tance have been made welcome guests by the 
people in the vicinity where the institutes 
have been held. Farmers have gone home as 
visitors with farmers, viewed the farms, stock, 
buildings and improvements, and thus many 
pleasant acquaintances, and even friendships 
have been made. It has not been in any 
sense a charity. The guests have been wel¬ 
come ones and many have gone to their homes 
at night feeling sadly disappointed when there 
were no visitors left to accompany them, and 
share their hospitality. I believe the same 
policy will produce in New York results simi¬ 
lar to those which we are all so familiar with 
here in Kalamazoo county, Michigan. The 
winter is before us and now is a good time to 
try this plan if it has not already been done. 
F. HODGEMAN. 
Pamj 
PROFITABLE RESULTS FROM A 
SMALL DAIRY HERD. 
Butter-making as a profitable change f rom 
unprofitable grape , potato and fruit grow¬ 
ing ; satisfactory record of a herd of 14 
grade Jerseys; feed; when butter produc¬ 
tion is most remunerative; growing public 
taste for new butter ; why cows should 
come in at intervals through the year. 
Grapes are largely produced in the vicin¬ 
ity of Lake Keuka, and potatoes elsewnere in 
Steuben County bordering on the Conhacton 
Valley, and both have an excellent market 
reputation. There is also a respectable show 
of winter apples which, grown in this elevat¬ 
ed region, are noted for their good keeping 
qualities. The prices prevailing a year ago 
for these articles were fairly remunerative, 
particularly those for potatoes, which induced 
the planting of an increased acreage last 
spring. With a large yield of each over the 
whole country, with grapes hunting for buy¬ 
ers at 1)4 and two cents per pound in the 
autumn, with potatoes and apples bringing 
only 25 cents per bushel at the end of a muddy, 
weary haul of many miles, there was not 
found a margin of profit. This unfortunate 
condition of things raised anew the question 
whether there is not some other business bet¬ 
ter adapted to the already worn soil of the 
region, and less likely to be overdone than so 
much potato growing—one whose products 
would be less subject to extreme depression of 
values, and to which more attention could be 
profitably given. I refer to the making of a 
superior quality of butter in larger quantities 
for which an elevated region,soft spring water, 
a soil naturally adapted to the growth of 
grasses, together with constant improvements 
n methods and machinery k for manufactur¬ 
ing the article would seem to furnish all 
requisites 
With a view to comparison, and possibly to 
strengthen a purpose any one may have formed 
to modify his system of farming as herein in¬ 
dicated, I give here a carefully compiled record 
of my small dairy operations for the year 
1888, and I believe that as good or better 
results are easily within reach of many 
farmers. 
Counting as one cow a small two-year-old 
heifer and an older animal that, owing to a 
mishap, was in actual use but six of the 52 
weeks in the year, the herd numbered 14 head, 
all grade Jerseys, averaging slightly over 
three-quarters blood. Parenthetically it may 
be stated that six of them were three or four 
years old, all being something short of matur¬ 
ity. The figures given cover an even year— 
from Jan. 1, 1888, to Jan. 1, 1889 
Pounds of butter, 
Per cow, 
Pounds sold, 
Family supply, 
The average price was 25.6 cents per 
pound, so that the value 3,960 
pounds of butter was 
$1,013.76 
Skimmed milk in making $185 net 
in pork and pigs was, 
Skimmed milk also fed to nine high- 
125 
grade heifer calves and 50 poultry 
in winter, 
75. 
A pair of twin four weeks %-blood 
veals, net, 
Milk and cream sold and used in a 
16.81 
family of ten, say, 
29.93 
Total product, 
$1,260.00 
Per cow, 
90 
Do. in butter, 
72.41 
A year ago the writer was able to report, 
in a local paper, an average yield of 306 
pounds of butter per cow, or 23 more than for 
the year just passed. The reduction is as¬ 
cribed to a change in milkers, drought- 
stricken pastures in autumn, pumpkinless 
corn-fields, and a larger use of new milk in 
feeding calves. But the better prices Ob- 
3,960 
283 
3,604 
356 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
tained for butter, pork, and calves, bring the 
total proceeds per cow, substantially to the 
figures of the year before, or $90. 
My cows have grass only during the early 
growing season, supplemented in August and 
September, with a morning feed of green 
fodder corn, and, later, with pumpkins, or 
soft corn in exceptional seasons, like the last, 
when there is an excess of this feed owing to 
premature frosts. To the winter rations of 
oat straw and chaff, corn stalks, and early 
cut hay largely consisting of Orchard grass, 
is added for each cow in milk, a peck or so of 
sliced Golden Tankard beets sprinkled with 
two to four quarts of meal, consisting of two 
parts of corn and three of oats by measure, 
fed in the stanchions. 
Turning to my monthly record, it is found 
that 38 per cent, of the yearly total is credited 
to the first and last three months, and 62 
per cent, to the intervening six months. It 
would have been better for my pocket if the 
proportions had been reversed; that is, if the 
larger yield came during the six late fall and 
early winter months, and the smaller per¬ 
centage during the six months from April to 
September inclusive, when the great bulk of 
the butter of the country is made. The fear 
of milk fever or other mishap, if cows are 
permitted to come in during the heat of Sep¬ 
tember, has hitherto prevented such wise ad 
justment, my experience having been that 
only heifers or quite young cows are proof 
against the deadly milk fever in hot weather. 
But it may be better to take even this risk, in 
order to lessen mid-summer and increase 
early autumn production. 
The public taste is being steadily educated 
to demand fresh butter. A dealer remarked 
that each passing year he found it more diffi¬ 
cult to handle held summer stock with profit 
to himself and satisfaction to the producers. 
The fact suggests the wisdom of increasing 
production in private farm dairies during the 
winter season when prices for butter, pork, 
veals and eggs are sure to be better than in 
the summer, and when the farmer has more 
time at his command. Comfortable stables, 
with a fair addition of meal and roots to the 
ordinary winter ration are showing fairly sat¬ 
isfactory results in my case, and I can com¬ 
mend a trial to my brother farmers. It looks 
as if they would be obliged to make one, or 
give up the business because of the changing 
taste ref erred .to. Formerly June butter was 
regarded as the thing especially desired for 
family use during the succeeding winter and 
spring; but the increased amount of fresh 
creamery butter that has of late years been 
placed in the mai ket, has changed all that, 
as the market reports increasingly show. 
I will only add that, instead of having all 
the cows of a dairy, large or small, coming in 
during the spring, or in the fall months, it 
would be clearly advantageous to have them 
come in at different dates through the year, 
as the cream from each new cow improves 
the color and freshens the flavor of the entire 
make of the butter, besides shortening the 
time of churning. w. B. pratt. 
Steuben Co., N. Y. 
SPURIOUS DAIRY PRODUCTS. 
PROFESSOR J. P. SHELDON. 
Difficulty of finding a title expressive enough ; 
degeneration of the “ dairy evils due to 
bogus butter and cheese and their pestif¬ 
erous makers; legal checks put on dis¬ 
honesty in bogus butter , but dishonesty in 
bogus cheese still tolerated ; losses entailed 
on dairymen by fictitious names for spuri _ 
ous products; the curse of lard cheese; the 
injury it does to the sale of the genuine 
article; American protection against gen¬ 
uine foreign competition , but none against 
spurious native competition; Americans 
“ a funny people .” 
The title I have employed for this article, ' 
to do duty as a sort of sponsor for it, does not 
exactly satisfy me, and I only use it for want 
of another and a better. It is a trifle mis¬ 
leading; it is not strictly accurate as an indi. 
cation of what I mean; it inferentially casts, 
or might be taken to cast, a slur on the word 
“dairy,” which occurs in it, and which is one 
of honor and renown; and it does not convey 
a sense of one half of the detestation I feel for 
what I mean by it, which will presently ap¬ 
pear. I could not, however, at the moment, 
think of a title which “exactly filled the 
bill,” and so I had to let it pass, cum grano 
salis. It vexes me a little, all the same, to 
prefix the pure word “ dairy ” with the im¬ 
pure word “ spurious,” and I must apologize 
to my agricultural readers for using a phrase 
which, for want of a better, occupies a posi¬ 
tion which it is not entitled to fill. 
By the term “Dairy Products,” we mean 
milk, and cheese, and butter, all of them 
honest and genuine, whatever their quality 
and condition may be, and it is a burning 
shame that anything which is not honest and 
genuine should ever have come to be classed 
with them, under any conditions whatever. 
Until recent years, the dairy was a place 
which bore a reputation that was not sullied 
by the nefarious practices of those who have 
used it for a cover for dishonesty. It was 
sugeestive of cleanliness and purity all 
through. Its very name conveyed an odor of 
sweet milk, and a glimpse of golden butter. 
George Eliot immortalized it in Adam Bede, 
and Charles Dickens declared that if mankind 
were to return to the worship of animals, the 
cow would be the chief Divinity. It was the 
scene of wholesome labor, and the source of 
honest profit, almost universally, in the days 
that are gone. The farmer’s wife shone in it 
with credit, and the good man reaped a sub¬ 
stantial reward. It was the center toward 
which all the outside labor of the farm was 
directed, and a cruel thing it is that spurious 
articles should have injured its reputation, 
and diminished the profit which it was wont 
to yield. 
I charge all this disaster to bogus cheese 
and butter, and to those who make them. 
These people, under the specious pretext of 
utilizing animal fats, have done to an honora¬ 
ble industry an injury whose extent is sim¬ 
ply incalculable. They have grown rich in 
despoiling others. Their aim is to steal a 
march on dairy farmers, and to cheat the 
public. In both, they have succeeded mon¬ 
strously, and the process is still in full swing. 
The butterine man uses milk and butter, in 
part, and the bogus cheesemen use the 
caseine of milk as a plausible base for their 
spurious productions, and hence it is that 
they have attained so much success. Money 
is clean, anyhow, however dirty the source 
from which it may have been obtained, and 
profit is pleasant, no matter whence it comes; 
so these people think, of course. And the 
game goes merrily on, while dairy farmers 
are defrauded of a large part of their just 
profit, and I suppose this will go on until the 
nations rise up in indignation and put an end 
to such unscrupulous practices once tor all. 
Something has been done in your country 
and ours, and in others too, to place some 
restriction on the unblushing sale of marga¬ 
rine as butter, and the profits of dealers and 
workers alike have been properly curtailed; 
but nothing has been done to bring bogus 
cheese to book. The retail dealers in mar¬ 
garine, in this country, complain that a once 
lucrative trade has shrunk alike in profit and 
in volume. The public still buy margarine 
extensively, but they do so with their eyes 
open, and at a price which more nearly ap¬ 
proaches the intrinsic point. Buy it they will, 
and buy it they ought, let us frankly admit, 
for it is a useful thing when made of honest 
and cleanly materials. What we complain of 
is the abominable fact that it was ever called 
by a name which identified it with the dairy. 
This it is that has done most of the harm to 
dairy farmers, for had the spurious stuff 
from the first been called by a name which 
properly and effectually disconnected it from 
the dairy,not a tithe of the mischief would have 
been perpetrated. As it is, an ancient, honor¬ 
able, and legitimate industry has been de¬ 
liberately and insolently plundered by one 
which is probably ephemeral and certainly 
dishonest. 
But what about “lard cheese,” and the mis¬ 
chief it is doing to the legitimate dairy? 
This stuff, too, is made in factories, in part 
from milk, and is unblushingly called 
“cheese,” without any affix or prefix. Again, 
che pretext is that animal fats, which might 
r otherwise be neglected, are put to the best 
use possible by being incorporated with skim- 
milk cheese. Here it is that the deception 
comes in, and the public are swindled, while 
a deadly injury is inflicted on dairy farmers. 
Skim-milk, which ought, for the most part, to 
be fed to calves and pigs, is made up into a 
product which, by the admixture of lard and 
other fats, is made to simulate the cheese of 
the dairy farmer, and is sold as a genuine 
article. And what is the result? Well, peo¬ 
ple buy it, taste it, think it rather funny, and 
give up cheese eating altogether. They find 
it to be anything rather tban an aid to diges¬ 
tion, as Shakespeare considered cheese to be. 
Lard cheese had not been invented in Shakes¬ 
peare’s time, and we can only deplore the 
fact of its subsequent evolution. I know a 
man who once ate some of this stuff, toasted, 
at supper; he was hungry at the time, or he 
wouldn’t have eaten much of it; he survived, 
but the Doctor declared he had had a close 
shave of it, and he has never tasted American 
cheese since. And so it is; lard cheese is an 
American production, and the British public 
are rapidly coming to distrust and suspect 
American cheese, generally, on account of it. 
In plain, sober truth, bogus cheese is very 
seriously discounting the reputation of 
genuine American cheese in the English 
market, and so it is that American dairy 
farmers are being plundered. 
I wonder how long your people will submit 
to this sort of thing. In free-trade England, 
we admit almost anything, and let it stand or 
fall on its merits. But America is, par-excel¬ 
lence , the country of commercial and indus¬ 
trial protection You protect your people 
against a genuine foreign competition,—a 
competition which would be fair and square 
—why, therefore, in the name of thunder, 
don’t you protect your people against a 
spurious and impudent native competition? 
You protect the skin, so to speak, of your 
great and noble country, and you tolerate 
a festering abscess in your vitals. Indeed, you 
Americans are a very funny people. You 
could crush a vast civil war, and you seem to 
be powerless against bogus cheese Oh, fie! 
surely you don’t perceive the evil of it, or 
you wouldn’t permit it. 
Surrey County, England. 
RURAL SPECIAL REPORTS. 
Illinois. 
Donnellson, Montgomery Co., Jan. 2.— 
Times are very close in this locality, although 
we had above an average crop year. The 
previous year’s failures were the cause of our 
distress, for to make the loss good it cost the 
farmers all their ready cash, and many in. 
curred debt for feed to get through the winter 
and make a crop. At present, feed is plenti¬ 
ful, and stock are in good order. Hogs are 
numerous and “ going like hot cakes ” at $4 to 
$4.70. Cattle are plentiful, but sales are dull 
at $2 for choice animals. For horses, there 
are no offers as yet. Clover and pastures are 
lovely. In short, old ’88 has had more joys 
than sorrows, and its memory is to be loved 
and cherished. Wheat looks well, though 
but a small acreage was sown. A. w. R. 
Iowa. 
Des Moines, Polk Co., Jan. 1.—The past 
year was neither good nor bad for farmers 
It found a great many of our farmers in debt 
after the two previous years of drought, some 
paying heavy interest, and all hoping for bet¬ 
ter times. It has given us great crops of almost 
everything, and while we feel very thankful 
that we have been able to produce so much, 
and that there is plenty in the land to feed all 
the people and all stock, yet prices are so low 
and our market for farm products so poor 
that we will not, as a farming class, be able 
to meet all our debts, and a great many farm¬ 
ers will have to commence another crop en¬ 
cumbered with debts. Still, but few of our 
people seem to be cramped; most of them 
seem to be looking on the bright side. We 
have had a very merry Christmas, and the 
trade in presents for the joyous festival was 
unusually large. Our fall and winter so far 
have been ones long to be remembered, as 
among the finest ever known in Iowa. Our 
fall was very dry; in fact, too dry for plowing, 
so that very little fall plowing was done; but 
the corn crop was all gathered in before the 
holidays. The thermometer has not been as 
low as zero yet. On Christmas night we had 
a snow storm, and the snow was drifted four 
feet deep in places, yet the weather has not 
been cold. Water is scarce in most places, and 
it is hard to get enough for stock. The snow 
has been melting somewhat and we have had 
several light rains, which have helped. The 
ground is barely frozen under the snow. One 
of my neighbors dug potatoes the day before 
Christmas, and found that but few of them 
bad frozen. Vegetables to an unusual amount 
were stored for this winter, and the weather 
has been so warm that they are not keeping 
well. This is the prettiest New Year’s Day I 
have ever seen here. I feel that I have been 
greatly benefited by the visits of the Rural 
during the past year, and hope all its readers 
have been so too. f. s. w. 
Virginia. 
Richmond, Henrico Co., Va., Jan. 5.—To¬ 
bacco planters have been so discouraged by 
prevailing low prices of dark leaf that they 
are holding it back. Common old stock is 
selling at three to four cents per pound. The 
weather for the last three weeks has been 
mild and open und quite comfortable without 
fires. The business outlook is fair to good in 
tobacco, but there will be many losses for 1888, 
to be gradually met and felt in 1889. Indeed 
very little money was made in tobacco last 
year and what was made was only in except¬ 
ional cases with special brands of the weed. 
During the past week new West Virginia 
bright crops have been sampled, and sold by 
auction, bringing very satisfactory prices. 
One crop from Putnam oounty brought an 
average of 44 cents per pound 1 L. T. M. 
