1875 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
34=3 
holding from five pounds upwards. If these 
were made in such a shape and of such material 
that they could be used when empty for some 
domestic purposes, if it was not convenient to re¬ 
turn them, or so cheaply that they could be thrown 
aside without much loss, a great convenience would 
result. We have seen a small butter package, 
which is made by James Gilberds, of Jamestown, 
N. Y., which seems to answer the purpose well. It 
is of tin, with a wooden lining, and is made to pack 
from 5 to 50 pounds. The wooden lining is a new 
feature in these packages, and prevents the cor¬ 
rosion of the tin from contact with the salt of the 
butter; the tin casing protects the light wooden 
lining, and gives strength with lightness. 
--- 
A Look at Some Western Dairies. 
BY A STAFF CORRESPONDENT. 
Northern Illinois. —Those who think the Prai¬ 
rie State wholly given to hog and hominy, have a 
very imperfect conception of its agriculture. In a 
resent trip to Elgin, in Kane county, over the North¬ 
western railroad, we had occasion to notice the great 
change which a few years have wrought. Of ne¬ 
cessity the settler of small means seeks bread and 
meat for his family, and corn and the pig by which 
he can transmute it into meat are his first thought. 
Then comes wheat to give variety to his table. The 
cow is an after thought, and among the luxuries of 
life. The rude age of agriculture is already passed 
in all this region. There are thriving villages at 
frequent intervals all along the road, making good 
home markets, and calling for a great variety of 
farm products. The call is no longer confined to 
corn and ham. They want beef, veal, milk, butter, 
cheese, mutton, and lamb, poultry and eggs, and 
the whole catalogue of large and small fruits. It 
was cheering to see how largely these wants are 
met in the districts immediately around these vil¬ 
lages. Orchards and gardens are frequent, and the 
farmers’ homes are often surrounded with orna¬ 
mental trees, and occasionally a vineyard is plant¬ 
ed. It has the appearance of a long settled coun¬ 
try. Everywhere the leading crops, corn, wheat, 
oats, potatoes, and grass, are in splendid condition. 
Elgin is in the valley of Fox River, a region of high 
rolling prairie, well watered and beautiful. It is 
best known to the public as the seat of the factory 
of the National Watch Company. This industry 
has grown from small beginnings into national im¬ 
portance. The machinery, mostly invented and 
made here, saves labor so much, that they can un¬ 
dersell the best watches made in Europe, and are 
now exporting watches. A large town of some ten 
thousand people has grown up around the factory, 
and other manufactures are well established. It is 
not so well known that this is a fine dairy region, 
and its products rival the butter and cheese of New 
York State. In a district about the city not much 
larger than the county, they have 43,000 cows, 11 
cheese factories, 5 butter factories, and, in the city 
itself, a factory for making Borden’s condensed 
milk. This last industry has been well established 
for several years, and finds a ready market for its 
product quite largely on the sea-board. Chicago, 
of course, consumes all the cheese and butter made 
here, that is not taken in the local markets. The 
quality is said to be of the best, aud sells at the top 
of the market. The factory system of making but¬ 
ter and cheese is well established in this and other 
districts in the vicinity of Chicago, and we see no 
reason why it should not spread all through the 
north west, and follow close in the rear of our set¬ 
tlers to the Pacific coast. The well-watered valleys 
fed by streams from the Rocky Mountains are very 
numerous, and a large part of the mountains them¬ 
selves are well adapted to dairy industry. The 
grass is luxuriant, the streams are clear and cold, 
the climate healthful. The cow and the factory are 
much better condensers of the wealth of these pas¬ 
tures and meadows than the swine. Cheese brings 
at least twice the price of pork, and butter worth 
three or four times as much. There is no differ¬ 
ence in the cost of transportation. The shrewd 
people that have settled northern Illinois and Wis¬ 
consin, and the regions west, cannot fail to appre¬ 
ciate these facts. 
The Dairy Interest in the Grazing Belt.— 
Stretching away east of the Rocky Mountains to 
the one-hundredth meridian, is a belt of country 
some hundred miles across and two thousand miles 
long, known as the grazing region. This was the 
favorite range of the buffalo, especially in winter, 
aud he still shares it with ever increasing herds of 
Texas and graded cattle. It is the great beef-grow¬ 
ing region of the country, in which cattle graze the 
year round, requiring no shelter and only the care 
of herdsmen. Immense fortunes are made in this 
business. It has been considered rather a problem 
whether good butter and cheese could be made of 
these grasses. Most eastern people have the im¬ 
pression, and it amounts to a very strong prejudice, 
that nothing but clover and the cultivated grasses 
in the favorable climate of the dairy districts of the 
east, will serve to make firstrate cheese and butter. 
Webster, Randall & Co. have undertaken to solve 
this problem. All the members of the firm arc 
from New York state. E. D. Webster is the chief 
manager, and D. A. Baker the superintendent of 
the cheese fastory. The business is located at 
North Platte, on the Union Pacific railroad, just on 
the eastern edge of this great grazing belt. We 
recently had the pleasure of visiting this estab¬ 
lishment in company with others interested in 
dairy matters. The company came out here last 
fall, and took up a quarter section of land near the 
village. Upon this the home, cheese factory, and 
farm buildings are located. All the region north 
of them is still unoccupied, and affords abundant 
grass for thousands of cattle. They have already 
invested $30,000 in their enterprise, and propose to 
increase their capital as the business seems to de¬ 
mand. They will unite the dairy interest with the 
raising of cattle for beef. They have about 600 
head of cattle, including steers, cows, and calves. 
At present they are milking only 120 cows, but will 
soon have 200, and by another year, from 3 to 400. 
From the present number of cows they get about 
1,400 lbs. of milk. The milk is of good quality, and 
eight quarts of it make a pound of green cheese. 
The weight shrinks about one-fifth in curing. It is 
ready for market when thirty days old. Some of it 
has already been sold, and gives good satisfaction. 
We had the privilege of testing several of the 
cheeses, and consider them equal to the average of 
the factory cheese of the east. The sample of it 
that we took away for our lunch-basket eats well. 
Butter-making is only an incident of the enterprise, 
and is chiefly designed to test the feasibility of 
making good butter. This is made by Mrs. Ran¬ 
dall, a lady of high culture and social position, who 
prefers this pioneer life to the elegant ease of the 
circles in which she has been bred. With an hon¬ 
est pride she showed us several hundred pounds of 
her butter laid down in earthen pots. It was a 
nice article, good enough for New England or New 
York. The products of this factory will find a 
ready market at Cheyenne and Denver, where dairy 
products are much higher than upon the sea-board. 
This experiment we consider a splendid success. 
It is demonstrated that butter and cheese of an 
excellent quality can be made from the grasses 
that grow upon this vast elevated plain. There is, 
vyithout doubt, more grass in this region west of 
the Missouri burnt up and decaying upon the 
ground every year than is used in all the settled 
portion of the country. To teach the nation how 
to turn this vast sea of herbage into wealth, is a 
noble ambition. The cheese factory system of the 
east properly introduced here will add millions 
to the annual earnings of our people. Cheap labor 
is wanted here, and John Chinaman is coming. C. 
A Water-Trough for Sheep. —In watering 
sheep from a trough during the winter season, the 
wool about the cheeks is veiy apt to become loaded 
with ice, especially in case of those with faces 
thickly woolled. To avoid this, a covered trough 
with holes through which the sheep can drink may 
be used. If the trough is supplied with running 
spring water, and the overflow is carried away in a 
covered drain, there will be no ice about it, or at 
most but a very little in the coldest weather. A 
copious supply of water of a moderate temperature 
is of the greatest importance to sheep in the win¬ 
ter, although some people believe that sheep need 
no drink in the winter season. This is a very great 
error, and no owner of a flock should fail to provide 
a water-trough for sheep. 
ample water, and to supply it in the most comfort¬ 
able manner, so as to induce the sheep to drink. 
A trough, such as we have found useful, is shown 
in the engraving. 
--- 
Selection of Seed. —Among animals repro¬ 
duction is most successful and profitable, when the 
agents used are most nearly perfect. And the same 
holds good with vegetables. The seed is the pa¬ 
rent of the crop, and poor seed will invariably pro¬ 
duce a poor crop. The heaviest, plumpest, and 
ripest seed is to be chosen, if we would secure the 
most profitable harvest. Of course no farmer 
should sow weeds, and expect to reap wheat, there¬ 
fore the seed must be perfectly clean. It will pay 
to pick out cockle, chess, and such seeds by hand, 
rather than sow them to stock the ground here¬ 
after. This present labor will be far the lighter 
than the after one of killing weeds. The proper 
selection of seeds for the fall-sowing is of the 
greatest importance. This is no new discovery, 
but is a fact that needs frequent repetition. One 
of the oldest writers on agriculture, who lived 
2,000 years ago, declared the same thing when he 
said, “ I have seen seed to degenerate year by year, 
unless the largest were culled out laboriously.” 
A Place for the Wagon-Box. 
When not in use the wagon-box is a cumbrous 
thing to store away. It is too costly to be allowed 
to lie about amongst the plows and harrows, and 
too bulky to find a place in the tool-house or the 
sheds. Generally it lies up against the fence, or at 
the back of the barn, where it is as much injured 
in one year by exposure, as it would be by several 
years of use. A very convenient plan is to hoist it 
up to the ceiling of a wagon-shed, over the place 
where the wagon usually stands; here it can al¬ 
ways be lowered on to the wagon in two minutes, 
and it is out of the way, and safe from injury. It 
is necessary to have foui rings on the wagon-box, 
one near each corner, two short ropes, and two 
long ones ; and two small pulley-blocks fastened 
to the beams overhead. The short ropes are tied 
to the rings, each crossing one end of the wagon- 
box. There should be a loop in the middle of each 
of these short ropes, to which the long ropes can 
be tied or hooked. When the wagon is backed in¬ 
to the proper place, the ropes are fastened to the 
wagon-box, and each end of the box is hoisted a 
few feet alternately, (if there is only one person to 
pull it up,) until it is high enough. The ropes are 
fastened around cleats fixed to the wall of the shed. 
In the illustration, given on the following page, 
the wagon-box is showm hoisted up, and the ropes 
fastened to the cleats. 
■--- 
A Conservatory Chapel at TJtica, H. Y. 
BY FETER HENDERSON. 
Since the time that Sir Joseph Paxton con¬ 
ceived the idea of the first Crystal Palace, and 
carried it into execution, the use of glass in 
structures of various kinds has widely extend¬ 
ed. Among all the purposes which glass 
structures have been made to serve, the city of 
Utica, N. Y., is, so far as I am aware, the first 
