AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
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AGRICULTURE IS THE MOST HEALTHFUL, THE MOST USEFUL, AND THE MOST NOBLE EMPLOYMENT OF MAN. -Washington. 
CONDUCTING EDITOR, PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 
ORANGE JUDD, A. M. ALLEN & CO.) 189 Water-st., New-York. 
VOL. XIV.—NO. 15.] NEW-YORK, THURSDAY, JUNE 21, 1855. [NEW SERIES.-NO. 93. 
.for ij!3r00}Rctu0, Serins, Set., 
I^SEE LAST PAGE.^J 
Every one writing to the Editor or 
Publishers of this journal will please read 
“ Special Notices ,” on last page. 
All letters relating to Editorial mat¬ 
ters should be addressed to Mr. Orange 
Judd, (the Conducting Editor). 
Letters inclosing subscriptions and on oth¬ 
er business should be directed to Allen & 
Co., Publishers, and also those referring to 
both departments. Editorial and business 
matters, if in the same letter, should be on 
separate sheets. 
HINTS ON BUTTER AND CHEESE MAKING, 
[Continued from page 209 ] 
9. The oil of milk, or butter, is contained 
in very small sacs or bags diffused through 
the water which holds the casein (curd) 
and sugar in solution. As before stated (3), 
the butter is lighter than the other fluids, 
and when the milk is allowed to stand quiet¬ 
ly for a time, the greater portion of it will 
rise to the surface in the form of cream. 
Cream is composed of the oil sacs mingled 
with some casein, and it is impossible to 
separate these substances before churning, 
and not wholly afterwards. 
10. Materials for Milk Pans .— Various 
kinds of milk pans are in use, such as glass, 
tin, porcelain, stoneware, glazed iron, wood, 
zinc, &c. The requisites for these are, 
cheapness, coolness, and cleanliness. Glass 
milk pans are undoubtedly best, as regards 
coolness and cleanliness, but the cost and 
their easy breakage will prevent their being 
generally used. Porcelain (earthen or Chi¬ 
na ware) is liable to the same objections, 
though not so easily broken as glass, but if 
of fine quality, more costly. Well glazed 
stoneware pans are not so easily handled or 
cleaned, but where a cool room can not al¬ 
ways be secured, they are probably the best, 
as they are not expensive. Glazed iron 
pans are very good, but are somewhat ob¬ 
jectionable on account of their cost, weight, 
and their not being very cool. Wood ves¬ 
sels are not easily kept clean and sweet, and 
are objectionable. If used, great care should 
be taken to have them well scalded after 
every using. Zinc pans have been highly 
commended, but we consider them very ob¬ 
jectionable on account of their easy corro¬ 
sion and liability to produce poisonous salts. 
We would not use them if furnished to us 
free of cost, unless they were well glazed 
internally. For general use, where a cool 
milk room can be secured, there is no kind 
of milk pan to be preferred to the old-fash¬ 
ioned “ tin pan.” They are cheap, light, and 
easily kept clean. If the atmosphere is not, 
or can not be kept at a low temperature, 
stone or earthen ware vessels are the best. 
11. Depth of Milk Pans. —Milk should be 
kept in shallow vessels, and the fluid should 
never exceed 21 inches in depth, as in pro¬ 
portion to the shallowness of the vessels 
will depend the rapidity and perfection of 
the cream’s rising. We believe the best 
English butter-makers set the milk about 2 
inches deep. In this country, those who 
have received prizes for the greatest product 
of butter from a given amount of milk, re¬ 
port 2 to 21 inches as the proper depth. 
12. Milk Room .— This should combine dry¬ 
ness, coolness, airiness, and neatness. It 
should be upon the north side of some other 
building, or in some manner be sheltered 
from the sun, and have its windows open to 
the north or northeast. A milk room and 
an ice house can be well combined. Where 
but few cows are kept, however, the cellar 
is generally used as a milk room, and it an¬ 
swers a very good purpose if kept clean and 
well ventilated. Where two or three cows 
only are kept, it is always best to partition 
off a portion of the cellar, and give it a hard, 
dry floor, whitewash it well, and provide for 
a good current of air. The temperature 
should be kept as isear 50 degrees as possible. 
Opening or closing the windows and doors 
in hot, damp, or cold weather, will facilitate 
this. Perfect neatness, or the removal of 
every thing like filth or decaying materials, 
is of the first importance. A little milkdeft 
to sour upon the shelves or floor, or in the 
corners or seams of the milk vessels, will do 
much to deteriorate all the milk, cream, or 
butter in the room. Scouring the shelves 
with sand, and washing every shelf and ves¬ 
sel with hot water, should be practiced very 
frequently. 
13. Raising the Cream. —To facilitate the 
raising of the cream, the pans should not be 
moved about, nor should the surface of the 
milk be agitated by currents of air. In a re¬ 
cent lecture, Prof. Way, of England, sug¬ 
gests that a gentle, uniform motion might 
facilitate the rising of the butteraceous par¬ 
ticles ; but until some machinery is invented 
for this purpose, a safer rule is to keep the 
pans unmoved. We think, however, an oc¬ 
casional gentle tapping with a small stick 
upon the sides of the milk vessels, so as to 
jar the contents without agitating the sur¬ 
face, may hasten the more perfect separa¬ 
tion and ascent of the cream. If the tem¬ 
perature of the room is kept low, the skim¬ 
ming should be deferred 30 to 40 hours, or 
longer if the milk remains sweet. The first 
skimming should be made before any sour¬ 
ing takes place. The cream is usually re¬ 
moved with a skimmer punctured with small 
holes. There is the objection to this, that 
the milk dripping through mingles the re¬ 
maining cream with the milk in the pan. 
This is avoided by using a tight skimmer 
having a straight edge. Some dairymen 
draw off the milk slowly through a small 
spiggot or tap in the bottom of the pan. 
14. Preserving the Cream .— We think it 
better to keep the cream in two portions, one 
consisting of that removed at the end of 24 
hours, and the other of that removed after 
souring and curdling has commenced. Let 
these two portions be churned separately. 
In this way a larger yield of butter will be 
secured, and the greater part of it will, other 
things being equal, be of a very superior 
quality. As milking is, or should be, done 
at regular intervals, a convenient plan is to 
draw a single chalk-mark upon all the pans 
in use at every milking, so that the number 
of marks upon any pan tells at once how 
many milkings old it is. The cream should 
be kept in the coolest place possible until 
ready for churning. In warm weather the 
churning should take place very frequently, 
once in two or three days at longest, and 
while the cream is still sweet, always bear¬ 
ing in mind that the decay of any of the 
casein, which always takes place in connec¬ 
tion with souring, by so much deteriorates 
not only the taste, but especially the keeping 
quality of the butter. 
Corn Fodder.— J. C. McGrew, of Smith- 
field, Jefferson Co., Ohio, writes the Ohio 
Farmer, that last season he sowed two acres 
of corn between the 10th and 20th of June, 
using two bushels of seed to the acre, broad¬ 
cast and harrowed in. He cut it with a 
cradle, leaving a few stalks standing every 
few rods, for the purpose of tying the shocks 
to. After the fodder had become cured in 
the swaths, it was set up around the stand¬ 
ing stalks, and tied. Here it remained till 
perfectly dry, when it was hauled in and 
placed in a rick under a shed. Although he 
had not more than a half crop on account of 
the drouth, it fed 137 sheep two months and 
four days. 
Forty-nine farmers, or dairymen, in the 
single town of Streetsboro’, Portage County, 
Ohio, have 1,396 cows, or an average of 
about 70 each. 
