VOL. XIII. NO. 51. 



AND GARDENER'S JOURNAL 



403 



hours ill S|)i-e;uVuig it in this way would be well 

 repaid. 



The same oUjeetioiis apply to hilling potatoes 

 as to corn ; and the errors of practice are equal 

 in case of both crops. If the object were to turn 

 off the rain /rom the plants, it would often be ad- 

 mirably attained ; but this is not the case ; and if 

 they are hilled at all, the hills should be broad and 

 flat. — Genesee Farmer. 



To MAKE Yankee Bread, — Take two meas- 

 ures of Indian and one of rye meal, mix with 

 milk or water, to the consistency of thick hasty 

 pudding, and add yeast — bake in iron pansor iron 

 kettles four or five hours. Eat with fresh butter 

 or other food, and if while warm the better. Yan- 

 kee bread is very good or very bad, according to 

 the manner in which it is made. We commend 

 it to dyspeptics. The Indian meal should be either 

 bolted or sifted. 



Rhubarb Pies. — Gather a bundle of the leaf 

 stocks, quantum siifficit — cut ofl' the leaf and peel 

 the stalk of the thin epidermis — cut in quarter 

 inch pieces, and lay them into the crust — cover 

 well with sugar, and add nutmeg, orange peel and 

 spice to taste. The flavor is equal, and many 

 deem it preftrable, to gooseberries. The pie- 

 plant is perennial, herbaceous and very hardy. 

 A dozen plants will afford a family a constant 

 supply. 



Spruce Beer. — Take three gallons of waten 

 of blood warmth, three half pints of molasses, a 

 table sj'oonfid of essence of spruce, and the like 

 quantity of ginger — mix well together, with a gill 

 of yeast; let stand over night, and bottle in the 

 morning. It will be in good conditioo to drink in 

 twentyfour hours. It is a palatable, wholesome 

 beverage. 



I was at old Fort-IIunter, on the Susquehan- 

 nah, above Ilarrisburgh, in 1828. The highly re- 

 spectable owner of this beautiful situation. Col. 

 M'Allister, a gentlemen of science and refined ob- 

 servation, treated my fellow travellers and myself 

 with great courtesy, and showed us some house- 

 hold conveniences worthy of imitation, and among 

 others, his Milk-house, Smoke-house and Clothes- 

 line, I thought much of these, and have in part 

 profited by my observation. That the readers of 

 the Cultivator may profit also by these improve- 

 ment.s, I will briefly detail them in part. 



The Milk-house was built in the northeast 

 side of a slope, near the well, and not far from 

 the mansion. It was composed of stout stone 

 walls, and the roof, which rose six or eight feet 

 above the surface of the ground, appeared to be 

 covered with earth or tile, and was deeply shroud- 

 ed with the scarlet trumpet creeper, (Bignonia 

 radicans) then in splendid bloom. The interior 

 of the house, iirincipally under ground, was fitted 

 up with cisterns, in which water stood nearly* to 

 the tops of the pans of milk, which were arrang- 

 ed in tlieiU. The house was entered by a flight 

 of stejs on the south, and there was a window on 

 the north, which could be opened or darkened at 

 pleasure, to give ventilation. For want of a natu- 

 ral spring, which many Pennsylvanians consider 

 almost indispensable in a milk-bouse, the water 

 was conducted in a pipe from the well-pump, 

 and after filling the cisterns to a certain height, 

 passed oflT at the opposite side. The object 

 was to obtain a cool temperature, in the heat 



of the summer, which greatly facilitates tlie sep- 

 aration of the cream from the milk, and this 

 object was amply eftiscted, with the labor of work- 

 ing occasionally at the well ])unip. 



The Smoke-house was a wooden octagon 

 building, perhaps 16 feet in diameter, perfectly 

 tight, except the door way. The peculiarities of 

 this building were, it was set a foot or more above 

 the ground, and was perfectly dry, and bacon, 

 hains, &c. were kept hanging around its walls al: 

 summer, without becoming damp or mouldy, or 

 being injured by flies; and in the second place, no 

 fire was admitted into the building, the smoke 

 being conveyed into it through a tube from the 

 outside, where it was generated in a stove. 



The Clothes-line we saw bad been six years 

 in use, without sensihle injur}', tliough it had re- 

 mained all the time in the open air. It had 

 always been woinid up, ujion a small windlass, as 

 soon as the clothes had been taken from it, whore 

 it was protected from the rain by a roof. Several 

 posts, with notches near their tops, were [)laced 

 in a range U| on the grass | lat, upon which the line 

 could be drawn and fastened in two minutes, and 

 from which it could be loosened and wound up in 

 as short a tiiue. It is but a small affair, but such 

 small affairs make a large aggregate in ordinary 

 lifi'. "Takecare of the cents, and the dollars will 

 take care of themselves." — Cultivator. 



CURING BEEP AKD HAMS. 



The following recipe was brought from Ireland 

 about 100 years since, and has been in use 

 with general satisfaction ever since — that is, beef 

 and hams cured by this rule are never salt burnt 

 but remain juicy and tender for almost any length 

 of time. — For a barrel or 200 lbs. of either — 

 Take 6 gallons of water, 

 12 lbs. of Salt, 

 4 ounces Salfj.etre, 

 IJ gis. molasses, 12 lbs. coarse sugar. 

 This when dissolved and mixed cold, makes a 

 brine for a barrel, which should bo boiled over in 

 June and skimmed, and when cold turned on the 

 beef again. The beef should he handsomely cut 

 in pieces, not less than four nor more than 12 l!)s. 

 — rubbed with fine salt and packed close, then 

 the brine turned on. Hams should lie in this 

 brine about three weeks before they are taken out 

 to smoke ; or if a pint of pyroligneous acid be 

 added to the brine, smoking may be dispensed 

 with. — Ohio Farmer. 



Parmesan Cheese. — The country between 

 Cremona and Lodi, comprises the richest part of 

 Milanese. The irrigation too is brought to the 

 highest state of perfection. The grass is cut four 

 times a year as fodder for the cows, from whose 

 milk is made the well known cheese cafed Par- 

 mesan. The cows, which are kept in the stall 

 nearly all the year round, are fed dining summer 

 on two of these crops of grass or clover, which 

 are cut green, and in the winter on the other two 

 which are hayed. The milk of at least fifty cows 

 is required for the manufacture of a Parmesan 

 cheese. Hence as one farm rarely affords pasture 

 for such a number, it is usual for the fanners or 

 metayers of a district to club together. 'i he 

 milk of 50,60, or even 100 cows, is brought twice 

 to the farm where the dairy is fixed ; the per- 

 son on whom devolves the task of making cheese, 

 keeps an account of the milk received, and the 



cheese is afterwards apportioned according'y. In 

 this fertile | lain a farm of sixty acres is consider- 

 eil as a large one. These farms are subdivided 

 into fields of three or four acres, for the conve- 

 nience of irrigation : a jractice which in the 

 coinse of a few years, impairs the quality of the 

 grass to such a degree, th.-it it becomes necessary 

 to discontinue it. In this case the sluices of the 

 Gora are shut, the ground ]iloughed in autumn, 

 and in the following spring sown with hemp, 

 which shoots up to a great height; when this is 

 pulled, the ground issown with leguminous plants. 

 In the next spring it is sown with oats, which 

 grow to the height of six or seven feet. The rich- 

 ness of the soil being thus sufficiently subdued, it 

 is next cropped with wheat. Maize is then sown 

 in the folldwing s[)riiig ; a second crop of wheat 

 succeeds, and finishes the course of cropping. 

 The ground is then left to itself, and is immediate- 

 ly covered with herbage. During the winter it is 

 manured, and the new meadow is then subjected 

 again to the process of irrigation, which is usual- 

 ly continued for fifteen years. Thus the rotation 

 in the Milanese extends to twenty years; five 

 years for the growth of hemp, pulse and grain, 

 and fifteen for the growth of grass. Rice is also 

 grown in some jiarts of the Milanese ; but as it 

 partakes of the nature of an aquatic plant, for the 

 rice grounds are ke| t under water dm-ing nearly 

 the whole ) eriod of its growth, its cultivation has 

 been placed under considerable restriction by the 

 government, owing to the malaria which it engen- 

 ders. — Evans' Italy. 



Messrs Winships' Moss House, — One of the 

 neatest things of the kind we have ever seen is 

 the moss and thatch house, which has just been 

 erected on the VVinship Gardens at Brighton, It 

 is siTjall but neat, antique, (with a delicate inter- 

 spersement of the Oriental taste) and delightful 

 in its way. The roof is conical, and thatched 

 with a thick layer of straw; the walls are sever- 

 al inches thick, entirely of moss: the windows 

 are of gotbic architecture, with beautifully stain- 

 ed and figured glass. The figured glass r presents 

 alternately scenes and characters in India, and 

 sprigs and flowers, emblematical of Flora. A 

 variety of honeysuckles are creeping over the 

 outside. Inside, the window frames are set round 

 with a great variety of heautiful shells. A sedate, 

 observing old gent'.eman, with his apt poetical 

 quotation, occupies the wall encompassed by a 

 shark's jaw, and notifies visiters that he shall keep 

 a close eye over their greetings and note the stolen 

 kisses from love's young li| s. There is, too, the 

 snoio owl, with his glaring orbs, perched on the 

 cross heani — he doesn't screech. The old oaken 

 chair, — a |iresent, and a valuable ad<lition to the 

 antiquated roughness and beauty of the place, — 

 is not the lea.st attractive ornament. It is an am- 

 ple arm-chaft wrought out of crooked limbs and 

 branches of trees, in their natural state, singular- 

 ly intertwined. The edifice and its arrangement 

 have been prepared by Mr Murray, Messrs Win- 

 shi|,'s gardener, who has exhiliited a great deal of 

 taste in the thing. — Bunker Hilt Aurora. 



Large Fleece. — Mr J, Marsh, Jr. of Mon- 

 tague, informs us that he sheared a sheep of his 

 a few days since, one year old, the fleece of which 

 weighed seven pounds and three quarters. — Frank- 

 lin Mercury. 



