’Mh/’w'V.rt./q/'MW'omn.fMU, 
TWO DOLLARS A YEAR.] 
[SINGLE NO. FIVE CENTS, 
MOORE’S RURAL NEW-IORKER. 
muck, and consider it worth $1 per load to use 
AX ORIGINAL WEEKLY 
AGRICULTURAL, LITERARY AND FAMILY JOURNAL 
CONDUCTED BY D. D. T. MOORE, 
WITH AN ABLE CORPS OP ASSISTANT EDITORS. 
SPECIAL CONTRIBUTORS i 
H. T. BROOKS, Prof. C. DEWEY, 
T. C. PETERS, L. B. LANGWORTHY, 
H. C. WHITE, T. E. WETMORE. 
The Rural New-Yorker is designed to be unique and 
beautiful in appearance, and unsurpassed in Value, Purity and 
Variety of Contents. Its conductors earnestly labor to make it 
a Reliable Guide on the important Practical Subjects connected 
with the business of those whose interests it advocates. It 
embraces more Agricultural, Horticultural, Scientific, Mechan¬ 
ical, Literary and News Matter, interspersed with many appro¬ 
priate and beautiful Engravings, than any other paper published 
in this Country,—rendering it a complete Agricultural, Lit¬ 
erary and Family Newspaper. 
For Terms, and other particulars, sec last page. 
In the above analyses, the ashes of pure coal 
was subjected to the test; but in the ordinary 
productsofthe kitclien-ranges and parlor-grates 
of our inland towns and villages, the results of 
coal burning are much more valuable, for the 
following reasons, viz. :—Many persons kindle 
their fires with wood, and keep a supply of such 
fuel on hand to aid in combustion, and to resus¬ 
citate the fire when, from inattention, it may 
have become low. Much other organic matter 
finds its way into the fire—scraps of leather, an 
occasional bone, the sweepings of the floors, and 
a thousand other things of similar character.— 
then again, after the ashes have been removed 
from the grate and screened (if the consumer is 
economical) much refuse matter is thrown upon 
the heap ; liquids, containing invaluable fertil¬ 
izing properties are poured out and saturate 
the mass, the gases of which are, more or 
less, absorbed by the inert and neutral earthy 
portion of the ashes, so that, when finally re¬ 
moved, instead of from four to eight per cent, of 
available matter, we may safely calculate upon 
from fifteen to twenty per cent. Coal ashes 
should, therefore, where available, never be 
wasted, hut made an ingredient of the compost 
heap or scattered broadcast as a top dressing 
over the fields. 
MUCK AS A MANURE. 
Few farmers appreciate the value of swamp 
muck, and it has been suggested that the great¬ 
est reason why it is not turned to better ac¬ 
count, is that it is so very abundant, cheap, and 
easily obtained. There are few farms in many 
sections of the country which have not enough 
and to spare, or are situated in near proximity 
to large deposits of this valuable fertilizer. In 
looking over the first five years of this journal, 
we are surprised to find so few accounts ot ex¬ 
periments in its use from our farmer readers, 
though these few show, in a most favorable 
light, its value as an application to the soil. 
One of these experiments reported related to 
its use, composteU with barn-yard manure, 
upon an old meadow as a top-dressing. The 
yard manure was piled in the field late in the 
spring, and covered with about one-fifth its 
quantity of muck. During the summer it -was 
turned and mixed together, and covered with 
fresh muck, and so remained until snow fell, 
when 100 loads of the compost were spread 
upon a five-acre meadow, which yielded about 
six tuns of inferior hay the previous summer. 
The product the next season was eighteen tuns 
of first-rate hay — a very satisfactory result to 
the experimenter. Perhaps he can now tell us 
how long the effect of the application continued, 
and whether other trials have confirmed his 
opinion of the value of this material. 
But there is abundant testimony as to its 
practical value. A farmer who has used over 
500 loads within four years on a farm of less 
than 50 acres, says :—“ I have used meadow 
muck with very satisfactory results on my dry- 
est land, and never have applied it, (after re¬ 
moving the acidity by lime or exposure to the 
atmosphere,) without being favorably impressed 
of its utility on land of sandy loam, applied 
with or without other vegetable matter.” He 
composts largely with yard and stable manures, 
and thinks so highly of it that he purchased an 
acre of swamp meadow on purpose to secure 
muck for fertilizing purposes. Another farmer 
SHORT-HORN COW “ NYMPH II. 
Above we present the portrait of a beautiful 
and superior Short-horn Cow, owned by Messrs. 
B. <fc C. S. Haines, of Elizabeth, N. J. Her 
pedigree, as furnished by the Messrs. H., is as 
follows: 
Roan ; calved July 16th, 1850 ; bred by Col. 
Sherwood; the property of B. & C. S. Haines, 
Elizabeth, N. Jersey; sire, imported 3d Duke 
of Cambridge (5941 ;) Dam, Nymph, by Ber¬ 
tram 2d (3144;) g. d. Annette, by Patriot 
(2412;) g. g. d. Nonpareil, by Young Denton 
( 963 »0 g- g- g- <L, Arabella, by North Star 
(460;) g. g. g. g. d., Aurora, by Comet (155;) 
g. g. g. g. g. d.,-, by Henry (301 ;) g. g. 
g- g- g- g- d.,-, by Danby (190.) Winner 
of the 1st Prize in the Class of Heifers at the 
American Institute, and Queens Co. (N. Y.) 
Fairs in 1852. 
every two days, and in warmest weather, every 
day. The cream thus collected, will be found 
to acquire a slight acidity as before mentioned. 
Perhaps it is not strictly correct to say butter 
cannot be made without the presence of lactic 
acid, but certain it is, that the butter will be 
deficient in quantity and quality, and whenev¬ 
er good butter is churned the lactic acid is al¬ 
ways present in the butter-milk. 
To effect the separation of the butter from 
the cream a degree of agitation is always neces¬ 
sary, varying with so many varying circum¬ 
stances, it will be profitable to mention but few 
of them. Contact of atmospheric air is not ab¬ 
solutely essential to the production of butter, 
although oxygen from the air is usually absorb¬ 
ed in churning ; and all must be aware of the 
influence of an electrical current who have ob¬ 
served the effect of a thunder-storm on a dairy 
of milk. One of the most important points in 
the churning of cream, is the temperature at 
which it is commenced and carried forward.— 
From many experiments made under favorable 
circumstances and in many different places,the 
most clearly established conclusions appear to 
be “ that cream should not be kept at a high 
temperature during the process of churning, 
that when the temperature is lowest, the quan¬ 
tity of butter obtained was in the greatest pro¬ 
portion to the quantity of cream used, and as 
the temperature was raised the proportional 
quantity of butter was diminished, while by 
raising the mean temperature of the cream 
to 70°, not only was the quantity of butter di¬ 
minished, but in quality it was found to be very 
inferior, both with regard to taste and appear¬ 
ance. These experiments, also, indicate that a 
comparative low temperature should be sought 
in churning, in consequence of the specific 
gravity of the churned cream having been found 
to diminish as the temperature of the cream 
was increased ; thus showing that at the lower 
temperature, the butter which is composed of 
the lighter parts of the cream is more easily and 
completely collected than at the higher tempe¬ 
rature, in which the churned cream is of great¬ 
er specific gravity. 
The conclusions deduced from these continued 
and varied experiments are, that the best tem¬ 
perature at which to commence churning, is 
from 50° U> 55°, and that at no period of the 
process ought the temperature to exceed 65°. 
If the cream is too cold in churning, it has a 
pale white color, and the butter obtained will be 
of the same hue, while the amount will be very 
much below what the cream should produce.— 
If the temperature is below 50° the butter will 
not come, and at but little above, from two to 
three hours churning, and often more time will 
be required before butter can be obtained.— 
Whenever the temperature in churning is per¬ 
mitted to rise above 65°, the effect is equally 
observable in the quantity and quality of the 
butter ; giving it a soft, oily character, and de¬ 
stroying that rich, substantial taste and grain by 
which we always distinguished good table but¬ 
ter, the excess of temperature having rendered 
the separation of the butter-milk very difficult, 
if not impossible without the aid of quite a lib¬ 
eral quantity of salt, and thorough and repeated 
washing, both of which detract from the fine 
flavor and texture of the butter. Too much 
care cannot be bestowed upon churning, as an 
i important part of butter making, and under no 
circumstances should it be performed in a hur¬ 
ried or imperfect manner. Butter, to be good, 
should not come in summer weather in less than 
thirty-five to forty minutes, and no dairyman 
should expect favorable results who undertakes 
the work without the aid of a thermometer, 
which is, in butter making, something akin to 
the mariner’s compass in the navigation of the 
ocean. We do not desire to be understood as 
saying good butter cannot be made without a 
thermometer to mark the temperature and its 
changes, because many butter makers, by prac¬ 
tice and close observation, become good judges 
of temperature without having used the ther¬ 
mometer at all, though unquestionably their 
operations could be better performed by its use. 
Not a little perplexity occurs with butter 
makers in the selection of a churn, as interested 
patentees and manufacturers are now as ever 
loud in the praise of their favorite bantling, 
often urging their superiority on claims, which, 
if true, would render them unworthy the atten¬ 
tion or use of dairymen at all. We shall not 
now enter into a discussion of their respective 
merits more than to say that the most simple, 
under all circumstances, may be considered the 
best. The common dash churn, excepting the 
labor required to operate it, is to be preferred, 
and remains in almost universal use, where 
power is applied. Next to this we would rank 
the common cylinder and thermometer churns, 
the latter only more valuable for having a double 
bottom, whereby the temperature may more 
easily and readily be kept under control during 
churning. It would require a chapter to speak 
of churns as they deserve, as connected with 
the important operations of butter making._ 
These matters are worthy of consideration, and 
we design to see they are not neglected. Our 
present chapter has become somewhat elonga¬ 
ted, rendering it necessary to trouble the reader 
with another, at least, upon the same subject 
wherein we purpose to treat of salting, packing, 
preserving, and marketing butter, as well as to 
glance at the practice of acknowledged butter 
makers, in different sections of the country, al¬ 
so, to speak of the different kinds of butter 
made for different markets.—n. c. w. 
early Greeks and Romans acquired the art from 
the Germans. It was not then used as an arti¬ 
cle of food, only as an oil. According to 
Herodotus, the Scythians made butter by agi¬ 
tating mare’s milk. From the poet Anaxandri- 
des we learn that the Thracians ate butter to the 
great astonishment of the Grecians, and at the 
time of the invasion of England by Julius 
Cacsar, the inhabitants bad an abundance of 
milk from which they made butter, but knew 
not the art of making cheese until taught bv 
their invaders. The Arabs are very large con¬ 
sumers of fresh butter, which, in their wander¬ 
ing mode of life, is made by placing the sack 
of milk upon the back of a favorite camel, and 
trotting over the sandy desert, evolving the but¬ 
ter by a method analagous to modern churning. 
He knows little and cares less about the philoso¬ 
phy ot the change effected, desiring only an 
unctuous substance that shall render his unleav¬ 
ened loaf more palatable. Crude as has been 
Arabian butter making, very much of that made 
in these latter days is not much nearer what 
butter can and should be, than were the products 
of the camel dairies of the plain. 
From the analysis of milk heretofore pub¬ 
lished, the reader has the information that it 
contains from four to five per cent, of oily mat¬ 
ter, from which the butter of commerce is made. 
The cream or oily portion of the milk, is me¬ 
chanically united with the other parts of the 
fluid mass, the oil being suspended in the milk 
in minute globules surrounded by a thin, semi¬ 
transparent pellicle or film ot casein. When 
new milk is left undisturbed .he cream, being 
the lighter portion, rises to the top gradually. 
To insure the largest amount, of cream the milk 
should be placed in good sized vessels or pans 
so as to be not more than three or four inches 
deep. The pans should be largest at top, stand¬ 
ing in a cool airy place iu summer, and left un¬ 
disturbed until the cream lias all been collected 
on the surface, which will occur in ten or twelve 
hours, though the practice most prevalent is to 
let the pans remain twenty-four hours, and un¬ 
til, by a chemical action, the lactic acid has been 
formed, without which, the particles of butter 
cannot be successfully collected. 
Very choice, sweet table butter is made by 
taking off the cream after it has stood twelve 
hours, but it cannot be recommended as an eco¬ 
nomical process, as only a portion of the butter 1 
can thus be obtained. The more usual and bet¬ 
ter practice is to skim it off at the end of twen¬ 
ty-four hours after milking, putting the cream 
in an earthen vessel. It should be churned 
tilizing properties in its composition. The ex¬ 
cess of earthy and insoluble matter, over those 
ingredients which are valuable as food for plants, 
renders its transportation to any distance un¬ 
profitable. The residuum, after combustion, va¬ 
ries materially according to the coal burnt,— 
According to Berthier, the ashes produced by 
the combustion of the bituminous coal of St. 
Etienne, France, gave ashes composed as fol¬ 
lows : 
Alumina, insoluble in acids.62 per cent. 
“ soluble. 5 « 
Lime. 6 “ 
Magnesia. 8 “ 
Oxide of Manganese. 3 « 
Oxide and Sulphuret of Iron.16 “ 
Total.100 
Professor John P. Norton, of Yale College, 
analyzed carefully specimeus of white and red 
ash anthracite, with the following results : 
White Ash. Red Ash. 
Matter insoluble in acids.88.68 85.65 
Soluble Silica.0.09 1.24 
Alumina. 3.36 4.24 
Iron. 4 03 5.83 
Lime. 2.11 0.16 
Magnesia. (>.19 2.01 
Soda. 0.22 0.16 
Potash.0.16 0.11 
Phosphoric acid. 0,20 0,27 
Sulphuric acid. 0.86 0.43 
Chlorine. 0.09 00.1 
Total. 99.99 100.11 
According to Professor Norton, we have, 
therefore, from four to eight per cent, available 
matter in coal ashes; not enough, it must be 
confessed, to warrant great expenditure in cash 
oi labor either for collection or for transporta¬ 
tion. There is an equal quantity of valuable 
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