205 
MARCH 29 
RURAL PRIZE ESSAY—NO. II. 
SOUND AND PITHY ADVICE TO THE 
PARMER. 
JOHN M. STAHL. 
Underdrain, 
Keep accounts. 
Keep a diary. 
Give stock salt regularly 
Weeds are robbers. 
Stick to your business. 
No man can farm by proxy. 
Have a home. 
Firm the seed-bed. 
Rotate a variety of crops. 
Read agricultural books and papers. 
Keep manure near the surface. 
Keep sheep dry underfoot. 
Plant a few trees each year. 
Don’t sign a paper for a stranger. 
Keep everything in its place. 
Consult experienced, successful farmers. 
Feed the soil with the food it needs. 
Neither a chronic lender nor a borrower be. 
Quality is as important as quantity. 
Swine plague is not “at home”in a clover 
field. 
Paint will cost less than new boards and 
beams. 
The doctor will ride on if he sees you have 
a good garden. 
Sell when your produce is ready for market. 
Have the least possible fencing, but always 
substantial. 
The most profitable acres are the deepest, 
not the broadest. 
Insure your property in some good company. 
Never buy land till you are sure of the title. 
Nature declares that to breed immature 
animals is poor policy. 
Feed grain (except wheat, etc.) and forage 
to stock on the farm. 
Use pure seed carefully selected, in season. 
Do all work at the very earliest seasonable 
moment. 
Have well and wood-shed near the kitchen 
door. » 
Better go to the lumber yard and the crib 
than to the “ cattle doctor.” 
The man without a hay-mow is not without 
a hole in his pocket. 
Sow rye between crops for pasture and 
manure. 
I have never heard a man complain that he 
had tilled his land too well. 
Color the butter before it comes from the 
cow with clover (green or dry) and corn-meal 
mush. 
The best bank in which to deposit is a bank 
of earth. 
Rain and wind will not charge anything for 
hauling the manure; but they are dear hands. 
Borne farming is like a sieve—only little 
leaks, but the profits all run through. 
A ton of corn fodder is worth for feed as 
much as two-thirds of a ton of hay; straw al¬ 
most as much. 
Raise large crops that leave the farm richer 
than they found it. 
Not only collect but keep (by absorbents 
and shelter) and apply (fined) manure. 
Shelter farm implements. Rust and rot eat 
faster than wear and tear. 
Plan and work ahead. Bright brains and 
brown hands make the farm pay. 
Keep out of debt. When the farm is once 
mortgaged it is already half lost. 
Money speut to make the home and farm 
attractive bears good interest. 
You can save the urine and keep the beasts 
clean by using sawdust or straw liberally for 
bedding. 
Never plaut au orchard on uudrained land, 
or make a mule pasture of it. It must be fed 
and tended. 
Farmers should seek not only to increase their 
productions, hut to save and market them 
better. 
The older and larger an animal grows the 
more food it takes to make a pound of growth 
—i. c., gaiu. 
J udieiously concentrate all efforts on a small 
area, economizing materials and stock. 
Pumpkins, squashes, turnips, beets, etc., do 
not take up much room while growing, but 
mako a hig item in the feed and health of the 
farm stoek. 
Ventilate stock shelters by openings under 
the eaves. Light them by glass wiudows. 
Ventilate, light, and make warm poultry 
houses, and don't fetal hens till corn if you 
want them to lay. Put sulphur in the dust 
hath. Provide lime. 
Pulverize the ground, for fining aids solu¬ 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
tion, and plant-food must be nearly or quite 
soluble to be available. 
Select crops with reference to the size and 
soil of your farm,'the climate, and the markets. 
A little ready cash will not wait long for 
profitable use. Better have money in your 
pocket than land unpaid for. 
Except on heavy clay soils, the ground 
should not be plowed deeper than it can be 
fined; but always the deeper it is fined, the 
better. 
A pound of flesh lost to the brute is twice 
lost to the owner, for the waste of the body 
must be repaired while it is being replaced. 
An early Spring pig kept growing and 
fattening on pasture (mostly Red Clover) du¬ 
ring the Summer and early Fall, and then 
rapidly fattened on grain for two months, is 
the most profitable hog. 
The general conditions ot successful stock- 
raising are <jonrl animals regularly supplied 
with a reasonable allowance of wholesome 
food and drink, and properly sheltered and 
treated. 
Lastly, cleanliness is godliness on the farm. 
Clean implements, clean harness, clean ani¬ 
mals, clean fence corners, clean fields, clean 
garden, clean orchard, clean seeds, clean pas¬ 
ture, dean yards, clean stables, clean sheltered 
clean troughs, clean food, clean water, clean 
litter, clean sleeping quarters, clean granaries, 
and a clean conscience. 
St. Louis, Mo. 
RURAL PRIZE ESSAY.—No. III. 
BUTTER MAKING. 
R. FERRIS. 
The prime requisite in the dairy is scrupu¬ 
lous cleanliness, which must begin at least as 
far back as the food of the cows, the water 
they drink, the air they breathe and the place 
they live in. Butter is au oil and, like most 
oils, highly absorbent of what we call odors 
and flavors. If these are ouce absorbed, it is 
impossible to get rid of them; the only thing 
to do is to prevent them absolutely. This may 
seem to most farmers a small thing to make a 
“fuss” about; but care or neglect in this mat¬ 
ter is the principal reason why the butter 
from some dairies brings from f>0 cents to £1 a 
pound, wheu other butter made from the same 
breed of cattle, on the same feed, by the same 
method, brings only 25 cents. 
Perhaps there are some who may say. 
“ Twenty-five cents is the best price I can get 
for butter any way, aud why take extra trouble 
to preserve a delicate flavor;” But figure up 
a little. Couldn’t you make more money if 
you made fine butter and shipped it even 300 
miles to a market that would appreciate a 
high-grade article) It stauds to reason that 
when the best butter brings $1 a pound, there 
must be a large demand for 60-cent butter. 
With this idea of cleanliness predominant in 
our mind, let us take up the consideration of 
THE DAIRY ROOM. 
This should be in a separate and special 
building, where possible, because of thegreater 
difficult)' of preserving the milk and butter 
free from odors in a room of a building de¬ 
voted partly to other purposes. For conveni¬ 
ence, the dairy should be as near the milking 
stable as entire freedom from stable odors will 
allow. Where the ground admits, a most sat¬ 
isfactory dairy may be built in an excavated 
hill-side haviug a northern exposure. The ex¬ 
cavations should be made roomy enough to 
allow a butter cellar under the bank, und 
to bring the milk-room so far below ground 
that an equal aud low temperature may be the 
more easily obtained. The best material is 
stone or brick; or, if these are impracticable, 
a lathed aud plastered double wall, or double 
wooden wall, hairing the space between the 
walls filled with sawdust, will answer. If a 
spring of cold aud pure water is available, it 
may lie very advantageously led into the house, 
and arranged to flow into shallow or deep 
tanks, according to the system of setting fol¬ 
lowed. Or, if these are too expensive, the 
water tnay be allowed to flow over the floor, 
and thus reduce the general temperature of 
the room. In this ease an upper flooring of 
open'slats may be laid where needed. 
Where cold water is not at hand, the dairy- 
house should contain room for ice in an upper 
story, strongly braced and supported from 
below, aud air-shafts should be provided for 
the passage of the cold air downward into the 
milk-room, 
By the way, much care should be taken to 
secure pure ice. A wrong impression exists, 
even among intelligent people, that ice is al¬ 
ways pure, even if cut from stagnant water'— 
that the mere freezing of water purifies it. 
This is a serious mistake, and no ice should be 
gathered from any water which is not whole¬ 
some to drink. If the dairy ice contains a 
proportion of vegetable matter, the melting 
will set it free, aud the gases of following de¬ 
composition will surely find their w ay into the 
milk or butter. 
The dairy should be ventilated by windows 
near the ceiling, to allow the escape of the 
warmest air, and these should be fitted with 
fine wire gauze, to exclude insects. Where 
shelves are used, as in shallow setting, they 
are best if made of slate or stone. Churning 
should not be done in the milk-room. The 
operations of cream gathering and churning 
require such different temperatures that sepa¬ 
rate rooms are imperative. 
CARE OF THE CATTLE. 
A cow does not turn fodder and water into 
milk, as a mill turns com into meal. The cow 
herself turns into milk, and the food she eats 
goes to repair the cow. To speak more plainly , 
the lining tissues of the cow’s udder are con¬ 
tinually throwing off cells of their own sub¬ 
stance in the form of milk, and the digested 
food is supplying the material for new cells. 
Consequently, the proportion of cream in any 
cow’s milk depends mainly upon the cow, and 
not upon the food she receives, although if this 
goes to improve her physical condition, it may 
thus in a roundabout way increase the flow of 
milk, and thus the amount of cream. It be¬ 
hooves us, then, to bring our cattle as quickly 
as practicable into the higher physical condi¬ 
tion—which is most easily done in warm 
weather, when food is plenty—and to main¬ 
tain them at that point whether milking or 
dry. A sick cow often requires months of care. 
For the normal secretion of milk certain 
natural conditions must be complied with. 
This function requires a contented frame of 
mind, we may say, a freedom from labor and 
exposure, and an entire absence of sources of 
annoyance and irritation. Th e pasture should 
have abundant shelter from excessive heat 
and storm; if not a natural one, something 
which will answer the purpose should be put 
up. The herd ought not to have to travel mile 
upon mile to pick their living from a scanty 
pasture, and so use up their food to supply the 
force spent in traveling. Neither should it 
require a half-hour’s journey under a blazing 
sun to reach the water for drinking. If the 
pasture is far from the yard, and the cattle are 
driven from it, the driver should understand 
that the cows must not be hurried, especially 
on the homeward tnp. The excitement and 
chase oE a single cow will induce a secretion 
in the udder, which will taint the whole milk¬ 
ing and the consequent butter. 
Exercise is beneficial and necessary to health. 
Provide for it in Winter as well as in Summer; 
but, under all circumstances, avoid exposure to 
any extreme of temperature or weather. Ex¬ 
posure is a direct and often serious drain upon 
the system, and increases the amount of food 
necessary about one-third in extreme cases. 
For Winter exercise, except on the pleasant 
days, a covered yard is the best arrangement, 
and the time allowed should be regulated ac¬ 
cording to the weather—from 20 minutes, 
twice a day, upward. 
Have a warm and roomy stable, and keep it 
clean, never failing to remove manure as soon 
as dropped. Keep your cows clean, with 
plenty of litter, currycomb and brush, con¬ 
sulting always their comfort aud convenience; 
it pays. 
FEEDING. 
The secret of successful feeding is good food 
and plenty of it. The only question is as to 
the means of providing it in each special in¬ 
stance. Where laud is plenty, pasturage is an 
efficient system, if care is taken to have good 
grass. Plants of the same species cannot be 
crowded. They will only grow “just so 
thick,” and the rest will die out. But plants 
of different species will thrive in the closest 
kind of fellowship. More than one thousand 
plants have been counted upon one square foot 
of sod. or about seven plants upon each square 
inch. These were of nearly 20 different spe¬ 
cies. It is rare to find more than 00 plants of 
the same species upon a square foot. There¬ 
fore. in preparing a pasture, sow a generous 
assortment of grasses and you will have a tine 
sod—a profitable feeding ground for your 
cattle. If, in addition to this good pasturage, 
a daily feed of two quarts of cottou-seed meal 
be given to each cow , the flow of tnilk will be 
largely increased. Where land is not abun¬ 
dant enough to allow of continuous aud gene¬ 
rous pasturing, soiling is a profitable substi¬ 
tute. ludeed, a combined system of soiling 
and pasturing is probably the best course to 
pursue, in most ciremnstauees. It insures 
abundance of food with very little waste, aud 
enables one to keep more stock on the same 
land. Besides, a much larger part of the ma¬ 
nure is saved—an item of no small moment. 
By arranging crops of grass, oats, rye, corn, 
peas, cabbage and clover, a coustaut suppi) 
can be kept up through the growing season. 
A comparatively small pasture lot will serve 
for healthful roaming aud supply some food in 
pleasant weather. 
Winter feeding is not so easily reasoned out, 
aud yet a close adherence to the real facts of 
Bummer feeding is the best course to follow. 
An important poiut to notice is the great 
bulk of the food which cattle consume in the 
Summer. It is not enough to provide food in 
a condensed form, even if as much or more 
of the nutritive elements are given. Bulk is 
necessary, and must be supplied by such ma¬ 
terials as hay, straw or com-stalks. It is im* 
portant, beyond first appearances, to keep a 
cow’s stomach full in order to keep her com¬ 
fortable and contented. At the same time, 
hay, and especially straw, contain much nu¬ 
tritive material, which'is not easily digested, 
and is usually lost. This may be saved by cut¬ 
ting into chaff and boiling, a question of rela- 
tivecost according to the number of cows fed. 
The daily allowance of hay to each cow 
should be about 25 pounds, the quantity 
varying somewhat with the size of the animal. 
It is well to bear in mind, when laying in the 
Winter supply, that early-cut hay is by far 
the most nutritious, as the early cutting saves, 
in a nutritous form, material which later on 
becomes woody fiber. 
The value of roots as Winter food Is so 
widely acknowledged that little need be said 
in support of their use. Their nutritive qual¬ 
ities are considerable, and their vegetable 
constitution retains their distinctive, natural 
moisture, while the large bulk which may be 
grown on a given area at a comparatively 
small cost, recommends them to every reason¬ 
ing man. A crop of D00 bushels of mangel- 
wurzels and 300 bushels of rutabagas was 
raised upon one acre of good land at a total 
cost of only $55. Fifty pounds of roots and 
20 pounds of hay constitute a good daily feed 
for milking cows of average size. More bay 
should be added if the cattle will consume it, 
or its equivalent should be given in straw or 
corn-stalks, boiled if practicable. Add to this 
ration two quarts of corn-meal, and almost 
the excellence of a Summer pasture is at¬ 
tained. If the further addition of the twe 
quarts of cotton-seed meal is made, as recom¬ 
mended in the case of pasturing, the results 
will closely approach the maximum, and will 
prove a sufficient reason for persevering in 
this diet. The value of variety in food 
should not be forgotten. Carrots and pars 
nips, oats and other grains may profitably 
form an occasional change. Ensilage offers 
another addition to the bill-of-fare, and is in¬ 
valuable in the hands of a careful man. The 
bugbear of opposition to this form of food has 
been aroused by those who have not excluded 
the air from their silos, and have thus allowed 
fermentation to proceed in the silo to the 
verge of decomposition, and sometimes beyond 
it This is entirely contrary to the purpose 
the silo, which is to maintain the material 
put into it in the state of freshness in which it 
stood in the field, by preventing fermenta¬ 
tion. The exclusion of air achieves this result. 
When the weights are removed from the en¬ 
silage, and it is exposed to the air. an imme¬ 
diate fermentation begins, which is beneficial 
to a certain point. Beyond that alcohol is 
formed, and the food is unfit to give to milk¬ 
ing cattle, stimulating, as it does, a system 
already in vigorous action. 
Where ensilage is fed to any extent, the cat¬ 
tle should be warmly housed and all the con¬ 
ditions of Summer air and exercise be given 
as nearly as may be, ensilage being really a 
Summer food. Material for ensilage should 
be selected with reference to the needs of the 
animals that are to eat it, corn, sorghum, 
oats. rye. peas, clover or any good grass being 
available. 
Whatever the system of feeding, an abund¬ 
ance of pure water must be provided. A cow- 
giving 20 quarts of milk daily will drink 
from 45 to 50 quarts of w-ater, and if she 
does not have this amonut she will not give her 
20 quarts of milk. Persuade the cow-s to drink 
all they can bold, and the yield of milk will 
be increased, and the qualitv remain constant. 
Purity, however, is essential to the health of 
the stock and the flavor of the butter. The 
drinking water should not be too cold—never 
ice-water—but just cool enough to be refresh¬ 
ing. 
Salt is a part of the food which has to be 
supplied. The best mode of doing it is to 
have a box of it where it is freely accessible 
Summer and Winter. 
MILKING. 
Cows should be milked at home, at regular 
horn’s. Twice a day is often enough in most 
cases, but fresh cows frequently pay for three 
milkings daily. The milking should be done 
quietly, without sudden word or action; cer¬ 
tainly there should be no shouting, loud talk¬ 
ing or singing, and no one who is disliked by 
the cows should be employed in this depart¬ 
ment. If annoyed or startled, a cow will 
check the flow of her milk, and not only is 
part of the milking lost, but what is left in 
the udder has the effect of diminishing the 
secretion. No dirt or filth should ever enter a 
milk-pail, nor should milking be done where 
manure is lying about. The hands of the 
milker should be clean and dry, and the cow’s 
udder should be clean. While the former 
may be washed, the latter is a more trouble 
some subject. Cleanness must be had even 
if ]the udder has to be washed; but this will 
