MARCH 2 
HOW TO PRODUCE MILK. 
At a meeting of the Massachusetts and 
New Hampshire Milk Producers’ Associa¬ 
tion recently, different milk producers 
gave their'practioe In answer to the ques¬ 
tion: “ What is the best method of raising 
milk?” Wo quote: 
Reei> of Lexington feeds his cows 3 times 
a day, dry feed, including hay, 4 quarts of 
shorts, 2 quarts of oil meal, and 1 peck of 
oats for each cow daily. He milks at 5 a. m. 
and 5 p. m. giving the cows water after 
every feeding. 
Hills of Groton got all the water he 
could into ills cows, as lie had learned the 
more water the more milk. One cow will 
now drink a tub of water at once with a 
little meal put into the same. Men cannot 
make money in raising milk at present 
prices if the coats are fed on good hay. 
Wood of Groton makes more rnilk than 
he can sell, and is diminishing the quantity 
of meal, giving his cows about one-half, and 
if the prices of milk are not better than at 
present ho shall not giv T e his cows any meal. 
It cost him 00c a can to raise milk, while ho 
is selling It for less than 40c a can. 
Bartlett of Milford, N. II., said it Is not 
all in feeding cows to have them give a 
large flow of milk, but much depends upon 
the care and treatment of them,—regular¬ 
ity of feeding and milking. They should 
be milked regularly, quickly and quietly. 
There should be a very free use of salt 
in feeding, since the more salt the more 
water, and the more water the more milk, 
lie had taught his cows to eat as much salt 
as possible, and that was a very large quan¬ 
tity. 
8tone of Wcstborough feeds his cows 
only twice a day, steaming all the food given 
to his herd ; has the milking done regularly 
and by the same person. 
Hutchinson- of Milford, N.IL, steams all 
the feed given to his cows, most thoroughly 
salting the same, so that one coav will drink 
from 1 to 3 palls of Avator, 3 times per day, 
or after eating each of their 3 meals. One 
cow sometimes gives 20 quarts of milk a 
day. 
Gact of Groton finds his cows to increase 
iu flesh and flow of milk by feeding them 
on cotton seed and Indian meal. 
PRODUCT OF TIIE DAIRY AS AN ARTICLE 
OF EXPORT. 
Some idea of the importance of dairy prod¬ 
uce as an article of export may be gathered 
from official statistics, published in the 
London Milk Journal, showing the quant ity 
of butter and cheese imported into Great 
Britain for cloven months of the past year, 
ending Nov. 80th, as compared with the 
same time of two preceding years. We re¬ 
duces the figures to pounds and U. 8. cur¬ 
rency, gold, to make the matter more pluin 
to our readers. 
For 11 months, 1871Cheese, 129,329,600 
pounds, valued at $15,702,010. Butter, 138,- 
216,410 pounds, valued at $32,098,210, making 
the total value of the imports of both arti¬ 
cles, in gold, $17,800,220. 
In 1S70, for the same time, the imports 
Avers:—Choose, 98,022.656 pounds, valued at 
813,707,105. Butter. 113,522,902 pounds, val¬ 
ued at $27,485,205. Total value for 11 months 
of 1370, $11,252,430. 
In 18(50 the imports wereCheese, 95,090,- 
112 pound-., valued at $13,397,115; and of 
butter, 126,087,440 pounds, valued at $29,- 
G70.C30, making total value of the two prod¬ 
ucts, $13,007,445. Those enormous quanl it igs 
of dairy produce, In addition to the large 
amounts made In Great Britain, sIioav that 
there is no small consumption of dairy goods 
i:i England, and that the annual values oi' 
these products imported, is something of 
an item from the pockets of our British 
cousins. Of these imports, the United 
States, Holland and France haA'e furnished 
the bulk. 
The cheese exports from the United 
States, from January 1st to December 23d, 
1371, wore 07,530,000 pounds; and of butter, 
8,519,700 pounds. For the same time in 
1870, cheese, 01,451,500 pounds ; butter, 
1,391,200 pounds. These exports of the 
United States, however, did not all go to 
Great Britain. 
- * - 
DAIRY NOTES. 
Good Winter Butter.—To all Avhoni it 
may concern; and as there are no people 
Avho use, ( not to say waste ) so much, it is 
fair to suppose that must include a goodly 
number. To butt er makers, this you shall 
do: Set your milk in a clean, dry room, 
MOORE’S R3JBA 
beyoud the reach of an ordinary frost, and 
when your morning’s milk has stood forty- 
eight hours, and your evening’s milk thirty- 
six, skim, putting your cream into a clean, 
bright kettle, on a good fire, carefully stir¬ 
ring it to prevent its burning to the bottom; 
when it boils put it in the crock. Do this 
every morning, and when you Avish to 
churn, take as much or as little of your 
boiling hot cream as will bring the Avhole 
to about the required temperature. Cream, 
so heated, may be churned BOmcwhut hot¬ 
ter than Is usually considered quite the 
thing, without detriment to the color or 
quality of the butter; but, if not in a 
hurry, let mead vise you to take it cool, and 
churn half an hour or such a matter.—G. 
SHio Apiarian. 
BEE HIVES. 
In the article on bee hives, in Rural 
New-Yorker of Fob. 10, II. A. 13. says: 
“ We have neither tested the merits of the 
hives our correspondents have named, or 
have seen tbeui in use by other bee keep¬ 
ers, and we had rather have the one we de¬ 
scribed in the Rural New-Yorker of Doc. 
10, 1871, than all of them combined.” 
Now, if he has not tested the hives to 
which lie alludes, and never saw them in 
use, in he prepared to give an opinion in re¬ 
gard to them? Or, in other words, what 
docs he know in regard to their merits or 
demerits? A man ignorant of the inven¬ 
tion of the mowing machine Avould, as he 
swung his scythe, consider it the best im¬ 
plement for cutting grass. But it would be 
up-hill business for him to convince the 
owner of otic of those labor-saving imple¬ 
ments, of the correctness of his opinion. 
Some months ago your correspondent gaA-e 
notice, in the columns of the Rural, (hat he 
would give a description of a hive which he 
thought the best, and as ho had said a good 
deal about “patent hiA'es,” I (Avilh a good 
many ot hers) expected something orlffinul 
in tin; coming hive, but found an exact de¬ 
scription of a Langstroth “double-story" 
hive we bought of the agent, (and paid for 
the right to use) some twelve or fifteen 
years ago. I then found he meant the lat ter 
(patent hive,) though he Jorgol to say so. 
Again, he says he prefers a two-sT&fy hive 
Avhore the honey extractor is employed to 
obtain surplus honey; but if the one-story 
hive is preferred, make the hive large 
enough to contain two or three extra frames 
on each side. 1 prefer the one-story hive, 
as it saves lime lor the bees, and “ time is 
honey ” for the bee-keeper. 1 also prefer a 
IiiA-e without any fixed chamber, so that any 
number of sections or frames, from one up 
lu fourteen, can be used, and form a com¬ 
plete hive. By such an arrangement the 
size of chambor can lie regulated to size of 
swarm when hived, and increased to stand¬ 
ard size (seven or eight sections or frames,) 
as combs are built. By so doing comb 
building will progess more rapidly, as there 
is not the loss of heat (requisite for the se¬ 
cretion of wax), there would be when the 
liivc is two or three times a* large as the 
swarm when hived. It Avill also give room 
for the combs on each side where the mel- 
extractor is used. J. E. Moore. 
Rochester, Pa., Feb., 1872. 
-- 
H0ARH0UND FOR BEE FORAGE. 
I notice in Rural Nkaa'-Yorker of Jan. 
13th, a short article headed “Hoarliound 
for Bees.” As you Avanted to hear from 
those who had experience Avith it, I will 
give you mine. I was not in the Convention 
that recommended it. I have one hundred 
stocks and have both hoarliound and cat¬ 
nip, which are very much alike, and each 
one very valuable on the prairies. They 
bloom at a time when nothiog else is in 
bloom, enabling the bees to keep up a steady 
increase of brood, so that by the time our 
honey harvest commences iu earnest, our 
stocks are strong and ready to make use of 
it. Here they commence storing the sur¬ 
plus from t he middle to the last of August, 
and close with the cool Avcather of October. 
I was transferring bees in Missouri three 
years ago, about the first or July, while the 
Basswood was in full bloom, and they were 
storing honey rapidly (but not fifty-three 
pounds per day, as one asserts); on lasting 
it 1 found it had a strong, disagreeable flavor, 
which was caused by the hoarliound Avhich 
grew iu abundance around the apiary. If I 
had White Clover or Basswood timber 
within reach, I Avould not plant hoarliound, 
for it blooms so near the others that it de¬ 
tracts much from the flavor of the clover or 
basswood honey. C. F. Maius. 
Lcavemvorth Co., Kan. 
L MEW-YOBKER, 
.giitrii of ;t pluralist. 
DAILY RURAL LIFE. 
FROM THE DIARY OF A GENTLEMAN NEAR HEW YORK CITY. 
Fire Wood for Summer Use.— Feb. 12. 
—Although residing in a locality where 
coal is far cheaper than wood for fuel, the 
Avoiuen folks prefer the former in summer 
for the kitchen. A fire suitable for cooking 
can be produced in less time with wood than 
coal, and Avhen the meal is prepared the 
stoA'c and room soon become comparatively 
cool, if the fire is allowed to subside. In 
addition to this, every time a coal fire goes 
out lhi; stove must be cleared of cinders, 
Avhich is far more troublesome than merely 
raking out wood ashes. But I always pity 
a woman whose husband fails to supply her 
Avith dry wood for summer use. Any man 
Avho neglects to do this should not grumble 
if his coffee is cold and his potatoes only 
half boiled; and a woman who is so unfor¬ 
tunate (and there are thousands of them) us 
to be subjected to such annoyances, has good 
grounds for divorce. 1 havo lived long 
enough upon a farm and among farmers to 
knoAv that the women have to submit to 
any number of such apparently insignificant 
hardships, which, if put upon the other sex, 
would cause a revolution. The sound of 
ax and huav upon my own wood pile, for the 
past week, and the offer of some good hick¬ 
ory cord wood, has led me into this train of 
thought, which I hope will influouco others 
to attend to this matter before spring work 
commences. 
Guatemala Beetles.—-Feb. 13.— I re¬ 
ceived to day' a collection of beetles from 
Guatemala, which almost makes me believe 
in Darwin’s theory of evolution of species. 
For instance, among them are several 
Pam tins, some of which are four times as 
large as our P. cornutm, figured and do- 
scribed in Rural New-Yorker, Jan. 137, 
page CO, while others are not more than 
three-fourths of tin inch long. We also 
notice considerable difference in the size of 
the sarno species of insect found in North¬ 
ern and Southern localities, which shows 
climate has considerable effect on t he. lower 
orders of the animal kingdom, it is not 
strange that it should; because iu a climate 
where summer heat is almost perpetual, 
there must certainly be a tendency to :i 
more perfect development than in a locality 
where the greater portion of nature’s pro¬ 
ductions are at. rest for at least one-half the 
year. The larvas of Insects would, of course, 
work more continuously under such favor¬ 
able circumstances, and the pup® remain 
in a quiescent state much less time, all 
of which could not fail to increase the size, 
Avhich, as a rule, is apparent in tropical in¬ 
sects. If we examine any family or genus 
of beetles, the members of which aro found 
in both hot and cold latitudes, the former, 
as a rule, greatly exceed the latter in size. 
The largest beetle belonging to t he Bupres- 
tian family that >ve havo in the Northern 
States is our common Chalcophora Vir- 
glnica, which is seldom more than an inch 
in length, but in the tropics there are near¬ 
ly related species more than twice as long 
and proportionately broad. Probably 
climate has a more powerful influence upon 
the lower orders of the animal kingdom 
than upon those Avhich pass through various 
stages of activity and rest, as exhibited in 
the metamorphosis of au insect. 
At Albany, N. Y .-Feb. 14.—Having re¬ 
ceived an invitation to attend the annual 
meeting of the Noav Yolk State Agricultu¬ 
ral Society, to bo held at tho Society’s 
Rooms in Albauy, I find myself ensconced 
in the Delavan House this evening. There 
are a few of the leading farmers of the State 
here, who have come to attend the meeting; 
among them I have met F. D. Curtis of 
Saratoga Co., Hon. Geo. Geddes of Ouon- 
duga, Prof. John Stanton Gould of Cor¬ 
nell University, Joseph Harris of Roches¬ 
ter, and a few other well-known agricultu¬ 
rists. I learn, however, that those meet¬ 
ings of the State. Society do not attract tho 
attention of farmers in general, and com¬ 
paratively few ever coino out and take an 
active purl in the proceedings. The farm¬ 
ers of Nosv York are no exception to the 
general rule, for it is either indifference to 
progress, or fear of a few dollars expense, 
which makes most of our State Agricultu¬ 
ral Societies a mere farce and of little ben- 
eflt to men they are designed to aid. If 
farmers of this age remain poor and igno¬ 
rant. they have no one to blame but them¬ 
selves, because the wisest legislation is en¬ 
acted in their favor, and the most noble 
and learned men iu the world are doing all 
that is possible to promote their Avelfaro and 
exalt their calling. 
At a Meeting of the Agricultural 
Society, Feb. 15, I attended the morning 
sesiion, at their elegant rooms on State 
street. About seventy-five gentlemen, from 
the quarter of a million of farmers who live 
in tho State, were present. These farmers 
should have been there or well represented. 
Mr. Beroii, President of the Society for 
the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, ad¬ 
dressed the. meeting in relation to a bill 
Avhich he is endeavoring to get passed by 
the Legislature now in session. Mr. A. S. 
Fuller of tho Rural New-Yorker fol¬ 
lowed with a paper on “Forestry,” which 
provoked a lively discussion of the subject. 
During the session this question would fre¬ 
quently crowd itself upon me:—“Where 
are the thousands of young men of this State 
who expect to become farmers?” And, 
“have they no interest in this Society?” 
Here in this building are magnificent col¬ 
lections of shells, minerals, fossils, seeds, 
plants, insects, agricultural Implements, 
and, in fact, hundreds of thousands of tho 
very things which should interest every 
man and woman, but more especially those 
who expect a close acquaintance with moth¬ 
er earth and her direct products. Tho 
poorer class of farmers’ sons who happen to 
reside a considerable distance from Albany, 
might plead poverty as a reasonable excuse 
for not, attending the Annual Meetings of 
the Society, or even visiting the Museum; 
but what shall he said of t he richer class, or 
those living within easy walking distance? 
Most of the men who do attend the meet¬ 
ings, and take an active part in its proceed¬ 
ings, have arrived at an age and standing in 
society where they neither need nor desire 
any honor or emolument that could possibly 
result from their labors in this direction. 
Then is it not just to say that they are work¬ 
ing for the benefit of those very young men 
who will not even put themselves in a posi¬ 
tion where knowledge and honors can bo 
forced upon them. This may appear to be 
severe and harsh criticism of the conduct of 
farmers and farmers’sons; but having been 
“through the mill" myself, 1 know iv here¬ 
of I speak. I do not pretend to say that 
farmers’ sons are any more inclined to be 
indolent or remain in ignorance than tho 
sons of men in other Avalks of life; but it is 
a fuct, nevertheless, that no(. more than one 
in ten ever take adA-antago of the opportu¬ 
nities presented for obtaining a thorough 
knowledge of agriculture In all its various 
branches. The sparsely attended meetings 
of agricultural aud horticultural societies 
throughout the country, as Avell as farmers’ 
clubs, prove the truth of my words. But it 
is useless for me to scold, because those boys 
who have no desire for knowledge, do not 
read the Rural New-Yorker, 
|3ontologipl. 
POMOLOGICAL GOSSIP. 
Skinner’s Seedling Apple, Mr. Hooper 
says, is a natree of San Jose, Cal., aud Is 
said to be the A'ery' best and most desirable 
early' cooking uud curly eating apple in the 
Country. The seed was planted in 1854, and 
the fruit began to attract attention iu 1857. 
Siuce then it has beoome a favorite Avith 
many cultivators. It is thus described: 
“The size and shape of the fruit resembles 
the Spitzenburg, but the color of the fruit 
is much the same as the BellfloAver, but not 
so yellow. The flavor, also, resembles the 
Yellow Bellflower, while the flesh is finer, 
and the pulp quite us juicy as the Rhode 
Island Greening. Wo regard the crispness 
and richness of the fruit as even superior to 
the GraA-enstcin, which has always boon our 
leading favorite among early apples. One of 
the most important qualities of Skinner’s 
Seedling is its persistence in hanging upon 
the tree. It will rot and dry up before it 
will drop.” _ 
Royal Anne Cherry.—Iu the Rubax 
New-Yorker of this week you ask if this 
cherry is known by any any' other name, I 
can say' Ave suav it in great perfection at tho 
large fruit farm of E. D. Leavellinci, San 
Lorenzo, Cal. It is the same as our Na¬ 
poleon Bigarreau. They had sent .fruit of 
it. to market the day of our A’isit there— 
June 28, 1870—that measured three and 
three-quarters of an inch in circumference, 
and thirty-six Aveighed a pound. Black 
Tartarian aud other A'arieties were equally 
fine. We found tho names of fruits at all 
the orchards avc visited correctly stated, 
and this cherry is the only instance I recol¬ 
lect of where it was not.—C has. Doavnixu. 
To prevent Quinces from falling ofl’.— 
Remove the earth from the roots of tlio 
trees in early spring, and put a quart of salt 
around them. I have been told this Avill 
have the desired effect.—R. G. 
