1876 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
135 
jects, cream, butter, cheese, and salable skim-milk, 
the deep-can system is by far preferable. The 
leathery surface formed upon cream exposed to 
currents of air in shallow pans, is most undesirable 
when cream is sold. It is also far better that the 
milk sold should not be too blue; it is therefore 
well that a modicum of cream should remain in the 
milk. The creamery had not been long established 
when marked 
Differences In the Quality of the Milk 
received from different farmers, were observed. 
These for a long time formed a subject for study, 
for consultations among the directors, and finally 
the facts became currently known. While A’s milk 
indicated 16 per cent of cream day after day, B’sl4, 
C’s 13 or 12, that of other farmers threw up only 9, 
and even 8 and 7 per cent of cream. The amount 
of butter made from the low grade and from the 
high grade milks when kept separate, showed par¬ 
allel results, while the butter of the poor milk was 
of wretched quality. Tet there was no suspicion 
of watering, or other tampering with the milk. The 
differences in quality of milk resulted solely from 
the quality of the cows. Those herds in which 
there were the largest amounts of Jersey blood, 
produced the highest percentage of butter. Those 
having much Devon blood showed great richness 
also, while among the herds of big milkers, com¬ 
posed of natives and of Durham grades, a deficiency 
in butter was distressingly apparent. 
It was to be expected that the beautiful and deli¬ 
cate Jerseys would not fill the eye of the old Short¬ 
horn breeders, any more than they filled the pail, if 
even so much. Still year by year the profit of good 
cream and butter has been more and more desirous, 
and as a consequence Jersey grades have been 
sought after. Recently, however, the attention of 
some of the best farmers has been turned towards 
Tlie Guernsey as tlic Parmer’s Corv, 
especially where butter is an essential product. 
The fanners agree, plausibly, that a breed of cows 
larger than the Jerseys, yielding a proportionately 
larger quantity of butter and of milk, producing fine 
large calves, maturing rapidly, and coming into 
productiveness, like the Jerseys, a year earlier than 
Short-horns, Ayrshire*, or Devons, unless indeed 
great size is particularly desired, and being at all 
times ready when dry, to be quickly fattened to a 
good weight and turned off for beef, is just the 
breed to prove profitable for them under their cir¬ 
cumstances. It was on this account that I was in¬ 
vited up to have a talk with them, having recently 
seen the Guernseys on their “ native heath.” So 
nothing loth, one evening in a quiet parlor, I 
opened my budget of things, new and old. Some 
fifteen well-to-do farmers discussed and questioned 
their policy in the matter until 11 o’clock. I have 
since been surprised at hearing of the readiness 
with which subscriptions were obtained for a dozen 
or more animals to be imported forthwith. They 
are wise in taking up this breed, and I sincerely 
wish them good luck in their venture. These cat¬ 
tle seem to have been bred without any reference 
to good looks, except the good looks of fitness for 
their great business of life, butter-making; and for 
their end in death—beef. 
I wish that some good breeder on the Island 
would take a Short-horn cross, on the sly, and then 
“ breed it out,” retaining fineness of bone, small¬ 
ness of head and offal, and being careful not to de¬ 
crease the quantity or reduce the quality of the 
milk. But they cannot do it, and so the work of 
improving the breed will be slow, rapidly as it has 
been, and is going on. We cannot take such a cross 
and effect the improvement in this country, neither 
could it take place anywhere but on the island with¬ 
out virtually working a taint in the blood. In 
whatever way the improvement comes, there is a 
distinguished future for the Guernseys, and their 
popularity is sure to increase from their sheer merits. 
Tobacco. 
I found tobacco culture had greatly extended 
since I last visited the valley. The mild damp 
weather of the week or two before, had been made 
use of to take down the plants from the “poles ” 
in the drying houses, and the farmers were busy at 
stripping, though the weather was cold and dry. 
The system there in vogue for hanging the plants 
to dry, and partly cure, is one 1 had heard of, but 
never seen in use. It is suspending the plants 
upon laths run through the stalks about a foot from 
the but ends. The laths used are like common 
plasterer’s laths, but nearly twice as thick, sawed 
from clear stuff. At first they were simply pointed, 
sharp, and thrust through a slit made with a knife, 
now, however, one end of the lath is reduced a lit¬ 
tle, and a steel point, called a needle, is slipped over 
the end. This needle easily penetrates the woody 
stems, and thus several plants are strung upon one 
lath, which is then elevated into position and rests 
upon poles laid the proper distance apart. The 
weight of the plants holds the laths edge-up, and 
thus they are abundantly strong to sustain the 
weight, while this is of course growing less every 
day as the plants dry. The needle is not perma¬ 
nently attached to the lath, but slipped from one 
to another as they are used. It is a very convenient 
and simple plan, and is not patented, at least so 
far as the tobacco-growers of that section know. 
Keeping Small Quantities of Milk. 
It is often a matter of importance to take the 
very best care of the milk of one or two cows. 
Where there is a considerable herd, it is usual to 
find a nice dairy room shut off from the rest of the 
house, conveniently near the ice-house and cooled 
by its proximity, or near a cold spring, the water 
from which may be distributed in pools or cooling 
tanks, in which the milk may be set. This is, how¬ 
ever, impracticable, on a small scale, and for this 
reason at certain seasons not half the value of small 
quantities of milk is realized. In winter the family 
store-room or kitchen closet, is often used to set 
the milk in, and in summer no properly cool and 
ventilated apartment can be found. In the winter 
the fumes of cooking and smoke, or of the family 
living-room, fairly taint the cream, and in the sum¬ 
mer the milk will not keep sweet, may be exposed 
to flies, drafts of dust, and often to foreign odors. 
Mice are also frequently annoying. I know this 
from multifarious experiences, and am happy to 
see my way out of the dilema through 
My Neighbor's Milk Closet, 
or rather through his ingenuity. He is an emi¬ 
nently practical man. I claim to be moderately so 
myself, but his thoughts have taken a happier turn 
than mine in this particular direction, or else he 
borrowed his ideas—certainly he was free to lend 
them to me. He had a box made of white wood, 
white oak would have been better, but both are 
nearly odorless, as large as could be taken down his 
cellar steps through an ordinary door, say 2s feet 
wide by 4 feet high, by 5 feet long. In one of the 
upper corners a smaller box was made, say 18 inches 
to 2 feet wide and deep, and as long as the width 
of the closet; the side towards the closet was 
made of strong slats an inch apart, and in the bot¬ 
tom a pan of zinc was placed. This is the ice-box. 
The drip is carried off by a leaden pipe from the 
zinc pan; the ice is supported on slats, and is 
wrapped in a blanket when it is desired to econo¬ 
mize and prevent its thawing. 
The closet has a large door, not going to the 
bottom, on one side opposite to the ice-box, and 
shelves whereon to put 
pans or cans of milk 
and other odorless ar¬ 
ticles, butter, cream, 
puddings, custards, etc. 
There is free air com¬ 
munication between the 
closet space and the 
ice, and as the surplus 
moisture from the air 
is deposited upon the 
ice, the air in the closet is always dry, and drops do 
not form upon the sides. He finds that cooked, 
and even raw meats, may be put into the ice-box, 
and will have no effect on the air in the closet. 
This may be problematical, but I think it is clear 
that such things if sweet and good could not have 
much effect, because I believe most odors are dis¬ 
seminated by means of the moisture in the air. 
This closet would be more economical of ice if it 
were double and lined with some non-conductor, 
but it certainly answered a very good purpose last 
summer, and I shall try something of the kind. 
The temperature may be somewhat regulated by 
the quantity of ice used. 
- — i Mi — - 
c 
Planting Corn—A Marker. 
What would be thought of a mechanic who 
should rip his boards from a log with the old-fash¬ 
ioned whip saw and plane them or match them, by 
hand, or who should w'ork out his nails on the an¬ 
vil one at a time by hand labor ? He would hardly 
earn enough to find himself in bread alone. Tet in 
an equally old-fashioned, costly, and unprofitable 
way do thousands of farmers plant and cultivate 
their corn crops. The ground is plowed, harrowed 
and marked out both ways, either with the plow, or 
sometimes by a quicker method, with a corn mark¬ 
er. The seed is dropped by hand and covered by 
hand with a hoe; the crop is hoed by hand or 
plowed in the old method, leaving the ground 
ridged and deeply furrowed, so that in a dry season 
the corn suffers for want of moisture. All this 
costs so much that the fanner’s labor brings him 
about 50 cents a day, upon which he lives, grumb- 
Fig. 1. —RUNNER AND TOOTU FOR MARKER. 
ling that “farming does not pay.” This method 
would be ruinous in the west where com is a staple 
crop, and that it is not so in the east is simply be¬ 
cause it is not grown to a large extent. But there 
is no crop that may be grown so cheaply and easily 
in the east that produces so much feed as com. 
Fifty bushels of corn and four tons of fodder per 
acre contains more dry nutriment than thirty tons 
of turnips or mangels, and may be grown with less 
labor and less cost, if -only- the best methods are 
employed. Now with the excellent implements 
and machines that are in use for planting and cul¬ 
tivating corn, no farmer can afford to work this 
crop in the old-fashioned method. There is no 
longer any need to plant in squares, for the crop 
may be kept perfectly clean when planted in drills, 
if the proper implements are used. There are sev¬ 
eral corn planters by which the seed may be dropped 
and covered at the same time in single or double 
drills, at the rate of eight to twenty acres per day. 
By using the Thomas harrow a few days after 
planting, every young weed will be killed, and the 
crust, which so often gathers upon the surface, will 
be broken up and the surface mellowed. The har¬ 
row may be used without damage until the com is 
several inches high. Then any one of the many 
2.— THE MARKER AT WORK. 
excellent horse hoes may be used, by which the 
weeds may be cut out of the rows close to the corn 
until the crop is so high that farther working is 
useless. This method of cultivation may cost 82 
per acre, or less, as the ground may have been 
kept free from weeds in previous years, while on 
the old-fashioned system it may cost $10 per acre, 
or more, as the weeds may have been allowed to 
get further ahead. 
Nevertheless, there are farmers who will still 
