66 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
January  15,  1903. 
made  this  clear?  Where  vegetation  is  scanty  it  is  a  sign 
nitrogen  and  the  nitro-bacteria  are  practically  absent,  and 
tree  cultivation  with  inoculation  (from  a  good  manure  heap) 
will  mend  the  condition.  The  manure  heap  swarms  with 
bacteria,  which  are  dissolving  the  particles  of  nitrogen  from 
the  general  decay,  and  making  it  ready  to  begin  its  wdrk 
of  new  creation. 
We  spoke  some  time  ago  of  nitragin  and  the  leguminous 
crops,  and  therefore  we  would  pass  on  to  bacteria  which  is 
found  elsewhere,  arcl  we  would  instance  water  and  milk 
Happilj'  for  our  safety,  water,  unless  sewage  contaminated, 
is  comparatively  harmless.  If  full  of  bacteria  it  must  be 
regarded  with  suspicion,  for  their  presence  will  denote  more 
or  less  sewage  ;  but,  curiously  enough,  there  are  only  two 
diseases  common  among  us  that  are  actually  distributed  by 
water.  We  said  two — fortunately  only  one  is  present  in 
temperate  countries  :  typhoid  ;  the  other,  cholera,  is  an 
infrequent  visitor.  Sanitary  matters  in  the  country,  at  the 
lonely  farm-houses,  do  not  quite  receive  the  attention  they 
should.  There  is  often  too  close  a  relation  between  the  well 
and  the  cesspool,  not  intentional  in  the  first  instance,  but 
the  result  of  ignorance  of  the  first  laws  of  health. 
We  pass  on  to  the  milk  question,  for  it  is  closely  con¬ 
nected  with  the  water  danger  that  they  are  best  discussed 
together.  The  ordinary  everyday  milk  is  a  grand  medium 
for  bacteria,  some,  if  not  exactly  wholesome,  at  least  not 
actively  injurious ;  while  others  are  very  nasty.  From 
whence  do  the  bacteria  arise  ?  How  do  they  get  into  the 
milk?  For  they  are  not  present  when  the  milk  is  secreted. 
When  milking  is  over  sufficient  milk  is  left  in  the  milk 
duct  to  provide  a  home  for  and  to  sustain  bacteria,  which 
find  their  way  into  the  above  milk  duct.  Here  we  have  the 
stairt,  as  it  were.  These  at  the  next  milking  find  their  way 
into  the  pail,  and  in  the  pleasant  temperature  of  the  milk 
multiply  with  great  rapidity.  Then,  again,  during  the 
process  of  milking  thousands  of  these  little  creatures  find 
their  way  from_the  body  of  the  cow,  from  the  surroundings, 
from  the  person  of  the  milker,  into  the  pails,  and  when  we 
are  told  that  hundreds  of  bacteria  have  been  counted  upon 
one  short  hair,  w'e  shall  have  no  difficulty  in  believing  that 
the  milk  pail  may  contain  many  thousands  before  ever  it 
reaches  the  dairy.  Dirt  and  bacteria  go  hand  in  hand,  and 
it  is  to  these  bacteria  that  we  trace  the  perishableness  of 
milk.  If  we  could  have  sterile  milk  it  could  be  kept  good 
alrnost  indefinitely ;  but  as  this  seems  nearly  an  'impossi¬ 
bility,  we  have  to  try  how  we  can  combat  the  evil  as  it  now 
stands.  Fortunately  we  know  the  conditions  under  which 
the  bacteria  will  multiply,  and  also  otherwise.  The  milk 
temperature  is  just  what  they  like  ;  they  also  find  in  the 
rnilk  an  ideal  food  ;  therefore  their  growth  and  miiltiplica- 
tion  is  most  rapid.  A  lower  temperature  does  not  suit 
them,  and  at  freezing  point  the  growth  is  immediately 
stopped. 
Now,  this  is  where  the  advocates  of  milk  cooling  make 
their  strong  point.  There  is  need  for  haste  ;  the  more 
quickly  the  milk  can  be  conveyed  from  the  cow  and  placed 
in  a  cold  atmosphere,  the  less  the  growth  of  the  decaying 
bacteria.  Separating  milk  only  removes  the  actual  dirt,  but 
that  is  a  great  point  gained  ;  it  does  not  remove  or  cause 
bacteria  to  cease  to  exist.  Cold  stops  the  growth  ;  great  heat 
kills.  Milk  is  usually  quickly  consumed,  and  therefore  under 
ordinary  circumstances  the  evil  need  only  be  kept  in  abey¬ 
ance,  not  destroyed,  as  the  destruction  by  heat  changes  the 
character  of  the  milk. 
We  have  been  speaking  of  .milk  from  healthy  cows  as 
being,  up  to  the  point  of  milking,  sterile.  Now,  in  cases 
where  there  is  disease  of  the  udder  the  milk,  when 
generated,  will  be  full  of  bacteria,  but  of  another  sort,  and 
harmful  to  the  consumer.  Such  milk  should  never  be  put 
on  the  market  at  all.  As  if  milk  had  not  enough  natural 
enemies  in  itself,  yet  careless  folk  will  by  negligence  con¬ 
tribute  still  more,  and  the  worst  of  it  is  that  they  are  doing 
it  with  such  good  intent. 
The  milk  vessels  are  scalded  probably  not  so  thoroughly 
as  they  might  be,  and  then  cooled  with  pure  fresh  water 
from — well,  perhaps  it  is  better  not  to  say  where — from  the 
contaminated  stream,  the  old  well,  or  water  that  has  come 
in  contact  with  fearsome  impurities.  A  man  will  bear  to 
have  his  own  honesty  and  good  faith  impugned  before  he 
can  bear  to  hear  a  doubting  word  as  to  the  wholesomeness  of 
his  water  supply.  It  does  not  need  a  wholesale*  mixing 
from  the  pump  to  do  the  damage  ;  it  is  just  the  few  careless 
drainings  in  the  bottoms  and  the  sides  that  are  quite  capable 
of  setting  up  the  mischief.  So  many  hundreds  in  a  drop, 
multiplying  by  the  half  hour — there  you  have  it.  It  is  no 
exaggerated  tale,  for  who  does  not  know,  possibly  within 
the  range  of  his  own  family  circle,  what  terrible  ravages 
typhoid  will  rnake,  and  we  might  say  that  water,  milk,  and 
oysters  are  the  chief  agents  employed. 
The  lactic  bacteria  in  milk,  according  to  quantity,  pro¬ 
duce  sourness  sooner  or  later  (and  this  is  quite  within  our 
control) ;  the  typhoid  bacteria  may  be  but  very  few,  but 
they  may  also  be  deadly  in  their  effects.  Professor  Conn 
goes  on  to  speak  of  the  various  bacteria  whose  presence  in 
milk  make  it  abnormal,  but  we  can  only  touch  on  one,  and 
that  is  the  case  of  ropy  milk.  The  bacteria  causing  this 
undesirable  state  of  things  has  been  traced  to  the  water 
used  in  washing  and  sweetening  the  vessels.  Do  away  with 
the  ordinary  water  supply,  and  then,  by  means  of  boiling 
steam,  purify  every  vessel  with  which  the  milk  may  come  in 
contact.  We  have  often  heard  ropy  milk  attributed  to  the 
fact  that  some  cow  out  of  the  herd  is  in  bad  health.  This 
discovery  of  the  water-borne  bacteria  quite  exonerates  the 
cow. 
We  had  always  considered  a  fresh  egg  as  “  safe  ”  food  as 
anything,  and  here  we  are  confronted  with  the  fact  that 
bacteria  enter  the  oviduct  and  contaminate  the  egg  mass 
before  the  shell  is  deposited !  The  pores  of  the  shell  serve 
for  the  admittance  of  oxygen,  and  also  for  the  entrance  of 
further  bacteria,  hence  it  is  that  the  process  of  decay  in  an 
egg  is  so  rapid.  It  can  only  be  arrested  by  some  prepara¬ 
tion  which  will  hermetically  seal  the  pores  against  the 
entrance  of  more  bacteria  and  oxygen. 
-We  have  given  but  the  very  faintest  idea  of  Professor 
Conn’s  book.  We  have  not  touched  on  the  relations  of 
bacteria  to  cheese  and  butter  making,  in  the  preparation  of 
farm  products,  and  the  preservation  of  food  products  from 
bacteria.  Then  there  is  the  wide  field  of  parasitic  bacteria — 
anthrax,  tuberculosis,  other  diseases,  and  the  necessary  dis¬ 
infections.  The  book  is  a  mine  of  good  useful  things,  and 
the  information  is  conveyed  as  far  as  practicable  in  clear, 
vigorous  language,  wonderfully  free  from  technicalities. 
Work  on  the  Home  Farm. 
More  mild,  indeed  very  mild  weather,  a  heavy  thunderstorm, 
and  a  deluge  of  rain,  and  if  it  be  that  other  people  may  have  a 
scarcity  of  water  we  are  not  in  that  plight,  which  is  a  great  comfort- ; 
but  a  neighbour  has  to-daj'  asked  us  when  our  severe  winter  will 
commence,  and  reminded  us  of  a  forecast  we  made  .some  weeks 
ago.  Well,  the  man  who  said  “Do  not  prophesy  unless  jmu 
know,”  certainly  knew  something,  and  we  will  conditionally 
promise  not  to  offend  again  ;  one  of  our  conditions  will  be  proof 
that  we  have  been  in  the  wrong,  and  as  there  is  plenty  of  time 
for  skating  yet  we  must  ask  that  judgment  shall  be  reserved  until 
March  at  least. 
The  land  is  really  very  wet,  quite  unfit  for  ploughing  or 
carting  on,  and  sheep  ai’e  in  a  sorry  plight  amongst  the  Turnips. 
There  is  really  no  use  in  keeping  them  in  tlie.  fold  during  the 
night,  so  we  remove  them  to  an  adjoining  piece  of  old  seeds  and 
make  them  comfortable  and  happy.  If  this  field  of  old  sheep 
pasture  had  been  ploughed  and  sown  with  Wheat, .  the  sheep 
mu.st  have  remained  in  a  mud  bed.  There  is  one  of  the  advan¬ 
tages  of  keeping  seeds  in  statu  quo  for  two  or  more  years.  They 
are  so  often  useful  during  winter.  Wheat  looks  wonderfully 
well ;  heavy  rain  with  an  absence  of  sev^ere  frost  have  tended  to 
make  the  soil  very  firm,  and  although  we  should  advise  tlie  use 
of  the  roller  as  soon  as  opportunity  offers,  there  is  no-  immediate 
nece.s.sity  for  it.  The  roller  should  sooner  or  later  be  used  on  all 
fields  growing  cereals  on  account  of  the  greater  ease  with  which 
reaping  may  be  done  afterwards ;  but  as  u.sefulne.ss  of  the  roll 
chiefly  lies  in  its  consolidation  of  the  soil,  we  need  riot  trouble 
about  rolling  during  a  period  of  heavy  rains,  vhich  are  practi¬ 
cally  doing  the  work  for  us.  -  ■ 
We  have  been  carting  manure  from  the  open  yards  which 
have  swallowed  much  good  .straw  of  late.  It  has  been  put  into  a 
hill  in  the  field  intended  for  Swedes  ;  it  is  anything  but  good, 
muck,  but  when  well  decayed  and  turned  may  be  useful  for  the 
root  crop.  We  are  also  clearing  out  the  horse  boxes,  and  the 
heap  which  always  accumulates  near  the  stable  door,  but  this 
lot  is  being  spread  on  grass.  It  is  not  good  enough  for  anything 
else  on  our  land,  which  is  not  heavy  enough  to  be  much  benefited 
by  light  horse  manure. 
Fat  stock  markets  have  been  verj^  slow  since  the  Christinas 
shows;  for  beef,  particularly,  there  is  little  demand;  very  few 
sheep  are  sent  to  market,  but  the  supply  appears  sufficient. 
This  only  applies  to  fat  sheep.  Small  .stores  are  in  great  request, 
and  farmers  fall  over  each  other  to  obtain  anything  at  moderate 
prices.  It  will  soon  be  time  (Jan.  10)  to  buy  manures  and  Clovers. 
With  manures  a  waiting  i>oiicy  may  be  advisable,  but  Clover  will 
be  dear,  and  good  Turnip  seeds  will  be  very  difficult  to  obtain. 
