756 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
NOV 16 
in the spring, will by that time have been 
dissolved—the soluble part—and will be, 
after the sod is turned, within easy and 
quick reach of the roots of spring crops. I 
have had no success with any kind of arti¬ 
ficial fertilizer for potatoes; Mapes’s special 
potato manure, 1,000 pounds per acre, S. C. 
phosphate thick enough to cover the 
ground, hard-wood unleached ashes spread 
with a shovel so freely that I was afraid it 
would burn the plants when they came up, 
were all used without profit or even enough 
benefit more than barely to show where 
they had been sown, but stable manure 
tells a good story every time, and I do not 
know that there is any limit to the quan¬ 
tity that may be profitably applied. I grow 
the Rural Blush Potato almost exclusively 
and have no trouble with rot or scab. The 
only trouble is to get on enough manure 
and then keep the ground clean ; if I do 
that then I expect a paying crop of nice, 
smooth potatoes. 
Catonsville, Md. 
FROM J. C. STRIBLING. 
I apply stable manure to small grains and 
winter vetches in the fall, and haul some 
out again in the spring on early corn and 
cotton lands. After growing good hoed 
crops, stable manure shows good effects on 
small grains that follow. Notwithstand¬ 
ing this fact, however, I apply all the stable 
manure that can be had in the fall on rye, 
barley, oats and vetches (wheat generally 
follows cotton that has been heavily 
manured). This plan pays well in winter 
grazing, besides so hastening the harvest 
that I can grow a late crop of corn and 
cow-peas in addition to the small-grain 
crop. My winter vetches and barley where 
stable manure was applied, are now nearly 
a foot tall, and will afford good grazing at 
times, and give golden-colored, good, mel¬ 
low butter all winter. Potatoes grown on 
land where an old stable stood, smelt like a 
stable when the cook brought them to 
the table, and could not be eaten. My ob¬ 
servation is that stable manure makes 
potatoes rough and ill-shaped, while com¬ 
mercial fertilizers produce smooth-skinned, 
shapely potatoes. 
Pendleton, S. C. 
FROM J. T. W. LUCKEY. 
The general rotation here, as well as my 
own, has been corn first, oats second, wheat 
(seeded in the fall to Timothy and in the 
spring to clover) third ; then, of course, 
grass follows as fourth. Of course there 
are exceptions to all rules and sometimes 
this is the case here, especially in the 
grass crop, as sometimes it is fourth or 
fifth, which will materially change the rota¬ 
tion of the others. This county is compar¬ 
atively new and the land being a rich black 
loam, seems to retain its fertility to per¬ 
fection. To illustrate, a farm near-by is 
owned by a capitalist and there is a field of 
about 40 acres cleared, on which corn has 
been raised for 10 years in succession and 
the crop this year will average as good as 
the first; hence we use nearly all of our 
manure on our wheat as a top-dressing on 
the high places, more as a protection than 
as a fertilizer. This fall the first artificial 
fertilizer was brought to our county and I 
sowed it in the drills with the wheat. I use 
stable manure on potatoes with good re¬ 
sults ; but the ground is thoroughly drain¬ 
ed by tiles. However, we pay little atten¬ 
tion to potatoes, corn and hay with hogs, 
cattle and horses being our main objects. 
Decatur, Ind. 
FROM L. HULBERT. 
"We apply our manure on clover-sod if 
we can get it, plow it under, and plant the 
ground to corn or potatoes, followed by bar¬ 
ley or oats, then winter wheat and seeded. 
There has been no change lately. Summer¬ 
fallowing was practiced considerably at one 
time, but is not now. We use stable ma¬ 
nure on corn and potatoes, also as a top¬ 
dressing on winter wheat. We seem to get 
the best results from the application of the 
manure in this way. The corn or potato 
crop leaves enough of the fertility to af¬ 
ford a good crop of barley, and the ground 
is left in good condition for winter wheat. 
When applied to wheat in the fall, its in¬ 
vigorating influence enables the plant to 
withstand the winter, which, in this sec¬ 
tion, is quite an essential thing. Then as 
grass seed is usually sown on winter wheat 
the beneficial influence on the young seed¬ 
ing is very apparent. 
In regard to the effects of barn-yard man¬ 
ure on potatoes, I will relate some of my ex¬ 
perience. In the spring of 1888 I planted 
jjotatoes in a field that had been pastured 
two years previously. The grass had not 
been eaten closely, leaving a considerable 
growth to be turned under. On a portion 
of the field barn-yard manure was applied 
in moderate quantity; on the remainder no 
fertilizer of any kind was used. The varie¬ 
ty planted was White Star. The result 
was so favorable for the manure that a 
person unacquainted with the facts, and 
seeing the potatoes growing, judging from 
the appearance of the tops, would say that 
there were two distinct varieties, the tops 
on the manured portion having a much 
more vigorous growth. The tubers corres¬ 
ponded with the tops. There were from 
one-third to one-half more potatoes, with 
no more scab, on the manured part. The 
soil is a clay loam. This year I planted a 
field under very similar conditions and I 
have never had potatoes more free from 
scab than they are now. They yielded 150 
bushels to the acre when many crops of po¬ 
tatoes in this vicinity did not yield 50. The 
blight did not strike them until late. 
Dansville, N. Y. 
THE OWEGO, N. Y. CREAMERY. 
Land and products in Tioga County, N. 
U .; buckwheat galore; a great and 
growing dairy interest; the Standard 
Butter Company, the largest combined, 
creamery and cheese factory in the 
State; the building and its equipment; 
its capacity; nature of the business; 
vast extent of its shipments; cream- 
gathering; employees; mode of hand¬ 
ling cheese and butter; causes of its 
great success. 
Much of the land in Tioga County, like 
that of Delaware, “isturned up edgewise.” 
Wherever you see a valley you will discover 
a stream along the banks of which wind 
and twist one or more railroads. In Au¬ 
gust, when the dairy conferences were held 
at Spencer, Nichols and Owego, the haying 
and oat harvests were at the zenith ; the 
potato vines rusted and blackened ; the 
barley—what little there was—was in stacks, 
and an occasional field of tobacco on the 
Susquehanna River flats, or “ bottoms,” 
as they are called down there, was being 
gathered. But in every direction could be 
seen fields of buckwheat in blossom, look¬ 
ing like so many fields of snow, framed in 
green. Along the valleys, on the steep hill¬ 
sides and on the summits of the mountains 
were buckwheat fields stretching away as 
far as the eye could discern—buckwheat, 
buckwheat, hucl wheat! It is received in 
exchange for everything but railroad fare 
down there, and is the standard of values 
in the county. There ought to be enough 
of the product thrashed in Tioga County 
this season to carpet the State with “slap¬ 
jacks.” I hope there will be. 
So much of the land being set up on edge, 
it affords good grazing territory, especially 
for sheep and small cattle, and should be 
better utilized for that purpose ; and, as the 
growing dairy interest there is mostly in 
the line of butter, there ought to be more 
Jersey cows and less of the long-horned 
aborigines. Those little Jerseys will climb 
the steep hills almost as easily as will 
sheep; the large natives, Short-horns and 
Holsteins will not. Then, there are pure, 
sparkling mountain brooks leaping down 
the hills and affording a plentiful supply 
of the purest and best water. Before long 
there will be more Jerseys and Guernseys, 
more creameries, more good dairymen; less 
scrub cows and scrub dairymen, less native 
grass pastures, less “ live-forever ” growing 
in the fields, less buckwheat. The dairy 
conferences and the farm institutes that 
have been and are to be held this winter, 
will give the ball, already started, such an 
impetus that it can’t be stopped from 
rolling. 
Nearly all the cows in that county are 
natives, and, as a rule, the farmers feed no 
grain ration, except during a few days in 
spring when the cows are coming fresh ; 
consequently the ratio of butter to milk is 
not usually a good one. There are some 
exceptions, however, to the rule: among 
them are those at some of the creameries, 
notably those at Owego and Spencer. The 
former is larger and better-appointed than 
any other of the kind in the State, and per¬ 
haps the dairy readers of the R. N.-Y. will 
be interested in knowing something about 
it. It is not properly—or rather wholly—a 
creamery, but a cheese factory and cream¬ 
ery combined, and it is known as the 
“Standard Butter Company.” 
It is located at 174 Front Street, close to 
the business part of the village, and is 
owned and operated by George Truman, 
Son & Company. The plant is entirely 
new, having been erected last year, so that 
this season is its first in its enlarged capac¬ 
ity. It has already established both a na¬ 
tional and foreign reputation, having 
shipped invoices of butter to nearly every 
Northern and Southern market and ex¬ 
ported some large shipments. Its product 
is among the very best: else it would not 
have been awarded the first prize for cream¬ 
ery butter at the late great International 
Fair at Buffalo, over all competitors. 
The building was planned and furnished, 
after mature deliberation, and is found to 
be in every respect what was desired. Its 
dimensions are 100x40 feet, and it is 27 feet 
high; the lower or creamery room being 
17 feet high, and the upper room 10 feet. 
Its cost, including equipment and vat, w r as 
§15,000. All the partitions are double- 
papered and the floors, which are of the 
best pine 1% inch thick, are padded. Ad¬ 
joining the creamery floor is the neatly ap¬ 
pointed office. At the east end are the ice¬ 
house, engine-room, “pool-room” and re¬ 
frigerators. In the creamery room are 
located the dairy implements as follows : 
1 Curtis oil test churn. 
1 De Laval Turbine Separator. 
1 Cheery quart-test churn. 
8 cream vats. 
2 Davis & Remington center-drip butter 
workers. 
2 300-gallon churns. 
1250- “ 
1 80- “ 
1 600-gallon cheese vat. 
1 curd sink and one combination-gang 
cheese-press, 
The motive power is a lS-horse-pqwer en¬ 
gine, supplied by a 20-liorse-power boiler, 
and there are also a five-horse-power boiler 
for heating purposes, a Blake donkey 
pump, an elevator, etc., etc. At this writ¬ 
ing, Mr. Thompson, the business manager, 
informs me that only 1,000 pounds of but¬ 
ter are made daily. During the “ flush ”— 
June season 3,000 pounds were made, some 
of which was put into cold storage. Au¬ 
gust 20, there were 1,000 oak firkins hold¬ 
ing from 100 to 110 pounds each, in the 
great refrigerators, designed mostly for 
export. At present the product goes to 20 
different parties, and orders for more than 
can be supplied are daily received. At pres¬ 
ent most of the butter is put up in eight and 
16-ounce prints, and two, three, and five- 
pound boxes, for which the highest market 
price is received. The churning capacity 
of the building is 5,000 pounds daily ; but 
there is not sufficient vat room for that 
amount; therefore it has been decided to 
erect two new creameries this winter to be 
located at convenient points, thus lessening 
the expense of gathering some of the milk 
and cream, and relieving the present 
creamery of some of its heavy burden. 
Milk is received and made up on any plan 
the customer prefers. Some is received and 
the cream raised by deep setting; some is 
centrifuged ; some bought to be peddled in 
the village, and some is made into cheese. 
Of course, now that milk is w r orth nearly 
one cent a pound, the dairymen’s scrub 
cow’s have lessened the supply nearly two- 
thirds; but in another year a better state 
of things is hopefully looked for, as a num¬ 
ber of the patrons have changed from sum¬ 
mer to winter dairying, so that, probably, 
the daily make of butter during the win¬ 
ter will be not less than 500 pounds. The 
new creameries will be supplied with sepa¬ 
rators or butter extractors. This season 
there have been 320 milk and cream patrons 
supplying milk from about 3,000 cows, and 
butter has been made every day. The firm 
also purchases a large amount of dairy 
goods from other makers, handling from 
September to April, from 600 to 1,000 pack¬ 
ages of butter each month, and 250 cases of 
eggs each week. Apples and potatoes are 
also bought. Three hundred pounds of 
cheese w r ere made in August—the maxi¬ 
mum being 500 pounds—which are mostly 
Cheddars weighing 40 pounds each ; not all, 
how’ever, are full-cream, some being skims : 
and there are a few small cheeses weighing 
six pounds each. 
Fairlamb, Moseley & Stoddard, and 
Cooley cans are used by the patrons from 
whom cream is gathered over 13 routes. The 
Fairlamb cans are, however, most largely 
used, and they are sold to the patrons by 
the creamery company at their exact cost, 
or they are rented to them, if they prefer to 
rent, at 50 cents each for the season. About 
one-half of the product is from gathered 
cream, the rest from milk delivered at the 
creamery. All goods are sold direct to the 
consumer or retailer by the firm, and the 
processes of creaming by deep setting, 
churning, w’ashing and working, are the 
same as those practiced by our State ex¬ 
perts, Messrs. Gilbert, Curtis, Munson and 
Green. Seven hundred quarts of milk were 
peddled daily during August. The milk 
was set in “shot-gun cans,” in the “pool- 
room,” in water at 40 degrees, until taken 
out by the peddlers. Five men, known as 
“ skimmers,” are employed to gather cream 
from the farmers, and five are employed 
in the creamery. The firm is composed 
of George Truman, George Truman, Jr., 
and A. Chase Thompson, the latter being 
the business manager and secretary. Mr. 
N. Haster is the general superintendent; 
the superintendent of the cream routes is 
Mr. J. Card; of the milk routes, George 
Nichols ; and of horses, cream and milk 
w'agons, A. Truesdel. The accountant is 
Mr. Lester Shay. A large building for 
stable purposes is to be erected near-by, 
and a night man will be placed in charge, 
whose business will be to inspect all the 
w’agons, cans, harnesses, etc., and have 
each team ready for the driver at six A.M. 
daily. With the enlarged facilities, it 
is confidently predicted by Mr. Thompson 
that not less than 5,000 pounds per day will 
be the product next season. 
The second floor of the creamery building 
is used in part as the cheese-curing room, 
and in part for the manufacture of cheese 
boxes, in which is employed a man who al¬ 
so does the necessary cooperage for the con¬ 
cern. The ice-house and refrigerators are 
situated in the east end of the building, the 
former having a capacity of 1,200 tons. The 
temperature of the refrigerator in which 
were stored the 1,000 packages of butter, 
was kept at 40 degrees. After a package is 
filled it is placed in a cooler and left two or 
three days to settle, w r hen the cork in the 
head is withdrawn and the intervening 
space filled with strong brine; then the 
cork is driven in again, thus sealing the 
contents in an air-tight package. This 
form of package is for export, but there 
are some, at times, which are not exported; 
these are saw’ed in two at the center, the 
butter is cut with a wire; covers are made 
to fit each half-tub, and the packages are 
sold to dealers w r ho handle only that form of 
package. A cellar was constructed under a 
part of the building at a cost of §500 for the 
special purpose of storing packages until 
wanted for filling. There are 20 different 
styles and forms of package, every market 
having a particular one, and no other. 
Butter goes to nearly every prominent 
market from Boston to New Orleans. 
A large cistern for storing butter-milk is 
placed under-ground outside of the cream¬ 
ery, w here the milk is stored until taken by 
patrons. The remainder is piped into the 
river near-by. The cistern is so arranged 
that no odors escape from it, so that none 
of the disagreeable and sometimes positive¬ 
ly offensive smells that one encounters at 
too many creameries, are ever met w’ith. 
Indeed, so particular is Mr. Thompson to 
have everything neat and sweet, that he is 
paying a large rental for a vacant lot for 
which he has no use adjoining the cream¬ 
ery, fearing that it might be used for some 
purpose that would be injurious to the lat¬ 
ter. Such precautions, strict business 
principles, the employment of none but ex¬ 
perts for the w’orlc, the making of only the 
finest goods, w’liich always command the 
highest market prices, the payment of lib¬ 
eral prices for all milk and cream bought, 
the low price charged patrons for making 
up their milk, with the promptness dis¬ 
played in the payment of all monies, are the 
causes which have contributed to the un¬ 
paralleled success of this, the greatest 
creamery in the State, c. w. jennings. 
Bur til Sopics. 
RUMINATION. 
HENRY STEWART. 
The engraving of granular butter on page 
675, in a recent Rural tells more than 
words. It is now about 10 or 12 years since 
I sent a little dish of butter in this form to 
the li. N.-Y. office to be pictured as an ex¬ 
ample of what granular butter was and 
should be. And yet it is necessary, after 
all that lias been written on the subject, to 
repeat the pictorial representation. How 
true it is that we need “ line upon line, pre¬ 
cept upon precept” before any truth or im¬ 
provement can become established. 
First Prize Butter made from Scrub 
Cows! ! Here is another text for i homily. 
Mr. Cornwall seems to be rather ashamed 
of che fact, for he says: “ But I have been 
using a pure-bred Jersey sire the last year.” 
