252 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[July, 
pared with two han'd-hoeings. This is an ex¬ 
periment made on faith, and its result will be 
reported in due time. 
We commenced cutting green rye, and feed¬ 
ing it to the cows on the Dili of May, mixing it 
at first with hay, to accustom the animals grad¬ 
ually to the change. The proportion of hay 
was daily reduced until, on the l'2th, none was 
given; and we are now giving the cows all the 
green fodder they can eat, with a decided effect 
on the quantity of milk. At the first cutting the 
rye was not more than one foot high. It is now 
(May 16th) nearly double that and very heavy, 
hut has not commenced to head out. Before 
we shall have finished the field, say ten days 
hence, the last cutting will probably be four feet 
high and fully “jointed.” This portion will 
hardly grow again until late in the season ; but 
that first cut is already starting vigorously and 
promises to be ready for the scythe again by the 
time it is needed, and I hope to have clover 
ready to cut early in June. The clover will be 
followed by oats which are now up and looking 
well, and these should carry us through until 
the sowed corn is large enough. 
I already see a decided advantage from the 
spreading of sea-weed on one-half of my clover 
field. That portion did not seem to be much 
less affected by winter-killing than the other; 
but the growth is much more luxuriant, and 
will pay for the excessive cost of the dressing. 
I wish that I had Brother Bunker’s talent for 
conveying important truths in a homely and 
effective way. He has the very kernel of good 
farming in his “old hat.”—“We want to learn 
what the Deacon never has learned, how to 
spend judiciously as well as to save; how to in¬ 
vest capital in the soil and make it pay ten per 
cent.” Whatever falls short of this is not farm¬ 
ing, but earth-skimming. 
Last spring I planted about half a peck of 
Jerusalem Artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus ). 
The seed was cut into small sets and planted in 
rows 3 feet apart on rich land. They were 
hoed once during the season, but otherwise re¬ 
quired no attention. This spring we dug over 
20 bushels— and fed enough to the stock to see 
that they eat it greedily. The balance of the 
seed will be planted for a crop this year, and 
the yield cannot fail to be very large, probably 
more than could be obtained from any other 
root with the same amount of labor,—1,500 
bushels per acre not being unusual. An analysis 
of this root shows it to be about equal to pota¬ 
toes, bushel for bushel; while the fact, that it 
remains uninjured in the ground all winter and 
can easily be dug in the spring, is a strong ar¬ 
gument in favor of its use. The drawback, 
and it is a serious one, lies in the difficulty of 
clean digging. It is next to impossible to re¬ 
move all of the small tubers, some of which are 
not larger than a pea, and any one of which is 
good for a strong plant the second year. They 
occupy the whole ground,.and, after the most 
careful digging, there is quite sure to be enough 
left to start another crop. As this plant grows 
well year after year on the same ground, it is 
only necessary to devote a certain space perma¬ 
nently to it. If I ever have occasion to use the 
Artichoke patch for any other purpose, I shall 
put up a temporary fence and keep a few hogs 
on the ground, trusting that they will root out 
the last vestige of the crop. 
I have heard that the stalks of the Artichoke 
are excellent for soiling, but have never had oc¬ 
casion to try them. If left until winter, they 
become quite woody and are worth something 
for fuel. I think, however, that it is not neces¬ 
sary to resort to these secondary uses to find a 
reason for growing the crop. The immense 
amount of highly nutritious food that it yields, 
at a season of the year when it is difficult to 
have turnips or mangels in good condition, and 
its superiority to these in nutritive value, are 
sufficient to commend it to all stock farmers. 
An Illinois subscriber makes the just criticism 
on one of my articles that I have told how to 
prepare butter for market, but have not told 
how it should be made. I am not a scientific 
butter-maker; that is, I have no thermometer, 
and allow a good deal of rule-of-thumb work. 
The cardinal rules, that my good German dairy- 
woman follows instinctively, are scrupulous 
cleanliness and constant care as to the condition 
of the milk and cream. In winter the milk- 
pails, when brought from the barn, are set 
into vessels of boiling water and kept there un- 
til'the milk begins to “crinkle” at the top. It 
is then strained into very shallow pans on 
shelves in a warm closet in the house. When 
the cream has separated and before the milk be¬ 
comes sour, (the time being more or less accord¬ 
ing to the weather, usually 30 hours,) it is skim¬ 
med with a common tin skimmer, and the cream 
is kept in a cool place. We churn twice a week. 
The churn is scalded, and if the weather is very 
cold, the cream is kept in a warm room for a 
few hours before churning. The night before 
churning, a teaspoonful of the dry extract of 
annatto for each two gallons of cream is covered 
with half a pint of boiling water and left to 
stand on the back of the stove until morning, 
when it is strained into the churn. We use a 
rotary churn and have it worked by two men; 
relieving each other at short intervals, so that 
the churning may be uninterrupted and steady. 
The butter usually comes in about half an hour. 
In summer the milk is set in an outer room con¬ 
structed for the purpose, which has a cemented 
floor kept constantly wet. It is well ventilated 
and has a window to the north only. In the 
center of the room the skimming table stands, 
and all the sides are supplied with shelves at in¬ 
tervals of 7 inches, from the floor to the ceiling. 
Each shelf consists of two square sticks of l'| 3 - 
inch stuff, supported by brackets from the sides. 
These sticks rest, corner up, in notches sawn in¬ 
to the brackets, but they are nailed fast. The 
whole of this wood-work is thoroughly painted ; 
and at frequent intervals the sticks are taken 
down, washed, and stood in the sun, the brack¬ 
ets being scrubbed out at the same time. From 
the position of the shelf sticks, the pans rest on 
their corners. If the shelves were made of 
boards or slats, or if even the present sticks 
were laid on their sides, more or less of the bot¬ 
tom of the pan would be shut off from the cir¬ 
culation of the air, and would probably cool 
less rapidly, or at least less uniformly than by 
the present arrangement, which exposes the 
whole bottom of the pan to the air. 
The milk is strained into these pans directly 
from the milking pails. The walls of the milk- 
room are frequently whitewashed. The door 
is kept closed and the window kept protected 
by a mosquito bar. If possible, the cream is 
taken off before the milk commences to sour. 
In the warmest weather the milk stands only 12 
hours. In moderate weather 24 hours. The 
cream is kept in a large tin can and hung in the 
well, and it keeps perfectly sweet until churning 
time. In summer, of course, no annatto is used, 
as the natural summer color of Jersey butter is 
all that could be desired. The churning is done 
in the same manner as in winter, and as the 
cream is taken directly from the well at a low 
temperature, the time required for churning is 
about the same. After the butter has been gath¬ 
ered by the dasher, the plug at the bottom of 
the churn is withdrawn and the buttermilk is 
drawn off. Then the plug is replaced and a lit¬ 
tle cold water is thrown in, and the butter is 
slightly washed by turning the dasher. This 
operation is repeated a second time. The but¬ 
ter is now taken from the churn and worked in 
the manner described in Ho. 4 of these papers. 
The amount of salt used is not weighed, but it 
is very little indeed; not more than a fifth part 
of what is usual, not enough to impart much 
keeping quality to the butter. We deliver to 
private customers once a week in winter and 
twice a week in summer, and the butter is prob¬ 
ably always kept in refrigerators. Under these 
circumstances salt is not needed as a preserva¬ 
tive, and those who are accustomed to its ab¬ 
sence have a distaste for it. 
If there is one thing more important than all 
others in its influence on the quality of butter, 
it is to hunt out the last drop of buttermilk or 
moisture from the mass. The smallest percep¬ 
tible amount of either buttermilk or water, will 
take away from the desirable waxy appearance 
from the outset, and will affect, the taste after 
the first day. 
Titus Oaks’ Lactometer. 
Titus Oaks, Esq., is rather a quaint old farmer 
of Westchester Co., who, though he made his 
money in Hew York, has never weaned himself 
from country life. He manages a large farm, 
with all old-fashioned convenient surroundings, 
has his choice daily, his fine yokes of oxen, 
and a blacksmith shop, to remind him of his 
Hew-England home, and the employment of his 
youth and of his ancestors. He has been ex¬ 
perimenting more or less for several 
years upon the richness of the milk of 
different cows, and of the same cow at 
different periods, and many of his re¬ 
sults have been very interesting. He 
has found the most convenient Lactom¬ 
eter—or cream-measurer, which any one 
has made, to be one of his own inven¬ 
tion. He buys uniformly cylindrical 
glass tubes, three-quarters of an inch to 
an inch in diameter, with good, thick 
walls. The dealer will cut them in 
lengths of a foot. It is well to'have the 
ends “sealed,” that is, heated in a spirit 
lamp or fire until the glass begins to 
soften at the edge. They must be grad¬ 
ually heated and gradually cooled, or 
they will crack. Corks are fitted tight¬ 
ly to one end, and a mark on the out¬ 
side is made with a pen at just 10 inches 
from the end of the cork within the 
tube. This tube is set upright in a little 
rack, in an old lamp globe or any snch 
thing, filled with milk, warm from the 
cow, and allowed to stand 24 hours. 
The cream will rise, and may be measured. If 
one uses a rule divided into inches and tenths, 
each tenth of an inch will show one per cent ot 
cream; an inch will, of course, show ten per 
cent. When the tube is to be cleaned, the cork 
is withdrawn, and a stream of water poured 
through. The results given by this instrument 
are very accurate. The engraving represents 
the tithe filled with milk, the cream having risen. 
