THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
5o 
HENRY H . WING. F i o . 17. 
Professor of Dairying at Cornell University. 
IN TRANSATLANTIC DAIRIES. 
What Prof. Wing of the Cornell University Dairy School 
saw in Holland , Great Britain, Switzerland, Sweden 
and Denmark. 
“ Yes, I went abroad last summer to study dairy¬ 
ing, going first to Holland, via France and Germany, 
but I gave no attention to dairy interests in the last 
two countries.” 
“ When you reached Holland, how did you begin ?” 
“ I got a wheel and took a spin out into the country. 
I had letters to a number of men from whom we had 
imported cattle, and calling upon them, I was given 
every opportunity for seeing what the Dutch were 
doing in the line of cheese and butter. In Holland, 
as a rule, everything is finder one roof for horses, 
cattle and human beings, including hayloft and rooms 
for curing cheese. The one exception is a little 
detached structure for the pigs. The typical Dutch 
house is a square building terminating in a high-peaked 
roof. I was there in May when the cattle were out to 
pasture, and their winter quarters were utilized for 
summer kitchens. Oh, yes, they were clean—you 
know Dutch women are proverbial for their scrubbing 
—and there were no odors. One man, where I was re¬ 
ceived, had his living rooms detached from the cattle 
apartments, but I noticed where the angles of the 
two buildings joined, that the cook stove was in a 
stable. On the line of tourists, some of these stables 
arc kept in summer as show places, with carpets on 
the floors, or sawdust put on in fanciful designs. The 
tourists fancy that they see typical Dutch interiors, 
and are quite willing to pay a fee for the sight, while 
the fee helps the Dutchman out financially.” 
“ Do the women wear, for an everyday working 
garb, those voluminous skirts we see in pictures of 
them ? ” 
“Yes, and when they dress up—as in going to 
market—they put on a lot more, giving them a very 
wide and fantastic appearance ; but they look heavily 
weighted. They appear sturdy and buxom, however, 
but they are not so tall as American women. The 
men are lean and spare, smoke lots of tobacco, and 
drink much spirits, but now and then, one sees tall 
and large specimens among them. They are less pecu¬ 
liar in their dress than the women, their most dis¬ 
tinguishing outer garment being a sort of cross be¬ 
tween a shirt and an apron, in black or dark blue.” 
“ How many cows constitute, with them, a large 
dairy ? ” 
“ From 20 to 30. In certain parts of Holland, how¬ 
ever—north Holland and Friesland—more cows are 
kept than in any one part of the United States. In 
quite extended districts in these sections, no farms 
are cultivated ; they do not have even a garden, all 
the land being in grass. Some sheep are kept. Heing 
below the sea level, water is never more than three or 
four feet below the surface of the soil. In Haarlem-er- 
Mere—that lake that was drained near the Hague—the 
agriculture is more mixed. The soil is very rich every¬ 
where. ” 
“ What cattle are bred in Friesland ?” 
“ The IIolstein-Friesians. A good cow is worth, in 
our money, about §00. Very little butter is made in 
north Holland, mostly cheese, largely Edam.” 
“ What is the red surface on Edam cheese ? ” 
“ Annatto, but one never sees it used in Holland 
for that purpose. It is put on by the importer. The 
Dutch, however, use color in the inside of the cheese 
the same as is done here. The cheese is made after a 
rather primitive style, and is largely the business of 
the housewife. Cheese was selling, when I was there 
in May, at the rate of §9.60 for 110 pounds. On weekly 
market days, the cheese is arranged for exhibition on 
the pavement in the mai’ket town, by being laid two 
cheeses deep, so as to form a square, and is weighed 
on balances—cheese on one side, and iron on the other. 
If it rains, or the sunshine is too intense, a cover is 
thrown over it. There is a good deal of dickering be¬ 
tween buyers and sellers, and it is often a long process 
before a sale is concluded. There is little cheesemak¬ 
ing in winter. Very little government aid is given to 
cheesemaking, and there seems, in recent years, to 
have been no marked improvement in its manufacture. 
There are no government schools, save one or two 
small ones, and one or two experiment stations. I 
found only one progressive dairyman who was paying 
for milk according to its percentage of fat. He spoke 
German well, and 1 found that the Hollanders were a 
linguistic race, often speaking English and German in 
addition to their own tongue. A Holland peasant is 
quite as likely to understand English as German, and 
I had no more difficulty in making myself understood 
in English than had an American friend with me in 
speaking his American German. In Friesland, the 
buttermaking industry is rapidly developing, and be¬ 
coming a formidable rival in the English market to 
the Danish product, and the butter is made practically 
the same. At one creamery, they were getting about 90 
skillings per cwt. delivered on a vessel at the seaport ; 
that would be about 20 cents a pound. The cream¬ 
eries use separators, and are conducted much as are 
our own. 
“ From Holland, I went to England and Scotland, 
spending the months of June and July. English but¬ 
ter is practically all consumed at home, and is made 
for immediate consumption. It is very lightly salted, 
and is put up in prints by hand, by use of the paddle. 
There is very little factory dairying ; it is mostly of 
the farm, and largely in the hands of women who also 
do most of the milking, the latter being the work of 
the farm laborer’s wife. There are dairy schools or 
institutes, and at these, the pupils are chiefly girls 
who often, later on, are employed in the show dairies 
of the nobility. These institutes are largely supported 
by the national government, from an increased excise 
on spirits. This tax was levied several years ago, 
and proving to be more than was needed, was 
handed over to the county councils, refunded to the 
counties from which it was drawn, with the sugges¬ 
tion that it be applied to technical education. A 
great fuss was made about it at the time, but it 
presently became so popular that it has been contin¬ 
ued. The best of these dairy schools are the Midland 
in Kensington Fields, the British Dairy Institute in 
connection with the University Extension College, at 
Reading, and the one maintained by the Ayrshire 
Council at Kilmarnock, in Scotland. The pupils pay a 
tuition fee, but in nearly every case, counties offer 
free scholarships upon examinations. The school, 
ordinarily, is a farm rented for the purpose, and the 
pupils live in the farmhouse. They have almost 
wholly practice work, with some lectures and labora¬ 
tory work. At the Midland, there is a well-equipped 
laboratory, and a trained bacteriologist. I spent two 
weeks as a pupil at the Midland, and learned much 
about making certain kinds of cheese.” 
“ Do the English pay as much attention to scientific 
dairying as Americans ? ” 
“ No, not so much ; it is newer there than here. The 
schools, however, are quite up to the times. The 
schools are more in advance in practice than are the 
dairies. The public is more behind the teaching there 
than it is here, which is partly due to the conservat¬ 
ism of the people.” 
“ Do they have our own idea of what constitutes 
good butter ? ” 
“The English idea of butter texture differs from 
ours. They want their butter worked drier, want it 
firm, but do not care so much for granular texture. 
They esteem a lighter and more delicate butter, and 
give to it only the least artificial color. Universally 
in the dairy districts, the pasture is very fine. There 
is less use made of separators. The cows are in large 
part Devonshire Short-horns, the race of beef Short¬ 
horns developed for milk, large, blocky'animals of 
distinctively fleshy type. A good dairy cow there is 
worth §100. I saw a fairly good one, whose usefulness 
for the dairy was over, sell for §7.” 
“Will you tell me how Devonshire clotted cream is 
made ? ” 
“ The milk is set in shallow pans—crocks—and 
warmed until it just begins to crinkle ; then it is set 
aside until the cream rises. Sometimes it is rewarmed 
and set aside for the second time. The cream is then 
taken off for table use, and eaten on bread. It is rather 
lumpy. I can’t say that I found it absorbingly de¬ 
licious over other cream.” mary wager fisher. 
(Concluded next week.) 
The R. N.-Y. lias on hand the most practical article 
on tuberculin testing we have ever read. “ Early Lamb 
Raising.” and “An Indiana Mule Farm” are both good. 
January 22 
MAPLE TREES ON A COURT HOUSE TOWER. 
The photograph reproduced at Fig. 18 is of the 
Decatur County, Ind., court house tower. About 18 
years ago, the residents of Greensburg were astonished 
to see quite a number of green sprouts growing from 
this tower, and upon examination, found that, by 
some hook or crook, some maple seeds had germinated 
and were growing. As the tower is built of limestone 
blocks one foot thick laid up with hydraulic cement, 
no one had any idea that these seedlings would live 
more than one season, at most; but strange to say, 
seven of them not only found root, but grew and 
thrived. In a few years, these miniature trees had so 
pushed their roots into what seemed to be an impene¬ 
trable surface, that the tower was in danger, and all 
but two were cut down. The wood of these trees was 
so hard that it could scarcely be cut with any edged 
tool, and the roots were just the shape of the crevices 
they had made between the stones. The largest tree 
now living is 18 feet high, about that many years old, 
and bids fair to live many years yet, if left alone. 
This tower is the pride of Greensburg, and the first 
questions asked by strangers are, “ What do these 
trees live on, and how did they gain a foothold ? ” 
Many scientists have visited these high-minded eccen¬ 
tric trees, but if they gave any satisfactory theory of 
their growth. I did not hear of it. MRS. w. w. stkvens. 
BABY VEGETABLE PLANTS FOR MARKET. 
HOW THEY ARE STARTED AND CARED FOR. 
Little Fall-Sown Garbage. —The most important 
vegetable crops started under glass in preparation 
for outdoor planting are cabbage and cauliflower. Let¬ 
tuce, eggplant, tomato and pepper are raised for 
early planting under nearly similar conditions, but. 
while the cabbage and cauliflower plants are sold in 
such enormous quantities, the price received for them 
is much lower than for the other plants, and they 
must be handled with economy to secure even a small 
margin of profit. 
The firm of Peter Henderson & Co., New York, 
grows half a million cabbage and cauliflower plants 
each season. Years ago, these plants wei*e all fall-sown 
and wintered over in frames, but this plan is now en¬ 
tirely discarded except in the case of Wakefield cab¬ 
bage. This variety is sown in the open ground about 
the last week in September or first week in October, 
and transplanted into frames, where, protected with 
MAPLE TREES GROWING IN STONE. Fus. 18. 
shutters or mats, the young plants pass through the 
Winter well. Plants thus wintered over are headed 
sufficiently for cutting a week or ten days sooner than 
the eai-liest Spring-sown plants. But the Wakefield is 
the only variety, says Mr. Davis, superintendent of 
the Henderson greenhouses, which can be wintex-ed 
over without the liability of “ bolting ” or running to 
seed when transplanted the following Spring. This 
reason alone is sufficient to render Fall-sown cabbage 
