lain) 
rt). 
x. A. WILLARD, A. M., EDITOR, 
Of Littk f‘UJ, HsrKimkr Couxtv, N*» Yoeiu 
dairies IN TOMPKINS AND CORT¬ 
LAND COUNTIES — IL 
\ Concluded from page 16. last No.i 
South Cortland Factory. 
Between Freeville and South Cortland 
there are some* fine farming lands. The 
surface of the country is undulating, and 
sometimes quite broken or hilly, resembling 
portions of Oneida and Herkimer. On many 
of the farms the grass crop promised an 
abundant yield, while corn, Wheat and other 
grams were looking quite well for the season. 
The South Cortland factoiy is built upon 
the side of a steep hill, the structure Itaving 
been originally erected for a grist mill. There 
is a large supply of water, a part of which 
is used to turn an overshot wheel which fur¬ 
nishes the power for running the churns 
and raising water by means of a pump for 
the supply of the factory. The building is 
not so nice in its internal arrangement as 
it should be, and the hog pens and yards in 
rather close proximity to the factory seemed 
to us a very objectionable feature of the es¬ 
tablishment. The manufacturer in charge 
here is Mr. A. II. Woolford, a very intelli¬ 
gent and capable manufacturer, as we soon 
discovered. Indeed, we should say that 
something more than ordinary skill would 
be required to run the South Cortland fac¬ 
tory with Us present arrangements and sur¬ 
roundings; and the patrons of the factory 
may well congratulate themselves in having 
secured the services of Mr. Woolford, for 
any ordinary manufacturer would be very 
likely to fall in such an establishment and 
with the character of milk delivered. With 
the conveniences of water, location, Ac., 
this could be made a model establishment; 
but the building needs overhauling, and the 
liog-yards should at once he removed to 
more distant quarters. 
The factory secures the milk of about 
three hundred cows, and the. delivery on the 
day of our visit was 6,839 pounds. 
Uniter Making:. 
The system of manufacturing here is 
similar to the butter and cheese factories of 
Tompkins Co. The night’s milk is set in 
the cheese vats, the cream removed in the 
morning, the morning’s delivery added to 
the skimmed milk and then made into cheese. 
There is rather more butter taken from 
the night’s milk than at the Tompkins Co. 
factories. The quantity of butter taken 
from the night's milk on the day of our visit 
was eighty-seven pounds, and the milk for 
the clay made nine cheeses, each weighing 
about seventy-two pounds. 
The temperature of the night’s milk in 
the morning is from 58° to 00’, and the 
cream is invariably 2° higher in temperature 
thau the milk. 
Mr. Woolford says he finds that the 
cream will sour much sooner than the milk 
from which it is taken. The cream is 
churned sweet and the buttermilk goes into 
the vats with the milk for cheese making. 
The buttermilk, he thinks, rather improves 
the texture of the curd, rendering it less 
tough, and giving to the cheese a richer or 
more meaty consistency, but it carries to the 
cheese a slightly bitter flavor, which we 
could trace in all the cheese tested. 
The temperature of the cream when the 
churns arc started is at 55°, and it runs up 
to 58° during the process of churning, which 
occupies from thirty minutes to an hour. 
As in Tompkins Co., the old-fashioned dash 
churn is employed, ice is not. used in the 
processor churning; but if the butter comes 
soft, cold water is used to harden it. If the 
cream is too cool for churning it. is wanned 
by placing the pails holding it in warm 
water. Warm water is not used directly in 
the cream. 
Just us t he buttermilk begins to separate, 
the churns are stopped and rinsed down 
with half a pail or so of cold water. This is 
important; for if the cream on the churn is 
washed down later and gets into the butter, 
it cannot he worked out, and will spoil the 
butter. 
When the butter has come in grains or 
particles about the size of fish eggs, it is 
thrown upon the butter worker and gathered 
together. The butter worker is an inclined 
slab, with a moveable roller attached to a 
lever, and so arranged as to work up aud 
down the slab. Alter the buttermilk is 
■worked out, it is salted with factory filled 
salt, at the rate of tliree-quavters of an ounce 
of salt to a pound of hul ter, if for present 
use, hut for butter to keep one ounce salt to 
the pound of butler. 
No water is used for taking out the but¬ 
termilk, and care is taken not to work the 
butter too much. After it is salted, the bowls 
of butter are placed in the water box, where 
a constant stream of water is flowing about 
them, and they stand here until next morn¬ 
ing, when the butter is again worked over 
aud packed. 
Well made oak tubs and firkins are used 
to pack the butter. The half firkin holds 
about seventy pounds, and the firkin one 
hundred pounds. The firkins having been 
filled, about two pounds of salt is spread 
over the top, which is considered sufficient 
to keep it sweet while being carried to mar¬ 
ket. The butter was of beautiful color and 
texture, showing very plainly that it had 
been made from the best cream of the milk. 
MiMiufucturinR the Cheese. 
The milk is set for coagulation at a tem¬ 
perature of 83", and Mr Woolford says he 
wants it fit to cut in three-quarters of an 
hour. Tne temperature for salting he thinks 
should be a little higher than when the 
cream is all retained in the milk; hut in 
scalding a lower temperature should be em¬ 
ployed. The coagulation being perfected, 
the mass is cut with the knives lengthwise 
of the vat, and is left at rest until the whey 
forms. Then cross-cut, the curds and leave 
at rest about ten minutes. Heat is now 
begun to lie slowly added, anil the curds, 
meanwhile, arc worked. About an hour 
and a-half is employed to raise the mass to 
a temperature of 96°, the highest heat to 
which it is subjected, and it is left in the 
whey unr.il the acid is well developed. Some¬ 
times the curds are not ready for the sink 
until five o’clock in tire afternoon. The 
curds are salted at fhe rate of 2 4-lOlhs 
pounds of salt to 1,000 pounds of milk. 
Tin; Cold Water Manipulation. 
Mr. Woolford says that the milk at this 
factory is more or Jess tainted every day 
when the weather is hot, and he has, there¬ 
fore, adopted the cold water manipulation, 
which not only serves to remove, in a great 
measure, the taints, but when properly ap¬ 
plied softens the curd and operates favor¬ 
ably on the cheese while curing, the casein 
being more thoroughly broken down, and 
the cheese appearing more mellow and of a 
richer texture. The process adopted is as 
follows: 
When the acid is properly developed in 
the curds, and they are ready to be dipped 
from the vat, about a barrel of cold water is 
conducted into the vats among the curds 
and allowed to pass off immediately. The 
whey is first drawn from the curds, and the 
water then let into the vat until it stands 
about an inch above the curds. They are 
then rapidly stirred and the water drawn off. 
The object sought is to cool the outer por¬ 
tion of the particles of curd without cool¬ 
ing them in the center. Since, should the 
cold water stand long enough to do this 
thoroughly, the curds would be too far soft¬ 
ened and the cheese spoiled. Sour curds, or 
those made from milk a little changed, he 
says, by proper manipulation with cold 
water, can be very much improved. Cheese 
treated with cold water mature very rapidly. 
Mr. W. says he has cured cheese treated in 
this way, so that it was mellow and plastic, 
and ready for market in the space of nine 
days from the press. 
Tin: Hot Iron Test. 
A few months since the hot iron test was 
announced in some of the papers as a new 
discovery; but no one, it seems, has cared 
to put forward their claims as having made 
this new discovery, and for a very good 
reason. Because It is an old fashioned test 
employed by Herkimer Co. dairymen years 
ago. Mr. Woolford said he was amused 
to see this thing paraded in the papers as a 
new discovery, because he had seen the test 
applied by Herkimer Co. dairy women nine 
years sign, and tiie thing then, he had sup¬ 
posed, was nothing uew. lie said the first 
person he ever saw apply the test was Mrs. 
Hurd, an old anti experienced dairy woman 
residing in the town of Norway, Herkimer 
Co., and lie find used the, lest as occasion re¬ 
quired for years. 
The test, however, is reliable and valuable 
to inexperienced cheese makers, and some- 
limes to old and experienced operators, 
when there is doubt as to the proper cook¬ 
ing and maturing of the curds in the vat. 
The test consists in taking a portion of the 
curd from the vat nud touching it to a hot 
iron, and, on withdrawing it from the iron, 
it the curd spins out in line threads, it is 
properly matured and ready to be taken 
from the vat and sailed. Old dairymen call 
this spiuniug the curds; aud curds not 
properly cooked, or that are immature, will 
not spin. As soon, therefore, as the curd 
will stick to the iron and draw out in 
threads, it is ready to be f alien out and salted. 
Pressing Scale Boards oil llie Clieenc. 
At the South Cortland factory scale hoards 
are pressed upon the cheese, and Mr. Wool¬ 
ford thought that cheese treated in this 
way required less care in curing, though 
dealers, he said, sometimes objected to the 
boards preferring the usual style. 
The last sales of butter and cheese made 
at this factory were, for butter thirty-eight 
cents, and cheese thirteen cents per pound. 
Tbe McLcitu Factory. 
On our return from Oortluml to Tompkins 
Co., we made a brief call at the McLean 
factory, one of the largest establishments in 
the State The factory was built, to receive 
the milk of 1,500 cows, and we believe at 
one time it was taking the milk from that 
number. At present, however, it is running 
with about 800 cows. 
At this factory all the cream is retained in 
the milk for cheese making aud butter made 
from the whey on the Eggar process. The 
receipts of milk daring the first week in 
June were about 16,000 pounds per day, 
which made twenty cheeses, each weighing 
some seventy-seven pounds. About fifteen 
pounds of batter per day is taken from the 
whey, which is run into four large vats set¬ 
ting in a room separated from the cheese 
making department. 
For cheese making, the milk is set at 82° 
to 84°, and the highest heat in cooking the 
curds, OB’ to 100°. The salting is at the rate 
of two and one-quarter pounds salt in spring, 
and from two and three-quarters to three 
pounds, in hot weather, for one thousand 
pounds of milk 
We found here about four hundred cheeses 
in the curing rooms, and they had a nice ap¬ 
pearance. Mr. Schemahorn, the manufac¬ 
turer, stated that the factory did not com¬ 
mence operations till about tbe middle ot 
May. As it was quite late in the day when 
wc arrived at the factory, and with a long 
ride before us, our visit at McLean was quite 
brief, and we failed, therefore, to get all the 
notes concerning the factory and its man¬ 
agement that was wished. 
arm (rronmitii. 
ECONOMICAL NOTES. 
Inquiries About Treatment of Soils. 
I have a piece of meadow laud which 
every heavy rain covers from six inches to 
two aud a-half feet deep in water, remaining 
thus submerged from twelve to forty-eight 
hours, leaving a deposit from a very fertile 
farm higher up. In the winter, owing to 
frequent rains, it is inundated half the time. 
It is pretty well ditched, and was put in 
corn for five years in succession, and only 
produced oue crop, making that year filly 
bushels to the acre. I want to sow it down 
with grass. Will some of your readers in¬ 
form me if I can make it pay, aud what 
kind of seed I must sow, how much, and 
when ? 
I have also some spots of land that is 
black when wet, £iay when dry. When 
wet, no plow can turn it; it sticks like putty, 
so close that it can hardly be scraped off, 
aud when dry it rolls off the plow like ashes; 
it has no grit fi/it, and is 60 thirsty that 
water, in time of rain, running down the 
furrow as soon as it reaches those spots dries 
up. As long as it remains wet, corn, wheal 
aud Oats grow luxuriantly, but the first 
drouth dries them up and the spots become 
barren, everything but blackberry bushes— 
some of which get to he an inch in diameter 
and never suffer from either extreme — 
parching up. Can it he made productive ?— 
A. W., Buekland , Oates Co., N. C. 
Roatl Fences Defended. 
In the Rural New-Yorker, June 18th, 
page 394, Timbrel Ilewgag Tyres makes a 
great blow about road fences. Now', Mr. 
Timbrel Ilewgag Tyrcs, if you don’t want 
any road fence, pull yours down, (if you 
have got auy; for I don’t believe you have 
land enough paid for to decently bury your¬ 
self on, unless it was given to .you.) No man 
who has worked and earned a farm, wants 
his road fence pulled down for stray cattle 
to run over Ids crops. 1 know cattle have 
no business there; but did you ever have 
occasion to drive a cow along the road in 
May or June, (if you ever had one licit you 
worked and earned ?) or did you ever know 
any cattle at that time of year to break 
through fences to seek other cattle? Ah, 
Mr. Timbrel Hewgag Tyres, in my opinion 
you are a very selfish person to live by the 
side of; and if my land joined yours I would 
lure a big fellow, if 1 could find one who 
would take the job, who, every time you 
sounded the timbrel and hewgag, would 
wallop you until you built, a road fence; for 
poor fence makes bad neighbors, and good 
fence good neighbors, generally, all over the 
laud.— H. Miles, Pine Valley, N. T. 
IIor Pole Pullers, 
8. G. Ferris writes:—•“ There are several 
patented hop-pole pullers; but do not some 
of your readers use good ones which are not 
patented ? And will they not describe 
them?” One, said to be simple,effectual and 
cheap, is thus described by a Western hop- 
grower iu the Western Rural:—“Attach 
within two and a half feet of the butt end of 
a stout pole, eight feet long, an iron bar an 
inch square and eighteen inches long, con¬ 
structed in nearly the shape of the letter Y 
with the long straight side banded and rivet¬ 
ed to the pole and the inner side of the outer 
prong heavily bearded. This puller can be 
made for a dollar, and is always ready at 
the instant without fixing, and it will not 
slip on the pole, as the prong being on one 
side of the puller the pole is pinched harder, 
the harder the pulliug.” 
the 
aturalist 
THE AMERICAN BALD EAGLE. 
As you stated iu a late number of your 
paper that subjects of sporting would be in¬ 
teresting, an account of our birds of prey 
might not come amiss. That this bird has 
been honored with the emblem of our na¬ 
tionality is not for me to find fault with, but 
in describing its habits, I shall have to record 
some of his traits which may not seem 
so noble as are generally supposed. 
They appear here about October and leave 
about May. Where they go to breed now I 
cannot tell; but formerly they bad their 
nests in those lofty cliffs along the Missouri 
river here. The presence of man has made 
them shy. While here they live chiefly on 
wounded wild geese, ducks and dead fish 
that they fiud in ponds and that have been 
caston the sandbars. Then they will feast on 
a dead hog if it he convenient, and also a 
dog which sometimes is drowned in the 
river and cast ashore. They soar aloft at 
times in majestic circles, their white head 
and tail glittering in the sun. At other 
times they pass over us low enough to be 
hit with a stone thrown. 
One day, while working in my vineyard a 
mile from my house, two young ones kept 
sailing around me so close that I could not 
imagine what it meant; when, presently, a 
sow with a litter of small pigs came through 
(lie woods. These pigs would get through 
the fence away from the old one, and it 
would he easy for the eagles to swoop down 
and pick one up. 
These pigs had annoyed me, and I saw no 
relief. 1 told my hoys we would count how 
many there were, and see how they would 
count, a month hence. Out of eleven, there 
none remain. 
They (the eagles) are rarely shot, but there 
is one in the office here in town I helped to 
capture. It is a noble specimen; was about 
three years old when killed; expanse of 
wings, eight feet. What is often called a 
gray eagle is only the young of the bald, as 
they only get their white feathers on the 
head and tail when several years old. 
He is king of birds here, if you leave out 
the wandering Falcon, which is his great 
enemy, and which pursues him most relent¬ 
lessly whenever approaching their haunts. 
This latter is a rare and singular bird, which 
I may describe at some future time. s. m. 
Bluffton, Mo., 1870. 
-*-•_«.- 
A REMARKABLE BIRD. 
We have frequently read stories of the re¬ 
markable sayings aud doings of parrots, but 
never to our recollection have we seen any¬ 
thing equal to the performances in the bird 
line, of a tamo Cockatoo, as described by an 
Australian traveler. The bird was known 
by the name of “ the doctor,” to which ap¬ 
pellation it answered as readily as does the 
parrot to the name of Folly. The writer 
says of this bird:—‘It pretended to have a 
violent toothache, and nursed its beak in its 
claw, rocking itself backward aud forward 
as if iu the greatest agony, and in answer to 
all the remedies which were proposed, croak¬ 
ing out, ‘ Oh, it ain’t a bit of good,’ and 
finally; sidling up to the edge of its perch, 
and sayiug, in a hoarse but confidential 
whisper, ‘ give us a drop of whisky, do* 
It would also pretend to sew, holding a 
little piece of cloth underneath its claw, 
which rested on the perch, and going 
through the motions with the other, gelling 
into difficulties with its thread, and finally 
setting up a loud song in praise of sew¬ 
ing-machines, just as if it were au advertise¬ 
ment. 
The “ Doctor’s ” best performance is when 
he imitates a hawk. He reserves this fine 
piece of acting until his mistress is feeding 
her poultry; then, when all the liens and 
chickens, turkeys and pigeons, are in the 
quiet enjoyment of their breakfast or supper 
the peeular shrill cry of a hawk is heard 
overhead, and the “ Doctor" is seen circling 
in the air, uttering a scream occasionally. 
The fowls never find out that it is a hoax, 
but run to shelter, cackling in the greatest 
alarm—hens cackling loudly for their chicks, 
turkeys crouching under the bushes, the 
pigeons taking refuge in their house. As 
soon as the ground is quite clear, cockey 
changes his wild note for peals of laughter, 
from a high tree, and, finally alighting on 
the top of a hencoop filled with trembling 
chickens, remarks, in a suffocated voice, 
“ You’ll be the death of me!” 
-- 
BLACK KNOT. 
It was loug ago shown in the Practical 
Entomologist by Mr. Walsh, that the Fun¬ 
goid disease known under the name of 
“Black Knot” to infest the cultivated 
Cherry, was quite distinct from the disease 
of the same name which attacks the culti¬ 
vated Plum ; and that the former most 
probably took its origin from the wild 
Choke Cherry (Gerasus Virginiana,) and the 
latter from the common wild Plum (Pru- 
nus Americana.) Hence there followed the 
important practical consequence that Black 
Knot could not spread from Cherry on to 
Plum or from Plum on to Cherry; each 
parasitic fungus confining itself to its ap¬ 
propriate tree. 
In July, 1869, we were favored by Mr. B, 
N. McKinstry, nurseryman of East Sumner, 
Kankakee county, Illinois, with specimens 
of Black Knot growing quite abundantly 
with him, as he says, upon the Miner Plum, 
but not on any other cultivated plum. A 
single glance suffices to show that this dis¬ 
eased growth is essentially distinct from the 
common Black Kuot. of the Plum, although 
like this last it is evidently of fungoid origin. 
In fact, both in color, in external texture, 
and in internal organization, the two differ 
so widely, that “ Brown Knot” would be a 
far more appropriate name than “ Black 
Knot” for the affection of the Miner Plum. 
As the Miner Plum is a cultivated variety 
of the Chickasaw Plum (Pmnus chicasa ,) it 
would seem to follow that there are three 
distinct Black Knots, originating respective¬ 
ly from Choke Cherry, from the common 
Wild Plum and from the Chickasaw Plum ; 
and further, that the first is confined among 
our cultivated fruits to cherry, the second 
to our common tame plums, and the third 
to the Miner Plum. It is very remarkable 
that in Europe they have no Black Knot at 
all, whether upon cherry or plum.— Practi¬ 
cal Entomologist. 
- *-•-* - 
THE BOMBYX CYNTHIA. 
I forward to your office to-day a little 
box, containing some eggs of our wild silk 
worm, (Bomhyx cynthia.) I have made ex¬ 
periments three years with this w'orm, and 
have found that it is a good deal easier to 
raise cocoons than with the Chinese worm. 
The first year I had but one female butterfly 
to begin with; the second year I had some¬ 
thing over two hundred, and now I have 
several thousand. 1 had nothing to do but 
to put the young worm on a lilac bush, and 
let them alone until I gathered their cocoons 
in the fall. I sec it now clear, that there is a 
great. National prosperity in this insect, if it 
is only understood. Every farmer who has 
a half acre of laud where he cauuot raise 
anything, ought to plant lilac hushes, and 
feed thousands of worms. In about two 
weeks the young worm will come out. Put 
a small branch in a box, and let them crawl 
on it; then pin this on a lilac. I have a 
large milk pan full of cocoons, aud I do not 
see why I could not raise as many millions 
as 1 have thousands, if I had the necessary 
ground. Du. Martin Braun. 
Cape Vincent, N. Y., June, 1870. 
-- 
NOTES FOR NATURALISTS. 
To Catch Caterpillars. 
A French gardener finding a piece of 
woolen cloth, which had lodged on a tree, 
covered with caterpillars, acted upon the 
idea suggested, and placed woolen rags iu 
several trees. Every morning he found them 
covered with caterpillars, which he easily 
removed. _ 
Will Partridges Eat Dude? 
The Germantown Telegraph says“ A 
friend and an autocrat in matters of this kiud, 
informs us that our partridge never feeds 
upon buds or the tender shoots of any tree. 
The pheasant does, and resort to almost any 
green thing to preserve life. Hence, some¬ 
times its flesh is poisonous from feeding upon 
the laurel, &c. We are aware that our par¬ 
tridge is known in New England by various 
names, and that the pheasant there is some¬ 
times known by the same name; hence the 
pheasant is undoubtedly the bird referred to 
and complaiued of there as eating buds.” 
How to Kill Potato Bug*. 
N. W. T., Afton, Win., writes the Rural 
New-Yorker :—“Take a smooth, round 
slick, about two and a-half feet long—a piece 
of an old broom stick is the best—and go in 
the heat of the day, say from eleven o’clock 
to two P. M., and gently brush the bugs off 
into the furrows. All that fall in the sun, 
when the thermometer marks about ninety 
degrees anil upwards, will die in three min¬ 
utes ; those that fall in the shade of the vines 
I brush into the sun. It will kill the old 
ones as well as young; and by doing it about 
three times it will destroy them. Try it. 
The ground should be dry.” 
A Brave Old Rat. 
In the lott of my barn there was some 
blade fodder lying in one corner, and a 
quantity of hay a few steps from it. A 
young man seeing a large rat run under the 
fodder, removed it and fouud a nest full of 
young rats. Tbe old one run under the nay, 
and the man sat still to watch for it. It 
came out. very soon and seized one of its 
young and carried it under the hay. Get¬ 
ting neat - enough, be was seen by it., and 
still it sprang forward atul snatched up 
another and bore it away. It started again, 
very close to him, when lie struck at it and 
fVhditcned it back. lie then killed the only 
remaining young eve. It was really an in¬ 
teresting display ol maternal instinct.— N. l. 
