July ae 
Siuttn Sksfaitdra. 
MOORE’S RURAL WEW-YOR 
DAIRY NOTES ON VIRGINIA.-II. 
We have alluded to the mild climate of 
Loudoun County, Va. It is between the 
extremes—the temperature being even, and 
rarely hotter than 85 s or colder than 8° Fahr. 
The summers are therefore not oppressive 
and the winters are open, cattle not unfre- 
quently grazing until Christmas and plowing 
is often done in January. These are advan¬ 
tages which those accustomed to the rigors 
of the winters in Northern and Central New 
York can duly appreciate. 
FRUITS. 
Some have urged that fruit culture should 
be carried on in connection with dairy hus¬ 
bandry, since the two branches can be man¬ 
aged advantageously together aud without 
the one interfering with the other. But in 
many parts of the dairy region some kinds 
of fruit, and especially the peach and grape, 
cannot be successfully grown. In Loudoun 
Co. all kinds of fruit are produced in great 
perfection. All through the County wo 
found the plum, the cherry, the peach, apple 
and pear trees in thrifty growth and in 
healthy condition, and we were quite satis¬ 
fied from the appearance of the fruit orchards 
that the high reputation of this section as a 
fruit region was well deserved. The grape 
grows here readily, the soil on the slopes of 
the Blue Ridge and Catoctin being specially 
adapted for vineyards. Formerly no very 
great attention was paid to fruit culture be¬ 
yond what was needed for the wants of the 
farm and home consumption ; but since the 
extension of the Washington and Ohio lt.R. 
to Hamilton'and the opening up of the coun¬ 
try to the markets at Washington and other 
cities, fruit culture as a specialty offers great 
inducements as a profitable branch of farm¬ 
ing. And within the past few years some 
farmers have planted largely of the peach, 
while others are preparing to enter upon the 
business or fruit growing as a specialty. 
GRASS. -! 
The lauds in Loudoun Co. are. naturally 
adapted to grass, the Blue grass, (Pun prn- 
tensls,) the Wire grass, (Poa compremi,) 
with other native sorts, being indigenous. 
Clover aud other cultivated grasses grow 
with great luxuriance when fairly treated, 
but the system of fanning, by which grain 
crops are continually taken from the soil 
without adequate ret urn, has reduced the 
fertility of many farms so that commercial 
fertilizers arc required, and these are used 
quite freely in the production of wheat and 
other grain crops. The continued aud fre¬ 
quent plowing and the short time the lands 
are devoted to gross, together with the small 
quantity of seeds used when putting the 
fields down to grass, all give a lightness of 
sod and a smaller yield than would be ob¬ 
tained if a different system of culture was 
adopted. This is quite evident from the 
contrast exhibited on occasional fields which 
have lain long in grass ; for on these fields 
the grass we found thick-set, luxuriant in 
growth, covering the whole ground, aud 
showing no Intervening spaces. Occasional 
pieces of clover wore to be seen of very 
heavy growth and as fine in all respects as 
in the best grass regions of New York. And 
from what we saw in making a careful ex¬ 
amination of the country, we were fully con¬ 
vinced that this part of Virginia is eminently 
adapted to dairy husbandry, having the three 
essential elements for its successful prosecu¬ 
tion, viz.,—climate, water, and the adapta¬ 
tion of the Boil to produce good grass. 
SHE OF FAHMS-CHAR/CTER OF THE PEOPLE, &C. 
The average sizes of farms range'perhapa 
from 150 to 800 acres. The general impres¬ 
sion which we had, before visiting this part 
of Virginia, was that most of the land was in 
large estates of a thousand or more acres ; 
on the other hand, wo found the farms di¬ 
vided up very similar to those In many parts 
of New York, and the farmers whom we 
met appeared to be thrifty, intelligent and 
hospitable. In the vicinity of Hamilton, 
Lincoln and Waterford, the country was 
early settled by persons belonging to the So¬ 
ciety of Friends, and their descendants are 
an exceedingly intelligent and pleasant peo¬ 
ple. Of course, among this class of farmers, 
slaves were never held, and hence, on the 
abolition of slavery, the effects from the 
change were not as severely felt as with those 
who depended on slave labor in the working 
and management of tha farms. Being accus¬ 
tomed to labor and the management of farm¬ 
ing in all its details, the war and the new 
state of things which it inaugurated left 
them self-reliant and as fully prepared to 
meet the exigencies of the times as the farm¬ 
ers of New York. These people are very ] 
liberal in their views, are characteristically t 
neat and thrifty farmers, living in good style, t 
are hospitable, and like the Quakers every- J 
where, are distinguished for their temperate if 
habits and other elements of good citizens. 1 
An objection frequently urged by North- 1 
era men against emigrating and settling 1 
South, is that Southerners look upon North¬ 
ern men with distrust, and are not inclined 1 
to admit them into their families on social 1 
relat ions. From what, we saw of the people ' 
in Loudoun County wo should say that the 1 
objection named cannot apply to this section { 
of Virginia. Northern men are warmly wel¬ 
comed here, and will find congenial society 1 
if they be worthy and of good repute. Bad 
people, those that are dissolute, profane and 
querulous, cannot be expected to he well re¬ 
ceived, Such are not wanted, and they will 
very likely meet with a wide berth, as they 
would in any intelligent and well disposed 
neighborhood at the North. We think there 
is a good opening for industrious and thrifty 
farmers from the North — men who have 
some capital to commence with and have 
energy and enterprise, and who arc seeking 
to make good and pleasant homos for them¬ 
selves and their children. Nice farming lands 
in the Loudoun Valley, with fair buildings 
and improvements, can be bought at from 
$50 to $75 per acre ; and when it is considered 
that these lands are only a short distance 
from Washington, the national capital—a 
city fast growing into importance, and al¬ 
ready one of the best markets—that George¬ 
town, Alexandria, Baltimore and other places 
are also good markets of easy access to ( his 
region, it will be seen there are inducements 
for persons to come here and settle and make 
permanent homos. 
THE OLD DOMINION CHEESE FACTORY. 
There is but one cheese factory in the 
County, the “Old Dominion,” which is lo¬ 
cated at Hamilton, a pleasant village on the 
Washington and Ohio R.R,, seven miles west 
of Leesburg and about 40 from Washington. 
The factory was built, and opened in 1871 by 
.J. K. Taylor, a Virginian, and a gentleman 
of great enterprise, who, among other good 
tvorks, established also the Virginia Normal 
Institute, a flourishing school also located at 
Hamilton. Mr. Tayt.ok, having become 
somewhat familiar with the advantages of 
dallying during his visits to Chester Co., 
Pa., and believing that the business could 
bo successfully introduced into the Loudoun 
Valley, at, once took the initiatory steps by 
erecting a factory and employing experienced 
cheese workers from the North to carry on 
the work. The experiment amply demon¬ 
strated the fact that not only an excellent 
quality of cheese could be made in Virginia, 
but that the dairy was more remunerative 
than grain growing. Indeed, considering it 
as a means of renovating the hard-worn soils 
of Loudoun, no kind of farming could prom¬ 
ise better results. Mr. TayLOB, reporting on 
the sales of cheese, butter, milk and ealves 
from his dairy of eight cows for the season 
commencing May 7 and closing December 
12, 1871, the first year of operations, states 
the not receipts over current expenses at 
$88T.ID, averaging $48.40 per cow. From F. 
R. Smith’s dairy of ten cows, near Lincoln, 
2,040 pounds of cheese were made during the 
season of 1871, netting $273.81, also 070 pounds 
of butter, bringing au average price of 30c. 
per pound ; value of 10 Calves, $01.40—mak¬ 
ing an average return per cow, without de¬ 
ducting cost for manufacturing butter, 
$ 02 . 02 . 
Mr. E. J. Smith's dairy near Lincoln, rang¬ 
ing from 10 to 11 cows, reports an average of 
$40.03 per cow for the season, without de¬ 
duction for cost of making butter ; Mr. B. N. 
Welch’ 8 dairy near Circleville, an average 
of $48 per cow. 
This must ho regarded as a very fair show¬ 
ing l'or persons commencing a busiuess and 
concerning which they had previously but 
little knowledge. Since the introduction of 
dairying considerable attention is being paid 
to the breeding and selection of good dairy 
stock ; Short-IIorns and J erseys have been 
brought into the County, and farmers are 
learning how to manage cows and produce 
milk to the best advantage. 
We looked over the factory with consider¬ 
able interest and found it well arranged. It 
has capacity for manufacturing the milk of 
000 cows, but at present the number from 
which milk is delivered is small. Of the 14 
patrons of the factory only one has a dairy 
of 20 cows. The milk In some instances is 
brought a distance of three miles. Like the 
generality of new enterprises in which a 
radical change in the system of farming is to 
be introduced, many farmers hesitate to 
enter upon dairying, and are apparently 
waiting to be doubly convinced that it is a 
paying business. If they could have the ex¬ 
ample of a few Northern dairymen among 
them and see the results to he accomplished 
intelligent method of dairy husbandry, 
^iis whole region would soon be converted 
from grain growing to grazing, thus bringing 
back the land to its original fertility and at 
the same time adding materially to the 
wealth of the people. For it must be ob¬ 
served that the system of grain growing, as 
now practiced in Loudoun, is tin exhaustive 
system, which must grow less remunerative 
from year to year, and finally cud in ft total 
dependence upon expensive commercial for 
tihzers, to enable farmers to make a decent, 
crop. What the country needs is more grass, 
more stuck, more barnyard manure by which 
farms may be permanently improved instead 
of using a large share of the proceeds of the 
crop in commercial fertilizers which are most¬ 
ly used in making the crop, and add but little, 
if anything, to the permanent Improvement 
of the soil. 
The “ Old Dominion” factory, the present 
season, is under the charge of a skillful man¬ 
ufacturer, J. Edgar Jones, formerly of 
Brookfield, Madison Co , N. Y., and who 
manufactured the cheese during the season 
of 1873. The cheese on the shelves were 
well made, and when tested with the iron, 
bowed quality and flavor comparing favor¬ 
ably with much of the New York market. 
There is a good home market for cheese, 
and a considerable portion of that, made at 
the factory goes to supply the neighboring 
villages, while orders are received from Alex¬ 
andria, Norfolk, Richmond, Lynchburg and 
from Wilmington, N. C. 
We have no doubt that if a number of fac¬ 
tories were established in Loudoun County, 
the whole product made could be marketed 
in Southern cities at remunerative rates, and 
as the railroad facilities are uow such as to 
make the transport rapid and easy, we were 
strongly impressed with the idea that no 
branches of husbandry could bo followed 
with more profit iu this section than those of 
the dairy and fruit culture. Iu our next 
article we shall have something to say of the 
farms visited, with a brief description of the 
manner in which they are conducted. 
a few smaller fields for the convenience of 
turning in the teams and catching them 
easily and hero is the homestead, convenient 
but homely, but yet home-like ; for there is 
warm shelter for every animal and to spare. 
The whole is built of stone ; for below is blue 
stone and above white, with freestone be¬ 
neath the ten or fifteen feet of limewater, and 
though the ascent ia almost imperceptible, 
yet, at this particular spot, tho rise admits 
of the lower stories being in the banks, so 
that all the premises are remarkable for 
their coolness in summer and warmth in 
winter. Water runs through every stable 
and thence into sheds in the yards and it is 
so contrived that frost has never interfered 
with the supply. 
Iu tho year 1851, every sheep On the farm 
was grade Merino, every cow a grade Devon 
aud every horse descended from two lame 
mures bought from Kentucky and a horse 
which was by an imported heavy draft stal¬ 
lion in Canada. No hogs were ever kept, 
because they would have disturbed the 
clearness of the water which runs through 
every enclosure on the farm and would have 
disturbed every spring rising in the wood. 
All tho dish water, Beraps, &c,, which usually 
go to tho hogs are mixod up with meal and 
given to the poultry, so that nothing is wasted 
which would support the much-worshipped 
swine. 
Two Hereford bulls were bought in Cana¬ 
da and used till 1852, when every cow was 
tho offspring of those animals and during the 
same period th reo rams of the old Houthdown 
(Elliman’s) breed had sired every sheep. 
The horses had received no particular atten¬ 
tion up to this time but the second son at 
this time showed great interest in proceed¬ 
ings and he went to Mr. Alexander and 
bought a colt which had been valued very 
highly but which at two years old was in¬ 
jured by accident so that ho could never win 
a race, and from this horse, now living, every 
animal of the horse kind but a pair of old 
mares are descended. This young and ener¬ 
getic gentleman, also by the use of two 
Short-Horn bulls aud four Cotswold rams, 
brought from Mr. Stone of Moufcou Lodge, 
or from his stock, has tho finest lot of roan 
cattle ever beheld, and the sheep are really a 
splendid Hock, superior to any Shropshire 
ever seen, and equal if not superior to any 
Oxfordshire Downs, the wool being decidedly 
better. A Working Farmer. 
FARM NOT 
SALE. 
Three thousand four hundred and fifty 
acres, sloping from the northwest to the 
southeast; about. 230 acres in woods at the 
northwest and part of the west, outside of 
the land and a kind of lake-looking sheet of 
water at the foot of the farm, viz., on the 
south and southeast extremity, but which is 
not standing water as there are 17 different, 
springs of water on the upland which mean¬ 
der down Into three small rivulets, the latter 
supplying the lake with a never-failing sup¬ 
ply of fresh water. Altogether this fine body 
of water covers 115 acres, including three 
islands—one of seven acres, one of five and u- 
half acres and the other of only 1V acres. 
There are other small streams of waler 
coming into this from ad joining estates, but 
it, leaps, in one place, over a kind of natural 
cascade below which might be water-power 
for any purpose, as below, on other people’s 
property where the fall is not so good, the 
brook is made useful in several places bofore 
it reaches the river. 
There are about 500 acres around the lake 
which are not many inches above tho level of 
the water, but are nevertheless quite sound ; 
for, although the subsoil is clay, some of it 
fine enough to makoVrockory, yet there are 
20 or 30 feet of blue stone under and on 
about 1,300 acres, not more than two or three 
feet higher from the level of the first men¬ 
tioned, there are in various places ten, twen¬ 
ty or more acres which rise a few feet higher 
under which is gravel, clean and flinty and 
pebbly, like it is on some parts of tho sea¬ 
shore, but as four or five feet of good, loamy 
soil are over it, the pasture is very fine. 
The first mentioned 500 or more acres, 
occasionally in the wintex*, overflow with 
water to the depth of a foot or two and 
such a sediment is left as to allow of these 
meadows being mowed without any dressing 
of manure being required ; the 1,200 acres 
adjoining and which were never plowed but 
which have beeu grazed by cattle and sheep 
for more than 20 years, is a magnificent pas¬ 
ture in three large divisions, the three small 
rivulets previously mentioned being the 
fonces dividing them, excepting that in places 
the living interwoven bnxshwood, or the 
bank has to be supported by some rails, and 
in others, a good, substantial stone wall pre¬ 
vents a passage. Up towards the upland are 
FARMERS’ DRINKS. 
“Laborer" in New York Tribune says: 
A wholesome drink which can be cheaply 
furnished aud that will take the place of an 
occasional visit to the bar room will, I think, 
be a benefit to the laboring man, and may, 
by lining common and good, prevent tempta¬ 
tion to something stronger. It is apparent 
that it is the taste of sharpness that is 
Wanted rather than the iutoxieation, and 
there are a number of drinks that cost but 
little which relish well in a warm day aud 
when the laborer ia tired. Among them 
those made from malt, sugar ami hops aro 
strongest, but not necessarily the sharpest to 
tho taste. I will give a few simple directions. 
A washing tub or baiTol holding from ten to 
twenty-five gallons, and a kettle or boiler in 
which to heat water is necessary, beside the 
keg, cask, or bottles to hold the beer. The 
use of mall means pale malt, to be obtained 
at about $1.50 to $1.75 per bushel of any 
grain dealer in New York or other city. The 
Following are tome recipes : 
1. Ground malt, one-half bushel ; hops, six 
ounces ; water, 20 gallons ; boil one hour, 
strain, and add ono-half gallon molasses. 
When nearly cool add one-half pint yeast, 
and barrel. As soon as fermentation com¬ 
mences bung it down or bottle This may be 
used in smaller proportionate quantities. 
2. One-quarter pound hops, one-half gallon 
molasses ; boil one hour m ten gallons of 
water, strain, and when nearly eckl add one- 
half pint yeast. This may vai-y in quantities 
to suit. If more molasses is used it will bo 
stronger when fermented. 
3. Fill a boiler with theshellsof green peas 
and cover with water, boil slowly for three 
hours, strain, and add tho liquor of boiled 
hops to make it hitter to suit the taste, and 
when nearly cool add yeast. Molasses will 
add to its strength. 
4. Gather spruce boughs, birch twigs, 
birch bark, wintergreen, sweet fern, in foot, 
almost any wholesome root or herb, boil, 
strain, and add molasses and yeast. 
5. Hops, eight ounces ; molasses, two gal¬ 
lons ; water, thirty gallons : boil one hour, 
strain, aud when cool add one-half pint 
yeast. Smaller proportionate quantities of 
each article may be used with lcs3 or more 
molasses. 
6. Water, ten gallons : molasses, one gal¬ 
lon ; essence spruce, four ounces; render 
inilk warm, adet one-half pint yeast. 
7. Same as No. 6 excepting essence of 
ginger. 
8. Same as No. 0 excepting four ounces 
essence lemon. One ounce cream, tartar may 
be added to either No. 0, 7 or 8 with advan¬ 
tage, and a couple of sliced lemons to either 
No. 6 or 7. 
White sugar, or a good article, adds much 
to the beer, and it will be found that the 
larger the quantity of sweetening, thorough¬ 
ly fermented, the stronger the beer. 
