14 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
in his mouth, looking on to see how it will come 
out. Good luck is a man of pluck to meet diffi¬ 
culties, his sleeves rolled up, and working to make 
it come out right. He rarely fails. At least I 
never did.” 
Smith is right. Attend to your business, and 
vou will have good luck. 
- i — €» *" ■ » ^ ■ 
The Alderney Cow. 
Why do not some of our wealthy gentlemen, 
living in their snug and pleasant country places, 
give us, now and then, the results in milk, cream, 
and butter, of their docile little pets, the Alderney 
cows ? We have seen the Alderneys, both at their 
own homes in the places aforesaid, and at the cat¬ 
tle shows, where they have been exhibited for the 
past dozen years ; and although we have always 
heard them praised for their yields of rich milk, 
and delicious butter, do not recollect any instance 
where 'tie measures and weights have been stated, 
on this sine 'he Atlantic. 
That the true bred Alderney is a little, inferior, 
funny-looking beast, when compared with the 
short-horn, or even the Devon, we know. But 
ewe-necked, saddle-bae’ked, and sickle-ha mined 
as she is, she shows both blood and breeding. 
Her head has the fineness and graces of the elk, 
anil her eye the quickness and brilliancy of the 
gazelle. She is gentle as a pet lamb, a dear lover 
of home, and an ornament to the home-park or 
the paddock. Then why not let us know more 
about them, you gentlemen, and suburban farmers, 
who treat yourselves with their keeping! Num¬ 
bers of them have been imported in past years, by 
our friend, Mr. Taintor, of Hartford, Connecticut, 
and some others. They have increased and mul¬ 
tiplied, and are now scattered over a wide region 
of country in the Atlantic states. It will be for 
the interest of those who have time to spare, 
now and then, to let the public know their vir¬ 
tues, and they have only to send us properly 
made-up accounts of their feats at the pail and the 
churn, and we will spread them broadcast over 
the country. 
-- . — - 
Churning New Milk—A Dairy Manual 
Wanted. 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist. 
If you should deem it of general interest will you 
print a statement of the process and profits of 
churning new milk. The statement should include 
time of the year, feed of cows, measure of milk, 
(whether “Wine” or “Beer” measure.) The 
coming Winter will be a proper time for pub¬ 
lishing in season for preparation before Spring. 
Geauga, Co., Ohio. L. E. Kent. 
Remarks. —We expect to give a series of prac¬ 
tical chapters on butter and cheese making during 
the present year. We can say in advance that 
the churning of new milk,—that is, milk freshly 
drawn from the cow, is neither profitable nor ex¬ 
expedient. Milk requires, when intended for 
churning entire, to be set in pans after straining 
the same as if the cream were to be taken off, 
where properly raised and churned separately. 
The milk must he cooled by the passing off of the 
animal heat before the cream will separate from 
the other constituents of the milk at all, and this is 
usually a process of an hour or two, according to 
the temperature of the room where it stands. The 
cnurnmg of milk is no way different in its process 
*rorn that of cream, only that the cream is not ta- 
*en off, Dut after being fully raised, it is poured, 
with the milk, from the pans into the churn, and 
werftea off together. Both methods are peed by 
different dairymen, but in the results of the trials 
which have been made and reported, we have ngt 
ascertained that milk-churned butter is superior 
to that where the cream alone is used. 
The “ statements ” which our correspondent 
asks for can only be given after elaborate trials 
and investigation, and no inconsiderable expense Of 
time and labor. Several reliable trials have been 
made in years past under the supervision of the 
New-York State Agricultural Society, and pub¬ 
lished in their annual volumes of Transactions. 
They are of great length and minuteness of de¬ 
tail, and no synopsis could be made from them, 
short of the full cony, which would give a suffi¬ 
cient understanding of the subject. We need a 
good Dairy Manual in this country, and if some 
really competent man—not one of the youthful 
book makers just now so officious—would set 
about it and get up one complete and well under¬ 
stood in all its parts, from the selection of the 
cow and her keeping to the finishing off of the 
butter and cheese, it would be of exceeding value 
to the dairy interests of the country. Until some 
complete work on this topic is prepared, howev¬ 
er, we can offer room for its discussion in these 
pages. 
-«» «-««■>-- •- 
What Feeding Will Do For Pigs- 
We have just killed one pig, fourteen months 
old, which weighed 438 pounds. A neighbor had 
two pigs of the same litter, weights 436 and 439 
pounds. It will be seen that the average growth 
was a trifle over a pound a day for the whole life 
of these pigs. Another neighbor had a pig of the 
same litter , killed at the same time, weight 248 
pounds—a difference of nearly 200 pounds. 
There is an old adage among pork makers, that 
“ the breed of swine is all in the trough,” and 
these experiments would go to establish the truth 
of the proverb. Though we have full faith that 
some breeds are much better than others, yet 
very much depends upon feeding. In the cases 
here recorded, the whole difference lay in the 
trough. The heavy pigs were well fed, while the 
other was stinted. Pork, in the one case costs 
about six cents a pound, in the other not less 
than ten. * 
To make pork economically, the swine must 
have a dry, warm apartment to sleep in, and, at 
this season of the year, the bottom should he 
of wood, or some good non-conductor. They 
should be fed at regular intervals. The 
pig knows the dinner hour as well as 
his master, and his stomach becomes uneasy, if 
its cravings are not met at the appointed time. 
The secret of thrift depends upon keeping him in 
the most comfortable position possible. If a pig 
squeals, his flesh is wasting, and the owner should 
take the alarm at once. But pigs should have 
enough to eat at each meal, and a change of food, 
occasionally. They will grow more rapidly upon 
a mixed diet. For the last few weeks these heavy 
pigs were fed with two quarts of corn meal 
apiece, at each feeding. This made the flesh firm, 
and heavy, and the lard very abundant. 
Full feeding is as great an advantage to the 
manure heap, as it is to the pork barrel. With 
suitable conveniences a farmer may make eight 
cords of manure worth sixteen dollars, for each 
pig that he keeps a year. This will pay for near¬ 
ly one-half the food a pig consumes, and very 
much reduce the cost of making pork. The rule 
then for making pork economically is, keep dry 
and warm, feed regularly and abundantly, with a 
variety of food—and save the manure. 
What utility is there in killing hogs, if they are 
cured directly afterwards t 
Look after the Coarse Fodder. 
Nothing is more common in the fields and bam 
yards of our farmers, than to see quantities o 
straw, corn-stalks, and coarse litter lying kick¬ 
ing about the cattle’s feet, and in piles along the 
fences, where a little of it is nosed oie r hy the 
stock, and the rest trodden under foot and wasted. 
This is all wrong, and as unnecessary as wrong. 
Every particle of coarse fodder, even to buck¬ 
wheat, pea and bean straw, should be carefully 
foddered out, for in certain portions of the win¬ 
ter, if the stuff be well saved and clean, tha 
cattle, sheep, and horses will consume it all. 
If the racks under the sheds are not sufficient to 
hold it, we build cobble pens of rails, poles, oi 
coarse limbs, in the yards, or adjoining fields, and 
carry out, or haul with a wagon, cart, or sled, as 
the case may be, the liner, and pitch it into them. 
To these, in good weather—not in rain or snow 
storms—we drive the stock, and never had any 
difficulty in their eating all, or the most of it, even 
when they fed on good hay over night in their 
stables and sheds. 
Sometimes, when the straw is not bright, by 
sprinkling on a little brine, the stock will eat it 
clean, when otherwise they would hardly touch 
it. It is of no use to say, that such fodder does 
the stock no good. We know better Any¬ 
thing that the cattle eat with a relish does do them 
good. Cold bright weather is the time to feed 
out all coarse fodder, and it is wrong to waste a 
single handful that any creature you have will 
consume. 
Old Shoes—Refuse Leather. 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist. 
....We have got the bones dissolving in oil of 
vitriol and water, but, what shall we do with the old 
shoes, of which a great quantity may be picked up 
where there is no river near by to throw them in. 
Shall we put them in with the bones, or can you 
tell us of a better use to put them to I 
Middlesex Co., Ct. A.B. Worthington. 
REPLY FROM PROF. JOHNSON. 
What the farmer can do on a small scale with 
old shoes, and leather refuse in general, I do not 
know. I have tried to dissolve leather in oil of 
vitriol but although the action is considerable I 
have not succeeded in destroying the texture so 
that a finely divided mass resulted. I should ad¬ 
vise your correspondent to try composting the old 
shoes with slaked lime. I am not, however, san¬ 
guine that a good result would be obtained in that 
way. Perhaps a compost of fresh horse-dung 
containing a good deal of litter, well moistened, 
and kept covered with muck or earth would re¬ 
duce them to a convenient shape, in the course of 
several months of Summer weather. 
Old leather is well worth saving. I have ana¬ 
lyzed some samples, and have found them to con¬ 
tain nitrogen equivalent to 6 percent of ammonia. 
It would be easy and doubtless profitable to econ¬ 
omize this ammonia by some suitable manufac¬ 
turing process. S. W Johnson. 
Yale Analytical Laboratory. 
New-Haven, Ct., Dec. 1857. 
-—-ii--- «*- 
Wouldn’t Steal the Trap. —“Billy, how did 
you lose your finger I” “ Easily enough,” said 
Billy. “ I suppose you did, but how 1” “ I guess 
you’d a lost your’n if it had been where mine 
was.” “ That don’t answer my question.” “Well, 
if >ou must know,” said Billy, “ I had to cut it off 
or else steal a trap /” 
If all had windows in their hearts, many would 
take good care to keep the blinds closed. 
