Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 275 



Many farmers waste time enough every year to build an ice house. 

 No woman, however neat and careful, can make good butter in 

 warm weather without a proper place to set the milk. To this 

 must be added due attention to skimming the milk. 



Dr. Isaac P. Trimble. — In the Philadelphia market there is a 

 quality of butter which commands double price. They who make 

 it always have spring houses. In building barns and houses for 

 the farm, the spring is the commander of the situation. Fre- 

 quently more attention is paid to the spring house than to any 

 other structure, and I have seen such twenty or thirty feet long. 

 The floor is paved, or it may be of gravel, over which the water 

 runs a few inches deep, and in this the milk is set. The tempera- 

 ture being always the same, probably about thirty-nine degrees, 

 the questions about skimming the milk and churning are of sec- 

 ondary importance. They who have these spring houses have no 

 difficulty in making good butter. 



Mr. Wm. Lawton. — The difference in the quality of milk in dif- 

 ferent cows is extraordinary. Some milk yields double the quan- 

 tity of butter from double the amount of milk of other cows. The 

 feed has little to do with it. For cows to furnish milk for the city, 

 all that is required is quantity. For family use, I would advise 

 every one to be very particular to get cows giving rich milk. 

 Still, it is important that there should be a variety of good feed. 

 This holds true with regard to the food of human beings. In one 

 part of Scotland, where the food was the game constantly, the peo- 

 ple became imbecile. Some kinds of food are required for the 

 nourishment of the brain; other kinds for different parts of the 

 body; for one will not answer for all. 



Dr. J. C. V. Smith. — Some years ago I was acquainted with the 

 fact of a farmer having a large quantity of bones which he could 

 not pulverize, and he put them on one part of a pasture; there the 

 grass, after a time, grew most prodigiously, and the cows preferred 

 feeding on it; when put in other lots, where the feed was good, 

 they fell away. People who eat much butter have better teeth 

 than they who eat less. It is the phosphate of lime, or phosphoric 

 acid, which develops the teeth. According to statistics twenty 

 millions of teeth are drawn by the dentists of our country every 

 year because people do not eat food which contains enough phos- 

 phate of lime, and which is contained in butter and in unbolted 

 wheat bread. This is at a cost of $20,000,000, or one dollar a 

 tooth. 



