A "/VEI/V" METHOD OF CHURNING. 
Half Cheese and Half Butter. 
Several days ago a friend telephoned me to come at 
once to the office of a prominent broker and see a 
demonstration of a wonderful machine. He met me 
outside in the hall, and in great excitement told me 
“they had the greatest thing out’’ and that he had just 
subscribed for $2,000 worth of stock at par. 1 went in, 
found about a score of business men and women present 
greatly interested in the “demon¬ 
stration” of the Wonder churn by 
the inventor and patentee. I was 
just in time to witness the oper¬ 
ation. The inventor (I did not 
learn his name) took a quart of 
regular bottled milk, and over a 
gas stove, in a pan of water, 
heated it to 98 degrees F. He 
then brought out his Wonder 
churn, a tin cylinder about four 
inches in diameter and 14 inches 
high, in the bottom of which he 
deposited an “absorbent disk,” 
made of perforated tin filled 
with mineral wool and asbestos 
(so he explained). Fitted to the 
cover was a metal dasher like 
that in an ordinary ice cream 
freezer. The operator put the 
disk in the bottom of the can 
and poured the milk in. To the 
disk he had attached a string. 
He let the milk stand a few min¬ 
utes while he explained that the 
disk was absorbing all the water 
from the milk, leaving nothing 
but the butter fat; then he pulled 
the disk up through the milk 
and said he was ready to make 
butter. He put in two pounds 
of ordinary creamery print but¬ 
ter that had softened up a little 
near the gas stove, added a lit¬ 
tle extract of carrots, and about 
two ounces of what he called 
vaporized salt. He put in the 
dasher, turned the crank for 
four minutes, announced that it 
“had come,” took out the dasher, 
poured the contents of the can 
into a pan of ice water, let it 
harden a few minutes, and 
weighed out to the astonished 
audience “four pounds of fine 
sweet butter.” 
Having had several years’ ex¬ 
perience in making both butter 
and cheese, I too was interested, 
but not astonished at the results 
attained. Heating the milk to 
98 degrees convinced me the 
operator was making cheese, and 
I watched to see him add the 
extract of rennet The extract 
of carrots seemed innocent, so I 
asked him to let me see the salt. 
I at once smelled and tasted the pepsin. I accused him 
of using it, and he explained that pepsin was used to 
keep it; that it was healthful, etc. I called my friend 
aside, told him the “butter” was at least half cheese, 
explained the absurdity of the metal disk an inch thick 
and four inches in diameter absorbing the water from 
two pounds of milk, and finally offered to hunt up the 
copy of The R. N.-Y. of two or three weeks ago, and 
show him how you there exposed this same old process. 
My friend withdrew his subscription. I called up our 
State Dairy Commissioner and asked him to investigate 
it, which he did, corroborating my opinion in every par¬ 
ticular. Still the promoters insisted, and I understand 
they have organized a stock company; paid the in¬ 
ventor $13,000 for his rights in the United States, and 
are going ahead in making and selling the machines. 
And this in enlightened Hartford in the days of stren¬ 
uous publicity! The city investor with his oil-well 
schemes, his million-dollar gold mines at 25 cents a 
share, and his Wonder churn has no laugh coming on 
the occasional farmer who gets caught by a “gold brick” 
or a bundle of “green goods.” G. l. v. 
TREES INJURED BY WHITE LEAD AND OIL. 
Referring to the recent discussion regarding the use 
of white lead and oil on the trunks of fruit trees, I wish 
to describe a case which has recently come under my 
observation. Z. C. Bowen, of Waterbury, had a number 
of young fruit trees, mostly apple, and reading about 
the use of this material in Virginia by Prof. Alwood 
and others, decided to try it upon his trees, thinking 
that it might keep out borers as' well as prevent the 
gnawing of the bark in Winter by mice. In the Spring 
of 1904 he painted the trunks of about GO apple trees 
and one pear tree. 1 hese trees varied in age from two 
to 12 years. A few of these died, but the owner sup¬ 
posed from Winter injury or some other cause, as most 
of the trees appeared to be. thrifty. In the Fall of 
1904 Mr. Bowen gave another application to these same 
trees and some others, the total 
number treated being 122 apple 
and five pear trees. The trunk 
was painted from the ground up 
to the tops, and as the trees were 
headed high, the lower part of 
the tree was covered in some in¬ 
stances to a height of six feet. 
Out of the 122 apple trees thus 
treated 96 are now dead, seven 
seem to be quite thrifty, while 
the remainder are unthrifty. 
Some of these have one.or two 
withered branches, and others 
are almost dead, and show only 
a few green leaves. In some 
cases the tops are entirely dead, 
and new growth is coming out 
of the trunk; eventually these 
will doubtless make good trees. 
Many,of the trees which are now 
dead blossomed freely, and even 
put out some leaves; then with¬ 
ered and died. Mr. Bowen 
thinks that a good rain soon 
after the trees blossomed might 
have saved some of them. In 
the Spring of 1904 Mr. Bowen 
also printed the trunks of 60 
other trees for a height of 12 
inches above the ground. A few 
of these were unthrifty last year 
and most of them are now dead. 
I made an examination of these 
trees on June 9. Evidently they 
were injured somewhat during 
the Winter of 1903-4, as the 
twigs show blackened wood in¬ 
side formed previous to last sea¬ 
son’s growth, but there is no 
question that most of the injury 
was caused by the white lead 
and oil, probably the oil. It pen¬ 
etrated the bark and injured the 
cambium layer in almost exactly 
the same manner as the crude oil 
which is applied to kill San Jose 
scale. Mr. Bowen’s experience 
points to the same results; name¬ 
ly, that a Spring application may 
be far less serious than a Fall 
application. In the latter'case 
the oil has a long time to remain 
upon the bark before growth 
starts in the Spring, and there¬ 
fore penetrates deeper into the 
tissues. In using kerosene and 
crude oil against the scale we found this to be true. 
Aside from this form of injury, the white lead and 
oil forms an impervious coating over the lenticels of 
the bark, thus shutting out the air and suffocating the 
trees. After the Spring painting in 1904, the immediate 
growth caused the bark to crack in many places on the 
trunks, thus breaking the coating and admitting air, so 
that the trees were not so seriously injured. Mr. 
Bowen has suggested that 1 send this account of his 
experience to you for publication to save other growers 
