762 
THE RURAL fiEW-YORKER. 
ISOV. 30 
THE INTERNATIONAL FAIR—AN OPPOR¬ 
TUNITY FOR CHEESE-MAKERS. 
PROFESSOR I>. B. ARNOLD. 
American dairymen have a j cist right to feel 
proud of the merit accorded to American and 
Canadian cheese at the recent Dairy Fair in 
London. To have our cheese declared superior 
to English cheese by English judges, a verdict 
confirmed by the opinion of the English press, 
when placed in competition on so large a scale 
as at the Londou Show, is to establish, beyond | 
dispute, a high comparative merit for our 
obeeBC, even if, as some of the English Journals 
claim, the English cheese fell behind by default. 
But American cheese-makers shonld not become 
so elated by this success as to lose eight of the 
star of progress which has been their guide in 
marching to the high position now accordbd 
them. Our finest cheese is some distance from 
perfection. It is capable of being improved an 1 
made more desir&ble. The best cheese-makers I 
meet with realize this most fully, and are the 
moat ardent and persistent in their efforts to 
advance still further the quality of their goods. 
With their modest claims and the acknowledged 
imperfections in their best productions, what 
must be the light iu which the great hulk of 
factory cheese appears to them. It cannot bo 
otherwise than very faulty, aud it is, in fact. so. 
It is a fact generally reoognized by consumers, 
both at home and abroad, and by dealers and by 
all classes of experts, that, while a few factories 
make cheese of very fine quality, the great bulk 
of American and Canadian choeBe does not 
come up to the wants of the trade, and that it 
goes at an inferior price and at a loss to all 
concerned. With the uumerous dairy organiza¬ 
tions and their frequent conventions for discus¬ 
sion?, which are ample and full, aud with the 
large space iu agricultural journals devoted to 
the dairy interest, it seems somewhat strange 
that Buch wile differences should exist as arc 
everywhere seen, and often in factories near 
each other. 
But there is a plain cause for this, and it lies 
chiefly in the minds of the cheese-makers. This 
remark does not mean that the army of cheese- 
makers in this country have uo desire to im¬ 
prove. There is no class of men couneored with 
the dairy, more earnest and anxious to do the 
best they possibly can in their art, and to at 
least tnrn out as good a product as their neigh¬ 
bors. They are indeed sensitive iu regard to 
I he reputation which their cheese shall have, as 
determined by tue test of sales. The point is, 
they have not in their mind's eyo just what 
qualities arc desired, and they have no adequate 
means of gaining this important information. 
Very few see much oheoso besides their own. 
Samples of perfect cheese, or cheese of highest 
merit, seldom fall under their vision, if it hap¬ 
pens not to bo found in their own factories. 
Men who know little cf cheese and less of oheese- 
rnakiug, tell them their cheese is not right; that 
they should put on more acid, or perhaps not so 
much; or that the salting is too little or too 
great; or the scalding is too low or too high, 
etc., etc., all of which only tends to oonfudou if 
any regard is paid to the advice of such advisers. 
Directions from persona not conversant with an 
art, however well intended, will never oariy 
that art to its highest perfection, aud are gen¬ 
erally worse thau useless. 
Cheese-makers who desire to get a clear idea 
of the goods most desired, can best acquire such 
a knowledge by personal inspection or BampleB 
of such cheese, and by examining their charac¬ 
teristics carefully with the aid of all the Bonses 
they can bring to hear upon them—sight, touch, 
taste and smell. As the cheeses which draw the 
highest prizes at the great International Dairy 
Fair to be held in New York during the first 
week in December next, are to be be donated 
tor public inspection, there will be the best op¬ 
portunity fur studying the peculiarities of first- 
class oheeso, ever offered to tho manufacturers 
of the oountry. That the occasion will briDg to¬ 
gether a large collection of cheeses oi superior 
merit, is certain, and the privilege of testing the 
best of such a collection will be a rare advan¬ 
tage—such an one as has never been enjoyed by 
the cheese-makers of the oountry, and the op¬ 
portunity ought not to be allowed to pass with¬ 
out their availing themselves or its advantages. 
Cheeses from different parts of the United 
States, Canada and Europe will bo there ic 
greater variety than has ever been seen in the 
States before, making the entertainment novel 
as well as profitable. It is to be hoped that no 
manufacturer who can possibly do so, will fail 
to give a few days’ time for studying the lessons 
this great show will afford him. 
— --♦♦♦- 
A MILK RECORD. 
Mu. Georoe Hurcui-ssoN of Chautauqua Co , 
N. Y., an old friend of the Rural engaged in 
the dairy business, spurred on by the example of 
Mr. Wickham’s reoord of the milk yield of his 
Jeraeys, in Rural of Nov. 16, sends us the reo¬ 
ord of two of his cows—the imported Holstein 
cow, Mary (Holstein Herd Book, Vol. 2, No. 
187), aud a native cow of no particular breed : 
Mary Cropped her calf April 15. 
Gave In May . 
1 M2 lbs. of milk. 
•• June... . 
1,456 “ 
•• July . 
1,247 
“ August....,. 
1,076 “ 
•* September.. 
" October. 
610 “ " 
Total In six months.. 
6,794 “ 
The native cow dropped her cult May 10. 
Gave in 10 days of May . 
76 > lbs. of milk. 
“ Jane....'. . 
1,396 “ 
“ July . 
, 1.200 ” 
“ August—.. 
. 935 ** 
“ September. 
. 804 *• 
" October... . 
, 650 “ 
Amount in flvemonths,six. 
. 5,750 
Mr. H. sayg that for amount of milk other 
breeds will beat tho Jerseys, hut then it iH for 
the quality rather than for the quantity of their 
milk that this little breed tea become 
famous. He thinks it would bo a good thing 
for dairymen generally, aud all interested iu 
deep-milking cows, to reoord carefully and pub¬ 
lish the m ile yields of exceptionally good ani¬ 
mals. We also think that such a measure would 
tend to beget a healthful spirit of emulation 
with regard to the possession cf the best kinds 
of animals, and a closer regard to the kind of 
care, feed and goneral attention which would bo 
most conducive to tho largest production of 
milk, and consequently to the best condition of 
the milk-producers. 
CALIFORNIA NOTES. 
BY “SPECS. 
THE V1HTAQE IN CAUFORNIA. 
The vintage iu California is nearly over. AU 
;he foreign sorts of grapes have been worked, 
md tho season is winding up with the Missions. 
Few Rural readers have ever seen a who-press, 
>r cellar. Well, the process or wine-making 
Joes not mnoh differ from thrashing grain. Da 
Turks' wineiy is crushing forty tons of grapes 
laiiy, at Santa Rosa. It requires two men wi.h 
Bcnop shovels to feed the machine, which is 
something like the cylinder of a thrasher. The 
jnice pours out into tho rec.iviug tub b^'ow, in 
the form of a stream a« large as a man’s wrist. 
Thence it is pumped into great tanks, holding, 
usually, two thousand gallons. The husks are 
placed in other tanks where they ferment. There 
it a very decided smell of sonr mash about th6 
establishment. But each night the place is 
scrubbed aud washed as clean as water can 
make it. There is no truth whatever iu Harper's 
Weekly's cartoon, which represents Chinamen 
treading grapes. That prooess would be as ab¬ 
surd as to attempt the thrashing of our vast crop 
of wheat with the old-fashioned flail. 
There was a fire at L iohman & Co.’s winery 
at Sicramento recently, borne small buildings 
were destroyed beoanae the engines could not 
get water, aud the main building caught fire. 
It was saved by a happy thought. Somebody 
with lucky presence of mind, ordered tho fire 
men to drop their supply pipe into a five-thou 
sand-gallon tank of wine, when the flames were 
easily extinguished. Here, where grapes are 
rated by car-loads and ship-loads, wine is not 
very precious. That tankful was only worth, on 
the spot, one thousand dollars. 
REDWOODS. 
Oar redwood trees are fast going the way of 
the earth. Only a few days since some vandals 
cut a Sequoia 27 feet aoros3 the stump, intending 
to travel with a seotiou for exhibition. Saw¬ 
mills, tho axe of the woodman, and forest fires 
are reducing the limits of these big 
woods. There are no others on the globe, 
and tho annual destruction of these is es¬ 
timated at six hundred millions of feet. That 
big tree Bhowed 4,860 rings of annular growth. 
It was eight hundred years old when the great 
pyramid was built, and would have made a huge 
battering ram for tho Greeks at the eeigo of 
Troy. I own five hundred acres of monster 
Redwoods, whioh posterity can Bafeiy count 
on, unless some of my descendants get 
Btricken with a love for fast horses, or go to 
gambling iu mining shares. One standing dead 
tree .urued down to the roots, leaving a hole 
ten feet in diameter aud fifteen foot deep, to the 
water, showing tho slow accumulation of silt 
and soil for ages after its planting. 
California is peculiarly adapted to tho busi¬ 
ness of 
GOAT RAISING. 
The mohair is in demand even here in San Fran* 
cisco. Having noticed paragraphs in the news¬ 
papers referring to this industry, I may bo able 
to throw a little light on thesubjsot from my 
own observations and tho experience of others 
engaged in the business. With this object in 
view I recently talked with b. II. Kendall, of 
Santa Rosa, a well known goat raiser. He 
started iu 1869, with one hundred common Cal¬ 
ifornia goats, females, worth one dollar and 
fifty cents eaeh, and three Angoras, one male 
and two females. His yearly increase in num¬ 
bers averaged over 100 per cent., until the 
breeding reached three-quarters pure, when it 
declined to about 100. As the flock grew, he sold 
off his surplus at the rate of five dollars for half- 
breeds, and ten to twenty dollars for the better 
gorts. 
The wool on half-breeds is short staple, and 
worthless, except that on males which is worked 
into mats and robes. Three-quarter-bred 
fleeces weigh from one and a half to two pounds 
of low-grade mohair, worth in this market 40 to 
GO cents per pound- The fleeces of better bred 
goats are worth all the way from. 60 cents to one 
dollar a pound. This includes the fifsoeu-six- 
teenths aud thirty-on3 thirty-eccond grades, 
which arc practically as valuable as the pure¬ 
bred, though some arc not quite as glossy. Tho 
length cf the staple is from eight to twelve 
inches. 
It is Mr. ReudaU’s opinion that a flock of 250 
Angoras is as profitable as one of 500 Spanish 
Merino sheep. The advantage in keeping goats 
is that they are browsing animals, and tho most 
inaccessible mount sins and foot hills afford 
them food when covered, as is common, with 
chemisal and other scrub growth. There are 
millions of acres of thiB kind of government 
land, unBiirveyed, forming fr6a pasturage for 
allcomers, tt is valueless for other uses, and 
never will be sold. Kids and wethers arc good 
food. A two-yoar-oM will weigh, dressed, sixty 
or seventy pounds. If not shorn, they shed off 
iu February. They are very hardy, and singu¬ 
larly exempt from diseases. Some newly im¬ 
parted have scab, but the climate seoms to era¬ 
dicate it. 
I have known this flock several years. They 
are very little trouble to herd or drive, and will 
easily make twenty miles a day. The owner 
lately moved his fi:ck of 500 from Lakeport 
across the Coast Range, sixty miles to Santa Rosa, 
in two -dayB and a half. He drove behind in a bog¬ 
gy, and only had the assistance of his shepherd 
dog. I remember when once descending the moun¬ 
tains through tho Squaw Creek Gap, several 
years ago, encountering this man and his goats. 
They were mites away from the settlements, in 
the midst of the wildest and most romantic 
tcanory of the Coast Range. I had started at, 
peep of day from Tyler’s. There were a cold, 
grav sky overhead, and a smooth toll road under 
foot. The monntaio air was fragrant with the 
perfume of Fines and Laurels, and inspiring 
with its purity. The road descended rapidly be¬ 
tween tall oliffs fringed in places, and over¬ 
hung with trees. Wo were skirting around the 
face of a procipioe, opening out into another 
and deeper canon, w hero there was a cloud of 
smoko from a fire far below. Yellow tw-rs of the 
inorniug sunshine rested on it, aud splashed 
through tho green leaves in tho tops of the Live 
Oaks, ltondi'l was encamped in the bottom, 
aud the opposite side of the mountain was white 
with his goats. They had spread out and up¬ 
wards, feeding a thousand feet aloft, and some 
of the patriarchs of the flock, with long beards, 
had climbed to the edge of the dizziest bight 
and were gravely looking down at us. 
They are certainly intelligent animals, aud 
most assuredly care for themselves in provid¬ 
ing their own food the whole year around, on 
this coast, as they are not at all choice in their 
provender. Sometimes it is grass, at other 
times they turn to and strip a Scrub Oak of its 
branches and bark. If nothing eh>e offers, they 
will cheerfully demolish a thorn-bush or Cactus. 
They have been seen taking airy walks on the 
top of tho redwood fence after breakfasting on 
parts of the lower panels. 
HOGS. 
While on the subject of domestic animals it 
may bo worth while to mention the arrival of 
half a dozen Magie hogs from Butler county, 
Ohio, on their way to Australia. They go ont by 
the next steamer. Wo have soma good hogs here. 
But there are many of the long-legged, long- 
suonted elm-peelers, half-wild iu the hills, such 
as grew on the frontier when I was a boy. Who 
that does not remember how willing one of the 
slab-sided, razor-backed brntes always was to 
make a race with the boy aud horse overtaking 
him in the road ? Though there might bo plsnty 
of room to turnout, tho gaunt oreatnre seemed 
to be lying in wait for some boy on horseback, 
when he would raise his bristles, give a loud 
“ booh,”aud starting sidewise, like a ship fall¬ 
ing off before the wiud, was off down tho road 
in a cloud of dust, scorning to turn out under a 
quarter of a mile, while the pursuer, with whoop 
aud hallo, and hat brim flapping, and bare legs 
urging on tho old plow-horse, always got left 
behind. 
San Francisco, Nov. 4, 1ST8. 
his use ; cheose averaged about medium prices ; 
eggs brought low prices, and as a consequenco 
were all the more used in the farmer’s family ; 
corn was more than an average crop ; apples 
have not been so plentiful as last season ; oats 
were a very good crop in some sections ; pota¬ 
toes turned out small and there wore but a few 
of them. Iu fact, nearly every crop raised on 
the farm was good and some larger than for 
years before, save potatoes and fruit. 
Thus the farmer has little or no reason to com¬ 
plain of the qnantity of his products or of the 
prices they brought in market ; and as the day 
for Tnanksgiving aud prayer draws nigh, let all 
lift up their hearts in praise to Almighty God for 
his lovingkin lnes i and bountiful mercies ! 
Onantanqua county has generally taken the 
lead in tho art of producing fine butter ; but wo 
have this season hoard for the first time that 
some commission merchants in New York City 
Bay tint of Ute they do not get hold of so fine 
an article of “ Chautauqua gilt-edge" as they 
used to. Perhaps the reason for this is that 
some dairymen arc trying to produce a larger 
qnantity aud at tho same time an article of the 
second grade. It is to be hoped that no Chau¬ 
tauqua dairyman will do this, bur, that OUaUtau- 
qua Oouuty will ever -hold her own” in the 
art of fine butter making. 
Some paoplc, after having “ gone West,” and 
remained a few years, conic back fully satisfied 
that they can live as ‘beaply and as easily in 
“ old Chautauqua” as they cm elsewhere. Frnit 
growing could be made a valuable branch of in¬ 
dustry hero, if more would take hold of the 
matter. Apples, Pours, Plums and Strawber¬ 
ries (and Peaches in some parts of the county) 
grow as readily here, and with as little care, 
asm any of the counties of No.v York State. 
Now that nearly all kinds of nursery stock oan 
bo purchased ao cheaply, wo hope to see more 
interest taken in the matter. Tito raising cf more 
flue poultry aud blooded stock conld also ho 
made a source of pleasure and profit to the en¬ 
terprising agriculturist. M. S. Dorman. 
CROP NOTES FROM NORTHEASTERN 
NEW YORK. 
Potatoes.— The most important crop and the 
one most remunerative to the farmers in this 
section, is the potato crop. Washington County 
annually yields as many as, if not more, of this 
valuable esculent, than any comity iu the State, 
although 8 ratoga, Warren and Reussalaer may 
also bo counted among the great potato growing 
counties of the State. Most of our farmers had 
their potatoes dug by the 20th of October, but 
some were dug later. The crop this year was 
about up to the average, though not a? good as 
it was last year. Some pieceB yielded 100 bush- 
els to the acre, but this was above the average. 
Corn is with as this yeav a good crop, and is 
about all husked. There was a good growth of 
fodder, and it eared well. 
Apples are a more abundant crop than for a 
number of years, although they fell off badly 
and show signs of early decay. 
Hay is made an important crop by some of our 
farmers, who bale aud ship it to the city. 
a. F . T. 
NOTES FROM CHAUTAUQUA CO., N. Y. 
Tub past season iu Chautauqua has been one 
of abundant harvests iu nearly all the various 
products of farm industry, and the Lord has 
Beemod in smile upon tho pathway of the farmer 
another season. 
Tho hay crop has been mere than an average 
one ; batter has brought as high a price as could 
be expeoted, considering the low price of nearly 
everything that the farmer has to purchase for 
RURAL SPECIAL REPORTS. 
St, Marks, Florida, Nov. IT. 
TnE main products of this portion of the 
State are corn, peas, pindars, potatoes, sugar¬ 
cane, cotton anil oats. C*ops ave good this 
year ; oiiue unusually so. It is now btiog con¬ 
verted into sugar and syrup, and it is a merry¬ 
making time for everybody. Com has been 
housed aud hegs have been brought up from 
the hummocks and turned into tho pindar fields 
to fatten. In somo instances they are almost 
fat enough for kilting when driven from the 
hummocks, not having cost the owner anythiug 
exoept the trouble of an occasional count. Po- 
tatoefl are still growing. Caterpillars have done 
very little damage to cotton this year ; the yield 
is generally seven to eight hundred pounds of 
seed cotton per aero. Rico is grown to a limited 
extent; it yields fifty bushels of rough rice per 
acre. Fruit culture is receiving moro attention 
here than formerly. I have quite a variety of 
fruits growing, hut my Grapes are my Bpeoial 
pets. _ 8 - w - 
Hknuioo Co., va, Nov. 24. 
The wheat crop was light for this section; 
yielding, on an average, only 10 bushels per 
acre. Winter oats were a f air crop; spring oats, 
light. Com is what the native Southern would 
call “tolerable;” the ears are short owing to a 
severe drought through August, September and 
a part of October. On that account also wheat 
sowing has been late : but, I think, there is a 
larger area sown this year than last. Potatoes 
wore an extra crop, and when sold at the time 
the crop was gathered, in July, they were worth 
e.nly from 76c to *1.00 per barrel. Lite pota- 
toea are very small; aweot potatoes are a good 
crop. Richmond, our market, is, I think, as 
good a one as New York. Wheat is worth from 
75o to *1 per bushel; oats, 85o. to 40 3 ; Irish 
potatoes, *1.50 to *2 per barrel; sweet pota¬ 
toes. *1 per barrel; corn 50c per bushel; pork, 
dressed, *3.50 to *4 per hundred; oowb are 
worth *30; horses *50 to *100. w. b. h. 
