1874 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
411 
than which nothing can be more delusive. 
Agriculture can do much; it has its possibili¬ 
ties, and opens a certain future for those who 
rightly apply themselves to its prosecution; but 
it is very far from being what its more en¬ 
thusiastic and infatuated (and less experienced) 
admirers think it to be. In this case, as in 
many others, I am quite incapable of advis¬ 
ing my friend what to do; but it is the easiest 
and safest thing in the world to advise him 
not to do what he proposes. 
It may be remembered by some of my read¬ 
ers, that I last year paid $200 rent for 2 acres 
of clover, a part of which we used for soiling, 
and another part made into hay. This same 
field was offered to me this year, but I declined 
it, because I did not believe that it would again 
produce an abundant crop of clover. The 
owner said he would convince me, that with 
liberal top-dressings of seaweed and stable 
manure, it could be made to do so. It received 
last winter such a manuring as falls to the lot 
of few farm fields, and it is now (September 
15tb) covered with a heavy after-growth, in 
which the clover is conspicuous and uniform. 
It has been mown twice for hay, and the whole 
crop has passed over my hay-scales, and is 
recorded on my weighing-book. The first cut¬ 
ting was June 20th. The grass was more than 
half clover, the rest being timothy ; it was not 
so well dried as it should have been, and 
although safely stored in a barn, it is some¬ 
what injured from heating; at the same time, it 
was not so wet but that it has kept, and it is 
now in fair condition for fodder. The amount 
weighed, was a little over 8 tons—I assume 
that properly cured, it would have weighed 6 
tons. The second cutting was made August 
10th, and the crop, thoroughly cured and in 
the best condition for storing, weighed 336 lbs. 
more than 4 tons. The whole of both cuttings 
was at the least calculation, equal to fully 5 tons 
of well cured hay per acre. Comment upon 
this statement is unnecessary. 
In a recent number I gave an account of a 
man calling himself an agricultural chemist, 
who went about our island analyzing soils by 
tasting, and prescribing different manurial 
amendments, by which their “ latent fertility ” 
might be developed. We number among our 
farmers many hard-headed, sensible men, of 
considerable property, who flatter themselves 
that their eye-teeth were cut long ago, and that 
they are not to be caught with chaff. Had 
any one had the temerity to advise them to 
apply to a thoroughly scientific man, like Prof. 
Johnson of Yale College, for advice as to the 
treatment of their particular soils, he would 
probably have been hooted and sneered out of 
the community for a “book-farmer.” Had 
Prof. Johnson been applied to to give advice 
based on soil analyses, he would have replied 
that it lies entirely beyond the reach of any 
science, to render valuable aid in this way. Yet, 
here comes an arrant quack, who captures one 
substantial farmer after another, and convinces 
him that he can, for a consideration, show him 
the short cut to agricultural wealth. So far as 
I can learn, his willing victims in this county 
may be numbered by scores, if not by hundreds, 
and they include men who pass for the most 
sensible among us, but who, like the rest of the 
world, evidently like to be humbugged. One, 
a near neighbor, took this “chemist” to two 
fields, which have been cultivated for several 
years as a market garden. He duly tasted and 
advised, and here is his advice: (Copied literal¬ 
ly from his pencil note, on a dirty half-sheet of 
note paper.) 
“Pond lot. 1 barrel loam. 10 lbs. 
“ Lawns. Soda Ash. 
10 lbs. 
Lime. 
5 lbs. 
Copperas. 
5 quarts. 
Salt. 
2 lbs. 
Chloride of Lime. 
“ Soda ash and Lime slacked together.—Dry Slack. 
“ Pound the Copperas. 
“ Rest of land, 1 barrel loam. 
6 lbs. Soda Ash. 
6 lbs. Lime. Slack lime, 
4 qts. Salt. and 
3 lbs. Copperas. Pound Soda Ash. 
4 lbs. Caustic Soda.” 
His fee for this valuable service, was $40. 
Comment is again unnecessary. 
I have received a long printed report of an 
experiment with the Deep Can System, made 
by the Solebury Farmers’ Club, in Bucks Co., 
Penn. A committee was appointed to examine 
and experiment in setting milk, both deep and 
shallow, at the farm of a Mr. Reeder. I do 
not clearly understand the arrangement of the 
patent apparatus, by which the water in the pool 
was kept cool by ice water, but so far as one 
can judge, the trial seems to have been a fair 
one, so far as the experimenters could make it so. 
“ The trial commenced on Monday morning, 
August 10th, 1874. On account of scarcity of 
milk in the mornings, but 8 gallons were used 
at a time during the trial. Four gallons of 
measured milk were put in one deep can, filling 
it just 16 inches deep, and weighing 34 pounds. 
The same quantity of this previously mixed 
milk, by weight and measure, was put in 4 
ordinary tin milk pans, (4 quarts to the pan) 
and filling them 3 inches deep. This was 
repeated for 14 milkings, one week—making a 
total of 476 pounds, or 224 quarts of milk, 16 
inches deep in 14 cans ; and the same amount 
in 56 pans, 3 inches deep. 
“ The water in the pool, as before stated, was 
at a temperature of 58°; when a can of warm 
milk was immersed in it, it raised the tempera¬ 
ture to 60°, but at the expiration of 10 or 12 
hours, it would be lowered to 58° again, by the 
inflow of fresh ice water. A piece of ice was 
put in the pool after the first day, so as not to 
let the temperature be varied any more than 
could be helped. The pans of milk were set 
on a stone floor, where the temperature was 60°. 
During the whole trial the temperature ranged 
as follows: In the pool, from 58 to 60°; in the 
milk room, from 60 to 62°. Great care was 
taken to preserve this uniform temperature 
during the whole triad, by admitting cool air at 
night, and excluding the warm air during the 
day, which necessary feature is under complete 
control. The milk in both cans and pans 
stood 48 hours, when it was skimmed. The 
cream raised one inch in depth in the deep 
cans. The amount off cream obtained from 
the deep cans was 46 pounds, from the shallow 
pans 57 pounds. The last skimming was done 
on Tuesday evening, August 18th, when the 
cream was placed in a cooling cupboard, and 
the temperature lowered to 54°. The churning 
was done Wednesday, August 19th. The 46 
pounds of cream obtained from the deep cans, 
was churned first—butter came in 30 minutes, 
and yielded 15 pounds 10 ounces. The cream 
from the shallow pans (57 pounds) was churned 
immediately afterwards—butter came in 50 
minutes, and yielded 21 pounds 6 ounces. The 
result of this experiment, which was conducted 
as fairly as possible, indicates a gain, of 5 "/is 
pounds in favor of the shallow pans, or over 
25 per cent.” 
I am entirely at a loss to account for this 
result, nor have I any equally careful experi¬ 
ment to set against it. At the same time, I am 
quite satisfied that were the facts known, there 
would be found some good reason for question¬ 
ing its value. Before we settled upon the Deep 
Can System ourselves, we made alternate trials, 
week and week about, with the deep and shal¬ 
low setting. We invariably got a trifle more 
butter from the deep than from the shallow, 
the herd being the same, and getting the same 
treatment, slightly more, but not enough more 
to be of consequence. The improvement that 
we found was in quality; in a great saving of 
labor, and especially in a greater uniformity, 
without regard to the temperature of the air. 
Since that time, some three years ago, we have 
entirely abandoned shallow setting, and re¬ 
mained more than satisfied with our deep cans. 
Surely if there had been anything like the dif¬ 
ference in quantity, which the Solebury experi¬ 
ment developed, we could not have failed to 
detect it, and should certainly have abandoned 
the system. Had the quantity of cream obtain¬ 
ed at Solebury been larger in case of the deep 
can setting, I confess I should have been some¬ 
what staggered by the difference in the amount 
of butter, but if anything is determined beyond 
question, not only by my own experience, but 
by that of others pursuing the same course, it 
is that, whatever may be the amount of butter 
produced, the amount of cream is universally 
much larger, a fact which is undoubtedly due 
to the less exposure of the cream to the drying 
effect of the air. Cream taken from a shallow 
pan, set for even 36 hours, is almost universal¬ 
ly somewhat clotted and leathery from its dry¬ 
ing, while that taken from deep cans, is always 
thin and fluid, showing greater content of wa¬ 
ter, and being therefore much more in quantity. 
So long as milk remains fluid, (free from 
coagulation), and so long as the particles of 
cream are lighter than the particles of milk, 
as they always are, these must inevitably rise, 
even if set eighteen feet deep instead of eighteen 
inches, and we find not only a very large 
amount of cream separated, even in 24 hours 
standing, but also the peculiar blue look, which 
only thoroughly decreamed milk can have; 
and, after skimming, the milk returned to the 
pool, in order to avoid curdling, never raises 
any sensible amount of cream; it is in fact 
thorough skimmed milk. 
I have no intention of entering into a discus¬ 
sion on this subject, for the reason that not 
living at the farm, and not being able to give 
constant personal attention to the details, I 
could not make an experiment for which I 
would be willing to vouch. I have stated Mr. 
Reeder’s case in his own words, and must leave 
my readers to draw their own conclusions, 
and make their own investigations, but I shall 
not, myself, be led by the disastrous results he 
sets forth, to change my present system; feel¬ 
ing confident, that were his water pool like 
mine, and his milk and his processes like mine, 
he would find the result entirely different from 
that which his own experiment has developed. 
Since our dairy was established on its present 
basis, we have never, in the coldest or in the 
hottest weather, had the least difficult* in mak¬ 
ing butter of uniformly good qual : * ■ and 
entirely acceptable to our over-particular cus¬ 
tomers. 
We are all of us the better now and then for 
intelligent criticism, and, although I have had 
differences with Mr. William Crozier, of the 
Beacon Stock-Farm, on the subject of the 
