MILK ROOM 
CHURN ROOM 
ICE HOUSE 
kSH 
8EFL 42 
MOOBE’S BUBAL WEW-YOB 
DAIRY NOTES ON MARYLAND,-2. 
THE DRY VAULT SYSTEM. 
That good butter can be made on the “dry- 
vault system” there can be no doubt. In¬ 
deed, we have tested butter made on this 
system in numerous instances and found it 
excellent. Home have even claimed that 
there is no plan superior to it and hence they 
recommend it in preference to the pools or 
water vats. We cannot go so far as this, 
but must admit that in the absence of water 
conveniences, the dry vault, when properly 
constructed, may serve a very useful pur¬ 
pose and especially wheu the Devonshire 
plan of heating the milk in order to get up 
the cream is practised. 
What we seek in a good method for setting 
the milk for cream is an arrangement where¬ 
by a low, even temperature of milk may be 
maintained. There must be good ventilation 
in order that the animal odor or other odors 
In milk prejudicial to its flavor, may be free 
to pass off and be wafted away from the 
milk room. These can bo secured in a prop¬ 
erly constructed vault, and although the 
pools and water vat have in our opinion im¬ 
portant advantages over the dry vault, they 
must not be considered as wholly indispen¬ 
sable to t he manufacture of flrst-class butter. 
Upon farms therefore, where water cannot 
conveniently be had for pools, or for the sup¬ 
ply of water vats and large pans, the dry 
vault may be substituted with reasonable 
prospect that good butter may result from 
this plan of setting the milk. And in many 
parts of the West where running water is 
scarce, or upon farms that cannot have the 
proper supply of water near the farm huild- 
iugs where it is desirable to locate the dairy 
house, the dry vault may be commended and 
will be found serviceable for butter manu¬ 
facture. 
The accompanying rough draft will Illus¬ 
trate what is considered a very good plan 
for constructing the dry-vault. 
Plan or Milk Vault, with Ice-IIouse 
Connection. 
The whole structure is 30x18 feet. The 
milk room is 10x18 feet, with bench of mason¬ 
ry hollowed out, making a trough for the 
pans and running round the sides of the room. 
A, A, are tubes made of boards eight inches 
wide extending from the ice-house to the 
milk room for conducting the cold air from 
the ice. These tubes are perforated with 
holes. The chum room is higher than the 
milk room and is connected by a stairway 
leading from one to the other ; R, is a closet 
and W,W, are windows. The churn room 
is provided with sink and pump for water, 
and the milk room may have a stove for reg¬ 
ulating temperature in cold weather. The 
cold air from the ice-house may he regulated 
by opening or dosing the tubes so as to main¬ 
tain a temperature in the room of (i0° to 62° 
Pahr. during the hottest weather. The tubes 
open near the floor and the ice-house is higher 
than the milk room and is not under the 
vault. It may be wholly above ground. 
The vaults in Maryland differ considerably 
in their internal arrangement, but they are 
all constructed on the same principle, being 
sunk below the surface and built with heavy 
walls of stone or brick and the milk room 
arched. They are very nicely furnished in¬ 
side—the floors being grouted and the walls 
smoothly plastered, so that every part may 
be kept clean and sweet. They are well ven¬ 
tilated, the windows and ventilators protect¬ 
ed with gauze wire so as to prevent the en¬ 
trance of flies and vermin. 
THE SCOFIELD PLACE. 
W, J. Sco field has a nice farm of 103 
acres lying iu the vicinity of Sandy Spring. 
The farm is divided as follows :—29 acres 
■woodland, 12 acres meadow, 1.5 acres in oreh- 
arding—10 of which are devoted to apples 
and 5 to pears and peaches. There is also 1 
acre in gooseberries and other small fruit. 
The pears average about $2 per bushel, the 
apples 60 cents and the gooseberries, which 
are the Houghton variety, briug §2 per bush¬ 
el. The rest of the land is cultivated and in 
pasture. 
Mr. Scofield has six fields of nine acres 
each, which he cultivates in regular rotation. 
The field which has laid longest in sod is 
turned in the fall and in the spring one-half 
ton of crushed hones are sowed to the acre. 
The land is harrowed three or four times and 
planted to corn. All manure made from the 
poultry yards is 3aved and a compost made 
by mingling it with that from the privy, adcl- 
ing bone and ashes and other d i visors. About 
a handful of this compost is placed on two 
hills of coru. The yield is 50 bushels to the 
acre and sometimes more. After the corn 
there follow two crops of wheat or one crop 
of wheat, followed by some other small grain, 
when the laud is seeded to grass. 
THE COWS AND THEIR FEED. 
We found on this farm a herd of very 
choice cows, four of which were pure Jer¬ 
seys, also some Durham crosses. Mr. S. has 
tried thoroughbred Ayrshircs, but is not 
pleased with the breed for butter dairying. 
The cows are wintered on course fodder, hay 
and corn meal. Each cow gets two quarts 
of meal night and morning and as much hay 
as she will eat. The meal is fed dry. The 
dry cows get only half the quantity of meal 
named above. During June, July and Au 
gust no meal is fed, but at other times when 
the animals are at pasture, they get their 
rations. 
Eight cowb were in milk at the time of our 
visit and wore yielding 80 pounds of butter 
per week, and two of the cows “ came In 
milk” last fall. The oldest of the Jerseys 
averaged 11 pounds 10 ounces of butter per 
week. There were two heifers in the herd, 
but the quantity of butter yieldod per week 
from them had not been tested. Last year 
the product from eight head of cows, good 
and bad, was 8,051 pounds. 
THE MILK VAULT 
is 11x17 foot and 7 feet from floor to top of 
the arch. The vault is eight feet under 
ground. There is a ventilator at the end and 
there is a tube running to tiie ice house 
which, in this cose, extends below the sur¬ 
face, a dry well being sunk to curry off the 
water as it forms from the melting of the ice. 
The soil in this section is underlaid with 
gravel, and is of such a porous nature that 
the water is carried off from the dry well 
without any further construction of drains. 
There is a tube running from the milk vault 
to the dry well, which serves for ventilation 
and the admission of water. The well is 16 
feet deep and extends four feet below the 
bottom of the ice. 
The milk can be kept in this vault, ata tem¬ 
perature not above 63° Pahr. during the hot¬ 
test weather. 
CHURN ROOM. 
The churn room is on a higher level than 
the milk vault and a wide stairway leads 
down from it to the vault. The chum room 
is 12x12 feet and 9 feet high, and is provided 
with windows and means of ventilation. 
The lower part of the room is below the sur¬ 
face of the ground only. Here are the churns 
and other utensils for butter making. 
The milk is set in deep puns and is skimmed 
in summer when 36 hours old. The cream 
is allowed to get slightly acid and is churned 
at a temperature of 58° iu summer and 64° iu 
winter. The butter is put up iu prints weigh¬ 
ing one-half pound each, neatly stamped, and 
goes to the Washington market, bringing 50c. 
per pound. 
Mr. Scofield lias tried a number of churns 
but finds nothing that suits him so well as 
the one lie 1ms now in use, lb is of peculiar 
construct ion and differs from any we have 
heretofore seen. It may be described as a 
cedar tub flaring at top, something in form 
of the old Welsh butter tub, flattened a little, 
so as to bo oval instead of circular. It is 22 
inches high and 18 inches in diameter at the 
top. It is provided with paddles which are 
propelled by a crank. 
JOSEPH T. MOORE'S FARM. 
This farm is located in Montgomery Co., 
20 miles north of Washington and 25 miles 
west from Baltimore. It contains 385 acres, 
and was purchased a few years ago for 
832,000. Land, however, has depreciated in 
value through this section of Maryland, and 
the farm, which has fine buildings and im¬ 
provements, would probably not now bring 
870 per acre. 
The crops this year consist of .80 acres 
wheat, 40 acres corn, 15 acres oats, 45 acres 
in meadow and 50 in pasture. The system 
of culture here is to grow four crops of grass, 
theu plow and put to corn. This is followed 
by two crops of wheat, when the land is again 
seeded to grass. Wheat averages about 20 
bushels to the acre, and the crop last year 
grown amounted to 1,200 bushels. 
The raising of hay for market is made 
somewhat of a specialty ou this farm, a hun¬ 
dred tons per year having not unfrequently 
been sold. The price per ton has usually 
averaged 815 in Washington, where it is 
hauled—the cost of delivery being about $1.25 
per ton. 
EXPENSES AND PROFITS. 
Mr. Moons turned to his books and gave 
us some items showing the expenditures and 
net proGts from his farming. The annual 
cost of labor is $690 ; manures, $1,306 ; de¬ 
preciation of stock, $250 ; blacksmithing, 
888 ; wheelwright, 833. The net profits sohIO 
years have been $3,700. The farm cleared 
that sum in 1870. In 1871 the net profits 
were $1,200 and last year—which Mr. M. des¬ 
ignated as the hardest year for farming he 
hud ever seen, on account of drouth and 
other causes, the profits were only $757. 
Borne attention has been paid to fattening 
cattle for the shambles, and in one year the 
net profit on 55 head of steers was $758. 
There are now 10 cows on the farm which 
are employed in butter making. The butter 
is sold at the door to huxters at 34c. per 
pound. 
A feature in this part of Maryland as well 
a3iu Virginia is the running of market wag¬ 
ons. Men with these wagons come along 
regularly to the farms oacu or twice a week 
and gather up all the surplus from the gar¬ 
den, the poultry yard und the dairy. They 
purchase for cash and haul to the mantel, 
making such profits as they can, and they 
often accumulate a handsome property from 
the business. 
THE SMOKE HOUSE. 
We found upon this farm one of the best 
arranged smoke houses that wo have ever 
seen. It was large and built of brick, with 
iron door which is generally kept locked. In 
the gable end there is a fireplace with door, 
Tuk Smoke House. 
A, Fireplace, with door for making the smoke. 
a chimney leading up on the inside of the 
wail so as to let the smoke into the room. 
The advantage of this arrangement is that 
the fire for smoking is built wlthoutentering 
the building and simply by opening the door 
of the fireplace. The smoke passing up the 
chimney on the interior side of the wall is 
cooled anil thus the meat does not come in 
contact with heat from the lire, in the or¬ 
dinary smoke house, as is well known, the 
pieces of meat often break loose from their 
fastenings and fall into the fire or ashes 
underneath and are injured or destroyed. 
In this plan the ash-room may be partitioned 
off and the meat koptiua room by itself and 
the door being always kept locked except at 
such times as the moat is desired for the 
table, there is no chance of loss from thieves 
or flies. Mr. Moore says he has always kept 
meat, in this house in perfect condition from 
one end of t he year to the other, and no losses 
have occurred from any source. There was 
a large quantity of hams and bueon in the 
house at the time of our visit and it was in 
the finest order. We give a rough draft, 
showing the general features of the house, 
-- 
Money in Dairying.—A correspondent of 
the New England Farmer communicates to 
that paper the receipts from three cows 
owned by Francis Dunbar of Brockton, 
Mass., for one year ending April 1,1874. The 
cows were u mixture of Jersey and Ayrshire 
and two of them were under medium size. 
Besides the milk used in a family of three 
persons—amouuting to nearly a pound a day 
the year round—there was sold from these 
three cows as follows ; 
1,000 pounds butter at 50c.$500 
64 do. used in family. 27 
New milk sold. 27 
Skimmed milk. 100 
Total.$051 
Not bad for a dairy of three cows. We 
should be glad to hear from Mr. Dunbar in 
confirmation of this statement. 
Horseman. 
H0R3ES SUFFER BY BAD ROADS. 
We are grumbling about our roads and 
surveyor-*. The roads are miserable, and 
our system of making and repairing them 
is miserable too, but we do not realize how 
much we are losing by continuing to use 
them in their present condition. The an¬ 
nual expense for wear and tear of horses, 
carriages and harness is enormous, but on 
smooth, hard and levij roads, is very much 
greater. Supposing a horse can pull on a 
level road 1,009 pounds, on a road rising one 
foot to the hundred, ho could pull hut 900 
pounds. If it rises two feet in a hundred 
810 pounds, two and a half feet 720 pounds, 
four feet 520 pounds, five feet 400 pounds, 
and if the rise were ten feet in a hundred, 
ho could pull but 250 pounds, or only ono- 
quarter the load ho could draw on a level 
road. Then, again, the condition of a road, 
whether hard and smooth, or soft and un¬ 
even, has mu oh to do with the amount a 
team can draw over it. Experiments made 
by Morin show that a load of 9,000 pounds 
will require a tractive force of 1,000 pounds 
to move it over a firm, gravel road, newly 
repaired. On best kind of gravel road, 810 
pounds. On broken stone road in good con¬ 
dition, 160t£ pounds; on good pavement, 
1383-i,' pounds. According to the above cal¬ 
culations, in the first case it would require 
eight horses to do the work which one could 
do in the latter ease. So if both roads were 
•level, and we have 200 bushels or potatoes 
to carry to market, we could draw them on 
the best paved road with one horse, while on 
the newly repaired gravel road we should 
need eight horses, and if the rise were ten 
feet in a hundred wo should require thirty- 
two horses to draw the same load.— N. E. 
Farmer. 
» ♦ ♦- 
RUSSIAN HORSES. 
An English writer saysA specialty of 
renown in Russia are the little horses of the 
Musliik. They are hardy in the fix-st instance, 
as everything is in Russia, and they are 
quick and strong. Two of these little horses, 
hardly large enough to be called ponies, will 
draw a plow all day with a pause at noon. 
They are now largely exported (under the 
name of Litthauers) to Prussia, and in some 
places have altogether dispossessed the oxen 
of their old privileges, i worked with them 
on one of the estates of Barton Pfuco, where 
they were fed upon chaff of any description, 
even of lupines, very successfully, condi- 
mented with some potato refuse from the 
distillery. In harvest time, when the little 
mice had to work like brewers’ horses, 1 ad¬ 
ministered to them some bran, and they 
grew fat even under so unfavorable circum¬ 
stances. Wo soon had some 20 more sent 
down, and so we would spare them a little, 
and send them into the enclosure with the 
foals now and then. Two of them wore able 
to draw the Champion reaper all day long, 
and got two pecks of oats each as an encour¬ 
agement.. They, too, laid on flesh during the 
time. 1 mean to say that they are the most 
useful animals for easy agriculture existing, 
as we used to work them. 
BREECHY HORSES. 
The habit of jumping fences runs in fami¬ 
lies, among horses, very remarkably, though 
any colt we ever saw will easily take it up. 
Niucty-uino horses in a hundred as wo use 
them have no occasion to jump, and a three- 
foot fence will confine them after they are 
four years old if they have up to that time 
never learned to jump. In responso to an 
inquiry W. H. of the Western Farmer says: 
To prevent jumping, I have found just two 
ways effective. Buckle a surcingle around 
the body, then the halter strap through the 
fore legs to this ; tie so that the horse cannot 
get his head above the point of the shoulder. 
Second. Place upon the horso a common 
halter with forehead strap, sow to this a 
piece of sheep skin the wool side next the 
head and hanging low enough to compel him 
to hold up his head too high for a spring to 
enable him to sec the Lop of the fence. This 
latter suggestion we value a3 applicable to 
colts to which the temptation to jump is 
liable to be presented. 
- 
Blinders for Horses. — Bridles with 
blinders for horses, should not be used as 
they interfere with the sight of the animal, 
which is only fearful of objects it is not 
familiar with. Horses can bo broken in 
much less time without blinders, and will 
not frighten near so much if the eye is left 
the free opportunity to examine objects. 
