290 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[August, 
secret of good luck, 100 lambs sold for eight 
hundred dollars; and 300 lbs. of wool for oue 
hundred and fifty dollars, orniue hundred and 
fifty dollars as the gross return for my invest- 
ment of four hundred dollars. There can't be 
much discount ou this ciphering, for the calcu- 
lation is based on (he actual results attained this 
year. You see it makes a great deal of difference 
Whether you sell a sheep as lamb or as muttou. 
If the animal is worth six dollars at four months 
old, and only four at eighteen months old, why 
should I keep it ? In the one case, I make fifty 
per cent profit; in the other I am in Jake 
Pi ink's quandary about the thing's paying at all. 
It is nuclear case that keeping sheep pays in 
Hookertown. I want the old pasture grubbed 
at cheap rates. I have a good market for lambs 
right at my door. My neighbors like lamb with 
their green peas, and are ready to take all I can 
raise. If the butcher's price don't suit me, I can 
slaughter the animals myself, undersell him in 
market, and make money by it. He knows that, 
and has his choice, just as I have mine. The 
competition, if it comes t "> that, is rather a bene- 
fit to the public, as it teuds to cheapen food. 
There is a good market for wool and for pelts. 
I have plenty of old pasture not worth over 
twenty dollars au acre. It might not pay if the 
laud were worth two hundred dollars an acre, 
if lamb was Dot in demand, and if nobody 
wanted the wool, and if the Whiteoakers did not 
keep sheep that they were willing to sell, after 
shearing, at two dollars a head. We must 
cipher more if we want to get out of Jake 
Prink's quandary, and find out what crops pay. 
Eookertown, Conn., I Tours to command, 
Jitbj 15, 1871. ( Timothy Bunker, Esq. 
Ogden Farm. Papers. -No. 20. 
I intimated iu my last, that J should have 
something to sa^ in the future •• out the newly 
recommended method of setting milk for cream 
in very deep vessels. The result is so manifest, 
that it does not seem worth while to wait 
longer, before stating it. Taking it all in all, I 
regard it as the most important improvement 
in butter-making, that has come up in my time. 
I have just completed the plans and specifica- 
tions for building an elaborate milk-house for a 
client in Massachusetts, with water-piping for 
slielves, having a flow of warm water through 
them in winter, and cold water in summer; 
and I have advised that the plan be aban- 
doned, and that a much cheaper one be adopted, 
suitable for the new, or "Swedish," system. To 
begin at the beginning/I will refer the reader to 
an article on " Swedisli Dairy Farming," on 
pages 178 and 179 (May No., 1871). This was the 
first intimation I had that such a system was 
practicable. I was brought up on the shallow- 
pan system, and rarely set my milk more than an 
incn deep. Having confidence iu the source 
from which I obtained the information given in 
the above-named article, I had a half-dozen 
cans made of three sheets of 12-iuch by 17'/ a -inch 
tin, measuring, when finished, about 17 inches 
deep, and ll'/» inches in diameter. I then 
moved into my summer milk-room (under- 
ground) an unused horse-trough, about 18 
inches deep, and large enough to hold five of 
the cans. Three cans hold most of the milk of 
each milking, but we are obliged to set some of 
the milk in shallow pans yet, and this affords 
an opportunity for comparison. Iu the morn- 
ing we set three of the cans, filled to within an 
inch of tba top, in the trough. At evening, 
only two cans can be put in, the third being put 
ou the floor outside of the trough. Mv self- 
regulating windmill, which works iu the lightest 
winds aud is rarely still,keeps au almost constant 
flow of water, from a deep well, nearly a quar- 
ter of a mile away, pouring into the trough, and 
flowing out at its other end. This keeps the 
temperature at about 58' or 59°. I have not ice 
enough to keep it as cold as Mr. Swartz does 
his, and I doubt whether that is necessary. 
Neither do I skim until the milk has stood 
nearly 24 hours (just before the second milking), 
and I have not even tried to see whether it 
would do as well to skim at the end of 12 hours. 
At five o'clock on the second morning, the three 
cans of the previous morning are skimmed ; 
the two of the evening before are moved up to 
the head of the trough, aud the third, whicli 
has stood outside, is put in the water. Then 
two of the morning cans are put in, and the 
third is set outside. Thus, at each milking, two 
cans are put at once in the water, and oue is 
left outside for 12 hours, and is theu taken in- 
side. The following are the results: 
1. In ordinary weather, the milk that is set 
in the old-fashioned pans yields all its cream, 
but turns a little sour within the 24 hours. 
2. The two cans that are put at once in the 
water, remain entirely sweet, and they yield, 
as nearly as I can judge without accurate 
measurement, at least as much cream as we 
would get from the same amount of milk in 
shallow pans — possibly a little more. 
3. The milk in the can that passes its first 12 
hours out of the water — probably because it 
cools off much more slowly — gets more sour 
than the milk iu the shallow pans, turning 
quite thick. I think it thickeus before it gives 
up all its cream, as we seem to get rather les3 
cream from this can than from the other two. 
4. We make quite as much butter from a 
given quantity of milk as we did when using 
pans. 
5. The skimming is done with a dipper, aud 
is done much more expeditiously than under 
the old system, occupying the same time for 
one can that it did for oue pan. 
6. We use G cans iu place of from 90 to 110 
pans. 
7. The cream is of a uniform consistenc} - , aud 
much more liquid than when so much of its 
surface is exposed to the air. The cream on a 
pan of Jersey milk that has stood 24 hours is 
so tough as to seem almost leathery, aud can be 
taken off in a mass — almost rolled off. The 
cream on one of my cans — two inches thick — 
is liquid, and can not be taken up with a punc- 
tured strainer. I am thus far disposed to attri- 
bute to this the fact that the "marhliug" of the 
color of the butter, which we scarcely ever 
avoided before, has entirely disappeared under 
the new method; the " O. F." butter being now 
a pure, solid gold color throughout. It is not un- 
likely that the exposure of so much of the cream 
to the air affected the color of parts of the but- 
ter. Then, again, the cream now mixes thor- 
oughly, and at once, in the cream-pail, while 
that which was taken from the old pans was al- 
ways more or less clotted. Oue of the old- 
fashioned preventives of "marbling" was to 
stir the cream thoroughly together whenever a 
new skimming was added. Hitherto, however 
thoroughly this was done, the cream was always 
quite lumpy when it was turned into the churn; 
it now pours like a smooth syrup. 
8. This can not be called a result ; it is, as 
yet, only a suggestion, and one that it will be 
difficult to prove. My butter, from the same 
cows aud the same food, has never been so good 
as it now is. May not the present improved 
quality be due in part to the fact that so little of 
the cream is exposed to tiie air ? Does not such 
exposure allow au oxidatiou or evaporation, or 
other action that destroys or wastes the aroma ? 
A montl) is not long to study the operation of 
any improvement, but I have studied this one 
closely, and I am satisfied that my couclusion, 
as described under the foregoing beads, is a 
sound one, and I shall do away with all of my 
old utensils, have a permanent trough made 
large enough to hold the necessary cans for all 
my milk, and follow the example of Mr. Swartz, 
until I find some better way. 
I advise all who are so situated that they can 
keep up a supply of cold water, either with ice 
or by the aid of naturally or artificially running 
spring water, aud who care for the least work 
aud best results, to do likewise. 
Concerning the farm iu general, there is not 
much to say. June is a montli of full promise 
and little result. Every thing looks well, better 
than I had hoped ; and if it will only stop rain- 
ing long enough to let me put in my turnips by 
the end of the month, I shall have nothing to 
complain of. The young stock conies on well ; 
of my eighteen thorough-bred calves thus far 
dropped, nine are heifers (good ones), and the 
bull-calves are selling much more readily now 
than they did a few years ago. In fact, the 
value of the Jersey blood to cross with the com- 
mon cows of any butter-making farm, is becom- 
ing better understood every year, and where we 
used to have to sell our bull-calves to the 
butcher, we now get from twenty-five to fifty 
dollars each for them for cross-breeding, keep- 
ing the best to sell as yearlings to the breeders 
of herd-book animals, at higher prices. 
"Dallas" is slowly making his way to ; uS- 
perity. When I brought him here three years ago, 
it was the fashion to laugh at me for charging 
twenty-five dollars for the services of a stallion, 
when from three to five dollars was the price 
asked for those already here. It was of no use 
to say that " Dallas " w T as a thorough-bred horse, 
and had the best blood of the English Stud-book 
iu his veins ; that his colts from good mares 
ought to be worth twice as much as those of 
any cold-blooded stallion. " So-and-so has got a 
pretty likely looking horse, I guess he is good 
enough for me;" and with a very knowing, 
smart-looking sneer, Mr. Neighbor would be- 
take himself to the cheaper shop. The next 3 - ear 
I had two colts by him, the next four, and this 
year two, and more to come. "By their fruits 
shall ye know them." It is now confessed that 
Dallas's colts are " extra good," and the older 
they are, the more they show their superiority. 
Aud, naturally, the more they show their su- 
periority, the more people send their mares to 
their sire, until he is now au object of respect. 
As I shall drive a pair of his three-year-olds 
next year, I think he is bound to become popu- 
lar in his old age (he is eighteen years old now, 
aud seemsgood for ten years to come). Oue thing 
is certain : There will be more good, sound, 
well-hied horses on this island for the next 
twenty years for Dallas's having come here; and 
some day I shall be thanked, as well as paid, 
for having brought him here. 
Will you, Mr. Editor, excuse me if I kick out 
of the traces a little, and protest mildly against 
the tone of your article in the July number, en- 
titled "How to get Thorough-bred Stock"? 
What I object to is rather your omission than 
your direct expression. Tour correspondent 
