

 part saltpetre, and one part sugar.by measure 

 And above all, remember that the working 

 must be thoroughly done, if you wish it to 

 keep a long time, and that it can only be done 

 when cooled down to a proper temperature ; 

 for by this process you purify it of all self ac 

 ting and putrefying particles, that are capable 

 of spontaneous change and decomposition 

 and it now only wants to be kept from contact 

 with air, to render it perfectly unchangeable 

 To do this, take any sweet wooden cask, tnb, 

 or firkin, that has been used at least one year 

 before, and lost its wood flavor, or what is de- 

 cidedly belter, stone and earthern jars or pots, 

 make the butter into rolls of that convenient 

 size, that the half of one shall be fit for the ta- 

 ble, and lay them carefully and snugly down, 

 till tho vessel is full, or within a few inches, 

 then make a brine of cold water, as strong as 

 salt will make it, or to saturation, and cover 

 fairly the whole of the butter. If properly 

 packed, it will not swim, as you use from it, 

 and if kept covered, it is as sweet and good at 

 the end of ten years as when put down. 



It is important to be in rolls, to prevent its 

 coming too much in contact with the wood, 

 whereby it would receive air and be inconven- 

 ient to come at when wanted. If it is desira- 

 ble to pack it in bulk and solid, for market, 

 the best way is to work it well as above, pack 

 down firmly, and on tbe top put about a haif 

 inch of fine salt, leave it about 8 or 10 days 

 and you will find it has shrunk from the side 

 about an eight or quarter of an inch, then head 

 up, and through a hole in the head fill it with 

 brine, H. Y. 



A CHEAP AND DURABLE PAINT, FOB GARDEN 

 FENCES, OCT HOUSES, EVE TKOUGHS, &C. 



I propose, Messrs Editors, in a few days, to 

 give you my ideas and speculations on the 

 short duration of the modern paints used on 

 houses and works exposed to the weather, 

 and particularly of the prevailing colour, white, 

 lead, and ttiose with which it is compounded, 

 the undurability of wliieh, is a general com- 

 plaint, aDd a great tax opon the, public, and 

 needs redress. 



In the mean time I offer the following cheap 

 substitute fur linseed oil painting, for all 

 coar9e uut door works : 



Melt over a slow fire, in an iron pot or kettle, 

 two lbs. of rosin, and one lb. of roll brimstone; 

 when perfectly liquified, add slowly three gal- 

 lons of train or fish oil, and wheu perfectly 

 incorporated, add Spanish brown, Venetian red, 

 yellow ochre, or any other dark calour, till of 

 sufficient consistency to cover wood of a uni- 

 form colour; nse it warm, with a brtjsh, and 

 when dry, give it a second coat, and you will 

 have a pabt that the weather is incapable of 

 affecting. It takes linger to dry than common 

 paints, but if rightly managed, usuajly be- 

 dtimes Itljrd in five or six clays. O. B. 



VITALITY OF PLANTS. 



Borne of the ancient philosophers supposed 



the trocs, and the whole vegetable kingdom, 



to bo endowed with souls, vitality and intelli 



gence. The Druids held the misletoe sacred, 



and some of our savages have certain trees 



that they converse with, and pay their adora 



lions to, 



1 He sees, 

 God in the rocks, and SpiritB in the trees.' 



And in fact the idea is not so barbarous, nor 

 so preposterous, whon we look on the shrink- 

 ing sensibility of the mimosa or sensitive 

 plants, or the trembling and nodding of the 

 anthers of the Barberry, on the slighest touch ol 

 any foreign substance; the sensibility and voli- 

 tion of several flowers of the fly-trap kind, 

 which close upon any of the insect tribe, who 

 invade their nectared cells, and hold them in 

 durance, till they are smothered in sweets, be- 

 fore they again expand their flowers — All this, 

 with many other curious facts, connected with 

 the sexual intercourse of those plants, whose 

 reproductive organs are contained in different 

 flowers, and even on different plants— these, 

 with thousands of other wonderful properties 

 of vegetable organic matter, to those who view 

 them thinkingly and critically, certainly go to 

 show that the vegetable economy and struc 

 ture, is something more than the mere carpen- 

 ter's frame work of inert snbstances ; — but arc 

 endowed with feeling, sensibility, and voli- 

 tion. The ascending and descending of the 

 sap; nay, the very simple fact, that they all 

 incline to grow perpendicularly, rather than 

 haphazard, at the angles of chance, all show 

 design and wisdom in their formation; and the 

 exercise of these secret and inscrutable prin- 

 ciples, which the mere natural reasoner may 

 spin out into the attenuated cobweb's fino- 

 ness of analysis arid sophistry without finding 

 the course. Then where is the monstrosity 

 of the ancient's belief, or the irrationality of a 

 creed formed in those bye-gone ages, wlieji 

 those daring and mighty spirits groped their 

 way in the natural sciences, in more than t^- 

 berian darkness? Why is it unphilosophioal 

 to allow all organic matter, from the humble 

 moss to god-like man, to possess its due pre 

 portion of the spirit, soul, mind, or intelli. 

 gence, that constitutes our pre-eminence ov»Er 

 the brute? 



" Vast chain of beings! which from God begoji 

 Nature's ethereal, human, angel, man, 

 Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see'. 

 Noglass can reach, from infinite to thee I" 

 "FromNature's chain, whatever linkyou strike, 

 Tenth, or ten thousandth, breaks the chain 



alike 



Y. 



TERMINOLOGY. 



Roots, trunk, limbs, stems, branches, twigs, 

 pith, bark, leaves, flower, seed and fruit, com- 

 pose a complete vegetable. 



Epidermis— the outer rough part of the ba,rk, 

 without a circulation of sap, and is supposed 

 to be the excremental part of the plant. 



Parenchyma — the part next the epideimVs, 

 and is jjsually of a greenish color. 



Cortical layers — the soft and flexible part of 

 in e bark next the wood. 



Qamb or granulated matter— the soft pulpy 

 mass next within the cortical layers in the con. 

 dition of forming new wood. 



Ligneous fibre — the woo8 or struct^e and 

 frame WorB of the tree or vegetable. 



