1861. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



237 



them, because such management will increase 

 their profits. We cannot claim such a nice sys- 

 tem as our ■correspondent recommends, but can 

 inform him that we have a map of our farm, and 

 a daily record ofihirteen years'' continuance. 



LEO-ISI.ATIVE AQillCUIiTUEAIi SOCIETY. 



fREPORTED FOR THE N. E. FARMER, BY THOMAS BRADLEY.] 



The twelfth meeting of the series of this so- 

 ciety was held at the Representatives' Hall on 

 Monday evening, but in consequence of the un- 

 favorable weather the attendance was not so good 

 as usual. The meeting was called to order by 

 Charles L. Flint, Esq., who introduced Allen 

 Putnam, Esq., of Roxbury, as Chairman of the 

 evening. 



Mr. Putnam, on taking the chair, announced 

 the subject for discussion, "The management of 

 the Dairy," and said that he was somewhat sur- 

 prised at being selected to preside, as it had been 

 some years since he was actively engaged in farm- 

 ing pursuits, and that being the case, he scarcely 

 considered himself fit to preside, although pos- 

 sibly he could hint some justification for the ab- 

 normal selection of the committee, in the fact that 

 the consumer of butter, who goes into the market 

 for his annual supply, may have a better oppor- 

 tnnity to determine whether the quality of butter, 

 as a whole, which is offered for sale from year to 

 year, is improving, or stationary, or deteriorating, 

 than he who supplies his table from his own dairy 

 room. It is not incredible, said the speaker, that 

 buyers and consumers are a little more expert 

 and successful in exposing faults and blemishes 

 in products of any kind than are the producers 

 and sellers. Butter makers may find consumers 

 better posted and more out-spoken as to the faults 

 of their work than they are themselves, and per- 

 haps, said he, this was the object in selecting the 

 chairman of the evening. 



After alluding to the difficulty he found in get- 

 ting butter at the present day to his taste, the 

 speaker said it might be attributed to its being 

 difficult to suit him, but while he admitted the 

 charge might be true, he meant to express a firm 

 conviction that the general quality of butter of- 

 fered for sale in the Boston market has been de- 

 teriorating. This position, said he, may seem 

 bold and unwarrantable, and I presume there is 

 more thought and more supposed science brought 

 to bear upon butter making now than fifteen 

 years ago, still I charge that the butter of New 

 England is not as good as it was then. 



Different cows of the same breed, difierent 

 breeds of cows, different pasturage, diS'erent kinds 

 and qualities of dry feed, different cellars or 

 dairy-rooms, different atmospheres and the like, 

 each, said he, marks, in some degree, its own 



peculiarities upon the butter produced in connex- 

 ion with it ; but these, and perhaps some other 

 points, are presumed to be now as favorable in 

 New England as at any former time ; at any rate, 

 it is presumed that our breeds of cattle have not 

 deteriorated, our pasturage and our climate have 

 not altered much, dairy-rooms, as a whole, must 

 be as airy and as good in every way as they were 

 ten years ago, therefore these cannot account for 

 any marked change. 



Where, therefore, asked the speaker, can we 

 find the causes of the change ? Is it in the 

 lessened labor and skill of the dairy women, who 

 work over and pack down the butter after it is 

 taken from the churn ? Is it possible that the 

 present generation have failed to come up to 

 their mothers in butter pains-taking and skill ? 

 While many of them leave a great deal of 

 butter-milk where it variegates the color and 

 injures the flavor of the butter, the speaker said 

 he would hold the women innocent until they 

 were proved guilty. 



He then alluded to the churn, and spoke par- 

 ticularly of the thermometer churn — the popular 

 churn of the day — 12,000 of which he said had 

 been annually sold by a single house in Boston 

 for the past few years, and he said it might fairly 

 be presumed that from 30,000 to 40,000 were 

 now in use in dairy-rooms which forward their 

 products to Boston market. Mr. Putnam said 

 he would state a few facts that had turned his 

 attention to the action of the different varieties 

 of churns, and the quantity and quality of butter 

 they will severally produce from the same quantity 

 and quality of cream. 



Some eighteen months since, said he, a Mr. 

 Wilson, then of New York, called on me, and in- 

 troduced to my notice a patent churn of his own 

 invention. His account of its working excited 

 my curiosity, and I proposed to test its merits. 

 We went to the warehouse where his churn was, 

 and then procured two cans of cream from a milk- 

 man, which was not, of course, of the richest qual- 

 ity, and the whole was poured into a new dasher 

 churn and then well stirred. Alternate quarts 

 were then poured into a thermometer churn, and 

 the air-pressure churn of Mr. Wilson, the tem- 

 perature in the thermometer churn was made 

 right, and the two were started simultaneously. 

 The butter came quick enough in each churn, but 

 upon taking it out of the two a difference in col- 

 or was very noticeable. The air-pressure gave 

 the deeper and better yellow, but the quantity 

 was not much different, so far as we could notice 

 with the rough scales used. 



The speaker then alluded to another trial of 

 the two churns where the advantage of the air- 

 pressure churn was still more marked, both in 

 quantity and quality, and after submitting the 



