86 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



March 



tatoes ; Avhen they are boiled, thej^ are much more 

 wholesome, and do them more good. I know that 

 many think potatoes are worth but little for sheep, 

 but i think I shall continue to raise them as long 

 as I keep sheep, especially when they can be 

 raised as easily as Californians can at i)resent. It 

 requires some caution in feeding them raw ; they 

 should have but little at first, and by degrees they 

 ■wUl come to eat almost any quantity without being 

 iscoured. It is a bad practice to commence feed- 

 ing the ewes to raw potatoes when they are hav- 

 ing their lambs, as they will be quite likely to set 

 the lambs into the scours. I have lost some in 

 that way. 



I find the hard work of lugging so many pota- 

 toes out of the cellar may be avoided by keeping 

 a board before the cellar window, and heaping a 

 little snow against it in the coldest W'eather. The 

 board can be removed, to set them out, and then 

 replaced, and the potatoes taken to the kettle, and 

 from thence to the barn on the hand-sled or wheel- 

 barrow, with but little hard work. 



I know my practice in keeping sheep is differ- 

 ent from that of farmers generally, who keep 

 young cattle to eat the straw and corn fodder. As 

 I cannot make the sheep eat more than three- 

 fourths of the straw, it is a question in my mind 

 whether it would not be better to keep some young 

 cattle to eat up the straw. Perhaps it might be 

 a good question for discussion in the Farmer, 

 Whether three-fourths of the straw would not be 

 worth as much, fed to sheep, at present prices of 

 wool, as any other way it could be disposed of? 



Sheep will like good corn fodder (after they 

 have been confined to it a day or two, to learn 

 them to eat it,) better than straw. 



M. D. Baxter. 



North Thdford, Vt, Jan., 1863. 



For the Kew England Farmer, 

 OTS PKESERVING MILK S"WEET. 



Mr. Editor : — The last Agricultural Report 

 from the Patent Office contains, among many val- 

 uable articles, one upon milk, in which are found 

 some interesting estimates and facts. I have taken 

 the pains to copy the following portion on " Meth- 

 ods of preserving milk," which I think may be 

 useful and interesting to your readers. 



" 1. By heat. 2. By evaporation, or condensa- 

 tion. 3, By cold and quiet. 



1. Heating milk in the open air, or scalding it. 

 — Several years since, Gay Lussac, an eminent 

 French chemist, demonstrated that if milk be 

 gradually raised to the boiling point two days in 

 succession in winter, and three in summer, it 

 would keep two months without souring. Bottle 

 the milk tightly with wired corks, and place in 

 cold water. Raise the water gradually to the boil- 

 ing point. Remove the kettle from the fire and 

 allow the water to cool. Milk treated in this way 

 will keep six months. By these methods, the 

 taste is somewhat changed, but it answers for 

 many purposes. 



2. By condensation. — This process has been 

 patented. It consists in evaporating until it so- 

 lidifies, when it is sealed up in tin cans. It keeps 

 sw'eet a great length of time. 



3. Preservation by cold and quiet. — This meth- 

 od is practiced by dairymen who send their milk 



to market by cars. The process consists in cool- 

 ing to about 40° Fahrenheit, as soon as possible af- 

 ter milking, and in keeping it at that temperature, 

 in perfect quiet, till it is ready to be carried to the 

 cars. The essential requisite is a spring of cold 

 water. The quantity is not of so much conse- 

 quence as the degree of coldness. 



The milk-house should be, if possible, on the 

 north side of a hill, well shaded, so situated that 

 the water will flow oft' readily. The tank should 

 be about two feet wide, and long enough to con- 

 tain all the cans, and its depth about four inches 

 less than the depth of the can. The tank should 

 be so arranged that there will be a constant cur- 

 rent around each can. The ventilation of the 

 house should be only sufficient to keep the air 

 pure. In all cases, the ingress of the air should 

 be prevented as soon as a thunder shower is seen 

 rising, and no admittance allowed till the milk is 

 to be removed. In clear, or rainy weather, the 

 ventilator may be open, but never in showery 

 weather. Ozone, which is freely generated by 

 electricity, acts energetically on milk, souring it 

 in a few minutes, many times destroying the milk 

 before the shower has passed over. The tank 

 should be so constructed as to be disconnected 

 with the building. It should rest flat on the 

 ground, so that any jar of the building cannot dis- 

 turb the milk in the tank. The cows should be 

 milked in the cool of the evening, the milk strained 

 into the cans in which it is to be conveyed to mar- 

 ket, remain uncovered, standing in the tank, and 

 not allowed to be stirred, or even jarred. The 

 cows should be milked in the morning before sun- 

 rise, and the milk strained and ])laced in the tank 

 as before. If there is a can partly filled Avith night 

 milk, it must remain so, the warm morning's milk 

 must not be mixed with the cool night's milk. 



At three or four o'clock in the afternoon, the 

 milk is to be carried to the cars. The cans are 

 then to be filled, if necessary. The milk being all 

 cool, can be mixed. The cans are then placed in 

 a wagon, and a net covering spread over them 

 Over this, buflTalo robes, or other covering is 

 thrown. The cans are placed in a car without 

 anything over them. They are conveyed to New 

 York in the night. The cans are then taken by 

 milk-carts, and the milk is distributed to the con- 

 sumers. The milk does not therefore leave the 

 cans till it is sold, and is generally disposed of at 

 a temperature nearly as low as it left the Inilk- 

 house. In this condition it will keep sweet twen- 

 ty-four or even thirty-six hours, and is a pure 

 country milk, quite different from that peddled at 

 a smoking temperature of 70 or 80°. This meth- 

 od has been practiced on the Harlem railroad for 

 several years. It was formerly thought necessary 

 to stir milk several times while cooling. But this 

 treatment has been found highly injurious. jNlilk 

 should be kept as still as possible till it is cooled 

 to about 40°, when it may be stirred or transport- 

 ed a great distance without injury. 



The plain suggestion, then, is to have milk thor- 

 oughly cooled before it is peddled out. Night's 

 milk, cooled, may be sold in the morning ; morn- 

 ing's milk in the evening. Morning's milk carried 

 warm even but a few miles to market, will often 

 sour in six or eight hours." 



The above statements contain hints that may be 

 useful not only to sellers, but to buyers of milk. 



Concord, Jan., 1803. J. R. 



