512 Transactions of the American Institute. 



Mr. A. S. Fuller— Yes ; a chestnut tree will bear just as freely if 

 planted ten miles from another of its kind as near together, for the 

 reason that flowers of both sexes are borne on the same tree. 



Mr. Lyman further asked : Will apple and pear seeds, "oroduced upon 

 lone trees standing far from all others of their kind, grow trees pro- 

 ducing the same kind of fruit as the trees which grew the seed ? Or, 

 in other words, does the same law hold as in pumpkins and squashes 1 



Mr. A. S. Fuller — ISTo ; there is no certainty of pear or apple seed 

 from trees standing in isolated positions producing the same variety 

 as the parent. 



Butter Making. 



Mr. John Miller, Slackwater, Penn. — It is folly to expect sweet 

 milk from moldy hay, musty fodder, decaying vegetables and impure 

 water. Let a cow eat garlic, ground acorns, bitter weeds, etc., and 

 next morning we have the aroma of them in the milk. Likewise, set 

 sweet milk, or good butter, in a newly-made pine cupboard, for a few 

 hours, and the very flavor of the wood will be in them. In no other 

 department of our " daily toil " is cleanliness more akin to godliness 

 than in the milk and butter business. We may take our wheat to 

 mill in a dirty sack, keep the flour in an unsightly barrel, knead the 

 dough in a tray that has never been washed or scraped, and yet some- 

 times have good bread. But milk and butter kept in unclean vessels, 

 and yet be sweet ? Never ! Soon as the milk is drawn, set it in the ■ 

 cellar for one or two, and never more than three hours. Then remove 

 to a warm room, so that it will sour and thicken a little in from forty 

 to forty-eight hours — a temperature of sixty to seventy degrees will 

 do this ; then skim and set the cream in the cellar, no matter how 

 cold, only so it don't freeze. A week in the cellar, and a little added 

 every day, will not damage it. If the weather is cold on the day you 

 churn, remove the cream, four or six hours previous to churning, to a 

 warm room, so that its temperature may rise to about sixty-five degrees 

 Fah. Churn as usual, and, if you are a little expert, in a very short 

 time you may expect good, rich and sweet butter. 



Mr. W. E. Huntley, Essex, Yt. — I have seen several times, in the 

 reports, complaints about churning. To all so troubled, I would say, 

 after straining your milk thoroughly, mix with each four quarts one 

 pint of boiling water, and your cream will change to butter with as 

 little churning as in the summer, and I will warrant the butter as 

 good as that of the Yirginia gentleman whose wife mixed old butter- 

 milk with her cream. 



