pure cream which, if properly handled, should make gilt-edged butter every time. It is possible, and much easier, to make better butter on the farm where all the necessary conditions of good feed and cleanliness are under oar control, than can possibly be made from any creamery, the milk of which is gathered from all points of the compass. No farmer's wife can successfully compete with either the dairy or creamer, unless she has all the modern improvements. Consult the markets and you will readily see the difference in prices on the different qualities of butter. This should stimulate every farmer's wife to get the most modern appliances and do her best, for, unless she does this, she is not a success. Just think of it! Forty-five millions of pounds of so-called butter made by the farmers' wives and daughters shipped to Europe in 1890 to be made into toilet soap. No wonder "Oleo" has gained such a foothold, and that many people prefer it to much of the butter thrown on the market. I omitted to mention that with the Cabinet creamer more cream is obtained, the work is greatly lessened, few cans take the place of many, so that a large milk-room is not needed, as the creamer can be placed in a small place, and the labor of skimming is almost nothing. A creamer is just as essential to butter-making as the self-binder and drill is to economic wheat culture, or the potato-planter and digger is to economic potato raising, and I think there is a lack among the majority of farmers in not furnishing the necessary modern improvements and appliances for their wives in butter-making. For instance, think of a farmer who has al the necessary modern farm implements for the cultivation and harvesting of his crops, such as the drill, self binder, cornplanter, harrows, different kinds of plows, potatoe-planter and digger, etc., and his wife carrying crocks of milk up and down cellar steps, a dash-churn, such as our grandmothers had, and a paddie made out of a tobacco lath-and it looked as if she had made it herself, for it was whittled out only as a woman can whittle-using one of her crocks in place of a butter bowl, mixing back and forth as though mixing starch, as I saw not long since in my rounds, and her liege lord amply able, and, I think, perfectly willing to have furnished any thing that was needed. If she had the ambition that every farmer's wife should have, you would not find her plodding along in the same old rut of her ancestors. And there are thousands of others plodding along the same old way. These are the class that make the butter that is sent abroad to be made into toilet soap. At what stage should cream be churned, and shall it be sweet, ripe or sour? The condition of cream, known as ripe, or very slightly acid, is the proper condition to churn. There is more butter in cream that is just simply ripened, because when the cream is over-ripe, and is allowed to become sour, it is then in the rotting stage, and it is an impossibility to make butter with keeping qualities from this kind of cream. Cream churned sweet does not give such good returns, but is said to keep indefinitely. I never tried it. Milk should be skimmed sweet morning and evening, and at each addition to the cream pail it should be thoroughly stirred, so it will ripen up evenly, and the last addition to the cream pail should be at least eight or ten hours before churning, or there will be some butter left in the buttermilk, and it will not be uniform in color. The thermometer is very essential to every well-regulated creamer to obtain the proper temperature for churning, which should be about sixty-four degrees in winter and sixty or sixty-two degrees in summer, according to the ripeness of the cream. To ripen the cream for churning (as it has all been skimmed sweet, and after the last cream has been added and thoroughly stirred), set the cream pail in a deep dish-pan of hot water, and stir constantly until it reaches the temperature of seventytwo degrees, keep in a warm room, then in about eight or ten hours it is ready for churning. It is not sour, but simply ripened, being slightly acid. NOW IT IS READY FOR THE CHURN. As soon as the cows are off pasture in the fall, and as late as May, I use Thatcher's orange butter color. It gives the butter a June tint, and adds much to its appearance. To a great degree the "eye rules the taste." I put this coloring in the cream after it is in the churn. The churning should cease as soon as the butter is in the granular state. This does not mean the first appearance of the granular state, but it means little granules of butter about the size of bird shot. Now, stop the motion of the churn, withdraw the plug, and draw off the buttermilk, then rinse the butter by adding a handful of salt to a bucket of water, to more thoroughly separate the butter granules from the buttermilk, pouring in cold water and giving a shake or two, draw off the water, and continue this process of rinsing until the water comes off perfectly clear. It is now ready for the salting process. Now, make a strong brine, skim and strain. Pour this over the butter, give it a few shakes to thoroughly mix, then let it remain about twenty minutes, then take out on the worker, roll out into sheets, then sprinkle with salt. Use nothing but the best brand of dairy salt, using one-fourth ounce to the pound in addition to brine salting, fold up and roll out three or four times, when it is ready to print or to make into rolls. It will keep indefinitely, and you will have a quality of gilt-edged butter that is impossible to excel, that will not get oily, will have a pure, sweet, nutty taste, the aroma being rosy, the texture or grain in breaking resembling a break in cast iron, or like a break in beeswax. The requisites for making a gilt-edged butter are- Third. A cabinet creamer. Fourth. Churning by concussion. Fifth. Best brand of dairy salt and butter color. He who would the front attat In butter making lore, Must stir himself; not plod along In paths long trod before. The scrub must go-Good by old cow Dash-churn and crocks and pun, And I will substitute for you The Jersey cow, swing churn and can. The Cooley creamer I would get, Eureka butter worker, too, Bo 'f butter you would make gilt-edged, You must this plan pursue. If I have helped just one of you The better to attain A higher ain, to do your best My work is not in vain. So, now, as farmers' wives we'll go To do our very best, And when we meet right here next year, We'll bear from some of the rest. AT WHAT AGE SHOULD HOGS INTENDED FOR BREEDERS BE BROUGHT TO MATURITY. BY L. C. PETERSON, SPRING VAlley, O. MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN: We do not remember to have heard this question asked before, coming to so close a point and requiring a clear cut and de swer. The inference, under the circumstances, is that the committee selecting the subject thought it one on which information was needed. To thoroughly inform ourselves that we might write intelligently on the subject, we have scanned all hog lore within our reach, and have been unable to find any thing bearing distinctly on the question; consequently we find it impossible to crib any other man's thoughts or ideas. For a generation the cry of early maturity of swine has been heard. Previous to that the object was to make a hog as extensive a corn crib as possible, walking the corn to market in the shape of pork. The heavier the bone and the larger the frame the better the farmer was pleased, as the distance to market made it necessary that the frame be large and strong. Now all this is changed, for practically the market is at our doors. Railroad transportation does away with the necessity of long and laborious driving. Cheaper pork must be made and made quickly. The corn must be stored away in more numerous and smaller cribs. The down east Yankee, the Kentucky and old dominion gentlemen all had a tooth for roast pig, but the man that bought more land to grow more corn to feed more hogs never sacrificed his pocket-book to cater to his tastes. A roast was too expensive a luxury to him when the prospective hog was considered. The tastes of the aforesaid gentlemen have, to a modified extent, become the tastes of the whole people. If they could have roast pig they must have pig pork. The pieces of ɛide meat a yard square and proportionately thick, along with the slice of ham the size of a saddle-skirt have lost favor in the eyes and tastes of the pork eaters. The lives, surroundings and manual labor of these people do not require the strong oily meats of past times when the clearing of the country and the building of the towns and cities were done almost entirely by man's physical labor. After the farm was cleared and mechanical forces came into use, and the farmer turned his attention to the less laborious and more profitable employment of stock-growing it soon dawned upon his vision that the cheapest made pork was not secured in the largest animal, nor the most palatable in the large coarse one. The advanced breeders and farmers have been quick to grasp this. For the long period mentioned, we have heard the cry of early maturity. What is meant by maturity? It is the time in one sense when the animal reaches a period when it will reproduce itself. In another sense when it has reached full growth of bone and muscle; still another when it is ripened for market. By these definitions at least two conditions may and do apply to the development of swine. The question that we have started out to answer implies hastening maturity, or it would not have been asked. All the talk of early maturity and all the efforts in that direction have been to hasten the pig from his birth to his exit into the pork barrel. To secure this the parent stock must, of necessitv, be animals of quick development. But the question of how soon this parent ek should be fully devel oped has not been considered with as much care as the matter of making quick pork out of the offspring. You will note that there is a difference, and a wide one, between a matured fat animal and a matured breeding animal. The maturity of the former is wholly a matter of taste with the consumer and is variable; one class calling for one kind and another some other kind; consequently a fat auimal reaches maturity at different ages and weights. The maturity of a breeding animal can only be reached at one time; namely, when the animal has fully developed its bone and muscle regardless of the meat carried. We have made three distinctions between the matured fat animal and the ma. tured breeder, because we believe they should be made, and because they are not recognized by breeders and growers as they should be. As we have said, we have been unable to find any expression of breeders and writers bearing directly on the subject before us; hence we must be independent in our considerations, yet we can not claim originality for all our deductions. Breeders boast of the wonderful weight that their fat animals attain at six to seven months old, and at full age, six or seven years; but none are so careful to tell us what they want their breeding stock to weigh in breeding condition at one and two years old, although they tell us what their show animals weigh as yearlings and two-year olds, which means any thing between one and two years. In short, an animal is a yearling until two years old, and two until three years. It may not be out of place here to note a few physiological facts that have bearing on the question before us. The sooner an animal reaches maturity the sooner it propagates, and the shorter the duration of life. The reproduction act may be regarded as the culminating act of all animal life requiring the greatest degree of vitality and the largest expenditure of energy. In determining the time that breeding animals should be brought to maturity these facts must be considered. If a sow or male are bred young of course their vitality is drawn upon. The younger they are the greater the draft on vitality, consequently they can be matured quicker if not used for breeding when growing. They are often so precocious that they will breed at four months old or younger, but no intelligent breeder or farmer will think them sufficiently developed to produce offspring of any great value bred at that age. A sow bred at this age will be checked or stunted in her growth to such an extent that she would probably never properly develop, regardless of the best care and keeping afterwards. It is probable that a large proportion of the pure bred swine now in the country, if properly fed and cared for, would reach full development of bone and muscle at one year or eighteen months old, provided they are not allowed to breed. When allowed to reach maturity before being bred, there is danger that they will not be safe or valuable breeders. However, there is a question about this. If the animals have been properly fed while growing, under the usual treatment given swine, it appears best to breed them while growing. The organs of generation and the mammillary glands appear to develop better by this system. If it requires the, best care to mature an animal at one year or eighteen months old without breeding it is not possible to develop or mature them at that age while in use. It is the general rule to breed young sows at eight months old, and the use of boars commences about the same age. A light use of the boar at this age will not retard his growth to any perceptible degree, so that generally speaking, the male, in the hands of the general farmer and small breeder, if properly treated, should come to maturity sooner than sows. It is a difficult matter to estimate to what extent the growth of a sow is retarded if put to breeding at eight months and kept regularly at work. The greatest draft on vitality usually comes from the first and second litters. With even the best treatment, a sow that is put to breeding at eight months old and kept regularly at it at the rate of two litters a year can not possibly reach full development of bone and muscle under two and a quarter years old. In most hands she will require more time, probably one-half a year longer. A sow not bred until one year old can nearly reach maturity in development of bone and muscle before she farrows her first litter, making it possible to reach maturity at two years. The male can be made to reach maturity, in the sense understood, at the age of one year or a little over, and not to exceed eighteen months. We believe it is necessary that they should reach maturity this soon. The quality of meat demanded by the markets requires it. That the boar gives form to the off spring is an acknowledged fact, hence the great point in reaching meat maturity at nine months is to have a quick maturing male. This brings out another point looking to the quicker bone and muscular development of the boir than can be expected of the sow. The shrewd breeder is clear of producing offspring coarser than the parent animals. He looks with more desire to the improvement in the symmetry of the produce, and to accomplish this the male must embrace in his form the breeder's ideas. Coarseness may be allowed to some extent in the form of the sow, but not in that of the boar, hence, the boar being neater and more symmetrical, will attain growth quicker. Our deductions so far have been on the basis that animals were used for breeders while growing; both male and female are retarded in proportion to amount of work done. The former not so much as the latter, unless he has been shamefully abused. Now what could we expect of these animals if not bred while growing but allowed to exert all the forces of nature in the sense we mentioned for development? Boars such as should be used, can be made to reach maturity at ten to fifteen months old, sows at twelve to eighteen months. The experience of the breeder will guide him in his judgment of the time it will require for a selec ion to reach maturity. His selections should be made while the pigs are at the teat. Some may say that it is not possible to mature hardy and strong animals at the age mentioned. In reply I would say that we have only advanced what we believe attainable. If an animal will make the growth, it need not be soft, but should come to its maturity, by a proper system of feeding, with perfect bone and muscle. Again, it is thought that a strong bone or muscle must have age. This is twin brother to the opinion that a pig must live on half rations for months to make him strong enough for a full one. It is a foregone conclusion that we must cater to the demands of our customers, which is for young and quickly matured meats. To secure such meat-producing animals that will ripen at any age, we must have breeding stock that will reach maturity as early as possible, consistent with well known physiological laws. We believe they can he had at the ages mentioned, but we are in serious doubt, if they should come to maturity at any earlier ages. In this, the presentation of our ideas, we hope that we are in the range of possibility and practicability, and that our thoughts may be of some value. THE JERSEY COW. READ BY RICHARD E. ROBERTS, MT. PLEASANT, O. It is narrated in sop's fables that once the fox and cat were in earnest conver sation beneath the branches of a spreading oak. The fox boasted loudly of a thousand tricks by which he could elude his pursuers. The poor cat could boast but a single trick. While Reynard was still condoling pussy on the unequal manner in which nature had distributed her gifts, the hoarse baying of the hounds was heard in the distance. The fox was off in a moment to display his cunning. The cat, by the use of her only trick, ascended to the branches of the friendly oak, where she in safety viewed her boastful friend overtaken, and in spite of his thousand tricks, unable to elude the hounds. For our favorite, the timid ornament of the English lawn of yesterday, and the patient business cow of the American farmer to-day, we claim but one trick, and we, |