MAY S3 
THE BUBAL NIW-YORtCER. 
has recently given the public the benefit of 
his experience and indicated the course of 
treatment to be followed. Considering how 
fatal the disease usually is and how large a 
proportion of the best cows fall victims to it, 
readers of the Rural will be glad to be in¬ 
formed of the new departure. 
Primarily, then, Prof. Mcl. regards it as a 
nervous disease, nervous prostration, in fact, 
and treats it accordingly. Since all readers 
may not understand w T hat parturient apo¬ 
plexy is, and possibly confound it with milk 
fever, I give the Professor’s brief description 
of the symptoms. It usually occurs from a 
few hours after calving to the third day, and 
is seldom seen after that time, Cows in high 
condition and deep milkers are most liable to 
attack; but occasionally those in thin flesh 
and weakly are its victims. It is more com¬ 
mon in okl cows thau in youug, aud in hot 
than In cold weather. Iu the early stages the 
cow will be noticed shifting her weight from 
one hind leg to the other, This she does con¬ 
tinually and if compelled to move, does it 
weakly and presently falls down and under 
the old treatment, seldom rose again. The 
breathing and pulse become quickened. As 
the disease advances the brain is affected as 
shown by the animal tossing her head about 
in a violent manner. Then the eyes put on 
a glassy appearance and are insensible to 
light, aud a stage is reached where if active 
remedies aro not resorted to, the animal dies. 
It is previous to this stage that Prof. Mcl. 
has found that heroic doses of the aromatic 
spirits of ammonia and the spirits of nitrous 
ether combiued, act something like a specific. 
Ten ounces of the ammonia ure shaken up 
with 20 ounces of the ether, the whole divided 
into doses of three ounces each, and one of them 
is giveu every half hour in a half pint of cold 
water, till five doses have been administered; 
then a similar dose is giveu every hour. 
At the same time one pound of Epsom salts 
is dissolved in a half-gallou of cold water, an 
ounce of ground ginger is added, and adminis¬ 
tered as a drench. Besides, a pound and a-half 
of Durham mustard is wet up iu warm water 
and applied over the loins, with a thick cloth 
wrung out hot, covering the parts. After this 
course of treatment, the patient lies quiet for 
six or seven hours aud then rises of her own 
accord. No further medication is necessary 
except for a few days thereafter, to give, three 
times a day in warm gruel, dram doses of tinc¬ 
ture of uux vomica. 
In giving an account of his experience, Dr. 
Mel. says stimulants have been recommend¬ 
ed aud given by other veterinarians, but the 
treatment was not carried far enough. It is 
the giving of the large quantities of aromatic 
spirits of ammonia aud the spirits of nitrous 
ether together, that saves the animal. Iu a 
neighboring town of 5,000 inhabitants, 50 of 
the best cows have been carried off by this 
fatal scourge within five years, while breeders 
of beef and milk full-blood stock iu the county 
and neighborhood, have suffered as severely, 
though, of course, they have too much interest 
at stake to al lo w their losses to be known. Tbe 
secret of this prevalence of parturient apo¬ 
plexy in milch cows, like that of azoturia in 
heavy-weight horses, lies in the fact that 
grain and hay are abundant and cheap and it 
is next to impossible to deny a good cow or a 
fine horse all it will consume, aud especially 
when the feeding in a majority of cases is left 
measurably to subordinates. 
Champaign Co., III. 
THE TRUTH ABOUT IT. 
| In view of tho recent discussion of the 
“butter globule” theory and of some other 
“dairy fallacies,” vve reprint the following 
article from the Rural of Juno 29th, 187f>, at 
the request of several old readers,—K dh,] 
DAIRYING FALLACIES. 
T. H. HOSKINS, M. D. 
There have been great advances in the 
study of tbe scieutificsof dairying, during the 
last 10 years. Large credit is due to a num¬ 
ber of enterprising men, who have devoted 
both money and time to the investigation of 
milk ami its products, and also to improving 
the methods of breeding, feeding and handling 
dairy stock. If 1 were disposed to criticise 
anything these investigators have done, it 
would be the haste some of them have shown 
to become instructors before acquiring a mas¬ 
tery of their subject. To this we owe much 
building with “untempered mortar” that has 
not endured; and, worse thau that, the diffus¬ 
ion of erroneous notions among the people, 
harder to he overcome thau a simple, teach¬ 
able ignorance. 
Anxious to avoid the fault myself, and yet 
desirious to point out what I am thoroughly 
convinced are serious errors, I shall touch 
briefly in this article upon some important 
practical points which have been mis-stated 
and misunderstood, and about which the pop¬ 
ular mind is yet adrift. I do this with some 
reserve, and only after more than 15 years of 
practical study, joined to careful closet inves¬ 
tigation of both the chemical and physical 
sides of the question. The public are often at 
a loss to decide where “doctors” and “pro¬ 
fessors” disagree; yet I believe that, I shall 
make the points I touch upon sufficiently 
plain, and shall support my statements with 
such good reasons that most intelligent and 
well-experienced practical dairymen will 
agree with my conclusions. 
AIR IN CREAM. 
For some time it was thought (and churns 
to carry out the principle were introduced) 
that the pnssage of air into the cream during 
the process of churning promoted the separa¬ 
tion of the butter. This idea is now explod¬ 
ed, and the ohurus are found only in garrets. 
I allude to it merely to show, iu the light of 
what will be hereafter stated, how far away 
from any true conception of the facts tho 
minds of many must have been when such a 
theory could have had currency. 
WITCHES IN THE CREAM. 
Not infrequently the correspondence col¬ 
umns of agricultural journals contain queries 
headed, “Why Don’t the Butter Come?” or 
something equivalent, in which the writer de¬ 
tails the painful effort of hours, and even 
days, over a refractory cliuruful of cream. 
Most inexperienced people meet with this 
trouble, and not a few, also, who have made a 
good deal of butter, and made it well, when 
all natural conditions were favorable. The 
idea expressed by some that the cream was 
“bewitched,” is the last resort, the world 
over, for the explanation of uncomprebendod 
natural phenomena. It is only in the clear, 
white light of science (knowledge) that the 
witch becomes totally invisible. She and the 
ghost are always best soon in the dark. 
TEMPERATURE IN SETTING. 
As lately as seven or eight years ago it was 
the universal teaching that the proper temper¬ 
ature for setting milk was in the vicinity of 
(50°. The best authorities agreed that at a 
higher temperature the milk would become 
sour before all t.he cream would come to tbe 
surface, while atu lower temperature it would 
never rise at all. When the Swedish method 
of setting in ice-water was first reported iu 
America it could hardly obtain serious notice, 
so contrary was it to received notions. Now, 
it has been abundantly demonstrated that 
cream swims to the surface soonest in milk 
cooled nearly to its point of greatest density, 
or about 4()°. This is, in itself, a great ad¬ 
vance—probably tbe greatest single step that 
has been made in butter-dairying. Yet it was 
not made by a Professor, but was blundered 
upon in practice. 
THE “CURRENT” THEORY. 
Some minds have a great fondness for mys¬ 
tifying plain matters, if one should see a 
quantity of apples going over a waterfall it 
would never occur to him that when these 
apples reached the still water below it would 
be necessary to “create currents” in the pool 
before tbe fruit would float to the surface. 
The fact that apples are lighter than water 
would be considered a sufficient reason why 
they should float upon It. and as it is a rule 
alike of philosophy and common sense that 
when we have a perfectly satisfactory reason 
for any occurrence it is folly to seek for any 
other, we should never think of a “current” 
theory. Having ocular evidence that a cur¬ 
rent submerged the apples, and that they 
came to the surface when tho current abated, 
we should be satisfied. Now, the butter glo¬ 
bule, though it is too small to be seen by tbe 
naked eye, is to the milk iu which it swims 
what tbe apples in the cast! supposed were to 
the water. If we keep the milk in a state of 
agitation they do not rise; if the milk is at 
rest, and just in proportion as the rest is j>cr- 
fect, they swim to the top. The most rapid 
separation of cream takes place iu that, appar¬ 
atus where the milk is quickest reduced to the 
proper temperature and most rigidly held 
there. Whenever you hear one of these “cur¬ 
rent” theorists holding forth, you will always 
tin t that he has a “now patent setting-can” iu 
the ante-room, which he would like to show 
you. Remember tho air-churns and eschew 
him. 
THE ANIMAL ODOR. 
That the best butter is now made from 
cream raised in closed, and even iu submerged 
cans, is what the boys call “a sticker” to those 
gentlemen who have long and learnedly held 
forth u]>on the pernicious “animal odor” in 
milk, which required the most careful venti¬ 
lation to bo rid of, aud which absolutely 
ruined the flavor and keeping quality of the 
butter when retained. Various mgenious 
ways of getting around the stubborn fact aro 
resorted to. It is hard, indeed, after having 
explained how this “odor” originates, what 
its chemical formula probably is, and how it 
looks or would look when isolated, to find it 
disappear all at once, like a will-o’-the-wisp. 
No doubt there are “stinks” in milk, but no 
doubt, also, they are got there from filthy 
bags and teats, filthy bauds, foul air and the 
like. Pure, healthy milk has nothing in it 
that needs to bo removed bj T ventilation. 
Ventilate your cow stables, keep your cows 
clean, give them good food and pure water, 
keep yourself and your surroundings clean 
while handling tbe product, from the udder 
to the butter-tub, and you will never be 
troubled with the “animal odor." Another 
ghost has been laid, another “witch” has dis¬ 
appeared 
WASHING BUTTER. 
Abundant experiment has shown that tho 
natural flavor of butter cannot be removed 
by washing it with pure water. Careful 
manipulation, with the cream and everything 
else just l ight, will make good butter without 
washing. But the extra trouble Is wasted. 
THE “GRAIN" OF BUTTER. 
When tbe butter has “come,” and appeal’s 
in little irregular masses, from a pin’s head to 
a large pea iu size, is the time to draw off the 
buttermilk and wash tbe butter in the churn. 
This removes most of the buttermilk. After 
being then gathered and removed from the 
churn, worked, washed and salted on tbe 
butter-worker at the proper temperature, we 
fiud upon breaking it that it has a granular 
look. Tbe mass seems to bo made of little 
particles with a slightly glistening appearance. 
This is ealted the “graiu.” These small parti¬ 
cles are partially kept apart by films of water 
(after salting this water becomes brine), and 
the peculiar texture thus imparted to tbe but¬ 
ter is a test of proper manufacture. Over- 
churn or over-work it, churn or work it at 
the wrong temperature, aud the grain is gone, 
never to bo restored; aud with it is gone a 
large percentage of tho selling value of the 
butter. Enough water (brine) must be re¬ 
tained to produce this appearance, which dis- 
tingiushes “butter” from “grease.” Conse¬ 
quently, the most perfect grain is obtained by 
washing iu the churn before the butter is 
“gathered.” 
THE BUTTER GLOBULE. 
To those who know nothing of the micro- 
srrope and its revelations, a world remains 
hidden of which they can have little compre¬ 
hension. To the naked eye milk appears a 
Smooth, uuiform fluid. To the eye, aided by 
the combination of magnifying glasses, called 
a “microscope,” (seer of little things), It is a 
translucent fluid, in which float a multitude 
of shining globes, aud these globes are butter 
iu its primitive state. We do not make butter 
when we churn, although we say so. When 
the process of churning has been continued 
until we can see little particles of butter in 
the cream, we say “tbe butter has come,” and 
tbe next proceeding (after washing) is to 
“gather it.” But, in reality, churning is a 
single process. There is no difference between 
the “coming" and the “gathering," except 
that the latter is visible, while the former is 
invisible to the uuaidod sight. All that we do 
when we agitate cream iu a churn is to throw 
the butter globules strongly against each 
other. If the cream is too cold, we may do 
this forever and produce no butter, for the 
same reason that wo cannot work lmtter Into 
rolls or prints when it is too cold. The glo¬ 
bules arc too hard to stick together. They 
merely rattle against one another in the 
churn, like peas in a bag. If the cream is too 
warm, we cau churn them together and then 
churn them apart* again, l>ecause they are In 
too fluid a state to hold together against the 
action of the churn. So no butter comes iu 
either ease—there aro “witches in the cream.” 
The true exorcist in such trouble is a ther¬ 
mometer. 
MORE MYSTIFICATION. 
The mystitters have held high carnival over 
the butter globule. Nearly all of them (I do 
not know an exception among dairy “Profes¬ 
sors”) declare that it bos a shell, or envelop 
of membrane. Having created this shell las 
the German philosopher created an elephant, 
“out of the depths of his moral conscious¬ 
ness”), they have as much trouble with it as 
they had with the “animal odor.” Some tell 
us that tho cream must be kept until acidity 
is developed, in order to weaken the shell. 
Oue has said that, tho churn must be so con¬ 
structed as to have a grinding action upou the 
cream, for the same purpose. A good many 
have seen the shell, not only upou the globule, 
but after it has been ruptured and the butter 
has escaped. They describe It as accurately 
os they described the “animal odor” when 
concentrated Into u "yellow oil,” or us the old 
lady described the ague which the doctor made 
her throw up with a dose of lobelia. She said 
it “looked for all the world like the yelk of an 
egg.” 
And yet we know that wo can make butter 
as easily from sweet cream as from sour. We 
know that we can make butter as quickly by 
skaking cream in a plain, pine box as when 
agitated with the most scientific dasher ever 
invented. We know that at the right temper¬ 
ature we cannot carry a bottle of cream a few 
miles in a wagon-box without finding butter 
there at the end of our journey. So far we 
have common sense vermis inaccurate science. 
If we go further, we shall find that while 20 
years ago all physiologists thought they could 
see a membrane, on the little globule (and 
nothing is more easy thau to deceive one’s self 
on this point iu using an imperfect instru¬ 
ment, or a good oue unskillfully) now more 
than half of those who huve studied the ques¬ 
tion with ability declare it to be naked. It is 
really a difficult question to decide. Both op¬ 
tically, with the microscope, and by the use 
of chemical tests, tbe highest manual skill and 
the best mental ability are requisite in the 
determination of this apparently simple prob- 
blorn. But the writer hopes he may say, 
without undue egotism, that though “ouly an 
ordiuary M. D. and farmer,” he 15 years ago, 
and several times since, has repeated, with 
mauy variations, a great variety of tests, both 
ou the optical and chemical side ot this “mem¬ 
brane” question, and concluded each time with 
a firmer conviction that the butter globules 
swim “bare-naked” iu the serum of the milk, 
requiring forcible contact only, at the right 
temperature, to cause them to adhere to each 
other and form butter. When he began this 
study he was not aware that a single promi¬ 
nent scientist held any other view than that 
the butter globule had an envelop. Now he 
is happy in finding the majority upon his side, 
aud he looks, iu a few years, to see the point 
demonstrated, by some ingenious experiment, 
so that there cau be no longer any dispute. 
Practically, it is already proved, since the 
practice of the dairy would not be at all 
modified by tho demonstration referred to 
Its operations are conducted exactly as though 
au envelop exists, and with perfect results. 
Orleans Co., Vt. 
PIG CARE—MALES. 
COL. F. D. CURTIS. 
I like a sire with as level a back as I can 
get and with as little slope from tbo hips down. 
This form of body fills all of the most valua¬ 
ble parks, and such a pig always looks well. 
We know that food can he selected to add 
to the fat of a pig, and so it cau to build 
up the muscles. Tbe last system or feeding 
is the important one, and here science should 
turn her efforts and teach the farmer how to 
make lean meat. We all know that using an 
organ of the body tends to develop its parts; 
so exercise will develop muscle, sinews and 
bone. They all make up the frame of a hog, 
and it is the part of fat to fill up the tissues 
and to rouud out the muscles. Giving too 
much food is not the way to make a perfect 
body. The food, on the contrary, should be 
limited and well chosen, that is, selected for a 
specific purpose. Professor Sanborn, of tbe 
Missouri Experimental Farm, is on tlie right 
track, and 1 am looking for some valuable and 
very practicu! results from his efforts. 
The old German tables tell us how much of 
this and that there is iu the various kinds of 
food to make muscle in part, and fat in part, 
and bone, but my idea is that food alone will 
not mould a perfect body, especially for a sire. 
Filling the stomach is one thing, but the con¬ 
tents must end in perfect blood to secure tho 
1 lest results, aud theu there must tie enough of 
waste material to keep all of the orgaus, be¬ 
yond the stomach, in a healthful condition. 
It takes something more thuu food to do 
this, however carefully it may ho selected 
from a chemical standpoint. The lessons taught 
by tho silo—which I do not think are os many 
as most of the enthusiastic owners would 
have us believe—are, that, succulence is a val¬ 
uable adjuuct in the care of animals, and in 
no class is it of more importance than with 
swine, and with no kind of hogs more so than 
with males, if healthy offspring arc wanted. 
There must be pure air and healthful sur¬ 
roundings to make pure blood. 
Succulence promotes secretion and keeps 
the system from becoming clogged and fever¬ 
ish. It has au almost charmed effect, or else 
such big stories would not be told of tho won¬ 
derful results of ensilage. Water is tbe larg¬ 
est proportion of everything, I believe, that 
grows, and hence it is a most natural element 
and a necessary one for everything which 
eats. A superabundance of it promotes a 
more active secretion—hence the pores of tho 
skin must be more open and the surface of the 
body, with the coat, is stimulated to au extent 
unusual when dry food ouly is consumed. 
This gives tbe skin a more elastic touch aud 
the hair a more glossy appearance, Steamed 
