82 
THE RURAL NE W - Y O R K E R. February 10 
are grown in a mixture of earth and manure—as a 
rule not much fertilizer being used on these crops. 
I'^ollowing the lettuce comes a crop of cucumbers 
which are trained up about the house and give a mar 
kf table crop long before those planted out-of-doors. 
Of out-door crops, there are dandelions, beets, 
radishes, lettuce, asparagus, parsnips, onions, cab¬ 
bage, squash, strawberries, spinach, peas, string 
beans, tomatoes, etc. At the end of the season (Oc¬ 
tober) all the early crops will have disappeared and 
the whole farm will present one mass of celery or 
late cabbage. The plan is to grow two crops on every 
possible foot of ground. There are many early crops, 
but celery and late cabbage are about the only pro¬ 
fitable late ones. One wary in which this double 
cropping is carried out is shown at Fig 31. Here we 
have a crop of peas grown by E. II. Marshall, of 
Woburn, Mass., on fertilizer alone. Squashes have 
been planted between the rows of peas so that when 
the pea vines are finally removed there will be 
another profitable crop growing up to take posses¬ 
sion of the ground and yield later returns. 
A Talk With a Veteran. 
Mr. Varnum Frost is one of the best known men in 
Arlington. A talk with him gives a fair idea of the 
views of the more progressive gardeners. These men 
do not rush blindly into every new thing that is pro¬ 
posed. They study it and turn it over carefully be¬ 
fore touching it. To illustrate; for half a century 
these Arlington men have been taught to believe that 
there was no such thing possible as a substitute for 
stable manure in their peculiar work. They have 
accepted other changes that their fathers would not 
have countenanced, but stable manure was the rock 
of fertility that would not split. Why is this? In my 
talks with these farmers I desired to find what there 
really is in stable manure that cannot be duplicated. 
Let us see if we have found out. 
Mr. Frost has 35 acres—all cultivated but three. 
Beginning with his lettuce, he is able to sell some¬ 
thing just out of the ground from January 1 until a 
killing frost—and celery and cabbage may be mar¬ 
keted every day after that. He keeps seven horses 
and no other stock, and grows no hay or potatoes, so 
we can see that all the fertility he adds to his soil is 
imported —in the case of manure, taking the cream 
from some other farm. 
“How much manure have you been using?” I asked. 
“About 350 cords per year. I estimate that a cord 
weighs 13^ ton as we haul it, or three tons as it comes 
from the compost heap. I plow it under at once 
whenever I can, or else pile it for compost.” 
“What does it cost?” 
“I am buying now from a stable where I pay $2 a 
horse per year. It is poor manure—full of straw— 
from a boarding stable where little grain is fed. I 
sometimes pay ^4 per horse for good manure, and it is 
more profitable than the $2 stuff—just the point that 
may be made between high-grade and low grade fer¬ 
tilizers. The former costs more per pound, but is 
cheaper at the price. I estimate that a cord of man¬ 
ure, as I put it on my land, costs $8 in cash.” 
“Is it cheaper than it used to be?” 
“Oh, yes! Before farmers began to believe in fer¬ 
tilizers, manure cost S8 per horse. In many places 
now it is given away for the hauling. If there were no 
fertilizers no one can tell what the price would be to¬ 
day. Fertilizers have kept manure prices down. That 
shows how they compete with it. When they began 
to use electricity in Boston for moving street cars, 
some farmers said that manure would go up in price 
because there was less of it. Not so—farmers seem to 
have used more fertilizers so that manure is, if any¬ 
thing cheaper.” (To be Continued.) 
A HARD-TIMES HIRED MAN. 
This is the name given the device shown at Fig. 30, 
by Mr. C. A. Wells of Pennsylvania. He says that the 
“ hard times” compelled him to cut his wood alone. 
Like a good householder he cuts enough wood in the 
winter to last a year. The machine is easily under¬ 
stood. Three poles or rods make a frame for the saw 
to swing on. Another rod fastened to a bolt at the 
top of the frame plays inside two pieces of board. 
The saw is made fast to the lower end of this rod, 
and then it will swing back and forth as shown in 
the cut. You can have a horse for the wood, or 
drive stakes into the ground with the tops crossed, 
so as to hold the logs. Mr. Wells says he can 
put up five cords in 10 hours with this machine. 
Of course, he says, it takes some little time to learn 
how to run the saw just right. In this machine, the 
stakes are nine feet long for the sides and 10 for the 
other. The pendulum on which the saw is fastened is 
eight feet long, and has holes bored in it so that it can 
be easily raised or lowered. Mr. W. uses the “ horse ” 
or stakes for sawing poles from two to six inches in 
diameter. For sawing large logs he uses a rolling 
platform like that on buzz saws. 
TEMPERATURE AND TIME OF CHURNING 
CREAM. 
L?:8SONS FBOM TIIK WORLD’S FAIR DAIRY CONTEST. 
Some Cows Yield Ouick-Churnlng Cream. 
There are some things of vital importance in churn¬ 
ing cream which were not included in the opinions ex¬ 
pressed by the correspondents on pages 863-864. It is 
a fact more or less well known, that the cream ob¬ 
tained from the milk of some cows churns very easily. 
This does not necessarily prove, however, that all the 
butter in the cream is extracted. A large percentage 
of the butter may be left in the buttermilk, so that 
this quick churning may not be profitable. The prob¬ 
able cause of the easy churning of some cream and 
even milk, is the large size of the fat globules. It has 
doubtlpss been frequently noticed that the milk of 
some cows may be churned by simply carrying it a 
short distance in a can, pail or bucket. This is because 
some of the fat in the milk of these cows is secreted in 
uncommonly large-sized fat globules, and a slight agi¬ 
tation causes them to accumulate into lumps of butter. 
There is, however, a great deal of butter left in this 
same milk alter these larger globules have separated. 
The cows producing this kind of milk and cream are 
a very small minority of the whole number of cows. 
Excepting the cream obtained from such cows, the 
quickness or time of churning is influenced by the 
thickness of, or per cent of fat in, t je cream churned, 
as well as by the temperature of the cream. Nearly 
all cream, sweet or sour, may be churned at a tempera¬ 
ture of 55 degrees or lower, in a reasonable length of 
time, if the cream be thick enough. That is, if it con¬ 
tain 30 to 35 percent or about one-third fat, provided, 
of course, that the well-known precaution of filling 
the churn one-half full or less be observed. Thinness 
of the cream (15 to 20 per cent fat) is undoubtedly the 
explanation of long, tedious churnings at 60 degrees 
or lower. This is the kind of cream obtained by the 
so-called deep setting of milk for cream separation, 
where the milk is set in cans about 1)^ foot deep, in 
cool water or ice. 
The Characteristics of Gravity Cream. 
The gravity processes of creaming milk give a cream 
that contains from 10 to 20 per cent of fat, according to 
the temperature at which the milk is set, the time it 
is allowed to stand before skimming, and the amount 
of skim-milk taken off with the cream. It is the ex¬ 
ception to get cream in this way that contains one- 
fifth or more butter fat. It is almost impossible to 
churn thoroughly, or, in some cases, to churn at all, 
cream containing only one-tenth to one-fifth butter fat, 
at so low a temperature as 55 degrees. This kind of 
cream must be churned at 62 degrees. 
Cream obtained by “shallow setting ” of milk is 
thicker than that from “deep setting” of the same milk, 
provided the milk be left out in skimming. Conse¬ 
quently, cream from “shallow setting” can be churned 
at a lower temperature and more quickly than cream 
obtained by “ deep setting ” of the same milk. The 
cream obtained by either of these gravity processes of 
handling milk is extremely variable in thickness. This 
is caused by the lack of uniformity in the temperature 
at which the milk is set, and the manner of skimming 
practiced by the different operators. 
One thir g can be depended on as almost universally 
true of cream obtained by gravity processes, and that 
is, that it contains from one-tenth to one-fifth butter 
fat only. Such cream must be churned at 58 to 62 
degrees. Churning at a lower temperature is nearly 
impossible. 
How Separator Cream Behaves. 
The best separators now made overcome this uncer¬ 
tainty in regard to the amount of butter fat in the 
cream. They can be so regulated that cream of a 
uniform thickness may be obtained from nearly any 
normal milk. Several establishments are known to 
the writer where cream has been continually churned 
during the past year at a temperature ranging from 
48 to 55 degrees, nearly always at 52 degrees. I am 
thoroughly convinced that more exhaust've churning 
and better butter would be obtained if 52 instead of 62 
were marked on our dairy thermometers as the proper 
temperature of churning. I have faith to believe, also, 
that within 10 and perhaps five years, a great majority 
of the best dairymen will have adopted 52 degrees as 
the temperature at which they want butter to “come” 
in the churn. The temperature at which cream breaks 
into butter is the vital point. If cream be put into 
a churn at the desired temperature, there should be no 
great rising or falling from this degree in the tempera¬ 
ture of the room where the churning is made. The 
temperature of churning is the temperature of the 
buttermilk as soon as the butter comes, and not the 
temperature of the cream when it is put into the churn. 
Some Facts About Churning. 
The friction of the cream in the churn will not cause 
a perceptible change in temperature, and the influence 
of the temperature of the room to warm or cool the 
cream in the churn depends upon the amount of cream 
or size of the churning. If 100 pounds or more of cream 
be churned in one churning, a difference of 5 or 10 de¬ 
grees between the temperature of the cream in the 
churn and the air outside of the churn has little or no 
influence on the temperature of the cream. It might, 
however, have considerable effect on churnings of 
small quantities of cream, as they vrould be more 
easily changed by the temperature of the room where 
the churning is made. 
Thick cream does not sour so rapidly as thinner 
cream under the same conditions. Fermentation of 
the milk sugar causes cream to sour. Hence the less 
skim-milk and more fat in the cream, the less milk 
sugar there is to ferment. The thickness of the cream 
has considerable influence on the rapidity and amount 
of acidity developed. It has been assumed in what 
has been said that a thorough churning is always de¬ 
sired. No butter left in the buttermilk. A complete 
separation of the butter in a reasonable length of 
time is about all we expect the churn to do. The 
practice which will come nearest to this requirement 
so far as known bj’^ the writer at the present time, is 
to churn thick cream, containing 30 to 35 per cent fat 
and at least 24 hours old, at as near 52 degrees as 
possible. Cream of this richness can be profitably 
obtained from milk by a good separator. If thin 
cream be churned sweet at 62 degrees, a large per¬ 
centage of the fat is left in the buttermilk. If an at¬ 
tempt be made to churn this thin cream at 52 degrees, 
the probabilities are that the butter will not “ come.” 
Chemist Ill. Ex. Station. e. h. farrington. 
(To be continued.) 
NOTES ON A NEW YORK INSTITUTE. 
Good Butter and Cheese. —A few days since I at¬ 
tended a farmers’ institute at East Bloomfield, N. Y. 
This is the first one I attended under the new regime. 
There is no question that Geo. Smith knows as 
much about dairying in all its branches as any other 
man in the country. He gave us a most interesting 
talk on the dairy industry, and gave a fine description 
of the dairy contest at the World’s Fair, showing the 
results made by the different producers, and also the 
difference in the judging of butter. I fail to see how 
any one who is troubled in the making of poor butter 
can help being benefited by his talk, providing that 
he be willing to receive instruction. 
Making Attendance Compulsory. —Eight here the 
thought comes to me that it is lamentable that so few 
farmers attend the institutes ; it would seem at first 
thought that they do not want to learn. I would be 
in favor of a law making it compulsory for all farm¬ 
ers to attend our institutes at least two days out of 
every year when held at convenient points from their 
farms ; something on the same line as our present 
school law. One of the greatest curses of our country 
is the farmer who ‘ ‘ knows it all ” and does not want 
to learn, and will not learn. Therefore, in order to 
reach these ignorant men, I would be most glad to 
compel them to set aside two days and listen to our 
State instructors, believing that by so doing they 
could not help being helped mentally, socially, and, in 
time, financially. 
Sensible Silo Talk. —H. E Cook gave the most 
sensible talk on the silo that I ever heard. He con¬ 
densed into 5 minutes more suggestions and facts 
than I ever heard before in addresses an hour long. 
