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Vol. XV., Second SERrsa ROCHESTER, K Y., MARCH, 1854. 



No. 3. 



THE GENESEE FARMER, 



A MONTHLY JOCRXAL OP 



AGRICULTURE & HORTICULTURE. 



VOLUME XV., SECO\D SERIES. 1854. 



EACH XUMBER COXTAIXS 32 ROYAL OCTAYO P\CxF^ IN 



DOUBLE COLU>[XS, AND TWELVE xVUMBERS FOe\i 



A VOLUME OF 384 PAGES IN A YE.AR. 



Terms. 



Single Copy, ,50.50 



Five Copies, 2 OO 



Eight Copies, g'^Q 



And at the same rate for any larger number." 



Sj:^° Remittances properly mailed, and postage paid, at the ri«k 

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DAXIEL, t,EE, 



Publisher and Proprietor, Rochester, If. Y. 



FOE PROSPECTCS AXB PREMIUMS, SEE LAST PAGE. 



DAIRY HUSBAXDRY. 



Several correspondeiits have requested us to give 

 an article^ on Dairy Husbandry ; and one in Oregon, 

 Mr. T. W. A., has sent us two dollars "for a work 

 that treats particularly on the dairy business, and the 

 nature and properties of milk." We regret the ne- 

 cessity of informing our Oregon friend that there is 

 no standard work on this important branch of rural 

 economy in this countrj-, although one is "-reatly 

 needed, and would doubtless yield a fair profit to 

 both author and publisher. The twelve volumes 

 most of them of large size, of the Transactions of 

 the A*e»- York Slate Agricultural Society, contain 

 much valuable information on this subject, for this 

 has ever been the great dairy State of the Union ; 

 but no one volume, journal, or book of any kind, is 

 devoted to the elaliorate discussion of the proper wav 

 to breed, feed, milk, and othermse treat dairv cows 

 and the right handling of milk intended to produce 

 butter or cheese. This rural art is uniformly learnt 

 by experience and oral teaching, not from books 

 Hence, up to this time there has been no demand for 

 works especially illustrative of the best wavs and 

 means to render the six millions of cows in the United 

 States more profitable to their owners and more use- 

 ful to the public. In the production of excellent 

 and loncr-keeping butter, the dairv women of Holland 

 are justly celebrated ; and we have frequentlv seen 

 their butter advertised in the Xew Orleans market at 



forty cen s a pound when American butter, made m 

 Ohio, Indiana and Ilhnois, was selling there at a thi 3 

 or a fourth the sum named. In London and 

 Luerpool Holland butter also commands the hicxhest 

 pnce. A\,th_ these and many other evidences of 

 gx?neral superiority, it becomes us to study closelv the 

 Dutch s.^em of keeping cows and ma^nufacturiii' 

 butter. ^\e have just procured from Germany I 

 ^aluable work, published in 1853, illustrated ^^th 

 seventy-one beautiful wood engranngs, that gi^•e a 

 fiill and minute account of the " Holland Dairy 

 Lconomj^ as now practiced. Some of the most 

 valuable facts contained in this treatise M-ill be dven 

 as hints to our readers. ^ 



Cows are kept much of the time in stables, and fed 

 on green gra^s, clover, vetches and other pulse, cab- 

 bages, turmps,_ carrots, beets, brewers' grains and 

 .lops. All their -manure, M-hether sohd or hquid is 

 carefully saved in large tanks ; while the floor of the 

 stab e,_wnether made of cement, tile, paving stone or 

 plaiik, IS washed and scrubbed twice a day, and sanded 

 just before the cows are milked. To prevent their 

 tails getting soiled when they lie down, a smaU cord 

 tied to a cross bar above descends behind each cow 

 and IS made fast to the brush of her tail, so that it is 

 upheld from the floor and dung when she lies down. 

 Before milking, the bag and teats of each cow are 

 not only washed, but wiped dry with a cloth AU 

 authorities concur in saying that a first class Holland 

 cow-stable, at milking time, is as neat as a parlor 

 Ao other nation approaches the Dutch in the care 

 and kindness extended to milch kine, and the scru- 

 pulous neatness with which milk and butter are 

 handled. In the making of cheese, the low lands of 

 A\ extern Europe are not distinguished ; and there is 

 in the volume from which our facts are mainly drawn 

 a wood cut, showing a man with his pants rofled up 

 above his knees treading and breaking up cheese curd 

 m a tub with his bare feet. It is said that his feet 

 and legs are first washed clean; and perhaps they an- 

 swer a better purpose than the hands, which are often 

 used for a similar purpose. One had better visit the 

 best cheese districts of New York or England than 

 Holland to learn the mysteries of cheese makino- un- 

 less it be the little round cm-ds formed mostly'^from 

 butter-milk. "^ 



The best butter dairies in this State yield about 

 20p_ pounds per cow in a year; and the best cheese 

 dairies as high as 600 pounds a cow per annum 



