59 



upon : potatoes, tnrnips, beets, carrots, pumpkins, &c. are much 

 more easily raised, and will probably answer the same purpose. 



Farmers generally would make their pursuits more profitable if 

 they were careful to send to market the best articles, in the 

 neatest order. Good butter, good cheese, good fruit, good cider, 

 good pork, beef and mutton, will always sell, even when the 

 market is glutted with inferior kinds of the same articles. The 

 difference of the expense of raising or preparing the best, and 

 the more ordinary kinds of these commodities, is often very 

 trifling. The butter, for example, offered for sale, is often bad, 

 pancid, and almost worthless. Yet such butter costs almost as 

 much, perhaps often more, than it would to have made it of the 

 hest quality. Butter should always be made, salted and preserv- 

 ed by rule. Despise not, therefore, directions on this subject 

 found in books ; for it is impossible always to make good butter, 

 if it be carelessly worked over, and salted as chance directs. 

 The difficulty of making good butter, and of sending it uninjured 

 to the market, in the hottest weather, may be easily obviatedv 

 For, with very little trouble or expense, ice may be kept in a 

 Common cellar the whole season.* 



In discussing the means of rendering the pursuit of Agricul- 

 ture more proiitabJe, Domestic Economy is too important to be 

 emitted. 1 am well aware that it is extremely difficult to speak 



* In the middle or one corner of the cellar may be buijt a bin. Thro^y 

 flown some boards, and cover the bottom with straw; or, what is better, 

 the spent bark of tanneries, generally known by the name of tan, in suffi- 

 cient quantity to Jeave it a foot in thickness under the necessary pres- 

 sure. !n the month of February or March, ^o to the most convenient pond 

 of fre^h water, and obtain a safficient quantity of ice, Ciitting or sawing it 

 up in blocks as lare;e as can be conveniently handled, and pile it up 

 as compactly as possible in the middle of the bin, leaving a space of 

 one foot or more all around it ; fill this space, and cover the v/hoJe with 

 tan or straw, and the ice, unless the cellar be uncommonly open, will 

 keep the whole summer. Two men, and one pair of oxen, will perform 

 all the labour necessary to lay in such a store of ice in one day. Around 

 this ice let the pans of Kiilk be set, and place the pots of cream and butter 

 upon it. Place two or three pounds of ice in each box, and if conveyed 

 thither as expeditiously as from any part of the county of Essex it may be 

 done, it will reach the market in the finest order. 



Butter not wanted for immediate use is well preserved as follows : — 

 Take two parts of the best common salt, one part of sugar, and one of salt- 

 petre ; heat them up together, and blend the whole completely. Take one 

 ounce of this composition for every pound of butter, work it well into the 

 jnas?, and close it up for use. 



