ABSH 24 
OOBE’S RURAL NEW-YOR) 
gitsbaitfo. 
INFLUENCE OF HARD AND SOFT WATER 
ON DAIRY PRODUCTS. 
X. A. Willard, Esq. :—I would like to 
ascertain what effect, if any, lime water has 
on dairy products (particularly butter; in 
districts where water of that kind only is to 
be had, ae perhaps in the Shenandoah Valley, 
Va, and elsewhere.—G. W. Van Rensse¬ 
laer, Brooklyn, X. Y. 
About 15 or 20 years ago, the notion pre¬ 
vailed quite generally that good butter could 
only be produced in soft water regions, Hon. 
A. B. Dickinson, and other writers on but¬ 
ter-making held, at that time, that no “ lime¬ 
stone soils, ’ or soils containing sufficient 
lime to render the water “hard, ’ could be 
employed successfully for butter-dairying. 
And they argued, in case good butter was pro¬ 
duced on such soils, it was flt only for present 
use, as it soon lost flavor and became rancid. 
The points raised against the hard water 
were :—First, that you could not wash out 
the buttermilk with such water without in¬ 
juring the grain of the butter ; and secondly, 
that the lime acted as a decomposing agent, 
thus inducing a change in the particles which 
soon generated rancidity. Mr. Dickinson 
insisted that “ soft water is os indispensable 
to wash butter as flue linen." 
These arguments are plausible, and were 
accepted by many as facts, notwithstanding 
occasional packages of butter washed with 
hard water found their way to market which 
were pronounced in every respect equal in 
flavor and texture aud quality to the best 
samples washed With soft water. Hence it 
was asserted that the “hard water butter" 
might possibly be made good for present use, 
but it would not keep ; and as none of the 
hard water butter makers took the trouble 
to keep their butter a year or two and then 
publish a statement of results, the soft water 
theory became established. 
Again, it so happened at this time that the 
majority of our best butter makers were lo¬ 
cated in soft water districts, while the best 
cheese makers were in the hard water dis¬ 
tricts. The latter also set up a claim that 
the best cheese could only bo produced on a 
certain kind of soil or in the hard water dis¬ 
tricts. So both of these classes fancied, by 
virtue of soft or hard water, each had a roy¬ 
alty over the butter and cheese markets of 
thecountrj\ But of late years, the old dairy¬ 
men seem to be surprised that good butter 
and good cheese can be made on a variety of 
soils, and that the water question does not 
appear to control quality in the same way it 
was supposed. 
This claim respecting the influence of hard 
water as affecting the quality of butter, ar¬ 
rested our attention at an early day, aud wo 
took some pains to see how far the hard 
water of Herkimer County influenced her 
butter product. And we found that butter, 
when properly made on these hard water 
soils, was not inferior to that made in the 
soft water districts and would Bell in market 
for an equal price. We then introduced 
some experiments to test its keepiug quali¬ 
ties, and the result was that when the butter 
produced on these soils was properly made 
and properly packed in the right kind of 
package and kept in a cool, clean, sweet, 
well-ventdated cellar, it would remain sound 
and in good order for months. 
These experiments convinced us that the 
“soft water theory” had a slender founda¬ 
tion, at least so far as the water of Herkimer 
County was concerned ; and subsequent ob¬ 
servation has led us to believe that good but¬ 
ter may be produced on a variety of soils, if 
climate is suitable aud good cows, good feed 
and clean, sweet water be provided in the 
first instance, and then that the treatment 
of the milk and butter making be properly 
conducted. 
It may bo possible that some soils have 
water so impregnated with lime as to be 
fatal to the making of good butter; that 
point we do not propose to discuss at this 
time ; but if there be such soils, they have 
not come under our experience or observa¬ 
tion When we come to recognize the fact 
that good butter and cheese are produced on 
a variety of soils in New England, New York, 
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, 
Illinois, and in other States and in Canada, 
wherever skillful manufacturers are found 
aud the other requisites wo have named, 
such as climate, feed, &c., &c., are not want¬ 
ing, the hard and soft water theories do not 
seem to have so much weight in practice as 
on paper. 
We know there is a vast amount of poor 
butter made, and it is an easy matter for 
butter makers to shift their incapacity, neg¬ 
ligence or other faults upon “ hard water” as 
tlio cause of an inferior product; but as peo¬ 
ple progress in their knowledge of the dairy, 
faults will not so readily be hid beneath this 
veil. If cows are ill used, if they are forced 
to slake thirst, in muddy, stagnant pools, if 
the milking is done in a slovenly, uncleanly 
manner, if the milk and cream are not at¬ 
tended to in the proper time and the butter 
improperly handled, no soft water that we 
have seen will wash out impurities and put 
upon the market a good article. 
In our tour through the Shenandoah Val¬ 
ley aud Western Virginia last summer, we 
siwuo water sufficiently impregnated with 
lime to affect butter unfavorably ; and if 
butter making prove unsuccessful in that 
region, the fault may be attributed to clim¬ 
ate or some of the causes we have named. 
We had favorable impressions of some parts 
of Virginia as a dairy region, though from 
the rapidity with which we journeyed only 
a superficial knowledge of the country could 
be had. 
It is needless, perhaps, to say that lime¬ 
stone soils, where hard water prevails, are 
extensively devoted to cheese dairying and 
embrace some of the oldest and best cheese 
districts of New York. This water, so far 
as known, has had no injurious effect on the 
cheese product, nor have we ever heard it 
claimed that lime water was unfavorable in 
the production of cheese, or in any way de¬ 
tracted from its flavor, quality or keeping. 
--- 
CHURNS AND BUTTER WORKERS. 
1. For six or eight cows, which is most 
efficient and labor-saving, the old dash churn 
and a butter worker, or hue Blanchard churn 
alone? 2, If Che dash churn and butter worker 
are best, where can the best but,tor worker 
be obtained ? 8. If the Blanchard is the best, 
will you please give the mode of operation, 
as I have read in the Rural that some dairy- 
men washed, salted and worked their butter 
perfectly in the Blanchard churn ? 4. Cun 
the Blanchard churn be easily cleaned ? 5. 
\V here can the Blanchard be obtained ? 0. 
What is tlie price of a luilf-barrol churn '? I 
have looked through the late It orals and 
find no advertisement of the Blanchard or 
where to obtain it. — H, A. Valentine, 
For a small number of cows, and where 
tlio churning is to be done by hand, the Blan¬ 
chard is operated with less labor than the 
old dash churn. It is an efficient churn and 
very much liked by those who have used it. 
S. In the Blanchard churn the floats are so 
arranged that by a revolution opposite to 
that when churning, the butter may he 
worked and salted. The movable floats are 
self-adjusting, opening in churning, to admit 
the cream and to give it another motion and 
closing in working the butter, so as to pre¬ 
sent a large convex surface by which the 
butter is pressed against the bottom Of the 
churn and passed out in a thin sheet through 
the small space at the end of the dasher. As 
a butter-worker, however, wo do not regard 
the Blanchard as equal to some other devices 
which are especially designed for this pur¬ 
pose. 
4. The Blanchard churn is simple in its 
construction and easily cleaned. 
5. We cannot give prices and name the 
place where dairy implements may be ob¬ 
tained, for these matters should appear in 
the advertising columns of the Rural, but 
out of courtesy to correspondents we answer 
such questions by private letter when so 
requested, if postage stamp is sent to prepay 
postage. 
NOTES FOR DAIRYMEN. 
What a Dairy of 1 G Coirs Did—l send 
you an account of what my cows did for me 
the past season. I have milked 1G, an l have 
sold 2,825 lbs. butter that netted me *820.09 ; 
two calves, fed on new milk, for *18 ; the 
buttermilk (estimated worth), $85; eight 
deacon’s skins, $7.75; total, $908.84— making 
an average of $56.80 per cow, besides the 
milk and butter used in a family of five per¬ 
sons, My cows had nothing but pasture till 
late in the fall; then I fed pumpkins and 
corn stalks.—D. Weld. 
To Remove Garlio Flavor from Milk.—A 
correspondent of the American Agricultural¬ 
ist says that wood charcoal is an excellent 
absorbent of the disagreeable flavor of garlic 
in milk. He uses it every spring by dropping 
a piece three or four inches long aud two 
inches thick into each pan of milk, or into 
the pitcher in which milk for table use may 
be kept. 
To Remove Chaff from Cattle’s Ryes .— 
(W. R.)—Burn alum, pulverize it line, and, 
with a quill or an elder stick, blow it into the 
eye. Some add to the alum about two- 
thirds as much white sugar as alum. Repeat 
the operation two or three times during the 
day and the eye will be relieved of chaff. 
©u} H^dsimtn. 
GLEANINGS FOR HERDSMEN. 
Stock thnl Makes Oilt-fldyed Butter. —O. 
J. Davenport, at the Deerfield Valley Far¬ 
mers’ Institute, indorsed the Aldemeys us 
the only breed adapted to making gilt-edged 
butter. But gilt-edged butter is made from 
the milk of other breeds—Isn’t it, Rural 
readers ? 
Reariny Calves. —The same gentleman is 
reported in the Ntuv-England Homestead as 
saying that he would let young calves suck a 
few days, then put them on skimmed milk 
with a little meal, and would put them on 
thick milk as soon as practicable, but would 
not turn them to pasture till a year old ; 
would keep cattle always growing aud im¬ 
proving to prevent loss, and would teach 
them to eat all they can, rather than see 
how little they can be kept alive on. 
Prefers Tlerefords, —R. H. Leavitt prefers 
Here fords as a breed to others, and if he were 
20 years youngorweoirid try Iierefords. Who 
among the. readers of the Rural Nkw- 
Yorker can say anything in favor of the 
Herefords from practical experience ? What 
are they good for f 
Good Cows as Fatten iny Animals.—J, 
M. Legate is reported as saying that a cow 
that Is a good milker will generally fatten 
well when dried and turned to pasture. 
Who says nay ? Is not a good milker gen¬ 
erally a good feeder l And if she does not 
px’odnce milk will she not consequently lay 
on fat as a rule ? 
Skimmed Milk for Calves.—A farmer an¬ 
nounces it us contrary to his belief that 
skimmed milk is best for calves, for if it 
were so the cow would have been so consti¬ 
tuted as to give skimmed milk I Can any 
one resist such logic if 
Following Nature's Laws .— Per contrary 
to the above paragraph, another farmer does 
not approve of following Nature’s laws. It 
is best, some assert, to grow steera for beef ; 
if it is best to grow steers for beef, he asks, 
why did not Nature make them steers ? 
Salt for Pregnant Animals.—A corre¬ 
spondent of the Journal of the Farm says he 
is satisfied that no pregnant brute animals 
should have their food salted, but should be 
allowed uceess to salt at all times, that they 
may Obey their inst.iuets. 
Feeding Milch Cows .— S. Barber is “sat¬ 
isfied that we get better results for the grain 
fed to OUT cows by wetting the meal and 
mixing it with hay, or some other Bimilar 
material, so that they shall he obliged to eat 
the whole together aud raise it with the cud, 
than to feed the meal alone, whether* wet or 
dry, as it thus passes into the fourth stom¬ 
ach and is only imperfectly digested, so that 
it cannot yield all its nutrition to the animal 
system, and what is not digested passes away 
in waste, or is lost to all immediate material 
purposes.” 
Raising Calves. —A writer in tho Ohio 
Farmer says;—“Supposing it does require 
two gallons of sweet milk per day, and that 
milk is worth on the average 1G cents per 
gallon for cheese, the feed at the end of four 
months will have cost $24. The animal may 
not be worth the difference between the 
milk and slop aud grain, but when the call’ 
is three years old tho difference will appear 
threefold the other way. If the cost of rais¬ 
ing a calf on new milk is $24 for the first 
four months, and the animal is not really 
worth more than $10 at that age, then, of 
course, there is a loss of $14, so it will not pay 
to raise common or inferior calves where 
milk can be sent to the factory or made into 
cheese on the premises. Where butter is 
made, either on a large or small scale, 
skimmed milk may be fed with profit, for 
the caseine, or curdy part, furnishes the 
proper requisite for growth and develop¬ 
ment, but we do not wager anything on 
there being good paying results from feeding 
whey or dish water to any grade of calves. 
-»■» » 
IMPROVING A DAIRY HERD. 
Let me add my short experience in trying 
to i mprovo a dairy by breeding better stock. 
I commenced in the spring of 1870 to keep 
an uccount of all the butter made from year 
to’year. In 1870 1 made 75 lbs. per cow ; 
1871, 87 lbs. per cow ; 1872, 130 lbs. per cow; 
1873, 220 lbs. per cow. Now, to explain this 
increase : In 1871 we fed better than in 1870 
and got 12 lbs. per cow more. Not satisfied 
with this, in the spring of 1872 I added three 
pure-blood Alderney a. We also milked four 
half-blood two-year-olds and seven native 
cows. The Aldemeys added, carried us up 
to 180 lbs. per cow. Being much pleased 
with this improvement, and having for 1873 
nine two-year-old heifers, grade Ahlerneys, 
and the four grade of tho previous year 
being now three years old, and the three 
pure blood Ahlerneys, we felt that ov dairy 
would give a good account ol’ itself, and we 
were not disappointed. This year wo expect 
to reach 250 lbs. per cow. Then again, at 
first, we could only get SO*, per lb. for our 
butter; and for 1873 we sold at 50e. I lie 
season through. As it increased in quantity 
so it increased in quality. If others can do 
better let us hear from them. 
Benjamin d. Jones. 
Sparrow Bush Slock Farm, Orange Co., N. Y. 
- -+++ - 
MR. DICKSON’S COW DEAD. 
1 must return thanks to a few of the many 
readers of the Rural New-Yorker for their 
advice and recipes for my sick cow (see 
Rural, Jan. 31, 1874). There were some 
very liberal in sending mo cards saying 
that for the sum of $5 they would send me 
receipes that would cure my Cow. Now, 
if I were to sell for half that amount all the 
recipes I have, 1 would consider myself about 
as rich as the Rothschilds in England, as 1 
have about as many us a horse can pull nt 
one load. However, I was well pleased to 
hear from them, although the recipe is not 
yet made that would have curhd her. My 
brother is considered a good cattle doctor, 
and so, one day, he explained to me all about, 
the stomach of a creature, and then I made 
up my mind that she could not he cured. 
So, finally, we knocked her in the head, 
took oil her hide, examined her, and found 
the cause of her trouble to be cancer in the 
mouth of the first stomach. 
Lynxvillc, Wis. Wit, Dickson. 
MANGE, CHOLERA AND KIDNEY WORMS. 
A writer in the Planter says:—“There 
are but three diseases requiring treatment, 
which are mange, cholera and worms in the 
kidneys, commonly called breaking down in 
the loins. For mango, wash well with lye 
soap, and then pot liquor. For cholera, if 
you know the disease, as soon as you see the 
fiog begin to droop and try to vomit, gag 
him, and give him twenty grains of calomel 
made into a pill. If you have been in the 
habit of giving your hogs spirits of turpen¬ 
tine, at tho rate of one tablespoonful to the 
hog, put it on corn, and you will bo rarely 
troubled with this fatal disease. 
If the first dose of calomel does not relieve 
in twenty-four hours, repeat the dose. I rare¬ 
ly have to repeat it if administered in time. 
We sometimes see hogs dragging their hind 
legs. This is caused by worms in tho kidney, 
and may be easily cured by giving a tea- 
spoonful of turpentine every morning for 
three or four days, mixed with corn. Hogs 
which have been feeding on ac«rnq are most 
subject to this disease, and they should huvo 
the turpentine onoce or twice a week while 
feeding on this mast. Every hog feeder 
should keep a bottle of the spirits of turpen¬ 
tine, and give it occasionally through tho 
year ; he will find it of great benefit to his 
hogs. 1 have practiced this for twenty years 
successfully. It seems to be a specific for all 
hog diseases.” 
--- 
A SWINE HERD BOOK. 
Some time ago there was a discussion in 
these columns of the importance of a Swine 
Herd Book. We notice that a correspondent 
of the Prairie Farmer revives the subject 
which seems to us one that the National 
Swine-Breeders Association should consider. 
We copy the correspondence alluded to as 
follows : 
There is a subject that I consider of great 
importance to the farmers of Illinois, as well 
as to all other corn-producing States. That 
is the production of pure-blooded swine. 
There should be a book of record, where a 
man that has pure-blooded hogs should be 
required to Uavetbe-m recorded, so that when 
we are told that we are possessing pun- 
blooded swine wc may go to the records and 
ascertain whether we are getting pure blood, 
as represented, or not. 
As the case now stands, a man will get a 
few fine specimens and exhibit at our fairs, 
and when we send in our order? we get some¬ 
thing inferior to wliat WC have already on 
our farms, and entirely worthless in many 
instances. 
There are men that will furnish a pedigree 
of stock sold, but it is seldom that it can be 
traced farther than some name he has given 
himself. 
In cattle we have the Herd Book and in 
horses we have the Stud Book, but in swine 
I do not know ol’ anything of the kind. I 
only speak of this subject to bring it before 
the public, as I consider it a very important 
one. 
