35o 
May 23 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
THE BUTTERMAKER'S SHARE. 
A Virginia Dairyman's Problem. 
TIIE QUESTION. 
A party exjiects to make butter lor two neighbors, furnishing 
all the tools, separator, etc., and also packages, if return pack¬ 
ages be used. There will be about 20 cows. The owners of the 
cows are to have all the milk returned, and to pay the expense of 
marketing, such as freight, ice, packages, if not returned, and 
commission, if any. The aim is to make a fancy article bringing 
not less than 25 cents per pound. What per cent of the net re¬ 
turns should the buttermaker have ? It will not take nearly all 
his time, but the best part of it, and he will have to confine him¬ 
self to the milk of the two neighbors. a. f. a. 
Claremont, Va. 
THE ANSWERS. 
From 15 to 20 Per Cent. 
If the maker take the milk by the Babcock test, and 
make the butter as a part of his routine of dairying 1 , 
he could do the work for 10 per cent, possibly a little 
less. If he must make a separate and special job of 
the milk of the 20 cows, and lose odds and ends of 
time in consequence, he would hardly get fair pay at 
less than 15 to 20 per cent, depending on conditions 
not stated in the query. e. h. Bancroft. 
Delaware. 
Is It Not Too Small Business ? 
buttermaker until five o’clock m the afternoon, 
with, of course, time for the delivery of the prod¬ 
uct to the express. The great trouble is that we 
can hardly afford to pay an expert to make butter 
from 20 cows. The cost per pound will decrease 
almost in proportion as the number of pounds made 
increases. The question of fuel ought not to exceed 
10 cents per day, unless when the room requires to be 
heated. After a rather careful calculation, I estimate 
the probable fair cost of making 5,000 pounds of 
butter per year to be : 
Dairy house, cost $200, rental 10 per cent. 
Engine $125, separator $150, tools $50. at 20 per cent.. 
One-half time of man at $30 per month. 
Butter carriers $20, at 50 per cent. 
Fuel... 
Parchment paper. 
color.. 
Salt.. 
$20.00 
65.00 
180 00 
10.00 
40.00 
5.00 
2.50 
3.00 
Total cost.$325.50 
To make 10,000 pounds would not cost $50 additional. 
New York. .tared van wagenen, ,jr. 
WHAT THE) SAT. 
Homemade Swill Truck. — I have a homemade 
swill truck which I like better than the one illus¬ 
trated some time ago. I bought an oil barrel, knocked 
tin. The cover was removed from the box, and a lath 
nailed on the side of the opening which was to be the 
bottom. Par enough above this so that the fowls 
could drink from, but not get into, the pan inside, a 
second lath was fastened by a nail through one end 
to act as a hinge, and a nail on the other side for the 
jath to rest on. An ordinary bread pan supplied the 
drinking vessel. The box is nailed securely to abeam 
a foot or more from the ground, and an upturned box 
supplies a platform on which the birds stand while 
drinking. 
The other arrangement is made by cutting away 
two inches or more in depth and about three-quarters 
the circumference, of a tomato or other tin can. The 
part which is not cut is perforated with two or three 
nail holes so that it will hang on the wall securely. 
I' fatten the cut edges so that they will not injure the 
birds. For chicks, a tall salmon can, cut to within 
two inches of the bottom, answers nicely. These 
drinking cups should be hung high enough so that 
the birds cannot scratch dirt into them, and platforms 
should be arranged under them so that they are easy 
of access. ____ s. a. little. 
THE FOOD FOR DUCKS. 
I have been solicited to do the same thing, but 
could never figure it out to be profitable to both par¬ 
ties, as the amount was so small that too much time 
was occupied for the amount of butter. We will 
assume that the cows make, on the average, 20 pounds 
per day; it would, undoubtedly, take A. F. A. about 
three hours to do the work. He must decide what 
his time is worth, also the wear on machinery, etc., 
and then, if he have nothing further to occupy his 
time the rest of the day, and depend upon the making 
of the 20 pounds of butter to maintain himself, it 
would leave a small share for the owners of the cows. 
But if, like myself, he have plenty to do aside from 
the dairy work, he then could afford to make the 
butter cheaper ; or, in other words, make the butter 
for from five to six cents per pound. However, I do 
not think that he would make money very fast, 
neither do I see how the neighbors can afford to give 
any more. But should he confine himself to just the 
two neighbors ? I do not see how he can make it 
profitable to both parties. Could A. F. A. get more 
milk so as to occupy all of the time, he then could do 
the work cheaper. However, I prefer to let my ma¬ 
chinery stand idle when not at work for myself, 
rather than run it on so small a margin. If A. F. A. 
set out on the venture, I hope that he will report to 
The R. N.-Y. later, that we may all know how he is 
satisfied, also how his patrons are pleased, as such 
questions and answers are the most valuable part of 
the paper, for they show actual experience. 
New York. a. d. baker. 
Should be Paid by the Pound. 
It would be a far better way to have no shares about 
it, but pay a certain rate per pound for all butter 
made. If this man do all the work and pack the 
butter, he should have three cents a pound for all 
butter made, and made ready to ship. While butter 
goes up in price, or down as the case may be, the man 
who makes the butter has to put in an average amount 
of work from first to last, and it is as much work to 
make a pound of 10-cent as of 25-cent butter. Most 
men would as soon make 40 pounds of butter as 10 
when they go at it. I would advise these farmers and 
others to add to the cow population of that neighbor¬ 
hood, so that there will be, at least, 100 cows to con¬ 
tribute to this man’s creamery, and not only be more 
profitable to him, but to themselves as well, and 
make of it a business that has size enough to it to 
make it worth the while for this man to do a full 
day’s work, and not take the best part of his time. 
°ki°- JOHN GOULD. 
The Cost Figured Out. 
Of course, the buttermaker’s share will have to be 
very largely determined by circumstances. If the 
buttermaker is an expert and has all the business 
qualifications necessary to make butter bring 25 
cents per pound in these times, his time ought to be 
worth $50 to $00 per month, the wages of a first-class 
creameryman. The separators, engine, churn and 
tools should be charged a rent of 20 per cent annually 
to pay first cost and wear. Return packages are, as I 
know to my sorrow, so liable to breakage, loss and, I 
am afraid, deliberate theft, that they will not, on the 
average, last more than two or three years, and if the 
distance be long, not that; so they should pay a 
rental of 50 per cent annually. The most difficult part 
of the problem is that we are employing an expensive 
man to do a little work. One important point is, 
How valuable can his time be made when not at 
buttermaking ? The milk of 20 cows should be sep¬ 
arated, and everything cleaned up at eight o’clock in 
the morning, and at 10 o’clock on the days when 
churningjas done, and then he should be done as a 
HOMEMADE SWILL TRUCK AND FRAME. Flo. 112. 
out one head and bored a hole opposite the bung hole 
and of the same size. Then, at a blacksmith’s, I got 
two old buggy wheels with boxes in, and the iron 
part of a buggy axle, and had the blacksmith take a 
piece out of the axle and shorten it so that it meas¬ 
ured two feet nine inches between the hubs. I had 
the axle for two inches back of each shoulder, rounded, 
it being square, and shoved it through the holes in 
the barrel, until the ends were at equal distances 
from the barrel; then I wedged all around the axle 
with some soft wood, such as pine. Then I made a 
frame, see 2, Fig. 112, two feet eight inches from out¬ 
side to outside, in width, and which may be of any 
length desired. Two irons, 3, Fig. 112, of the right 
length to bend around the axle, were bolted to the 
frame. I next put on the wheels, and the thing was 
done. I can put in 11 pailfuls of swill, and if pains 
be taken to wedge water-tight, I can fill it three- 
TWO DRINKING VESSELS FOR POULTRY. Fig. 113. 
fourths full or more. To empty, tip tt^e barrel and 
pour out, as the axle turns in the wheels and frame. 
Here is the cost: 
1 barrel at store.$0 70 
2 wheels at 50 cents. ] 00 
1 axle and work.. 50 
2 axle irons and 2 braces...." 50 
Bolts, etc. 30 
Total cost.‘.$3 00 
I throw in the labor for a good cause. From our 
dooryard to the hogpen, is 200 feet. For eight 
months of the year, my wife was carrying out the 
swill, if we men folks were away. There was an 
average of 12 pails a day for somebody. Walking the 
200 feet 12 times over, or 2,400 feet a day, in eight 
months, counting 20 days to a month, gives us 208 
days, and 499,200 feet in a year. In 25 years, this 
amounts to 12,481,000 feet or 2,364 miles walking ; at 
30 miles a day, this would occupy nearly 79 days. 
In 25 years, one might have to expend $15 for trucks 
and repairs. Any one who carried the swill would 
earn about 20 cents a day. Young married man, do 
you wish your wife to work for 20 cents a day and 
board herself, when if you have a truck standing by 
the door, you can take it right along on your way to 
the barn without extra steps ? a. m. a. 
Bedminster, N. J. 
Two Drinking Vessels. —The most satisfactory 
drinking vessels which I have ever used for poultry 
are shown at Fig. 113, and were made as follows : One 
was made from a six-pound starch box and a baking 
HOW SHOULD IT COMPARE WITH HEN FOOD? 
On page 282 of The R. N.-Y., Mr. W. H. Truslow 
asked some pertinent questions about feeding ducks. 
On page 330, Mr. Samuel Cushman made some com¬ 
ments on this article, and we now have notes from 
other well-known poultrymen which follow : 
Doesn’t Believe Much in Cut Bone. 
I agree with Mr. Truslow, on page 282, and I con¬ 
sider that the droppings question needs attention. I 
prefer dry ground scrap to green bone for my breed¬ 
ing ducks, but unless one can get good quality, with 
the fat well pressed out, it is loosening, and, although 
necessary to feed large quantities of it, I always re¬ 
duce the allowance when the droppings are too soft. 
It is hard to get men to be thorough enough in mix¬ 
ing the feed in that way ; some ducks get too much, 
and, occasionally, a loss of a duck is the result. I 
have never been much of an enthusiast on green cut 
bone. In the first place, it is rarely fresh enough to 
suit my ideas ; and, second, life is too short to spend 
one’s valuable time cutting bone. Third, there is 
altogether too much fat in it. I certainly do not be¬ 
lieve in a narrow feeding ration, if you mean scanting 
the feed. I think that ducks should have all they will 
eat up clean at a feed. I have raised a good many 
ducks for market, but of late, have been raising more 
for fancy. But I think that I can get them up to as 
heavy weight in as short a time as any one. I have 
killed many that averaged 10 pounds per pair, at 10 
weeks, and first selected 25 or thereabouts of the best 
and heaviest out of each 100, thus, you see, killing the 
culls, as it were. d. a. mount. 
Wants to Try a Narrow Ration. 
The feed that has given me the best results in duck¬ 
lings, is one part wheat bran, one part oat feed (from 
the oat meal mills), one part corn meal, with about 
10 per cent green cut bone or beef scrap, gradually 
increasing the corn meal and meat, after the ducks 
are six weeks old, to one-half corn meal and 15 to 20 
per cent of meat at nine to ten weeks old. I prefer 
the green bone when practicable ; but in warm 
weather, it spoils so quickly that I am compelled to 
use scrap almost exclusively. I buy the scrap in 
cakes direct from the press of the fat renderer, and 
cut them in the Mann bone cutter ; thus 1 have a 
good, fresh article. I do not think that the earliness 
of the Long Island ducks is due so much to the feed 
as to the influence of the climate. And as to size, I 
am sure that we can raise as large ducks with the 
bone or scrap, as with fish. I have fed herring to my 
ducks repeatedly, and have never found any increase 
of eggs over the scrap feed. I have never found any¬ 
thing cheaper than cut bone, although I have under¬ 
stood that it contained too large a per cent of fat; it 
surely gives the results in eggs, as I have frequently 
noticed when beginning to feed it. 
I would like to try a much narrower ration than is 
usually fed, to both ducks and hens ; but it is not an 
easy matter to get the feeds that suit the tastes of 
the fowls, and at the same time, make up a very nar¬ 
row ration. I would like to have skim-milk to mix 
all the feed with, which I think is a great help 
towards an ideal ration ; but it is impossible to get it 
here, as there are no creameries in this vicinity. The 
condition of the droppings, as described by Mr. Trus¬ 
low, is surely an ideal condition, and denotes a good, 
healthy condition of all fowls ; but it is a difficult 
matter to keep them all in that condition at all times. 
I have tried a ration consisting largely of cut bone 
and meat, but the fowls soon get tired of it, and it is 
rather too loosening on the bowels. While they 
greatly relish a portion of bone and meat, they must 
have a larger amount of grain than meat. If we had 
a grain with a very narrow ratio, it would be all 
