1870. 



XEW ENGLAND FAEIVIER. 



113 



of from 65° to 70°, and then placed in a room 

 where it will be warm enough to have the 

 whole get slightly sour. The next day it is 

 warmed up again in the same way to the de- 

 sired temperature for churning. 



Cream should never '■'■stand around'''' in a 

 wooden churn all day, nor three weeks, as I 

 have known cases ; nor should tin vessels be 

 used after they get old and worn rusty. They [ 

 will impart a bad taste, and bad color to the 

 butter. 



If the cream when at the right temperature, 

 is too thick and stiff, it will come too soon, 

 and all the cream will not be churned, but will 

 be washed into the buttermilk. Such cream 

 should be thinned with milk, to diminish the 

 friction and retard the process, so that all the 

 cream may have time to be churned alike. 



I have never yet found that a little freezing 

 would injure cream if it was managed as I have 

 directed previous to being churned. 



I find it very much less trouble to make 

 butter in winter than in July or August. I 

 can make more from the same quantity of milk. 

 And I obtain the same price lor both summer 

 and winter make. Since last May I have sold 

 every pound at a uniform price of 55 cents in 

 a country market. A. W. Cheever. 



Sheldonville, Mass., Jan. 27, 1870. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 VALUE AMD USE OF MUCK. 

 A very insignificant subject, many will say no 

 doubt, especially those who have never used it 

 as a fertilizer ; and not one farmer in ten that 

 has it on his own land has ever used it as a 

 manure. .When Hook around me and seethe 

 untold wealth that lies in the thousands of 

 swamps and ponds of New York and New 

 England, and then look at the cultivated lands 

 that produce less than half a crop of grain, 

 when by the aid of the muck in these swamps 

 judiciously applied they could be made to pro- 

 duce three or four times as much, I feel just 

 like going out among the farmers on a lectur- 

 ing tour — subject, Muck. But I have neither 

 the gift of gab nor the time for this. However, 

 I have talked muck to my neighbors until I 

 have got quite a number to using it with re- 

 sults satisfactory to themselves, while others 

 have the idea that I have got muck on the 

 brain, some having told me so. Well, I ad- 

 mit it, and I also admit that it has been ex- 

 pen.«ive business ; for, like Uncle John's brains 

 in farming, it has caused my barns to expand 

 to an alarming extent in these days of high 

 priced lumber. 



I commenced using muck sixteen years ago, 

 and have been increasing its use ever since. 

 My first experiment was a failure. I have one 

 meadow lying next to the swamp where I get 

 the muck, which is rather a cold soil and orig- 

 inally wet, but underdraining has made it dry 

 enough to plough most seasons. 



The first muck I ever used I threw out m 

 the fall, and in the spring drew and spread on 

 this meadow at the rate of thirty loads to the 

 acre, and it took that land five years to get over 

 it, and then I had to plough it up and seed it 

 over. Not very encouraging, was it ? But I 

 took Luther Tucker's Albany Cultivator -vihich. 

 kept harping on muck, until I concluded to 

 try again. 



When I came to haying, the next summer 

 after applying the muck, I saw that I had made 

 a mistake, and that such cold land needed 

 warming manures. And here let me say that 

 I have since applied muck, composted in vari- 

 ous forms, to this same piece, but never could 

 see that it was benefited by it in the least, and 

 I now use my horse manure on this piece, giv- 

 ing it a dressing of lime occasionally. The 

 rest of my farm is either slaty or gravelly ; 

 and the second year I tried some clear muck 

 on five acres of corn, or rather drew the muck 

 oi the same fall after spreading the other in 

 the spring. I drew on about the same quantity 

 to the acre, and let it lie until spring, when it 

 was spread and ploughed under. One acre 

 was manured with barnyard manure at about 

 the same rate per acre, and about one-half 

 acre was not manured at all. There was very 

 little difference in the jield of the muck por- 

 tion and that not manured at all, while the barn 

 manure gave double any other acre of the 

 the piece. 



One-half of the farmers would have stopped 

 here, and said that muck was good for noth- 

 ing ; and I confess that I felt the least bit dis- 

 couraged, as the meadow was worse this year 

 than the first. But the Cultivator said there 

 was value in muck, and I was getting ditches 

 opened in my swamp by taking it out, so there 

 was something gained. I sowed the corn hills 

 to oats the next spring, and to rye in the fall, 

 and seeded. That year the muck began to 

 tell, as the oats were nearly as good as on the 

 manure, and far better than the half acre not 

 manured, and the rye was fully as good on 

 the muck. Whan harvesting the oats I be- 

 came convinced that there was virtue in it; 

 but how to get it out a little more expedi- 

 tiously was the question now. 



I resolved to try one more experiment ; so 

 in the fall I drew fifty loads into the barnyard, 

 covering it all over to the depth of four or 

 five inches ; and as it was very dry when put 

 there, it absorbed a vast. amount of the liquid 

 manure ; and in the spring it was thoroughly 

 mixed with the manure, except that from the 

 stables which was thrown under a shed. This 

 was spread on corn land, side by side with the 

 clear manure ; and the crop from the compost 

 was fully equal to the other. I think the ma- 

 nure produced a little larger growth of stalk, 

 and the compost a little the most grain. 1 

 have never tried composting muck with lime 

 or ashes, having always applied it clear or 

 composted it with yard manure. 



I now have a basement under the whole of 



