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THE CULTIVATOR. 
65 
MOSS ROSE, AN IMPORTED SHORT HORNED COW, 
Owned by Ezra P. Prentice, Esq., Mount-Hofe, near Albany. 
The above is a very correct portrait of Mr. Pren¬ 
tice’s “Moss Rose,” one of the four cows imported 
by him in October last, from the yard of Mr. Whit¬ 
taker, Yorkshire, England, and was there valued at 100 
guineas. 
Moss Rose is a beautiful roan, four years old last 
spring, and though of fine form, is chiefly remarkable for 
great substance, with very light bone and offal. She 
came out, stinted to the “Sir Peter,” a son of the “Sir 
Thomas Fairfax,” by “Porcia,” and calved on the 11th 
Jan. last. The pi-oduce is a red and white bull calf. 
from which Mr. P. has high expectations, justified alike 
from its appearance and pedigree. 
Her sire was “ Barden,” 1674, 3d vol. Herd Book. 
Dam, Viola, by Young Collins, 1843 
G. D. Viola, by Remus, 550 
G. G. D. Pink, by Sudbury, 1424 
G. G. G. D. Beauty, by Hollings, 2131 
G. G. G. G. D. Lingcropper, by Partner, 2409 
G. G. G. G. G. D. Lady, by Mr. Hutton’s bull 2145 
G. G. G. G. G. G. D. Lingcropper, by Marsk, 418 
G. G. G. G. G. G. G. D. Lofty, by R. Alcock’s bull, 19 
LETTERS FROM MR. PETERS—No. II. 
London , January 1 , 1842 . 
Messrs. Gaylord & Tucker —As too much cannot 
be said upon those subjects, which are of the first im¬ 
portance to the farmer, I shall confine my remarks to 
what more particularly relates to the agricultural interest. 
I have been to-day, for the second time this week, 
through the warehouses, examining butter, cheese, lard, 
beef and pork, from various parts of Europe, the United 
States, and from every place almost in the kingdom. 
Every facility was given me for a thorough examina¬ 
tion of every kind; and nowhere in the world can be 
found a greater variety than here. 
I saw tons of American cheese that is not worth the 
duty, owing to the bad condition it is in, from a want of 
proper knowledge as to the best method of putting up for 
a voyage. Out of the immense quantity I examined in 
these stores, I am sorry to say very little will pay the 
shipper a profit. Unless one has seen the different kinds, 
and tasted them over and over again, been among the 
retailers, and seen the kinds they sell at best prices, he 
cannot form any idea of the great defects in our cheese. 
We have, however, one thing to console us. Those de¬ 
fects can be easily remedied with care; and we can send 
into this market cheese as good in every respect as the best 
here. Our cheese must be uniform in size, and of a dif¬ 
ferent, and I think better proportion. As I remarked in 
my last, ours are too flat or thin, according to their 
weight. No cheese should be made of less thickness 
than 6 inches. Great care should be taken to press them 
well, and to cure thoroughly, so that the rind will be 
thick and tough. Cheshire cheese is yellow. It is co¬ 
lored by rubbing down on a stone some annatto, about 
one ounce to the cwt. of cheese, and mixing with the 
milk while warm. It is usually rubbed into the milk 
through a linen cloth. The temperature of the milk 
when set for the curd is from 90 to 96° Far. If too cold, 
the curd is soft and retains its whey. If too hot, it is 
hard and tough. No person should attempt to make 
cheese without a thermometer. It is of the first impor¬ 
tance that the cheese in the dairy should be as uniform 
in size, taste, and appearance as possible. Some of our 
dairies are not surpassed by the best here; but there is in 
general a great lack of uniformity; and the taste and size 
is almost as various as the dairies. It is no merit to say 
that we possess every requisite to equal the whole world in 
the perfection of our butter and cheese. We must do it; 
and what is more, we will do it. The time is not dis¬ 
tant, thank Heaven, when our sons and daughters will 
think it quite as important to be able to make good 
cheese or good butter, as to play well upon the piano. 
And the conversation of the parlor will not only be about 
the latest fashion, but also the best method and latest im¬ 
provements in butter and cheese making. The time has 
gone by for the American woman to be the frivolous, 
useless toy that an erroneous system of education has 
heretofore made her. Her destiny is a high one; for 
upon her, in a great degree, depends the future prosperi¬ 
ty of our country, and the perpetuity of the republic. 
But excuse this short digression, if so it can be deemed. 
Butter may at some time become an article of export; 
but it must be the very best. You meet in this market 
every shade of quality. The best fresh butter comes 
from Holland, Ireland, and the interior. The best Dutch 
butter is slightly salted, and is not intended to keep long. 
It is usually sold during the first week after its arrival. 
Their very best butter, however, is not better than some 
I have seen from Orange county, and Goshen in Connec¬ 
ticut. Indeed, I have eaten as good butter at farmers’ 
tables in New-York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Mi¬ 
chigan, and Illinois, as the very best made in this or any 
other country. What the few farmers have done, the 
many may do if they will. All that is requisite is care 
and labor. 
The best salt butter is the Kiel and Irish. The Irish 
is considered the best. The Irish owes its superiority to 
the care taken in the inspection. They 7 make five differ¬ 
ent sorts; and it is put up in packages of from 70 to 80 
pounds. The butter which they export to foreign coun¬ 
tries is in pickle, and will keep in good order for a long 
time. In Ireland the butter dealer furnishes the farmer 
with the firkin, and it is filled at the farm. The coopers 
use none but the most thoroughly seasoned oak timber 
for making up the firkins. If well seasoned, they say 
there is no danger of any woody flavor being imparted 
to the butter. 
Their method of making butter I think worthy of adopt¬ 
ing by our farmers. The milk is churned generally; 
and long and careful experience and observation has 
shown that, all things being equal, butter made from 
churned milk will keep much longer in good condition 
than that made from churned cream alone. I should re¬ 
commend that method, by churned milk, to all persons 
keeping small dairies, or where the cream was not 
churned daily. The milk is strained into pans at night, 
and stands till morning. It is then put into stone jars, 
and so divided that the jars will hold three milkings. 
The morning’s milk is put in at night, and the night’s 
milk again in the morning. The whole is occasionally 
stirred with a thin, flat stick until it has become thorough¬ 
ly curdled. It is considered best when it commences 
curdling at the bottom. The whole is then put into the 
churn, and churned with a rapid motion. The tempe¬ 
rature of the milk is quite important; as if it be too cold 
or too warm it froths very bad; and warm or cold water 
must be added, as circumstances may require. The pro¬ 
per degree of temperature could be ascertained by a lit¬ 
tle practice. Churns are worked by steam, by sheep, 
dogs, and donkies, and the necessary machinery is put up 
at a very small expense. The butter when taken from 
the churn is washed in clear spring or well water until 
all the butter-milk is washed out. It is then worked 
over, and salted according to the season and the market. 
The best salt is that kind known as the “Liverpool stored 
salt,” which is very fine and dry. It is, however, made 
as fine and uniform as possible by rolling it on a table 
with a paste, or rolling pin. It is not considered fit to 
put into the firkin until it has stood a week or so, and 
been thoroughly worked over at least twice. Every 
particle of butter-milk is worked out. I consider it es¬ 
sential that cows should also have free access to salt. 
I hope our farmers will turn their attention to this sub¬ 
ject; as hundreds of thousands of dollars could be saved 
to them annually by a very little more care and atten¬ 
tion in this one article. Let them try the experiment. 
The course pursued by some of the best dairies here, and 
which has been crowned with complete success, is cer¬ 
tainly worthy of our serious consideration. Let us once 
get in the right way, and it will then be not only profita¬ 
ble but pleasant to go-ahead. 
If I have been tedious, you must lay it to my anxiety 
to do good to the great interests of our country. 
Sincerely yours, T. C. Peters. 
EXPERIMENTS WITH SALT. 
Messrs. Gaylord & Tucker —I with pleasure com¬ 
ply with your request, and give you the detail of my ex¬ 
periments in the use of salt as a manure. In the spring 
of 1838, we broke up 6 acres of sward land that had been 
mowed a number of years, intending to plant it to corn, 
but observed when plowing that the ground was infested 
with worms; (the yellow cut or wire worm, and black 
grubs;) as we had mostly lost our corn crop the year 
previous by having the first planting almost entirely de¬ 
stroyed by the corn worm, (above described,) we ex¬ 
pected a like calamity would follow the present year, 
unless some preventive could be used to destroy the 
worms. And having frequently and unsuccessfully used 
all the recommended remedies to destroy the corn 
worms, we were induced, at the suggestion of an Eng¬ 
lish laborer, to try salt. After the ground was thorough¬ 
ly harrowed, 5 bushels per acre was sown broadcast, 
leaving a strip of near half an acre on each side of 
the field, to satisfactorily test the experiment. The 
whole was then planted to corn and potatoes. The 
corn on the part where no salt was sown was mostly 
eaten up by the worms, and was replowed and planted 
to potatoes. The potatoes on the whole lot were a good 
crop, but decidedly better where the salt was applied. 
I regret that we did not ascertain by measurement the 
actual result. There was a very perceptible difference 
in the appearance of the vines during the whole sum¬ 
mer. On the part where the salt was sown they grew 
larger and were of a darker green color, and continued 
green longer in the fall than the others. In the spring 
of 1839, we spread on a good coat of manure and planted 
it all to corn, except about half an acre of the salted 
land, which was planted to Rohan potatoes. The Ro- 
hans were the best crop of potatoes I ever saw. Seed 
planted—2-| bushels, produced over 300 bushels. The 
largest potatoe weighed 4| lbs. The corn was a heavy 
crop, but was not measured. The summer was very dry 
| and hot; but the corn on the salted land did not appear 
to suffer at all from the drouth, while the other was con¬ 
siderably injured. The salted land appeared always 
moist, and the growth of everything upon it was very 
rapid. We found great difficulty in keeping the weeds 
down. After three successive hoeings, we were obliged 
in August to g-ive it a hand weeding. Spring of 1840, 
intended to have stocked the land down for meadow; 
but thinking it too rich for oats, planted potatoes without 
manure. Crop good. The effects of the salt still very 
apparent. Adjudged to be one-third more potatoes 
where the land was salted. 
Spring of 1841, sowed a part of the lot to oats, the 
remainder to potatoes and onions without manure. The 
onions were a great crop. The summer was very dry, 
but they did not suffer, while other crops in this neigh¬ 
borhood on similar soils were nearly destroyed by the 
drouth. The oats were a heavy crop, and much lodged 
on the salted part. The clover grew well and produced 
a fine crop of fall feed. This I cannot account for, ex¬ 
cept by supposing that the salt kept the land moist, or 
attracted moisture from the atmosphere, as I know of no 
other piece of land in the town that was well seeded 
last year; it was almost an entire failure; and the most 
of the land stocked down last spring has been, or will be 
plowed up in the spring to be re-seeded. 
W e sowed salt the same spring on a part of our mea¬ 
dows. The grass was evidently improved, the result 
satisfactory, and we shall continue to use it on our- 
meadows. I shall not at this time force upon your 
readers any opinions of mine respecting the manner in 
which salt operates beneficially upon vegetation or the 
soil. The following quotations from English authors, 
if you see fit to publish them, will show that the subject 
is not a new one; and perhaps your readers may glean 
some information from them. 
In Europe much has been said and written to prove 
and to disprove the utility of salt as a manure. Without 
entering at all into their ideas of the modus operandi, 
we may judge from the effects of experiments. I may 
say, however, that it has been supposed beneficial in 
small quantities, b) 7 its tendency to promote putrifaction, 
and injurious in large proportions, because it then ex¬ 
erts its antiseptic powers. It has been supposed of be¬ 
nefit by destroying snails, grubs, moles, &c., in the 
ground. 
“ It is observed by Dr. Darwin, that as it is a stimulus 
which possesses no nourishment, but may excite the ve¬ 
getable absorbent vessels into greater action than usual, 
it may in a certain quantity increase their growth by 
taking up more nourishment in a given time, and per¬ 
forming their circulations and secretions with greater 
energy. In a greater quantity, its stimulus may be so 
great as to act as an immediate poison on vegetables, 
and destroy the motions of the vessels by exhausting 
their irritability. The reports of experimenters on the 
use of salt as a manure have been as different as the soils 
on which their trials were made; owing, in some mea¬ 
sure, to causes which can never be foreseen or controll¬ 
ed, and on which agricultural experiment so generally 
depends. In sandy soil, salt has been found to exert 
effects superior to eight out of ten of the best manures. 
A quantity of ground was prepared and divided into beds 
of forty yards in length by one in breadth. The beds 
