iiO 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[July. 



two of water — less than for cabbage, ae it cooks tender 

 in less time — add sufficient salt ; cooli tender and dry. 

 Then add a cupful of thin sweet cream, and serve. 



A Milk Diet. 



I find by experience, says Dr. E. N. Chapman, that 

 lime water and milk is not only food and medicine at 

 an early period of life, but also at a later, when, as 

 in the case of infants, the functions of digestion and 

 assimilationhave been seriously impaired. A stomach 

 taxed by gluttony, irritated by improper food, in- 

 flamed by alcohol, enfeebled by disease, or otherwise 

 unfitted for its duties, as is shown by the various 

 symptoms attendant upon indigestion, diarrhiea, dys- 

 entery and fever, will resume its work, and do it en- 

 ergetically, on an exclusive diet of lime water and 

 milk. A goblet of cow's milk, to which four table- 

 spoonsful of lime water have been added, will agree 

 with any person, however objectional)le the plain 

 article may be ; will be friendly to the stomach when 

 other food is oppressive, and will be digested when 

 all else fails to afford nourishment. Of this state- 

 ment I have had positive proof in very many cases. 

 The blood being thin, the nerves weak, the nutrition 

 poor, the secretions defective, and excretions insufli- 

 cient, the physician has at hand a remedy as common 

 as the air and as cheap almost as water. In it all the 

 elements of nutrition are so prepared by Nature as to 

 be readily adapted to the infant or the adult stomach, 

 and so freighted with healing virtues as to work a 

 cure when drugs are worse than useless. 



Dried Eggs. 

 A large establishment has been opened in St. Louie 

 for drying eggs. It is in full operation and hundreds 

 of thousands of dozens are going into its insatiable 

 maw. The eggs are " candled" by hand — that is 

 examined by a light to ascertain whether good or 

 not — and then are thrown into an immense recep- 

 tacle, where they are broken, and by a centrifugal 

 operation the white and yolk are separated from the 

 shell very much as liquid honey is separated from 

 the comb. The liquid is then dried by heat by patent 

 process, and the dried article is left resembling sugar, 

 and is put in barrels and is ready for transportation 

 anywhere. This dried article has been taken twice 

 across the equator in ships, and then made into 

 omlet in the same manner as made from fresh eggs, 

 and the best judges could not detect the difference 

 between the two. Is this not an age of wonders ? 

 Milk made solid ; cider made solid ; apple butter 

 made into bricks ! What next ? 



To Make Butter Hard. 



An English butter-maker of large experience, who 

 is now on a visit to this country for the purjiose of 

 looking over our cheese and butter dairies, gives us 

 the following information concerning a method in 

 practice among the best butter-makers of England 

 for hardening or rendering butter firm and solid dur- 

 ing hot weather. Carbonate of soda and alum are 

 used for the purpose, made into a. powder. For 

 twenty pounds of butter, one feaspoonful of carbo- 

 nate of soda and one teaspoonful of powdered alum 

 are mingled together at the time of churning and 

 put into the cream. The effect of this powder is to 

 make the butter come firm and solid, and to give it 

 a clean, sweet flavor. It does not enter into the but- 

 ter, but its action is upon the cream, and It passes 

 off with the buttermilk. The ingredients of the 

 powder should not be mingled togellier until re- 

 quired to be used, or at the time the cream is in the 

 churn ready for churning. 



Refrigerators and How to Make One. 

 Take a large, tight box of the re<iuired size, and 

 put some blocks on each corner for legs. Then take 

 a small box, leaving a space of at least six inches on 

 the sides and bottom. Place a layer of powdered 

 charcoal, fine saw-dust, or some other good non- 

 conductor upon the bottom, and set the smaller box 

 in. Then pack the charcoal or saw-dust all about in 

 the space between the two to the top. Make a closely 

 fitting cover for each box. The ice should be placed 

 in the box in some tin vessel, so arranged that the 

 water will run off through the bottom of both boxes. 

 If such a refrigerator is tightly and well made and 

 placed in a cool place, 190 pounds of ice will last a 

 week in it. 



Kerosene Lamps. 



A merchant returned home about two o'clock at 

 night, and found his wife lying on the bed groaning 

 heavily and unconscious. She was waiting his return, 

 and at last, tired out, laid herself on the bed, after 

 turning down the wick of a lighted kerosene lamp as 

 low as possible without extinguishing it. In this posi- 

 tion of the wick, if the oil is trad, a vapor mixed with 

 an innumerable quantity of specks of soot diffuses 

 itself through the apartment, and so covers the eyes, 

 nose and respiratory organs, that on falling asleep 

 one runs a risk of suflbcation. It is always advisable, 

 therefore, in the use of kerosene lamps, to allow the 

 wick to burn brightly or to extingiush it entirely. 



LIVE STOCK. 



Good Cows. 



It is surprising when we look around the country 

 to see the large number of poor cows that are kept 

 for years in the daries, and by men from which bet- 

 ter things should be expected. It costs as much, if 

 not more, to keep a poor cow than a good one. In no 

 other branch of farm labor is it so essential to have 

 good materi-al to work with as in the dairy. A little 

 study of the characteristics of a good cow will gen- 

 erally enable a person to tell a good cow when he 

 sees her. I have heard men say that they bred cows 

 to get the smallest eaters. But this is a fallacy, as 

 no one can expect to get something from nothing. 

 The cow (all the other essentials being right) that 

 will assimilate the greatest amount of food will usu- 

 ally prove to be the best cow to keep. In the feeding 

 of cows there is a irreat difference. A healthy cow 

 will consume many times her weight in food every 

 year, but how to find the one that will do so with the 

 least weight will repay the careful attention of those 

 that keep cows. If this point is not strictly attended 

 to it will make a wide difference in the margin of 

 profits. But it is unfortunate to have a poor cow, and 

 the shortest and best way to get rid of her is to fit 

 her for the butcher as quick as possible, and fill her 

 place with one whose qualifications at the pail can 

 be depended on. Experiment and comparison are the 

 true modes by which a quick observer can tell a good 

 cow. I have seen men whose knowledge was such 

 that they would, as a general thing, pick out the best 

 cows from a herd every time. In purchasing cows ail 

 are anxious to get the best ; but no one should expect 

 to go into a herd and buy the best in the lot, as few men 

 will sell such. In large herds, the scrubs, or the ones 

 that the rest all drive around, will often prove good 

 when given a good chance, and improve so that tlieir 

 foi'mer owner in a short time will not know them. I 

 have several times known this to be the case. 



To obtain a good lot of cows in the shortest time, 

 buy the best regardless of cost. But, unfortunately, 

 with most dairymen this cannot be done for want of 

 means, so we must look for other ways to procure 

 good cows. One w.ay will be to raise heifers from 

 the cows in the herd, got by thoroughbred males of 

 dairy breeds. This, although not the quickest, will 

 be by far the cheapest and best way to accomplisli 

 the desired result. A good cow will often lack 

 much of being a handsome one. But the size and 

 shape of her head and horns have much to do to-' 

 wards making a good cow. I have never yet seen a 

 good one that had large, broad horns. The best 

 cows carry a small, fine head, with good-sized ears; 

 and in a broad-hipped cow we ahyays find the milk 

 mirror well developed. Anyone who owns a cow 

 should lose no time in finding out her qualifications, 

 and if she will not make, at the lowest calculation, 

 iiOO pounds of liutter per year, she should be speed- 

 ily disposed of. In a large herd it will be more difU- 

 cult to accomplish this than where only a few are 

 kept. But still it can be closely approximated if 

 care is taken. A cow that gives milk as blue as a 

 whetstone is poor property for any one but a city 

 milkman. Many farmers keep too many cows that 

 produce that kind of milk. A cow can be kept till 

 she is four years old without loss, as her growth will 

 pay the cost of her keeping, jand by that time the 

 amount of her production should lie ascertained be- 

 yond a doubt. I think that with care in breeding, 

 cows can be raised that will yield on an average three 

 hundred pounds of butter per year, if well kept. — 

 S. C. Utarkcy, N. Y. 



The Royal Cow. 



When cotton was summarily discrowned from its 

 long reign quite a number of aspirants reached for 

 the regalia, and iron, corn, hay and wheat stretched 

 for the sceptre. A rival has entered the field, while 

 the deposed monarch is regaining his strength and 

 worshippers ; and though centuries have lapsed since 

 Egypt deified the cow, and Homer made " ox-eyed 

 Juno" more queenly for that quality, the cow is 

 being statistically foisted above cotton and all its 

 other rivals. The coronation is, of course, at the 

 hands of the dairymen and maidens. Their ex- 

 ponent has just declared that the country has ¥4.50,- 

 000,000 invested in 10,000,000 milk cows, whose 

 annual product is worth $.;7.5, 142, .58.5, while the last 

 cotton crop was worth only 5;i;00,000,000. 



The enormous sum of this dairy interest — which 

 includes nothing of oxen, hides or meat — will sur- 

 prise every one who has paid no attention to it. The 

 fallacy which destroyed the hay argument is partially 

 wanting here too. For, while our cxport.ationof hay 

 amounts to nothing and hardly equals consumption, 

 there is a great and rapidly growingexport of butter, 

 cheese, salt and fresh beef and live animals. The 

 sum cannot be accurately computed, and carries the 

 particular valuation into the same classification with 

 cotton. P"or in all these interests the final apprecia- 

 tion does not rest upon the amount , how considerable 

 soever that may be which is consumed at home and 

 so lost to wpallh, but upon the amount beyond con- 

 sumption, which is exported and enriches the land by 

 its equivalent in gold or other needs and permanent 

 worths. 



This gross value of cattle for labor, manure, milk, 

 me.at, cheese, butter, leather and other ends, is sus- 

 ceptible of a vast addition and must necessarily ex- 

 pand with western settlement and increase the re- 

 turns shown in our foreign trade, while sustaining 

 labor at home more abundantly and cheaply, and so 

 enabling every industry to flourish in competition 

 with less favored countries, and greater comforts and 

 luxuries to be enjoyed by all. It wMII not hold the 

 throne it challenges any more than the hay crop ; 

 provided the southern energy which has done so 

 much toward restoring its early abundance, holds 

 the course it has with the energy it is now showing. 

 But it may, and apparently must, reach a higher 

 sum than any farmer or any statistician has dreamed; 

 for, recovering its total, it has acqviired the best 

 blood of the best herds of Europe ; has given practi- 

 cal attention and study to the manufacture of cheese 

 and butter; has given the leather interest a new 

 power ; is conquering Texas, California, Oregon and 

 all the new States, and is arousing wonder in and 

 drawing money from Europe and Asia at the same 

 time. — North Aiaerican. 



A. Good Mare. 



Some twelve or fifteen years ago a queer character, 

 nicknamed ".Jersey Bill," lived at Otisville, N. Y. 

 During the races at Goshen and Middletown he used 

 to visit the courses for tjie purpose of peddling whips, 

 which were made of reeds, and which he sold for five 

 and six cents apiece. When Bill had accumulated a 

 little money he abandoned his itinerant pursuits, set- 

 tled down at Hampton, and became proprietor of the 

 tavern there. He had many acquaintances among the 

 farmers in Sussex county, N. .J., and when business 

 was slack he would take a run across the line to visit 

 them. On one of these occasions Bill chanced to see 

 a marc which he admired greatly, and which, after 

 some dickering, he purchased for $1.50, and brought 

 her back with him to Hampton. She stood about 

 fifteen hands high, was a sprightly, neat-limbed 

 creature, and attracted considerable attention from 

 the connoisseurs in horseflesh who frequented Bill's 

 tavern. Not long after he received an offer of §750 

 for the animal and finally accepted it. The mare was 

 taken in charge by her new owner, removed to New- 

 burgh, pKaced in the care of a careful trainer, andin 

 due time regularly introduced upon the trotting turf. 

 Her history from that time forward was marked by 

 a series of triumphs. Last week she made the fastest 

 time (2:lfi'X) ever known on the trotting course in 

 the State of California. The gentleman who pur- 

 chased her from Jersey Bill was Alexander Gold- 

 smith, and the mare's name is Goldsmith Maid. 



Intelligence of Cows. 



The London ^[ilk Join-ual says : "That cows hava 

 memory, language, signs and means of enjoying 

 pleasant associations, combining for aggressive pur- 

 poses, has been recognized, but scarcely to the ex- 

 tent tlie subject merits. 'Traveling in Italy many 

 years .ago, we visited some of the large dairy farms 

 in the neighborhood of Ferrara. Interspersed 

 among much of the low Ijing, unhealthy land, re- 

 markable for the prevalence on it of vei-y fatal forms 

 of anthrox in the summer season, are fine undulat- 

 ing pasture lands, and the fields are of great extent. 

 Wc happened to stop at a farmhouse one fine autumn 

 afternoon when the cows were about to be milked. 

 A herd of over one hundred was grazing homewards. 

 The women took their positions with stool close to 

 the house, and as the cows approached, names were 

 called out, which at first were we thought addressed 

 to the milkmaids. Kosa, Florenza, Giula, Sposa, 

 and many names which were noted by us at the time, 

 were called out by the overseer, or one of the women, 

 and we were astonished to see cow after cow cease 

 feeding or chewing the cud and make direct, some- 

 times at a trot, for the woman that usually milked her. 

 The practice, we found, was not confined to one 

 farm; all the cows on each farm knew their respective 

 names, and took up their position in the open just as 

 readily as the individual members of some large 

 herds in this country turning from their fields 

 take up their [ilaces in the sheds." 



Black Teeth in Hogs. 



A. S. Plummer, Edinburg, O., sent to the Ameri- 

 can farmers' club two black teeth which he had 

 just extracted. The hogs in his county (Portage) 

 are beginning to be troubled with these teeth, which, 

 if not removed, are certain to cause death. The 

 .symptoms arc: First, the hog refuses its feed; second, 

 tiicre comes a weakness about the back, and finally 

 the animal fails to get up, and dies. These teeth are 

 found iu each jaw — in the upper one near or over the 

 tusks, and in the under jaw some are found between 

 the front teeth and tusks. 



As no one i)resent could give any information on 

 the subject, the club desires farmers who may have 

 any knowledge as to its causes and cure to communi- 

 cate the same to them. 



Keep Horses Feet Clean. — To keep horses free 

 fi-om "grease," or scratches, their legs and feet must 

 be kept clean while standing in the stable, and rub- 

 bed as soon as they come out of the wet. 



