20 
DOUBLE HILL HAND CORN PLANTER. 
Plate XIII. 
§ 119. For planting two rows at a time by hand, in hills. The operator walks through the 
field, as with two walking canes, one in each hand, planting each time he sets them in the 
earth. This is the last of the group seen in the hands of the farmer, in the act of using it, 
Plate XIII. Is a modern invention, and consists of two complete planters, which may 
be used singly or connected together by their upper ends, and as shown in the hands of the 
farmer in the engraving. Each of them consists of a light wood box about as long as a 
walking cane, and will contain about three quarts of corn, and is provided with a D handle, 
by which it is carried and operated — the lower end is flat and sharp, and pointed with 
two flat spring steel plates, and enters the ground like a chisel. Inside the box is a slide- 
valve and a piston, both of which are moved by a side motion of the D handle, to which 
they are connected. It is operated by setting the point where the hill is to be, and pressing 
directly on the D handle, when the points enter to a proper depth, and with a slight side- 
ways motion of the same handle, the seed is measured off, and forced into the ground by the 
piston to the bottom, thereby depositing the seed at an even depth, and as the point is with- 
drawn the earth closes over the seed. A man can operate two at once, as well as one, by 
setting the points at proper distance for width of rows, and he can plant as often as he will 
swing a scythe in mowing grass. Price, single, $3.50 ; double, $6.00. 
desire, and each machine is of the most approved kind in use. 
This assortment of Planters and Seed Sowers comprises all the farmer and gardener can 
LACTOMETER 
§ 120. The first thing requisite for a dairyman is a Lactometer, see fig. 1, for the purpose of 
ascertaining the consistence or qualities of the milk of each cow in the herd, and those best 
adapted for making butter, cheese or beef. This is a simple 
frame with six glass tubes, each graduated to inches and decimals 
of an inch, the highest mark being twelve inches from the bottom, 
and so on down to eight inches. The manner of using it is to 
fill each tube to ten inches with the new milk of a different cow, 
and allow it to stand in a proper place for all the cream to rise, 
when on examination, by holding the frame to the light, a distinct 
line will be seen between the cream and the milk, and the color 
and quality of the milk itself be ascertained. If the cream of one cow shall show fifteen 
degrees (or fifteen per cent, of cream), and the milk eighty-five degrees (or eighty-five per 
cent) while another tube indicates but half the amount of cream and the relative difference 
in the milk, it is positive evidence which cow is best for butter and which for beef or cheese. 
This instrument is worth its price ( $3.00 ) in the selection of each cow for a dairy, and no 
wise farmer will do without, and one is sufficient for a whole neighborhood. 
§ 121. The next thing is a good thermometer, worth fifty cents, to aid in keeping the dairy 
room at the proper temperature, as well as to know when the cream itself is of the proper 
temperature to be made into butter, before being submitted to the process of churning. 
$ 122. From the most extensive experience and numerous experiments, as well as the 
repeated microscopic analyses Of the cream and milk, before and during the process, and 
the butter itself after churning, the proprietors are satisfied that only a mechanical process 
is required, and that process which best serves to bring the minute particles in contact with 
each other by compressing them sufficiently to expel the milk or fluid from between them, 
will yield the quickest, as well as the greatest amount of butter to be obtained. These 
particles, to enable them to adhere together by their own attraction of cohesion, and form 
themselves into masses or butter, must be of a temperature and consistency to be formed, 
and retain such form as they may receive from the process of churning. This has been 
ascertained to be from 60 p to 70° Fahrenheit, 62° to 65 Q preferred; if above or below these 
limits the process becomes imperfect ; when above this point the best quality of the particles, 
like the best oils, remain fluid, and are not coifgealed enough to take any form or adhere 
together but remain in the milk : while if below, they are equally slow to unite, and adhere 
to each other from the opposite cause. Therefore, as the praticles of butter are of far- 
lighter gravity than the milk, they will instantly rise to the surface, the dash churn process, 
as with the dog power, is as perfect and uniform in its action as anything can possibly be 
made, where the cream itself is the only fulcrum to be acted upon as in this process of 
compression, as by each stroke, the particles are taken by the flat surface of the dash- 
er down through the mass, compressing, or to use a sailor's phrase, "impressing" 
every stray particle into contact or service of those already upon the dasher, and as they 
rise as rapidly as an ordinary dasher is raised, all are acted upon very evenly and efficiently. 
The further from this principle any churn diverges, just so far is it from the best churn. 
§ 123. Among the great variety and number of churns and the unwearied efforts of inven- 
tors and manufacturers to make and introduce, almost daily, new styles, it is not an easy 
task for an ordinary observer to select the best. 
No other class of inventors have equalled the number of those who have brought out the 
butter churn and no theories of the processes so various and numerous as those claimed for 
the making of butter. 
