[ February 21,1887. 
164 JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
raent which is so highly profitable that it enables the 
farmers of Cheshire to continue farming profitably with¬ 
out any abatement of rent. 
The report on the Dairy and Stock, Farm Prize Com¬ 
petition ol 1885, by Mr. J. Chalmers Morton, which was 
published in the first part of the Journal of the Royal Agri¬ 
cultural Society of England last year, is probably the most 
important paper on the subject extant, and any of our 
readers who are desirous of gaining information of prac¬ 
tical dairy farming would do well to procure a copy of it. 
We may take for example the report of Chorlton Farm, 
the area of which is 166 acres, about half being in per¬ 
manent pasture and half arable, for which the tenant was 
paying £2 an acre. To this must be added an outlay for 
labour of 29s. an acre; the expenditure for manures was 
,£132, and the value of purchased and home-grown food 
used was £530, which gives an annual outlay of nearly 
£4 an acre for food and manure. 
An account of the sales of the produce of this farm 
in the previous year, when sixty-four cows had been 
milked, showed that 360 cheeses, weighing 221 cwt. 1 qr. 
19 lbs., sold at 70s. to 75s. per cwt., for £830 5s. 7d. ; 
butter, 2047 lbs., at Is. to Is. 7d., £127 4s.; milk, 6214 
gallons, at 8d. to 10jd., £255 19s. 9d.; fifty-eight fat 
jfigs, averaging £4 Is. Id., £235 2s. lOd.; two cows, 
£16 5s., £32 10s.; two heifers at £12 8s. 9d., £12 17s. 6d.; 
ten fat cattle at £22 14s., £227 ; nine young calves 
at £1 8s. 4d., £12 15s.; nine bull calves at £5, £45; 
eleven calves at £2 15s., £30 5s.; forty fat sheep at 
£3 10s., £140; corn and Potatoes, £390 11s. 3d. The 
sales of milk, cheese, butter, and pigs amounted thus to 
£1449 2s. 3d, or £22 12s. lOd. per cow, in addition to 
which twenty-nine calves had been sold for £97 10s. It 
will be seen that the receipts amounted to £2352 0s. lid., 
and that the cost in rent, labour, food purchased, 
and manures comes to little more than half of that 
amount. To the outlay, however, thus specified there 
should be added purchases of cows, sheep, pigs, and 
grazing stock to the amount of £208 10s. 6d. 
The report goes on to give an account of the process 
of cheese-making practised on this farm, which is so 
explicit that we append it here. “ The long rectangular 
cheese-vat holds 265 gallons, having a false bottom with 
an arrangement for putting in cold or hot water beneath 
the milk. The evening's milk is partly skimmed in the 
morning and then passed through the sieve into this 
vessel, and the morning’s milk is added as it comes in 
from the yard. The whole is heated, if heat is required, 
up to 90° in winter, 84° in summer; a little colouring 
matter is dropped in, and Danish rennet is then added 
at the rate of 2 ozs. to 40 gallons, and the milk acts in 
about an hour. It is then cut by a sieve-cutter with a 
2-inch mesh, slowly thrust and lifted alternately. After 
a short interval of rest the curd is lifted slowly with the 
hand and turned over in the vat; this is continued for 
about fifteen minutes, and then it is again broken with a 
half-inch mesh and left for an hour and a half longer. 
The whey is drawn off through a vertical sieve at the side of 
the vat, and the curd is gathered gradually to one end of the 
trough, the whey being allowed to escape to the tank, where 
it stands till the next morning aud is skimmed, the rest 
going to the pig-vat. The curd is gathered into a sheet 
and left to drain, being pressed under leverage for awhile. 
The salt added to the curd is about \ lb. to every 20 lbs. 
of curd. It is not added until a certain change has 
passed in the curd by lapse of time—a certain degree of 
acidity and consequent stringiness being developed before 
it is put into the mill. It is weighed out in 30 lb. blocks s 
each of which, after being ground in the mill, is mixed 
with 20 ozs. of salt turned over and over in the tub ; 
and with the hands thereafter packed closely into vats, 
having a tin eke protruding above the level of the wood. 
It is turned in the evening; next day a certain amount of 
pressure is applied, and skewers thrust through holes in 
the vat are used for facilitating the escape of any remain¬ 
ing whey. The second day it is put under full pressure. 
The cheeses are turned once a day, being three days in 
the press. When taken out they are bound in cloth, lifted 
to the cheese-floor, where they are turned every day, and 
sold when three to four weeks old.” 
It is especially noteworthy that the whole of the 
pasture on this farm is grazed, none of it being mown 
for hay, and that the herd is maintained from Christmas 
till May chiefly by fodder and roots obtained from the 
arable land. 
WORK ON THE HOME FARM. 
For more than a week after writing our last note the north-east 
wind continued blowing so steadily that the surface of the land became 
wonderfully dry for February. The condition of the soil was so favour¬ 
able for work that we, in common with many other farmers, got in much 
of the spring corn upon the light and mixed-soil farms. Upon the heavy 
land we kept all the ploughs going, gladly turning the fine weather 
to account for bringing up our arrears of such work, and we are now so 
forward with it that we hope to get through our sowing much sooner 
than we did last year. All our arrangements for the cropping of the 
year are matured, the land is ready, so is the seed corn, and our manures 
for sowing upon both winter and spring corn are ordered. Much thought 
has been given to the manures, for with our six farms in hand the sum 
total expended in manures is a heavy one, and we have carefully to 
consider ways and means beforehand. That manure must be had is a 
foregone conclusion, for without it we know that our crops will be in¬ 
ferior—so inferior that our work will be comparatively useless. Before 
ordering Clover or mixed seeds for layers, due thought must be given to 
results. Both Red and White Clover make excellent fodder, and in a 
favourable climate a crop of seed may be saved. If only the seed is 
pure and good it is a very profitable crop. We have recently sold a con¬ 
siderable quantity of seed at prices ranging from 33s. to 40s. per bushel. 
Taking the average crop of Clover seed at 4 bushels an acre, it will easily 
be seen that to obtain it from the second growth of Clover is a very 
satisfactory business. Two and three years mixed layers will probably 
have more attention as a means of saving labour. We are not, however, 
prepared to adopt them to the entire exclusion of Clover pure and 
simple. 
That markets fluctuate is a well-known fact, of which we have just 
had a striking illustration, our fat sheep sold this week having realised 
os. a head more than similar animals sold last week in the same market. 
Forward hoggets are now being sent into market in prime condition ; fat 
ewes withdrawn from the flock last autumn are also being sent for sale 
in weekly batches. They have now been in folds four or five months, 
and have done much good upon the land. The lambing is going on 
satisfactorily ; the losses so far are few and far between ; there is a fair 
proportion of twins, and all are strong and healthy. We have begun 
folding the ewes and lambs upon white Turnips, and some lamb food 
will be used as soon as they can eat it. The Turnips have not suffered 
from the severe frost, and there are plenty of green leaves upon them 
for the lambs. 
METEOROLOGICAL OKSERVATIONS. 
Oamdbn Square, London. 
Lat. 51° 32' 40" N.; Long. 0° 8' 0" W.; Altitude, 111 feet. 
DATE. 
9 A.M. 
IN THB Day. 
Hygrome- 
a . 
o- • 
Shade Tern- 
Radiation 
a 
1887. 
ter. 
3 a 
XU 
9 
peratnre. 
Temperature 
cC 
PS 
February. 
£ S 
££ 
8 
<D 32 —< 
In 
Oil 
Dry. 
Wet. 
5 o 
P* 
Max 
Min. 
sun. 
grasN 
Inches. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
detf. 
deg. 
In. 
Sunday . IS 
80.444 
36.2 
33.8 
N.E. 
36.1 
42 1 
30.9 
64.2 
26.8 
— 
Monday ..14 
30.244 
33.9 
32.8 
N. 
36.2 
40.2 
29.6 
48.3 
25.9 
— 
Tuesday .15 
SO .\>M 
37.3 
35.2 
E. 
36.2 
38.7 
29.2 
42.1 
27.7 
— 
Wednesday ..16 
30.455 
29.3 
27.6 
N.E. 
36 3 
42 1 
25.1 
67.6 
20.7 
— 
Thursday ...17 
30.420 
24.7 
24.3 
Calm 
35.4 
31.9 
22.6 
40.2 
16.6 
0.117 
Friday .18 
30.035 
86.7 
36.6 
S. 
35.0 
43 4 
23 6 
50 l 
18.8 
0.110 
Saturday '....19 
30.215 
39.7 
38.2 
N.E. 
34.8 
444 
36.6 
66.0 
30.5 
— 
30.S10 
34.0 
32.6 
— 
35.7 
40.4 
282 
54.1 
23.9 
0.227 
REMARKS. 
18th.—Cold N.E. wind but fine. 
14tli.—Generally cloudy but some sunshine in the middle of the day. 
15th.—A little sun in afternoon, at other times cloudy. 
10th.—Cold, fresh, and very bright. 
17th.—Rather thick fog, increasing towards evening, then clear. 
18th.—Silver thaw, wet morning, damp afternoon, fair evening. 
19th.—Generally fine with eome bright sunshine. 
A rather oloudy but not wet week, and very cold—the average temperature only 
about 2 degrees above freezing point.—G. J. SYMONS. 
