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by shallow-setting; that the real comparison between the two methods is more one of labor and quality than of quantity and amount; that in proportion to the amount of milk set, the deep cans will require less labor in keeping them clean, and that, other things being equal, the butter from deep set milk is superior to that from shallowsetting. To sum up, we quote the following from John I. Carter, a celebrated Chester county dairyman, who has experimented with all of the newer methods. Mr. Carter writes as follows:

"First. That the simplest, and, perhaps, all things considered, the safest plan to set milk to raise cream, is in shallow pans, in a good stream of cool, living water. The flow of water is a splendid disinfectant or absorbent of smells and air impurities, such as unavoidably belong about large dairies. And hence, entire cleanliness is more easily secured in spring houses with good strong springs. But the advantages of spring houses may be easily overbalanced if the springs are not convenient or cool enough. A well-built spring house for shallow pan-setting must have three times the capacity or size of a house or room wherein the deep-setting plan is employed, and the shallow pans will cost twice as much as the deep ones holding an equal amount of milk.

"Second. We demonstrated, to our entire satisfaction, that deep cans in a low temperature, say 45° or 49°, would raise cream yielding butter, equal in amount and of superior quality (if in very hot weather) with shallow pans in a higher temperature-60° or over.

"Third. We also demonstrated that the greater the depth or bulk of milk the lower the required temperature, and that twenty inches was about the maximum height of can and nine inches the maximum diameter. Perhaps less high and diameter would be better.

"Fourth. We also found that in very low temperatures less time was required for the cream to raise. With pans at 60° it took thirtysix hours. With twenty-inch pans, at 45° to 49°, it took twenty-four hours, and at still lower temperatures from twelve to fifteen hours. Of course, the low temperature had to be secured with the aid of ice.

"Fifth. We also proved, to our entire satisfaction, that it was no advantage to arearate sound milk or to expose it to the atmosphere to carry off animal odors, but that equally good and long-keeping butter could be made by sealing up the fresh milk and keeping it at low temperatures. We have tested various inventions for cooling milk, some using an air medium cooled with ice, some with water, and some with both air and water."

The theory of deep setting is best explained by the following from Henry Stewart, of Bergen county, New Jersey:

"It may seem unreasonable, but it is true, that a mass of water at thirty-three degrees will be liquid, while at one degree less it will be solid; and equally it is true that a churning of cream may be a mass of foam which fills the churn, and will not change in hours of labor, at sixty degrees, when the addition of a quart of hot water, sufficient only to raise the temperature two degrees, will break the cream and bring the butter in five minutes. So temperature may be, and is, of wonderfully great importance in this business of butter-making, and one must learn to recognize this fact and govern himself accordingly; for churning is a chemical as well as a mechanical operation. The cream must be in a certain stage of what is called ripeness-let us say at once decomposition-that is the true term to use, for as ripeness in fruit is merely a change of the elements of the fruit which is the

beginning of decomposition, so the necessary acidity of the cream is a process of decomposition also, and this must go precisely so far, and no farther, to produce perfect butter. And temperature has a very important influence upon this process of decomposition. A deep can of milk set in a spring pool, which is closely covered and which remains steadily at forty-two degrees, has remained perfectly sweet, with the cream upon it, for fourteen days in my milk house, at any time this winter. In my milk cellar, at a temperature of sixty degrees, the milk sours in six days; at sixty-two degrees it will sour in five days; at sixty five degrees in three days. A can of cream kept at fiftyfive degrees remains sweet for a week, and when placed in a temperature of sixty-five degrees for twelve hours becomes then only perceptibly sour; in six hours more the sourness is very apparent to the taste and scent, and it is then in what I consider the best condition for churning. When cream so prepared is put into the churn at fiftyfive degrees no butter comes after three hours churning; it remains thick, and the churn revolves (I use the revolving rectangular churn, but it is precisely the same in the Blanchard, which I sometimes use for comparison) without any sound, and goes very hard, that is, with cream enough for twenty-five pounds of butter in it. The addition of four quarts of hot water (temperature one hundred and eighty degrees), which is enough to raise the cream to about sixty-three degrees, makes an immediate change, and the cream breaks and butter comes in a few minutes. But of course the quality is ruined. When cream, also prepared in precisely the same way, is warmed to sixty degrees, the butter comes in one hour, and sometimes a little over, but never less; when it is warmed to sisty-two degrees the butter comes in thirty minutes, invariably, or in eight to fifteen minutes at sixty-five degrees; but not unless the cream has stood for eighteen hours, or even twenty-four, at sixty-five degrees. This all refers to experiments made during the past few weeks. The result of this testing by the thermometer and experimenting, is that the cream may be raised either in deep cans set, as under the Cooley and other plans, in cold water at forty-two degrees, or in shallow pans in a dairy room at sixty degrees, and kept so cold as to be sweet six days after milking; then warmed up for eighteen hours to sixty-five degrees, and may then be churned, with certainty that it will make butter in from eight minutes at sixty-five degrees, to thirty minutes at sixty-two degrees, and sixty or eighty minutes at sixty degrees. The quality of the butter is the best when the cream goes into the churn at sixty-two degrees. Now this shows that temperature and chemistry have a good deal to do with churning, for heat is a true chemical agent.

"But mechanical influences also effect churning, for I find there must be a certain amount of agitation in the churn. When the churn is revolved eighty times a minute, the above periods are required to bring the butter; with only sixty turns a minute, a proportionately longer time is necessary. The principal difficulty, however, with my correspondents is in fixing the right temperature, and in the means of procuring it safely. And there is some risk in warming a quantity of thick cream, so that the heat may be diffused evenly. One person puts the cream jars in hot water, and the sour milk curdles and fills the butter with pieces of curd. This is caused by the over-heating of the cream in contact with the sides of the jar while the remainder is not affected. To warm the cream thoroughly, safely and conveniently,

I would suggest the following plan for those who have not a dairy completely furnished with all the modern improvements.

"I would make or procure a box of common boards, such as drygoods packing case, twenty-two inches deep and no larger than is required. This I would line with rosin roofing paper, which is airproof, has no scent and is quite thick, tacking it closely around the boards. I would cover the outside and the lid also with the paper, doubled, and then put on an outer case of boards, so as to have it non-conducting. The floor needs no covering. I would put the cream into this box the day before it is to be churned, and with it a can or pail, covered, filled with boiling water and then close the box. The heat will be slowly diffused through the cream until it is raised to sixty-five degrees. The cream is then kept at that temperature, no less, and no harm will be done if it should go even to seventy degrees. It should be stirred a few times and tested with the thermometer. At night the cream may be left in the box, and it will fall to sixty-two degrees by the next morning. The temperature of the churn should be raised also to sixty-two degrees by putting hot water in it and giving a few turns, and the cream then churned. The butter will come. of a very convenient consistence for the first working, and I don't think there will be any trouble then with the cream foaming, or the butter not coming; or coming of an oily or greasy consistence, or of a rancid odor, as some of my correspondents complain; these last faults being clearly due to the churning at too high a temperature."

Bovine Digestion.

Essays which have appeared in former numbers of our reports, have aroused quite an interest in the problem of animal digestion and the duties devolving upon the stomachs of the bovine tribe; the correspondence of the Board during the past year, clearly shows that our stock-feeders are anxious for practical information upon the actual values of different kinds of stock-food. This inquiry has no doubt been also stimulated by articles relative to the comparative feeding values of straw or fodder and cornmeal as compared with good hay, which have recently appeared in the agricultural press of this and other States. Before anything definite can be decided as to the comparative digestibility of the different classes of food, it is essential that we more thoroughly understand the respective functions of each of the four stomachs of our cattle; without this understanding all feeding problems are of doubtful solution, and even with the best knowledge attainable we are compelled to admit that their solution will vary with each individual animal upon which they are tried; as in the human race, different animals have a varied power of digesting the same substances; thus one animal will be found to do best (to gain the most nourishment) with a certain kind of food; some can, by an excellent digestion, utilize straw and other rough fodder in connection with cornmeal, oil cake or other concentrated food; others, with a less powerful digestion, are unable to utilize such food, and hence, we arrive at the conclusion that all which we can expect is the laying down of general rules which are adapted to the average animal, and which cannot be universally adopted as feeding axioms.

Experiments instituted a number of years ago by the writer, and since followed up by observation and the result of the experiments of others, enable us to arrive at the following conclusions as to the duties of each of the four so-called bovine stomachs:

1. That the first stomach or paunch is simply a reservoir in which the partially masticated food is kept in reserve for a time when it can be more thoroughly masticated and incorporated with the saliva; that coarse food, such as grass, fodder, hay and straw, all goes into the paunch where it is softened, and afterwards, by a spasmodic action of the gullet, thrown into the mouth for remastication; when swallowed the second time it does not again find entrance into the first stomach. but, by muscles under the control of the animal, the opening is closed. and the finely masticated food goes on into the third stomach or "maniplies." If properly masticated cornmeal, bran, oil cake, &c., does not go into the paunch but is carried on over the third into the fourth or true digestive stomach, and hence we infer that all the advantage (for which some claim so much) gained by mixing meal or bran with the cut hay, is that it is then carried into the paunch in stead of into the fourth stomach.

2. That the main duty of the second stomach or "honeycomb " is to act as a reservoir for all the surplus water which is not needed in the rumen or paunch; that at the will of the animal this store of water can be drawn upon to moisten the food on its way from the rumen or paunch to the third stomach or maniplies, and if this is already moist enough, no water is furnished from the second stomach. 3. That the duty of the third stomach or maniplies is to still further mix and incorporate the food by their peculiar squeezing action; our experiments also seemed to indicate that if the food was in too moist a condition when it entered the maniplies, the surplus moisture was taken out of it, and by some species of muscular action not clearly defined, taken into the honeycomb or second stomach.

4. That the fourth stomach is the only one in which true digestion takes place, and that, except in the case of the coarser kinds of food, the other stomachs (so-called) seem to play little or no part. If whole corn is fed and is not taken into the rumen or paunch a considerable portion of it will escape the digestive powers of the fourth stomach and therefore be lost to the feeder, but that when this corn, by passing through the rumen, is softened and submitted to salivary action a second time, very little, if any, is undigested.

5. That animals of different ages have different digestive powers. and that a class of food which is acted upon by certain stomachs in the full-grown animal, is not acted upon in the same way or by the same organs in the young and growing animal. Thus, for instance, in the young calf the first three stomachs are not used and lie dormant, awaiting an age when by a change in the kind of food consumed they will be called into use. Thus a small calf by nibbling at hay or grass soon brings his rumen into action and with it the third stomach, and, sooner or later, depending upon his diet, all come into play and perform their duties in the digestive economy.

6. That from the causes we have assigned, or from some other equally potent influences, a given amount of hay and meal will produce more and richer milk if moistened and fed together than if fed at separate times, and that there is somehow more advantage in mixing and moistening for a full-grown animal than for a calf, and that if whole grain is fed to a young animal much more of it will find its way into the rumen or paunch than if fed to an older steer, and that dif ferent animals of the same age and class will, by passing it undigested, waste very different proportions, some apparently obtaining all that is

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valuable in it, and others passing at least fifty per cent. of it apparently undigested.

7. That much of the benefit which has been claimed for steamed food is due to and should be credited to the mixing and moistening of the hay and meal before feeding, and that if an experiment was instituted between meal and cut hay moistened and fed (mixed) without steaming and of the same mixture steamed, much of the benefit claimed for steaming would be lost, and the margin, which in any case appears to be too small to warrant the expense, would become still smaller. 8. When the feeding of pure meal produces scouring it is an evidence of one or both of two things: first, that too much is being fedmore than the digestive organs can assimilate properly, or, second, that the digestive organs of that individual will not bear as much as others which may be in the same stable and consuming the same food. If a young calf scours it is an evidence that its food is (in nearly every case) too rich in fatty matter and too poor in casein, and that the remedy is a diet of at least partially skimmed milk, which if boiled, is all the better and safer.

9. That from an over proportion of meal fed alone, many animals suffer severely from indigestion and that the symptoms of this are those of the so-called "wolf in the tail," which is simply another name for animal indigestion, and should be so treated without the necessity of slitting the end of the tail and binding it up with salt and pepper.

Feeding for Pork.

The increased profit which, during the past two or three years, has fallen to the lot of those who find a market for their surplus grain in the form of pork, taken in connection with the low cost and short time required for getting up a stock, have directed attention to this branch of farm economy. Numerous inquiries relative to the cost per pound of pork and the possible gain per day, have from time to time reached us and have been replied to from the best data in our possession. For the purpose of furnishing such information we find no other better that the recent experiments of Prof. Sanborn of the Missouri State Agricultural College, the results of which have appeared in Bulletin No. 28 of that institution.

Experiment number one had for the purpose of ascertaining the proper amount for a "maintenance ration" and the results of three experiments we have condensed in the following tables:

Feeding for Maintenance.

Period I.-Food, Middlings.

Weight, lbs.

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Gain per day

each.

Food eaten for pound

gain.

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