300 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [November i, 1887. 
amelioration, especially in precocity. This M. Louis 
Masse has demonstrated since 1822. His principles 
were liberal, even high feeding of the young stock 
both in summer and winter, and the giving ex- 
treme care to those selected for breediug. It was 
by consanguinous selections or breeding that the 
race attained its present pre-eminence. M. Masse 
never imported a bull, he reared all his own. He 
patronized no Durhams as he had perfected the 
Charolaise before the short-horns were introduced 
into France. 
The characteristics of the Charolais are a short, 
broad, conical head, with wide respiratory organs; 
the horns are round, small, ivory-white pointing out- 
wards, and with a tendency to turn up at the tip ; 
the eyes are large, prominent, lively, albeit mild; 
the ears are broad, raised, and possessing little hair ; 
the back straight, and well-covered with muscle ; the 
loins wide, thick, and short; the sides lengthy and 
well-arched ; the thighs highly developed ; the tail 
short, fine at the end, and not much covered with 
hair. The limbs are very elegant well-set, and 
about one-third of the height of the body ; there is an 
absence of all angularities ; the skin is mean thick- 
ness, of remarkable suppleness, covered with fine 
lustrous, but not plentiful hair. The butcher qual- 
ities are extremely well developed. At one year old, 
the height of the animal is 45 inches, at six years 
old 57 inches. A Charolais fat ox, aged between 5 
and 6 years, yields 8 cwts. of prime meat. 
The Charolais is not a race celebrated for milk- 
ing qualities ; the greatest yield does not exceed 8 to 
10 quarts per day, and 6 gallons are necessary to 
produce 2£ lb. of butter. The calf does not con- 
sume more than the half of its mother's milk. Care- 
ful housing and unstinted feeding of the stock 
during their first winter compose the secret of the 
amelioration of the breed. The bullocks are trained 
to work when 30 months old, and the heifers are 
delivered at two years to the bulls so as to 
have first calf in the current of the third year. 
Independently of their mother's milk, the calves 
suck twice a day, they also receive a supplement of 
food consisting of roots, meals, and choice hay 
as soon as they can use it. They generally wean 
themselves preferring the herbage to the teat. Some 
calves teat up to 7 or 8 months. It should not be 
forgotten that the Charolaise race is appreciated 
for its working qualities, and these qualities suffer 
as the butcher's ideal of precocity is approached. 
It is said that the Durham failed in the Nivernais, 
because the pastures were not rich enough, and the 
transitions of temperature too trying. It was found 
too, that the crossings between the Durham and the 
Charolaise, after the fourth generation rapidly de- 
generated. The Charolaise, in conclusion, possesses the 
great advantage of thriving well on poor, rough 
pasturages, -and the cows are remarkable for their 
fecundity. The race has its special Herd Book. 
The " Black Rot " has not made its appearance 
fo far iu the Medoc vineyards— the Claret region 
of France. In the district of Vend6e another grape 
malady has been recognised quite independent of 
th« black-rot. On a bunch of grapes, often a third, 
and even the moiety of the berries, are dried — gril- 
led in fact, while the other moiety remains green, 
but the berries fall like ripe pears on the slightest 
touch of the hand. The berries strewing the ground, 
are shrivelled and decayed. On examining the ber- 
ries thus spontaneously fallen, they will be fouud to 
be profoundly changed, presenting a brown spot, 
slightly hollow, and the cells dried up into filaments 
of fungi. It is also a mushroom, Goniotliyrium dip- 
lodidla, which is the cause of this fresh scourge, 
and for which there is no remedy. Doubts exist as 
to whether the phylloxera has penetrated into 
Algera. Finer grapes — white varieties — have never 
been supplied to the Paris market than what the 
growers of Algeria have been sending since six 
weeks. It is said, that with the view of securing a 
soft flavor and agreeablo bouquet for the wines 
of Algeria, proprietors intend to adopt hence- 
forth the plan of pressing thft grapes in the vat by 
men's feet, and not by cylinders. "When the latter 
are employed, the seeds or pips of the grapes, on 
being crushed, impart an unpleasant sharpness and 
rawness to the wine. 
Professor Duclaux of the Agronomic Institute has 
corroborated the experiments of Professor Soxhlet of 
Germany, relative to the action of light and air, on 
the fatty matters of milk, in the end to prevent the 
deterioration and rancidity of butter. When a mor- 
sel of butter, quite fresh, is melted and filtered 
into a tube, it loses in a few days, often in 24 hours 
its natural flavor, and acquires the taste of tallow. 
This is due to the oxydation of the volatile matters 
which give to the butter its taste and aroma. At 
\ the same time the coloring matter of the butter 
whether natural or artificial, also disappears, the butter 
becoming paler, and So changing gradually inwards. 
The change is not due to light alone, but to the 
slow and penetrating action of oxygen — the air only 
gradually making its way inwards. The oxydation devel- 
opes cabonic acid, and destroys the volatile acids. 
Fresh cream contains 7 per cent of the latter ; 
after two months' exposure to the air in the shade 
the percentage falls to 3£. Keep butter from contact 
with light and air is the only practical conclusion 
so far. 
Parmesan cheese when grated — and an ingenious 
machine has lately been invented for this purpose — 
is much employed in cookery. Signor Rava of the 
Liodi Dairy School, remarks, that the milk for Parmesan 
cheese must have a certain degree of acidity, only 
inferior to that which produces coagulation at boiling 
point. In milk thus acidified, it requires to be less 
heated, but exacts more rennet. Whole milk will be 
longer preserved fresh, as the temperature is lower, 
hence cool milk in order to secure a good deal of butter, 
and at same time to possess the creamed milk in the 
best conditions to make cheese. 
Holland possesses 900,000 milch cows : one-third of 
this total meet the native wants for milk and butter, 
so that the milk of the remaining 600,000 is manufac- 
tured into butter and cheese for exportation. If a cow 
yields 060 gallons of milk producing 220 lb. of butter, 
business must be brisk. Frise produces the finest 
butter. In 1885 Holland exported 34,000 ton of cheese 
of all kinds, from the Edam and Gouda to the Leyden 
stuffed with cloves and caraway seeds. Holland may be 
considered as the head quarters of artificial butter, of 
which Napoleon III. may be viewed as the real inventor. 
Since he delegated in 1886 M. Mege-Mouriez to study 
the preparation of a substance for the navyand the 
working classes that might replace butter. 
In 1869, Mege-Mouriez took out his first patent in 
England, but it was only in 1873 that he really com- 
menced the industrial preparation of Margarine. When 
beef fat is deprived of its membranes it is chopped 
and placed in a boiler : one ton of suet to 66 gallons 
of water, 2§ lb. of Carbonate of potash and the 
minced stomachs of sheep or pigs are added, when the 
mass after 24 hours' ebulltion separates into stearine 
and oleo-margarine. The liquid is run off into linen 
sacs ; but as the stearine requiring a higher temperture 
to melt, it remains in the sacs, and is employed to 
make candles : the oleu-margarine exudes is collected 
in tin vases, and when cooled, washed and moulded, 
is sold as margariue. 
When destined for simili-butter the margarine is 
mixed with ground-nut oil in the proportion of 5 to 
30 per cent, following the season : to ten parts of this 
mixture are added four of uncreamed milk, and the 
chopped raw udder — ocasionally of cows. The whole 
is rapidly whisked for two hours in a churn, and the 
" butter," when taken off is cloured as usual. A quan- 
tity of real butter is added according as a superior 
quality of the artificial article is demanded. The 
product is nutritious, only its fabricants generally desire 
to pawn it off as veritable butter. It is subjected in 
Paris to the same tax as the latter. Holland takes nearly 
all the fat of the Paris slaughter-houses, and sends it 
buck as artificial butter but so marked. 
The recent rains have had but little effect on the beet 
harvest : tho yield of roots, and their saccharine rich 
ness will be less this season by a good one-third. Fa 
