THE GENESEE FARMER. 



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-and saltpetre. Well packed in air tight casks or crocks, butter thus put up may be kept 

 any length of time without change. 



Casein or cheese may be obtained in a tolerably pure state by adding any acid 

 to new milk, skim-milk, or butter-milk. When this is done, the casein or curd falls 

 to the bottom. The most remarkable property of casein is, that it is soluble in a 

 weak solution of soda or potash ; that is to say, it forms a compound with these alkalies 

 which is soluble in water. Without the presence of a little free soda in new milk, its 

 cheese could only exist in the form of a precipitated curd ; and so soon as lactic acid 

 sufficient to neutralize this soda is formed by the decomposition of the sugar of milk, 

 casein begins to fall to the bottom of the vessel. By adding a little more soda to milk 

 than nature furnishes (and this amount depends somewhat on the regular salting of 

 cows), the souring of milk may be retarded for days without injury to the quality or 

 flavor of the milk. Recent analyses of milk in France liave shown that it contains 

 albumen as well as casein. The coagulating substance in the rennet or stomach of a 

 calf is muriatic acid ; although the animal tissue in the process of incipient decomposi- 

 tion may, and doubtless does, aid in precipitating curd in cheese-making. Good cheese 

 requires that all the butter or fat in the milk be retained in the curd, so far as practica- 

 ble. Too great pressure is to be avoided in the manufacture of cheese. 



CLASSIFICATION OF ANIMALS. 



Anxious to render our periodical more instructive and interesting than it has ever 

 heretofore been, we are about to bestow much additional editorial labor upon it, in con- 

 densing for its pages valuable information drawn from natural history and other available 

 sources. As the capital invested in live stock in the United States exceeds that employed 

 in all our manufactures, to Avhich government has paid so much attention, we offer a 

 few remarks on the Classification of Animals, which deserve to be studied, both anato- 

 mically and physiologically, far more than they now are. 



All living beings admit of being arranged into the two kingdoms of animals and 

 vegetables. Each of these can be again arranged into natural divisions; each of these 

 divisions may be again divided into natural classes ; each «)f these classes into natural 

 orders ; each of these orders into genera (which is the plural for genus) ; and each genus 

 has its species and varieties. An example will make this system plain: One division of 

 the animfj kingdom is called the Vertebrate, because the animals comprising it are 

 possessed of a hack hone. (Vertebra is the Latin for back bone.) One of the classes 

 of this division is called the Mammal, because the animals composing it are distinguished 

 from all the rest of the vertebrate animals by suckling their voung by mamrang, or 

 breasts and teats. One of the orders of .the mammals is called Ruminant, because the 

 animals composing it, and they alone, chew the cud or ruminate. One of the genera 

 of the ruminants is called Ovis (sheep), and is distinguished by the horns (when present), 

 being unlik? those of deer, persistent (not shed each year), and turned laterally and 

 spirally. Then the Ovis aries, or common sheep, is a species of this genus, character- 

 ized by having more wool than hair, as the Merino and Cheviot. 



The animal kingdom contains four well-marked natural divisions. The lowest of 

 these is called the Radiata. The animals comprising this division are distinguished 

 from all otliers by all their members being disposed round an axis in two or more ways. 

 They have no back bone, and no internal skeleton. The lowest class of the radiata is 

 the I'oriphera, or Sponge tribe, of which the common sponge is an example. The 

 sponge of the shops consists of a net-work of elastic fibres, which, when the sponge is 

 alive, is filled with a gelatinous mass, so soft that it drains away from the sponge when 



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