1871. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



673 



BUTTER DAIBIES— MILK ROOMS. 



Many very considerable improvements in 

 the methods of treating milk have been effect- 

 ed in a few years, and the rooms which but 

 lately were deemed best adapted to that pur- 

 pose are not now ayiproved by the more pro- 

 gressive and intelligent diarymen. Formerly 

 every facility for cooling the rooms was hus- 

 banded, and the location and construction 

 were chiefly with reference to that end. But 

 it has been found that the new method of 

 cooling the milk by the use of water is more 

 economical and every way preferable, and 

 that a more elevated temperature of the room 

 is desirable ; and, as a consequence, other prin- 

 ciples govern in locating and constructing 

 them. 



It is not worth while to enter upon an ex- 

 tended discussion of that subject in this con- 

 nection, but it may be pertinent to remark 

 that another season's experience of many in- 

 dividual dairymen confirms the position as- 

 sumed by us and advocated at the meetings 

 of the several dairymen's associations and 

 elsewhere, last winter, that the cooling prin- 

 ciple, whatever it may be, should be applied 

 to the milk and not to the room, and that the 

 milk having been once cooled should be kept 

 in a warm room for the production of the 

 most and best butter. Very satisfactory re- 

 sults have attended the use of the broad, shal- 

 low, bulk pans, with water underneath ; but 

 better results, so far as we have been able to 

 make comparisons between the two systems 

 at different establishments, seem to have at- 

 tended the use of the deeper and narrower 

 pans with water well up the sides ; and this 

 latter system possesses another advantage in 

 that it ' much more economical of space. 



We return to the discussion of our main 

 subject with the remark that we no longer, as 

 f jr iierly, advocate the erection of separate 

 Oxiry houses for butter dairies, nor indeed for 

 cheese, if there is plenty of room in the house. 

 We would, then, if building a new farm house, 

 or rearranging an old one, place one daiiy 

 room just in that part of the house where it 

 would be most convenient to the water sup- 

 ply and to tl e kitchen, for we would do our 

 dairy work-in the kitchen, or anywhere else 

 but in the room where our milk is kept. If 

 just as convenient, we would put it on the 

 shady side of the house, but not otherwise. 

 We would not put ourselves out at all to se- 

 cure ventilation, other than by lowering or 

 raising a window on special occasions, as cur- 

 rents of air are not ordinarily desirable. We \ 

 would keep a small box stove in the room, 

 and light a little fire in it in damp weather, 

 even in midsummer, and that would answer 

 every purpose of the most elaborate and ex- 

 pensive system of ventilation. One very de- 

 cided advantage afforded by the stove venti 



charged gases which many dairymen believe 

 are expelled from the milk by the cooling pro- 

 cess, are mixed with these lower strata o^f air, 

 as are the exhalations of any occupants of the 

 room. 



In regard to the amount of room required, 

 we remark that the best equipped 4()-cow 

 dairy with which we are acquainted, occupies for 

 settuig purposes a room containing only about 

 120 scjuare feet, though we confess we would 

 prefer to have a little more elbow room. The 

 pans used in this establishment are six feet 

 long and one foot wide, and the same deep, 

 set m wooden tanks about four inches wider! 

 They are arranged in pairs, the water supplied 

 by rubber hose from a penstock in one corner 

 of the room, and both water and skimmed 

 milk are drawn off through hose and tubing 

 The pans are lifted out and carried into the 

 kitchen adjoining for cleansing and scaldino- 

 and no work is done in the room other than 

 straining the milk and dipping off the cream 

 The churning is done in an adjacent shed in 

 a revolving box churn, by horse power. 



Very great economy of construction and 

 operation will result from the adoption of the 

 new method which we understandingly com- 

 mend to any who are seeking the best re- 

 sults.— (A S. B., Georgia Vt., in Co. Gent. 



Lawxs and Grass Plats— Lawns, grass 

 plats and borders should have a top dressing 

 of fine stable manure late in the fall— any 

 time before snow covers them. They will 

 then make an early growth in spring, and the 

 grass will keep up its verdure until late in the 

 fall, unless a protracted drougth, like that of 

 the present season, arrests its growth. Octo- 

 ber is a suitable month for preparing the 

 ground for new lawns or green plats. The 

 soil for this purpose should be trenched or 

 subsotled, but deepening is of very little ser- 

 Tice without drainage. Many fine pieces^ of 

 grass have beeji made without trenching the 

 soil, but the deeper the tillage has been, the 

 longer the grass will retain its verdure in dry 

 seasons. For either turfing or seeding, a fine', 

 level surface should be made. If green 

 sods are used, they should be taken froln an 

 old, upland meadow or pasture. Sods 

 low, moist land should never be used, ai 

 grass is coarse in such places. The sods 

 should be marked out with a line, and cut in 

 pieces of equal width, so th:it they can be laid 

 evenly. When the sods are of' equal sizes, 

 they should be beaten down level, and fine 

 soil sifted in to fill the crevicus.—StiiaU Fruit 

 Itecorder. 



from 

 the 



— Alonzo Porter, of Hardwick, Vt., wlio last fall 



took the agency for the sale of a patent pitchfork, 



'] and signed what he supposed was an order for a 



lation is that the air taken up by it from near j specimen, was lately surprised by a notice from a 



the bottom of the room, is damper and cooler ' neighboring bank that his note for ^'204 was due at 



than the more elevated strata, and the odor- . that iastitutiou. 



3 



