480 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[ jS OVEMBBK, 
Hints and Helps for Farmers. 
BY J. MEYER, LASALLE CO,, ILL. 
A Post Holder is shown in figure 1, which 
is very handy for holding posts while they 
are being sharpened. A crotched pole, about 
eight feet long, is obtained, and two legs in¬ 
serted near the fork, or crotch. The larger 
end of the pole is held securely to the ground 
by means of two hooked stakes, which are 
driven into the earth. A stout wire or rope is 
fastened to the heads of the stakes, and pass¬ 
ing over the end of the log, holds it secure. 
A Tree-lifter is shown in figures 2 and 3. 
A hard - wood 
timber, six feet 
long, is used, 
to which two 
shorter pieces, 
2'/a feet long, 
serving as legs, are fastened by a stout bolt. 
A number of holes are bored in the long 
timber to receive the wooden pin that holds 
Fig. 2. —A TREE-LIFTER. 
Fig. 3.— THE TREE-LIFTER IN POSITION. 
the log upon the lifter. The lifter, when the 
log is raised, is shown in figure 3. 
A Saw-Holder is shown in figures 4 and 
5. A plank, 2 by 6 inches, and 8 feet long, 
makes the base of the bench. In this, holes 
8 
■ 
Fig. 4. —BENCH OF SAW HOLDER. 
are bored, as shown in figure 4, into which 
the legs and posts are inserted. There are 
two large uprights with kerfs, into which 
the saw is placed, and afterwards firmly se¬ 
cured by means of wedges placed between 
Fig. 5. —THE SAW HOLDER COMPLETE. 
the saw and the small posts or pins near the 
middle of the bench. Figure 5 shows the ar¬ 
rangements of the posts, with the saw in place. 
Take in llie Implement*.— 
From what we have seen in our recent jour- 
neyings among the farmers, it is clear that all 
have not heeded the injunction so often re¬ 
peated in our columns, that it is cheaper to 
house the various farm implements, than to 
leave them where last used in the open field. 
The reaper, horse-rake, and even the harrow, 
will last many years longer, and run easier 
in use, if kept under cover and from the rot¬ 
ting and corroding influences of the elements. 
Flecks, or “White Caps,” in Cream. 
BY L. B. ARNOLD. 
Flecks are generally supposed to be pieces 
of dried cream, and possibly sometimes they 
may be, but usually they are not, for occa¬ 
sionally they exist in milk before any cream 
rises, and sometimes are mingled with butter 
made by processes of cold-setting in which 
the cream remains soft, no part of it being 
dried at all. They seldom appear, however, 
in butter made by cold-setting; they are 
mostly found in butter made in dairies where 
the milk is set without any other cooling 
than that of the air in the room where the 
milk stands. For the most part they are de¬ 
veloped in milk after it comes from the cow. 
By quickly cooling milk to a low degree, 
change is so much arrested that they cannot 
develop. They can only form within certain 
limits of temperature, and when they do, are 
likely to appear as plentifully in the milk as 
in the cream, and often more so, which is 
evidence adverse to their being originated 
from dried cream. In milk which is in a 
perfectly normal condition they never ap¬ 
pear. They always occur in milk which is 
more or less faulty. They are very apt to 
accompany an inflamed state of the udder, 
and seldom or never appear without it. 
When milk is all right, the surface of the 
cream may be exposed to currents of dry air 
until it becomes quite dry and hard, without 
showing any indication of “ white caps ” as 
they are sometimes called. The dried cream, 
when mixed with the rest and well stirred 
up, soon becomes soft, and chums the same 
as the rest. But when milk, which is a little 
feverish, or in some other way faulty, is thus 
exposed to the air without being first well 
cooled, flecks will be pretty sure to show 
themselves in numbers proportioned to the 
exposure. Whenever flecks are liable to be 
developed, there can, with the aid of a mi¬ 
croscope, be seen in the milk small specks of 
solid matter with fragmentary shapes which 
form the nucleus of the flecks. When such 
milk is set in a glass vessel and kept without 
much cooling, these specks can be seen to 
enlarge by the coagulation and adhesion of 
the milk in contact with them. Sooner or' 
later they swell from gas forming within 
them, and, becoming lighter than the milk, 
rise toward the surface and more or less of 
them become imbedded in the soft cream. 
When they form in the milk they are almost 
wholly composed of curd, but when formed 
in the cream they are very rich in cream, 
having as much, and perhaps more, cream in 
their composition as curd. 
Just what these specks are which form the 
nucleus of the flecks, is not positively 
known. They may be only bits of solid 
caseine, or they may be fragments of gland 
cells, which are always mingled with such 
milk, or possibly they may be pieces of the 
solid albuminoid known as leucin, which is 
found in milk, and which, when separated 
from the milk, decays very rapidly. 
Whatever it is that forms the nucleus, it 
evidently undergoes putrefactive decay, and 
is the cause of the thickened milk which ad¬ 
heres to it, that afterwards swells with gas 
and rises, since putrefying substances readily 
curdle milk and develop gas. That organic 
germs have something to do with the matter 
is indicated by the fact that if milk is scalded 
high enough to kill living germs, the flecks 
do not form, but do form readily when the 
milk is kept warm enough to favor growth, 
and they then develop in the milk as much 
as in the cream, and sometimes even more. 
When milk in which flecks are liable to 
occur is set where the sun will shine directly 
on it, or even where much reflected light 
falls upon it, they form much faster than , 
when light is pretty much excluded, and 
form on, or near, the surface, and much more 
plentifully in the cream than in the milk . 
A current of air over the milk also favors 
their development, and a damp air more than 
a dry one. 
Flecks, or “white caps,” whichever they 
are called, are apt to be more common in the 
fall and winter, when cows are drying up, 
and in hot and dry weather in the summer, 
when they are affected by heat and drouth. 
At such times their udders are apt to get in¬ 
flamed, and this appears to be the cause, or 
at least a stimulating cause, of their origin. 
There are different ways for disposing of 
flecks. The first and best way is to keep 
cows 60 healthy and well supplied with food 
and drink, that they will not form in their 
milk. Some attempt to dispose of flecks by 
mashing them and crowding them through 
a strainer, made of wire-gauze with fine 
meshes. By forcing them through the gauze 
by rubbing with a smooth wooden roller 
around the sides of the conical strainer, the 
flecks are broken to pieces and disappear by 
being pulverized. They never churn, how¬ 
ever, whether fine or coarse, any more than 
curd would, and the finer they are the more 
likely are they to get caught in the butter 
and affect its keeping. Such butter ought not 
to be packed with that which is sound, for it 
is always a little imperfect. If one has milk 
in which the flecks are liable to form, their de¬ 
velopment can be prevented, as already stated, 
by either high heating or low cooling while 
new, and if, by unforeseen occurrences, they 
form and appear in the cream, they can be 
kept out of the butter when churning by 
gathering it in the granular form. 
An Apparatus for Handling Hogs. 
Mr. O. L. Rice, Jewell Co., Kan. sends 
sketches and description of a device of his 
own construction for handling hogs while 
scalding them. It consists of a 3 by 3-inch 
A SCALDING “ RACK ” FOR HOGS. 
scantling, about a foot longer than the scald¬ 
ing box. and bent rods of iron firmly fastened 
into the scantling about a foot apart, the 
curve reaching down into the box, as shown 
