THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
169 
ter, so unrighteously exchanged in our market 
for good money. For the most part, the cream 
is totally depraved at the start, and ehurning, 
working and packing are only the successive 
steps of an evil education by which bad inclina- 
tions are developed into overt wickedness. We 
determined to keep an eye upon the matter ; and 
now give, from life, the natural history of the 
butter sold at Indianapolis. 
Before doing this, we will express an opinion 
of w’hat is good butler. 
Good butter is made of sweet cream, with per- 
fect neatness; is of a high color, perfectly sweet, 
free from buttermilk, and possesses a fine grass 
flavor. 
'Tolerable butler differs from this only in not 
0 ^ fine flavor. It is devoid of all unplea- 
sant taste, but has not a high relish. 
Whatever is less than this is bad butter; the 
catalogue is long, and the descending scale is 
marked with more varieties than one may ima- 
gine. _ 
Variety 1. Buttermilk butler. — This has not 
been well worked, and has the taste of fresh but- 
termilk. It is not very disagreeable to such as 
Jove fresh buttermilk ; but as it is a flavor not 
expected in good butter, it is usually disagree- 
able. 
Variety 2. Strong butter. —This is one step far- 
ther along, and the buttermilk is changing and 
beginning to assert its right to predom'nate over 
the butteraceous flavor; yet it may be eaten with 
som.e pleasure if done rapidly, accompanied with 
very good bread. 
Variety 3. Frowy or frowsy butler. — This is a 
second degree of strength attained by the butter- 
milk'! It has become pungent and too disagree- 
able for any but absent-minded eaters. 
Variety 4. Rincid butter — This is the putres- 
cent stage. No description will convey, to those 
who have not tasted it, an idea of its unearthly 
flavor ; while those who have, will hardly thank 
us for stirring up such awful remembrances by 
any description. 
Variety 5. Bitter butter. — Bitterness is, for the 
most part, incident to winter-butter. When one 
has but little cream and is long in collecting 
enough for the churn, he will be very apt to have 
bitter butter; 
Variety 6. lilusty butter.~— In summer, especi- 
ally in damp, unventilated cellars, cream will 
gather mold. Whenever this appears, the pigs 
should be 'set to churn it. But instead, if but 
just touched, it is quickly churned ; or, if much 
molded, it is slightly skimmed, as il the flavor of 
mold, which has struck through the whole mass, 
could he removed by taking on the colored por- 
tion ! The peculiar taste arising from this affec- 
tion of the milk, blessed be the man v/ho needs 
ito be told it! 
Variety 7. Sour-milk butter.— This is made 
from milk which has been allowed to sour, the 
milk and cream being churned up together. The 
flavor is that of greasy sour milk. 
Variety 8. Vinegar butter. — There are some 
who imagine that all milk should be soureeJ before 
it is fit to churn. When, in cool weather, it delays 
to change, they expedite the matter by some acid 
— usually vinegar. The butter strongly retains 
the flavor thereof. 
Variety 9. Cheesy butter . — G ream comes quick- 
er by being heated. If sour cream be heated it 
is very apt to separate and deposite a reney.; if 
this is strained into the churn with the cream_ 
the butter will have a strong cheesy flavor. 
Variety 10. Granulated butter. — When, in win- 
ter, sweet cream is over heated, preparatory to 
churning, it produces butter full of grains, as if 
there were meal in it. 
Variety li. In this we comprise the two oppo- 
site kinds — too salt, and unsalted butter. We 
have seen butter exposed for sale with such 
masses of salt in it that oneis tempted to believe 
that it v/as put in as a make-weight. When the 
salt is coarse, the operation of eating this butter 
affords those who have good teeth a pleasing va- 
riety of grinding. 
Variety 12. Lard butter. — When lard iseheap 
and abundant, and butter rather dear, it is thought 
profitable to combine the two. 
Variety 13. Mixed butter. — W hen the shrewd 
housewife has several separate churnings of but- 
ter on hand, some of which would hardly be able 
to go alone, she puts them together, and those 
who buy, find out that “Union is sffengJAJ” Such 
butter IS pleasingly marbled; dumps of white, of 
yellow, and of dingy butter melting into each 
other, until the whole is ring-streaked and 
speckled. 
Variety 14. Compound butter. — By compound 
butter we mean that which has received contri- 
butions from things animate and inanimate ; fea- 
thers, hairs, rags of cloth, threads, specks, 
chips, straws, seeds ; in short, everything is at 
one time or another to be found in it, going to 
produce the three successive degrees of dirty, 
filthy, nasty. 
Variety 15. Tough butter. — When butter is 
worked too long after the expulsion of butter- 
milk, it assumes a gluey, putty-like consistence, 
and is tough when eaten. But oh! blessed 
fault! we would go ten miles to pay our admir- 
ing respects to that much-io-be-praised dairy- 
maid whose zeal leads her to work her butter too 
much ! We doubt, however, if a pound of such 
butter was ever seen in this place. 
Besides all these, whose history we have cor- 
rectly traced, besides butter tasting of turpen- 
tine from being made in pine churns; butter 
bent on travelling, in hot weather; butler dot- 
ted, like cloves on a boiled ham, with flies, 
which Solomon assured us, causeth the oint- 
ment to stink; besides butter in rusty tin pans, 
and in dirty swaddling clothes; besides butter 
made of milk, drawn from a dirty cow, by a 
dirtier hand, into a yet dirtier pail, and churned 
in a churn the dirtiest of all ; besides all these 
sub varieties, there are several others with 
which we have formed an acquaintance, but 
found ourselves baffled at analysis. We could 
not even guess the cause of their peculiarities. 
Oh, Dr. Liebig ! how we have longed for your 
skill in analytic chemistry! What consterna- 
tion would we speedily send among the slattern- 
ly butter-makers, revealing the mysteries of 
their dirty doings with more than mesmeric fa- 
cility ! 
And now, what on earth is the reason that 
good butter is so great a rarity 7 Is it a heredi- 
tary curse in some families! oris it a punishment 
sent upon us for our ill-deserts? A few good 
butter makers in every neighborhood are a stand- 
ing proof that it is nothing but bad housewifery ; 
mere, sheer carelessness which turns the luxury 
of the churn into an utterly nauseating abomi- 
nation. 
Select cows for quality and not for quantity of 
milk ; give them sweet and sufficient pasturage; 
keep clean yourself; milk into a clean pail j 
strain into clean pans — (pans scalded, scoured, 
and sunned, and if tin, with every particle of 
milk rubbed out of the seams.) While it is yet 
sweet, churn it ; ifit delays to come, add a little 
saleratus ; work it thoroughly, three times, salt- 
ing it at the second working ; put it into a cool 
place, and then, when, with a conscience as clean 
and sweet as your butter, jouhave dispatched 
your tempting rolls to market, you may sit 
down and thank God that you are an honest wo- 
man ! 
Apples. 
In the last number of the Cultivator we in- 
serted an article on the preservation of Apples. 
Here are Mr. Downing’s directions, which we 
extract from his “Fruits and Fruit Trees of 
America.” The Apple crop is so very badly han- 
dled in the Southern States that when it comes 
to market it is really in a very unsaleable condi- 
tion. This is the more to be regretted, seeing 
the demand that exists in all our Southern cities 
hr good Apples every winter, and the very large 
amount of money sent abroad annually from 
these cides for supplies of Apples that might just 
as well be raised at home. 
In order to secure soundness and preservation, 
Mr. Downing says, it is indispensably necessary 
that the fruit should be gathered by hand. For 
winter fruit the gatheiing is delayed as long as 
possible, avoiding severe I'rosts, and the most 
successful practice with our extensive orchard- 
istsds to place the good fruit directly, in a care- 
ful manner, in new, tight flour barrels, as soon 
as gathered from the tree. Tnese barrels shoul 1 
be gently shaken while filling, and the head close- 
ly pressed in ; they are then placed in a cool sha- 
dy exposure under a shed open to the air, or the 
north side of a building, protected by a covering 
of boards over the top, where they remain for a 
fortnight, or until the cold becomes too severe, 
when they are transferred to a cool, dry cellar, in 
which air can be admitted occasionally in brisk 
weathei. A cellar for this purpose should be 
dug in dry, gravelly or sandy soil, with, if possi- 
ble, a slope to the north ; or at any rate with 
openings on the north side for the admission of 
air in weather not exeessively cold. Here the 
barrels should be placed on tiers on their sides, 
and the cellar should be kept as dark as possible. 
When apples are exported each fruit in the 
barrel should be wrapped in elean coarse paper, 
and the barrels should be placed in a dry, airy 
place, between decks. 
Sumach. 
We have not yet been able to get the informa- 
tion necessary to enable us to answer the in- 
quiries of our .correspondents, in relation to the 
culture of Sumach. 
Fried Meat. 
From the Prairie Farmer we copy the follow- 
ing very good article, under the head of 
FRYING AS A MODE OF COOKING. 
This mode of cooking is more common in the 
Western States than any other; and in some 
families than all others together. Whether thp 
meat be bacon, ham, pork, veal, chicken, mut- 
ton, or fish, the same ordeal Ls appointed it — it 
is to be fried. There are cases, too, in which 
the manner of doing it is horrible to think of. 
We have seen hanr put over a hot fire and fried 
full twenty minutes— till the whole house was 
filled with the fumes of burnt fat. A piece of 
manilla rope, cooked or uncooked, would be a 
delicacy compared to it ; and as for digestion, 
we do not believe the stomach of a dog, "^alliga- 
tor, or anaconda, could make any impression up- 
on it. 
Housekeepers should know that of all ways 
in which meats are cooked, that of frying is th^ 
worst for the health of those eating them. Tlje 
animal oils are at the best pronounced to be 
more obnoxious to the stomach than any othef 
alimentary matters. The influence of heat upon 
them effects chemical chanates, which renders 
them worse still. In frying,' meats absorb and 
retain a large quantity of fat which is for a con- 
siderable time subjected to a great heat; and is 
thus rendered unfit for the stomachs of children 
and weak people especially. 
The cooking by broiling is far less objection- 
able, as the fat is separated from the meat, and 
escapes being heated to any such degree as in 
the former case. Broiling, baking, boiling and 
stewing are all better in respect to the flavor 
they impart to meats, and are quite as easy 
when adequate preparations for them are made, 
and are many times more favorable to health. 
From all that we have seen, we are convinced 
that much of our western cooking is extremely 
vicious. How many of our people live almost 
wholly on warm bread, strong eoffee and fried 
meats? A very large proportion, as we are as- 
sured. Can any body wonder at the brownness 
of complexion, want of nervous energy, and 
bilious habits of multi. udes every where to be 
met with in the western States ? Thisisamat- 
ter far too much overlooked. It is of great im- 
portance, and the remedy rests in a good mea- 
sure with our female friends ; and we hope their 
attention will be turned to it till a change, so far 
as needed, is effected. 
Information Respectfully Desired. 
As Chairman ot the Committee appointed at 
the meeting ol the Farmer’s and Gardeners’ 
Convention, at New-York, in October last to 
“ collect information,” the undersigned respect- 
fully requests the Secretaries of all Agricultural 
Societies and Farmers’ Clubs in the United 
States, to address to him a note, stating the lo- 
cality ol the Society, and the names of the Pre- 
sident and Secretary. 
The list, when comp'eted, will be printed, 
and a copy sent to each Secretary. The object 
is to establish the means of correspondence, and 
interchange ol inlormaticn and views, for the 
better protection ot the rights, and more efficient 
improvement of the practice of agriculture. 
J. S. Skinne.u, New-York. 
