1870. ] 
181 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
Ogden Farm Papers—No. 4. 
I am now preparing nine acres and a half for 
corn—being one-sixth of .the arable portion of 
the farm. It will afford an opportunity for com¬ 
paring the effect of two or three different condi¬ 
tions of preparation of the land. The soil is 
heavy, and before draining was excessively wet, 
although lying over the crown of a high ridge 
with slope enough to make draining easy. 
About one-half of the land was seeded down 
in 18G7, and is,, still in grass; one-third was in 
corn in ’67, in roots (very poor crop) in 1868 and 
produced, with heavy manuring, a very fine 
crop of corn fodder in 1869; one-sixth produced 
a poor crop of hay in 1868 and a very good crop 
of soiling rye in 1889. Of the grass portion, a 
small piece that was manured in September was 
plowed up in October, being a strip about 20 
feet wide across the field, with grass, manured 
at the same time, on each side of it. The ma¬ 
nuring is being done at intervals, by strips 
from one side of the field to the other, and will 
not be finished before April. The plowing (ex¬ 
cept the small strip of grass land plowed last 
fall) will all be done immediately before plant¬ 
ing, and the subsequent treatment of the land 
will be uniform, while its condition when I took 
the place was about identical. The result will 
show a comparison between the following con¬ 
ditions :— 
1. Grass land, top-dressed early in the fall, 
and left untouched until May. 
2. The same land, plowed in the fall, the ma¬ 
nure being turned under with the sod a month 
after its application—heavy rains having fallen 
in the meantime. 
3. Land that has produced a heavy growth of 
rye, been twice plowed after harvest, manured 
in the winter and plowed again in the spring. 
4. Land (which before produced corn fodder) 
in perfect tilth, very heavily manured, plowed 
during the fall and winter, heavily manured 
again in March and plowed in May. 
5. Glass land manured at various times be¬ 
tween September and March. 
The most important comparison will be be¬ 
tween Nos. 1 and 4. The first will probably 
have a heavy spring growth to turn under; the 
last will have had more thorough cultivation and 
exposure in the rough furrow during a very 
freezing and thawing winter. It is hardly pos¬ 
sible to make any reasonable prophecy of the 
results, but I shall watch the experiment closely, 
and report the different results. If other farm¬ 
ers would make similar experiments, the va¬ 
rious results in different soils and climates 
would furnish a foundation from which some 
valuable conclusions might be drawn. 
One of my early ventures was to purchase a 
thorough-bred stallion, son of the old race-horse 
“Wagner,” and of “ Fanny King” (a daughter 
of imported “Glencoe”). I had three farm 
mares to breed from, and could hear of but one 
thorough-bred stallion in the State. To send the 
three mares to this horse would cost, for service 
alone, $300. So I bought “ Dallas.” He com¬ 
bines more fully, than any other horse I have 
seen since “Hero’s” time, the qualities of good 
temper, good form, good bone and good blood, 
which are most desirable in a sire. Hoping to 
secure the patronage of my neighbors, I fixed 
the price of his service at $25—to insure. I 
counted without my host; for my neighbors con¬ 
tinued to send their mares, at $3 a leap, to a 
cold-blooded trotter. Dallas has received a few 
mares from a distance, and a few from the 
neighborhood. Although at the price fixed I 
have received less than the cost of keeping him, 
I feel fully compensated by the two mare colts, 
now one year old, that I have in my stable, (one 
mare produced a dead foal) and I think that they 
are enough finer than my neighbors’ colts to 
convince them of the economy of breeding only 
to a thorough-bred sire. My own mares are to 
foal again this spring, and I have laid a founda¬ 
tion for a stock that will bo cheap at its cost. 
Mr. Edward Curran of Utica, asks whether a 
Jersey hull would be the best stock getter for 
the milk and cheese dairies in his soction. By 
no means. The Jersey blood is valuable, main¬ 
ly, because a large quantity of milk, and a 
proportional production of casein, have, in this 
breed, been subordinated to the production of 
cream and butter. A Jersey bull would impart 
to the stock of a cheese farm, a quality that 
would be little prized, and would probably les¬ 
sen the value of the stock for the manufacture 
of common chaese. If you want a sure annual 
average of over 200 lbs. of butter from moderate 
feeding, the nearer you get to having a herd of 
pure Jerseys, the more likely you will he to se¬ 
cure your object,and the farther you will get from 
a great flow of milk, and a great yield of cheese. 
I have received several letters from readers of 
the Agriculturist asking how they can get my 
high prices for butter. The question is a diffi¬ 
cult one to answer. It depends much on the 
nearness of a good market, that is, of people 
who are willing to pay an extra pricG for extra 
quality; but it depends still more on the extra 
quality itself. The cows must be good, the feed 
must be good and regularly given, and above 
all, the dairy maid’s part of the work must be 
thorough and untiring from the time the milk is 
brought into the house until the butter is sent 
out of it. The essential qualities of good butter 
are, that it should be worked to a firm, waxy 
texture; perfectly dry, of good color, and but 
very slightly salted. It should be put up in 
neatly printed lumps, and as it goes to market 
each lump should be surrounded with a piece of 
damp muslin. The most that can be said as to 
flavor is that there should be no objectionable 
taste, such as that of turnips or oil-meal. 
If any one of these points is more important 
than another, it is the question of color —for 
most people taste with their eyes rather than 
with their palates. No butter, no matter how 
good, will fetch a high price unless it have a 
high color. Iu summer there is no difficulty, 
but in the winter season butter is ichite. I have 
a herd of pure Jersey cattle, the yellow pigment 
peculiar to whose organization has been the 
subject of much study. I have fed them on 
rowen hay, on turnips, on beets, on corn-meal, 
on everything, in short, that they would eat that 
is supposed to contain coloring matter, and I 
have never yet had in winter (from a dozen 
cows) a single pat of butter that was naturally 
more yellow than “cream-laid” paper. During 
the first winter of my operations, Mr. Tyler sent 
me from Philadelphia a pound-print of pecu- 
culiarly deep-colored butter, to encourage me. 
He said its color was due solely to the corn- 
meal on which the cows were plentifully fed. 
He sent me the name of the maker and I visited 
him the next June. He told me, very frankly, 
that he used annatto the year around, so that his 
customers should not miss the summer color 
when he was obliged to use it in winter. The 
manner of coloring is important. I have tried 
various recipes, including carrot juice in the 
churn, and I think that nothing equals pure an¬ 
natto, or rather the solid extract of annatto. 
With Jersey cows, and I think with any oth¬ 
ers, while fed on succulent grass or corn fodder, 
it is not necessary to color during the summer 
season, but as soon as the color begins to pale in 
the autumn, a very little annatto should be 
added, the quantity being increased at each 
churning until the artificial has entirely sup¬ 
planted the natural tint. 
Annatto has another effect besides giving the 
color. It is a strong flavoring substance, and in 
countries wheue it grows it is much used in 
cooking on account of both its aromatic and 
its chromatic quality. In the dairy, it not only 
improves the looks of butter and cheese, but 
imparts a flavor that is a nearer approach to the 
“sweet vernal grass” taste than it is possible to 
obtain in any other way. The ordinary annatto 
of commerce is objectionable on account of its 
adulterations, but the pure dry extract (annatto- 
ine) is in every way desirable. 
The use of annatto is very simple and easy. 
The darker extract being used, (there are two 
kinds) about l‘| a grains' should be weighed out 
for each pound of butter to be made. This 
should be dissolved over night in boiling hot 
water, and kept in a warm place. In the morn¬ 
ing it should be strained into the churn through 
a piece of fine cambric. The color given to the 
butter is not precisely that of summer, having a 
somewhat more reddish cast, but it is very rich, 
and the product is in every way improved by 
the application. Even for shipping to distant 
markets, the extra care above recommended will 
be amply repaid. There are dozens of buyers 
in New York City who are seeking for butter of 
extra quality for their retail trade, who would 
gladly pay even 50 per cent above the market 
price if they could be sure of a regular supply, 
no matter how small; and they will soon scent 
out a fancy brand. 
After experimenting with various patented 
butter-workers, I have got one up on my own 
account after a model that I saw in use in Penn¬ 
sylvania, and I like it better than any of the 
more complicated devices. It is simply a white 
oak table, two feet long and three feet wide, 
made of very heavy stuff, so as to stand firmly, 
one side being one inch lower than the other, 
with a groove along the lower edge to lead the 
buttermilk to one corner, from which it drips 
into a pail. The butter is laid on this table and 
worked with a blunt-edged white oak knife 12 
inches long and 5 inches wide, with a projection 
6 inches long at each end, for handles. The 
whole is made of s | 4 inch stuff, worked thinner 
at the edges. The handles are two inches wide 
with rounded edges. With this apparatus the 
butter is Vorked out into a flat mass, wiped dry 
with a cloth containing a damp sponge, then 
cut crosswise and wiped again; then rolled to¬ 
gether and re-worked—and so on until it is 
ready to receive .the salt, which is worked iu 
with the same implement. 
My German dairy woman has taught me one 
wrinkle that may be new to others. When the 
butter has been thoroughly worked and is spread 
out thin upon the table, a knife is drawn through 
it from end to end at intervals of an inch, and 
then drawn through crosswise, so as to cut the 
whole mass into small square sections. It is 
then rolled together, flattened out and cut 
again—and again. Every cow hair in the but¬ 
ter that comes in contact with the knife is drawn 
out by it. I have never seen more than two or 
three hairs taken from one churning, (and it is a 
mystery how they came there) but with the ut- 
