316 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



April 25, 1828. 



ORCHARDS IN DEVONSHIRE, ENG LAS D. 



"Tlie usual mode of procuring; a variety of fruit, 

 in sOBie parts of this district, is to have a small 

 piece of ground previously prepared, and to spread 

 the pulp or cheese fresh frorr^ the press upon it, 

 and with a rake or light harrow mix and well cov 

 er it witii the surface mould. In the progress of 

 the ensuing growth of the young plants, care is 

 taken to select all such as produce the larErest and 

 most luxuriant leaves, as it is from that character 

 that the best expectations are formed for procuring 

 the most valuable fruit. Tlie rejected plants are 

 drawn out from time to time, and the preserved 

 ones left, to discover their speiifi qualities. — 

 These, when approved of, and which point is gen- 

 erally ascertained by the end of the 6th year from 

 the time of sowing the pips, their heads being pre 

 viou.sly formed upon a stem about five feet high, 

 are removed to any eastern, but that of north east 

 aspect ; and on the side of a hil!, free Troui springs, 

 though rather a moist subsoil, are planted gener- 

 ally at the distance of 25 or 30 feet apart, holes 

 being previously made, and depositing in each a- 

 bout tivo seams or horse loads of road scrapings, 

 or way soil. 



" In planting the orchards, care should be taken 

 to place all the trees of the same sort nr qualitv in 

 rows, by which means the fruit ripening together 

 can more easily be kept separate, nulled, express 

 od, and the juice fermented together ; objects of 

 the first consequence with all good ciderists, as 

 the mixing of the fruit is found to produce unequal 

 and repeated stages of fermentation, and thu.s ex 

 hausting the strength and proving hijrlily injurious 

 to the cider. In other places the pulp or cheese 

 from the press is iniuiediately washed, and the 

 clean kernels sown in the month of March follow- 

 ing; after st-:nding two years in the seed bed.s the 

 plants producing tlie largest loaves are removed 

 to a nursery, and sot out four feet apart, at five 

 years old from the seed a part of these stocks are 

 grafted, and others left to discover their natural 

 produce, which not answering, arc afterwards graf- 

 ted also. Great pains arc bestowed in training the 

 yeung tops which is done by cutting off the shoot 

 ehin high, and afterwards pruning the top branch- 

 es for three or four years, williinsixor eightinch- 

 es of the stem. This strengthens the trunk and 

 roots, and gives considerable security to the tree 

 when removed to the orclinrd. After remaining 

 three or four years in the nursery from the time 

 of being grafted, they are usually transplanted in- 

 to a south-eastern declivity, at the distance of 30 

 feet apart, and will keep in good bearing for a pe- 

 riod of forty years. By such means very fincfroit 

 is often produced." — Vancouver's Survey of Dev- 

 onshire. 



[From Memoirs of llie New York Board of Agricullurc] 



ON THE MANUFACTURE OF BUTTER i 

 AND CHEESE. 



BY S. Dt WITT. ES<1. 01' M.EA.NV. 



Sir, — You are engaged, I unde'rstand, in pre- I 

 paring, or superintending, a publication of the; 

 transactions of the Board of Agriculture. Per- 

 mit mc to suggest to yon a few thoughts that may 1 

 be useful on this occasion. Multifarious as must 

 be the objects of your Board, on which informa- 

 tion is expected and intended to be given, I will; 

 take the liberty to mention one or two which I 

 think have not reeeived the attention they merit;! 

 I mean the management of milk in the making of 

 butter and clicfise. I 



Whatever may be said about the difference of 

 cattle, pastures, or climate; to apologise for the 

 inferiority of our productions of such articles, 

 compared with those of Europe, we do know, and 

 have in numerous instances proved, tiiat we can 

 here make them of as good a quality, and if it can 

 be done in one, it can be done in every instance. 

 We have the same materials, and by the same 

 management the result will be the same erery 

 where. When I first came to Albany, more than 

 thirty years ago, I found a Mr. Hudson, an Eng- 

 lishman, settled as a farmer near Clierry Valley, 

 celebrated for his excellent cheese ; afterwards a 

 Mr. Tunnicliff, also an Englishman, on the Sus- 

 quehanna, equally celebrated in the same way. I 

 have had cheese from both, which would not suf- 

 fer in a comparison with the best from England 

 of the same age. Since that, we only now and 

 then hoar of persons who have deservedly acquir- 

 ed the character of good cheese makers. Why is 

 this so ? Why is it so rare to find a farmer who 

 mokes such cheese as is entitled to praise ? Why 

 is it. that while tons of this article are brought to 

 our market, it i,~. so extremely difficult to find 

 any which a man of taste would tolerate on 

 his table .' These are matters which I conceive 

 have not received that attention which they merit 

 from our public institutions designed for the me- 

 lioration of our agricultural in'erests. 



Butter is also an article in the making of which 

 our country is miserably deficient. Good butler 

 is so essential in cookery, and on the table, that 

 no good meal can be prepared without it, and yet 

 scarcely any of the best quality is attainable in 

 our markets. I may here make a similar remark 

 to what I have made in respect to the making of 

 cheese. We have the same materials which those 

 have who make this article in the highbst perfec- 

 tion. That we have it not of equal perfection is 

 entirely owing to the ignorance or a wilful ne- 

 glect of the means by which it may bo so made. 

 From the rarity of meeting with butter that can 

 with propriety bo called good, we are accustomed 

 to call that so which is barely free from rancidity. 

 And that dclicions flavor, which is the essenca of 

 good butter, is forgotten or considered as a qual- 

 ity not to be expected in what conies to our mar- 

 ket. This was not the case in this place thirty 

 years ^go. A difl^erent manner was then pirsucd, 

 whicli has been since generally abandoned, but 

 which is still continued in the counties of Ulster 

 and Orange. I may here again ask, v/hy is this 

 so ? The reason is in part to be found in the ob- 

 stinacy of inveterate habits in our new population, 

 and partly in the neglect of efibrts from our insti- 

 tutions for meliorating tlio agricultural condition 

 of our country, in reg.ird to this important branch 

 of it. 



Impresrod with the importance of this subject, I 

 m.-de a communication on it, in li^lO, to Mr. South- 

 wick, then editor of the Plough Boy, which he 

 published in that work, giving the practice of mak- 

 ing butter in the counties of Ulster and Orange, 

 from which that aiticle has been mist celebrated! 

 in the marked of New York In IS'-iO, I met with 

 an essay It the New York Evening Post, taken 

 from a Boston paper, which I considered as the 

 best dissertation, within my knowledge, on the 

 method of making butter. I reconimonded its 

 insertion in the Plongh Boy, which with my prefa- 

 tory note, was accordingly published. 



Ag these publicntions, containing highly inter- 

 esting information in regard to the matter undot 



consideration, must necessarily hnve been limited 

 in the extent of their circulation, I am inclined 

 to think tliat it would be of use to have the sub- 

 stance of them, if not the whole, incorporated with 

 the transactions of the Board of Agriculture now 

 preparing for the press. 



On the s.bject of manufacturing butter I cannot 

 refrain f om saying something more. It will be 

 simply concerning the operation of churning. I 

 last summer visited a farmer near Ithaca, who 

 kept a dairy, supplied by about sixteen cows, and 

 conducted in the maimer I have been accustomed 

 to see in Ulster and Orange, as described in my 

 communication for the Plough Boy ; the butter 

 from which commanded a higher price than any 

 other in that part of the country. The working 

 of the churn was done by a dog. Tlie machinery 

 for this purpose was simple. It consisted of a cir- 

 cular platform inclined to the plane of the horizon, 

 and moving on an axle through its centre. The 

 dog was placed on it near its edge, with a rope 

 fastened round his neck and attached to an ad- 

 joining fixture. In this situation, the platform be- 

 ing put in motion, the dog was obliged to perform 

 the operation of walking on it upwards ; by which 

 means the motion was continued, and by means of 

 of a simple contrivance communicating with the 

 churn-stick, the churning in this manner was per- 

 formed and completed in about a hour : when the 

 dcg was dismissed and received his customary re- 

 ward, a plentiful repast on milk. Thus treated, 

 hs returned to his labor with alacrity when it was 

 a.rain required. The churn held of milk and 

 cream, put together into it, about or nearly the 

 contents of a barrel. I staid during the process of 

 one churning, and was highly gratified with it, 

 and what contributed much to my gratification 

 was the delicious beverage of butter milk, with 

 which the mistress of the dairy treated me. 



As having not a v ry remote relation to dairies, 

 some remarks on pastures and meadows, will npt 

 bo out of place hero. With regard to these, wo 

 have in (his country availed ourselves but lit- 

 tle of tlie precepts founded on a thousand years' 

 experience' beyond the Atlantic, where their value 

 is duly appreciated, and the fruits of them are ful- 

 ly enjoyed. There we are taught, that in order 

 to have good pastures or meadows, no pains or 

 expense must be spared to enrich the soil where 

 that is needed, to destroy as far as possible by a 

 suitable course of husbandry — every weed and 

 plant that previously eccu ied the field — to have 

 the ground perfectly pulverized by ploughing and 

 harrowing, and then to sow on it a plentiful quan- 

 tity of grass seeds suited to the soil, and of those 

 kinds which have been proved to be the best for 

 (hose purposes. The fault I mean to find with 

 our practice contrasted with that of the English, 

 is this — for pasture or meadow we sow in the 

 spring of the year, on a field of winter grain, a 

 small quantity of grass seed, from which he ex- 

 pect our future pastures and meadows, and trust 

 to their branching out in two or three years so as 

 to make tolerable pastures or meadows. In the 

 mean while other grasses and weeds spring up 

 so as to occupy most of the ground ; and this i.-i 

 most notoriously the case in our new country, 

 whero ths seeds of thousands of varieties of plants 

 lie in the grouml ready to -■spring up and over- 

 come the growth of artificial grasses. In order 

 to prevent this, the English practice before de- 

 scribed is the more necessary here. The aborig- 

 inal weeds must bo first destroyed by preceding 



