AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
3 ’ 4=1 
in the most scrupulous neatness. They are cop¬ 
ies of great works of art, beautiful in form and 
symbolic device, interesting from classical asso¬ 
ciations, and so, worthy to be carefully preserved 
and contemplated for their own sake—not for 
the perishable flowers they happen to contain. 
Good Butter in Winter. 
For the benefit of my lady friends, I will give 
my experience of twenty-five years, in mak¬ 
ing nearly as good butter in Winter as in Sum¬ 
mer. In the first place, we suppose the cows 
to have been fed on good feed. After the milk 
has been strained, put it on the stove to heat, 
either in the pans or in any other way thought 
proper. Do not make it too hot, or the cream 
will not rise; it may then be placed in a clean 
cellar, free from vegetables or any thing that will 
give the cream an unnatural taste, or in a cup¬ 
board with a canvas door, in a moderately warm 
room; if in the latter place, it should not be put 
in until the steam has passed off, otherwise the 
shelves will be liable to mould. The milk 
should not stand longer in Winter than in Sum¬ 
mer, or the butter will be bitter. In 36 or 48 
hours it should be skimmed, if in a cool place, 
sooner if in a warm one. If the milk is thought 
to be too rich to give to the pigs, let it stand 
longer, and use the cream that rises on it for 
shortening or in some other way than for butter. 
If the milk has been kept in a cool place, take 
the cream to a warm room a day or two before 
churning. If you wish the butter to look and 
taste like grass butter, grate orange carrots, put 
some hot water or milk to the pulp, strain and 
add it to the cream, which should be a little 
above 60° when you commence churning. A 
common sized teacupful will color’six pounds 
of butter. After churning, draw off the butter¬ 
milk, put cold water in the churn, and churn a 
few minutes, and if managed right, you will 
never fail of having good butter. I rejoice that 
the prejudice against washing butter with cold 
water is slowly passing away. Heating the 
milk I believe is an English method, and ought 
to be more generally practised, then there would 
not be so much poor butter in the market. So 
says a Bucks Co. Farmer’s Wife. 
Eaglewood, Pa. 
Mica Lining for Butter Boxes. 
A novelty that promises to be useful, has been 
exhibited at the Agriculturist Office, in the form 
of wooden butter boxes lined with mica. (This 
is the material used for transparent stove doors, 
lanterns, etc.; it is popularly but wrongly called 
isinglass, from its resemblance to that substance. 
Isinglass is a translucent glue or gelatinous sub¬ 
stance, prepared from the intestines of fishes, 
and used in cookery for jellies, charlotte ruse, 
and similar purposes.) Mica is found abundant¬ 
ly in some quarries. Thin sheets of it, closely 
joined, are placed on the inside of-the butter 
boxes; these effectually prevent any taste from the 
wood, and being a very poor conductor of heat, 
may assist in this way also to preserve the but¬ 
ter. The patentee, A. T. Peck, of Cortland Co., 
N. Y., adds a hinged cover, with a rubber band 
around the edge to exclude air. These boxes 
would answer well for keeping bread and cake 
moist. It is claimed that they can be made of 
all sizes, nearly as cheaply as good butter tubs 
or fir-kins. If as valuable as they appear to be, 
they should be largely manufactured at once, 
and an ample supply thrown into the market. 
A Simple, Cheap, Convenient Pocket 
Filter for Soldiers and Others. 
While crossing the ocean last Summer, the 
water brought up on one occasion was so roiled 
with sediment as to be disagreeable. An Ameri¬ 
can lady of our company at once took from her 
reticule a little apparatus which could be packed 
in a large match box, and filtered the water per¬ 
fectly clean from the pitcher into a tumbler. We 
tried to find one of these filters’in London and 
Paris, but did not succeed. On coming home, 
we found them at a few places in New-York; 
but though said to be patented, we have been 
unable to learn the name of the patentee, or to 
find any one specially interested in bringing 
them before the public. We have therefore 
purchased one, and made the engravings at our 
own expense—for the benefit of the inventor, 
the dealers, and all concerned, and especially for 
our soldiers who are often obliged to go thirsty 
or obtain drink from filthy pools of water. 
bit of artificial stone, 1J inches long, and 4 inch 
in diameter. This is firm, and apparently solid, 
yet the fine, imperceptible pores admit pure wa¬ 
ter through them, b is an India rubber tube, 
i inch diameter, and a foot 'Or so long, fastened 
into a, and fitted with a boxwood mouth piece, 
c. Placing the stone under water, (as in fig. 2), 
one can draw the pure clean fluid from a filthy 
roadside pool. As an experiment, we stirred 
flour in a glass of water, and yet filtered out 
clean water with this little instrument. It can 
be used as a syphon filter, (fig. 4,) to draw water 
from a cask, pitcher, or pail, into another ves¬ 
sel. To do this, immerse the. stone, suck until 
the water is started, then depress the mouth¬ 
piece below the level of the fluid drawn from, 
and a stream of clear water will continue to 
flow. Another good suggestion, made by the 
artist,(Dr. Newberry,) while sketching the above, 
is, that a wounded soldier, having one of these 
tubes, can draw water from a tumbler or can¬ 
teen, while lying upon his back, without raising 
his head. They are retailed at 50 cents each, 
and wholesaled somewhat less. The weight is 
less than 2 ounces; they can be packed to go 
by mail within 2 ounces, making the postage 
only 12 cents, under 1,500 miles. We have sent 
several to our friends in the army, and until they 
are on sale generally, will procure and send 
them, post-paid, to any address desired, for the 
retail price, (50 cents), as we can buy enough, 
cheaper at wholesale, to about cover the postage. 
Fig. 3, is a new modification, just out, in which 
the rubber tube is about two feet long, and at <i 
is fitted a cap with rubber washer, so arranged 
that by turning off a nut, and pressing the rub¬ 
ber washer firmly over the mouth of a bottle or 
canteen, (e,) the water, instead of passing on in¬ 
to the mouth, falls into the canteen. This will 
enable the soldier to fill his canteen with filtered 
water at pleasure. This form costs 75 cts. at re¬ 
tail, and weighs 3 ounces, making the postage 
18 cents. We can forward them post-paid for 
about 80 cts. They are very desirable, but the 
lighter, cheaper form, fig. 1, will perhaps be as 
good for the soldier, who dispenses with every 
ounce of weight and inch of bulk possible. Wo 
have only spoken of them as being useful to the 
soldier; they are of course useful to anyone 
having occasion to filter water for drinking. 
High-heeled Shoes are Bad. 
Can any tall person give a good reason for 
wearing high-heeled shoes or boots? In the 
case of persons of short stature there may be an 
excuse, if not a reason for the practice. Every 
one naturally desires to stand up to the average 
liight in community, and an extra inch of leath¬ 
er- under the heel is perhaps as inexpensive a 
way of gratifying this vanity as can be devised. 
Yet it costs more than may be generally sup¬ 
posed—more we think than the benefit(?) de¬ 
rived can balance. The arrangement is clearly 
an unnatural one. The untortured foot of a 
child forms an arch, with the heel and the “ball” 
for the abutments, which rest squarely Upon the 
ground. In the natural position, much of the 
weight of the body rests upon the key or top of 
the arch, which from its elasticity partly yields 
to the pressure, and thus acts like a spring to 
relieve the jar which walking, running, etc., 
would give to the whole frame. Now when one 
abutment of the arch, the heel, is raised from its 
proper level, the weight above is partly thrown 
from the top of the arch where it belongs, on to 
the heel, and thus the step is rendered less elas¬ 
tic, and more jarring is given to the frame. The 
increased shock is very slight, it is true, but the 
constant repetition of even this, which occurs in 
the every day exercise of the feet, will in time 
make itself felt. This is more to be apprehend¬ 
ed from the fact that the spinal column which 
is directly affected by any such jar, is the most 
important center of nervous influence, and ex¬ 
tremely sensitive to any unnatural treatment. 
But even if no danger be feared from the 
above effects, there are palpable evils to the foot 
itself, resulting from -wearing high heels. By 
their use the foot is forced forward into the shoe, 
crowding the toes against the leather, which 
very soon results in corns, bunions, in-growing 
nails, and all the evils which have called into 
existence the race of corn-doctors, and chiropo¬ 
dists. This difficulty is still further aggravated 
by the absurd fashion of “ stub-toed ” shoes, 
which has been prevalent for sometime past. To 
prevent the foot thus sliding forward, shoemak¬ 
ers often fit the shoe tight upon the instep. This 
interferes with the free movement of the muscles 
and bones of the foot, impedes the circulation, 
produces cold toes, and general discomfort. 
Another objection to high heels, of no small 
importance, is the danger from falls which they 
occasion. We have known several serious acci¬ 
dents caused by the heels catching upon the 
edge of a stair and sending the wearer head¬ 
foremost down the whole flight. It is to be hoped 
