214 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[June 
Among the Farmers.—Mo. 17. 
BY ONE OP THEM. 
The Mt. Lebanon Shakers. 
I have been repeatedly at New Lebanon, N. Y., 
but until a few weeks ago never went among that 
peculiar band of religionists, the Shakers, several 
“families” of whom are grouped picturesquely 
upon the side of the mountain above and east of 
the village. It is a good climb to get up to the 
“ North Family,” and the hill still towers above, and 
oilers one boon to these good farmers, namely, run¬ 
ning water in abundance, delivered in pipes at ev¬ 
ery floor of the house or barn, or any other build¬ 
ing, wherever it is needed. This family has 
A Famous Stone Barn, 
which is 296 feet long, 50 or more wide, and at one 
end five stories high. It has been repeatedly describ¬ 
ed in the agricultural papers, and is really an ad¬ 
mirably built and arranged structure. I do not like 
stone barns, and have no doubt that at times the 
moisture settles upon the inner sides of the walls 
in a way sure to damage hay which comes in con¬ 
tact with them. The barn stands end to the hill, 
and a double drive-way and floor allows a number 
of loads of hay or grain to be driven in at the same 
time. Deep bays are upon both sides, and there is 
storage room for a great amount of hay, straw, and 
corn-fodder. On the floor below, are the grain 
rooms and shoots for carrying hay to the cattle, and 
grain and feed to the mixing troughs on the cattle 
floor. This, the third floor descending, is high, 
well furnished with windows, thoroughly ventilat¬ 
ed, and exceedingly convenient in arrangement. 
Stanchions are used for the cattle, and they are so 
constructed that sections of a dozen or more may 
be moved at once. The cows are admitted, and as 
they put their heads into the mangers for their 
feed, they are all locked in by one effort. This is 
not a very unusual contrivance, but after milking 
is over, and the cows are to be left to themselves, 
common “tie-chains” are put about their necks, 
and the stanchions are unfastened, which gives the 
animals much more liberty. This is a humane plan, 
at any rate, and as such worthy of imitation. 
The floor at the rear of the stalls is a very broad, 
shallow gutter, sloping so as to conduct the liquids 
to conduits, which discharge them upon the com¬ 
post heap. Hay, as I said, comes down by shoots 
from the floor above ; each shoot supplies two head, 
but each cow has her own feeding-box. These are 
of cast iron, hold about a bushel each, and are in 
form like quarters of a hemisphere. They are hung 
upon pins or pivots, which are, as it were, continu¬ 
ations of the strait perpendicular edge, and upon 
these they may be swung in or out of the manger, 
swinging exactly through a quadrant. When emp¬ 
ty, they are drawn through the partition, are filled 
from the feeding floor, and pushed back. 
Managemeoit of flic Manure. 
There is a little tramway, with light cars, that 
can be easily shoved by a man upon the floor be- 
hiud the cattle stalls. At one end of the building, 
this tramway is continued in a semicircle through 
a room shut off by a partition wall and doors from 
the rest of the bam, and is so arranged that a car 
may, if necessaiy, be run around from one side of 
the cow floor to the other. ' The room through 
which this semicircular railway runs is a big com¬ 
post factory. The cars dump their loads into the 
gulf beneath ; muck is hauled in upon the upper 
floor, and by means of a trap-door, dropped through 
upon the mass, all sorts of refuse material, suitable 
for the purpose, are added, and the heap is leveled 
and worked over occasionally so as to give homo¬ 
geneousness to it, while doors at the ground level 
afford access to carts. This method of making 
manure must be excellent in its results, for the ma¬ 
terial can be worked over, kept moist or dry, mixed 
with absorbents—as muck, leaves, litter, etc., and 
the fermentation perfectly controlled by water. 
Tire Cattle, Grade Short-horns, 
for the most part, looked very well. It was about 
noon when we were there, and almost all were in 
the yards. Among the older cows there was great 
diversity, yet most showed strong evidence of 
Short-horn blood, while the 3 T oung stock exhibited 
the characteristics of their thorough-bred sire in a 
marked degree. I have rarely seen a better lot of 
young things, or better growth for their age. Those 
in one yard were from five months to near a year 
old—no more, for though I judged them to be con¬ 
siderably older, “Elder Frederick” gave such an 
emphatic “nay” to the suggestion, twice made, 
that I gave up the right of private judgment. The 
Shakers are good feeders—all their cattle were well 
fed, clean, comfortable, and healthy. The bam 
was very sweet, cleanly, and in perfect order. 
Tlie Shakers as Economists. 
They economise in certain kinds of labor, but 
clearly take a great deal of unnecessary pains and 
useless steps. As economists, they are astonishing¬ 
ly extravagant in the matter of buildings. They 
probably live at a very small expenditure of money ; 
but of certain kinds of labor they have a surplus, 
and make use of it in erecting buildings, and in 
taking care of them. With a very little curtailment 
of comfort, buildings of half the aggregate dimen¬ 
sions, would answer their necessities, and save 
time and labor now given to much drudgery. 
Other Families. 
Our time was so limited that we could only hurry 
through some of the other bams, where we saw a 
similar stock of cattle, managed in much the same 
way. The manure was not kept under cover and 
composted as at the big bam, but thrown out, 
mixed with straw and litter, and composted in a 
measure in the yards. I am not altogether certain 
that there may not be a saving of labor and ease in 
management secured by this less philosophic pro¬ 
cess, which makes it desirable. Perfection is hard 
to reach in any sort of thing, and as a rule it does 
not pay to attempt it in the coarser operations of 
farming. The real desideratum is the nearest ap¬ 
proach to it consistent with economy of labor and 
peace of mind. Various simple manufactures, for 
example, chair making, are conducted independent¬ 
ly of the farming, gardening, herb raising and dry¬ 
ing, and similar operations, but in these outside 
employments, the laborers are “ world’s people.” 
The Shakers are good farmers, as judged by their 
land, their stock, their buildings, and one sees 
many quaint practieal devices, some of which would 
have been worth- making special note of. They are 
very systematic in these little labor-saving matters, 
and I recalled with a smile the half humorous 
statement of Charles Nordhoff in his “Communis¬ 
tic Societies of the United States,” to the effect 
that both indoors and out their ways and devices 
were those to be looked for where old bachelors and 
old maids are associated in every day life,—for Sha¬ 
kers are rigorous and consistent celibates. 
Factory Dairy Butter. 
Not far from a year ago I wrote an account of a 
visit to Farmington, Conn., and about the success 
of the butter dairy established there. I believe it 
is an acknowledged fact that the “ creamery ” but¬ 
ter, taking the year through, is better than the best 
previously made in the farmers’ families; certainly 
it brings a higher price, and meets a readier sale. 
The question arises—is not this then the way to se¬ 
cure the best results in butter making ? I must say 
I had the opinion that it was, until I visited Mr. 
Starr’s “ Echo farm,” barns, and dairies—and a 
few days after—early in March—had the opportuni¬ 
ty of examining some samples of butter from Lo¬ 
cust Grove, the farm of Mr. Wm. B. Dinsmore. 
There is a precision of cleanliness and purity quite 
possible about the stables and the feeding, the 
dairy, and the butter making of a private establish¬ 
ment, where stable-men and dairy-folks all feel a 
personal responsibility for, as well as pride in, the 
reputation of the butter for delicacy of flavor and 
all other excellence. When thirty or even ten 
farmers bring their milk to the “creamery,” it is 
improbable, if not impossible, that any such clean¬ 
liness should prevail without an exception. 
Whatever Affects the Millc Affects tile Butter. 
The quantity, as well as the quality, of the food 
produces immediate variation. We were rejoicing 
over the excellence of our winter butter a few 
weeks ago, when suddenly its quality fell off from 
no known cause ; finally it was found out that the 
man who fed the cows had been practicing unusu¬ 
ally rigid economy in feeding, and as a result the 
cows were half starved. They fell off in milk, and 
the quality of the butter was at once affected, as 
shown particularly in a lack of flavor. A change 
was soon after instituted in our domestic arrange¬ 
ments, and during the inter-regnum, I milked the 
cows myself, night and morning. This afforded 
me an opportunity of testing the value of the 
Channel Island. Milking Can. 
I brought one of these out with me at the last 
trip, together with the straining cloths and shells, 
which are there universally used with them in milk¬ 
ing. This can was minutely described in February 
of last year, but I have never been able to induce 
the hired man, who milked, to use it. Now, how¬ 
ever, as my own servant and master, I took the 
globular ewer with its flaring top, not over 8 inches 
wide, tied over this the strainer-cloth, pressed it 
down into the neck of the can, laid the shell into 
the sag of the cloth, and found no difficulty at all. 
The milk may spatter a little at first, but as soon as 
there is a little foam this ceases. By this means 
the milk is strained just as fast as it is drawn, and 
immediately removed from the contaminating air 
of the stable, as well as from all those specks of 
manure, dandruff, and hah, which so frequently, if 
not always, fall into the milk drawn into the ordi¬ 
nary pails. I became really attached to the system, 
and am happy in finding that the new man takes 
kindly to it, and that it seems as easy for him to 
“get the hang ” of it as of any other new pail. The 
milk is of course strained and treated as before. 
What do we Strain. Out of Milk? 
I had the opportunity recently of examining, un¬ 
der the microscope, certain minute brownish par¬ 
ticles which were removed from milk by cloth 
strainers, after it had been strained in the usual 
way through wire gauze. These brown particles 
were determined by our village doctor, a man of no 
mean attainments in his profession, to be of “ pave¬ 
ment epithelium,' 11 which must have come from the 
interior of the udder. The straining cloth was 
double, and a good many of these particles were 
arrested by the second fold. In addition to these 
epithelial scales, there were multitudes of very 
minute hairs, so small that they were hardly visible 
except asA downy dust, to the naked eye. Now it 
is certain that the presence of epithelium in milk is 
a great incitement to change, and it may be to 
changes unfavorable to high flavor in the butter. 
One, to whom I spoke about this, sees in these im¬ 
purities important aids to digestion, and thinks he 
would be actually “flying in the face of a benefi¬ 
cent Providence,” to strain them out. This is only 
another argument in favor of the view that factory 
butter can not really compete with that which is 
produced in the very best private dairies. Straining 
the milk as it is drawn, without question, sepa¬ 
rates many of these particles, as well, as of the 
fine hairs, at the outset from the milk, so that their 
influence for good or ill is of but short duration. 
Care Needed in Shipping Horses* 
I called in at Stoddart’s Bonded Stables, in Green¬ 
wich street, a few days ago, and there found the 
finest young Clydesdale stallion I ever saw. He was 
brought out upon the Ethiopia, and had been recent¬ 
ly landed. The groom in charge, James Melvin, has 
made six trips with horses across the Atlantic, and 
has probably brought out the best Clydesdales that 
have ever come to this country. He started with 
three nearly uniformly good horses, consigned to 
John Cochrane, of Goodland, Ind., and this is the 
only one that survived the voyage. Melvin has 
never before lost a horse. These were young—this 
one being three years old, though weighing 1,900 
pounds. They were put on board after being led 
16 to 20 miles each, without rest and without food, 
nervous, high strung colts, carrying all or nearly all 
the flesh they could be loaded with. They were 
swung from the wharf, high up into the rigging of 
the steamer, and then lowered into the between- 
decks. The ship was soon under way, and the roll- 
