Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1874-04-22
Improving Dairy Farms,

Before the American Dairyman's Asso-
citation held in Utica, n Y, last January,
Mr.. .. 5. Bliss, Secretary of the Vermont
Dalryman's Association, made some sensi-
BILE comments on the management of but
ter and cheese farms, from which we note
the following
Upon nearly every dairy farm in the
country, however excellent in the main,
there Is somewhere in the pasture or rum
way, one OF more noisome sloughs or swales
where, during the long drouths we are sure
to get, as often as two summers out of
three, the COWS eat enough coarse, ill-f1a-
vored heritage to affect the flavor and per-
haps the color of the butter. They resort
here, too, in fiy-time, and often after stand
ing in the mud and filth for an hour OF two.
turn round and sup up the slough water
charged with various forms of impurity
(which are certain to make their mark on
the milk and butter. 1t is idle to URGE that
an abundance of good water elsewhere will
obviate these evils; cows frequently ac-
qulre morbid appetites and prefer the filthy
to pure water. There is but one way to
guard against the evil, and that is to remove
the temptation wholly and entirely. TO
put few rods of drain tile into such a
place and draw off the water, and then to
burn OFT the coarse swale grass and weeds
ana harrow 1t over thoroughly and sow on
Il mixture of pasture grass seed. or even of
June grass alone, which is of all others
the most valuable grass for the production
OF butter, at an expense of a very few dol
lars so few as hardly to be missed. will
sometimes have most striking effect upon
the quality Of the product of II whole dairy.
Nor Is that the only advantage. 1t will
produce enough more better feed to paw
the whole expense in ii very short time.
III Is not always necessary to resort to
thorough drainage in order to relieve pas
lures OF their more obnoxious features in
this respect, but it is necessary in that
manner, or by open bitches. or in some
other way, to rem we all sloughs of stag
nant and pool water, and the vegetation
mat grows out of such. in order to be en-
Clrely sure that the butter produced shall
be tine Favored and of good texture, es-
peclaliy when the COWS are by reason OF
drought forced into them for either food OF
drink. L have known instances when the
laying of thirty or forty rods of tile has
converted an acre of land that was u nui-
sance, Il pest, IN cyc-sOrc, into IN acre OF
most valuable land, and supplied herd
of forty cattle with all the pure water they
wanted to drink in the dryest season.
The butter produced from hay and grain
grown upon drained land, is also better i'll
every respect than that produced from the
fodder grown on undrained land. This is
specially true of the texture of the butter. /
have several times in this connection alluu-
ed to the texture of the butter, and it may
seem to some of my hearers THAI | am
laying undue stress on that. Such is not the
case. The quality of butter is very largely
dependent upon texture; in fact, texture
constitutes the quality. and the quality OF
the food consumed by the COW has fully as
much to do with it Us with the aroma.
Butter may have an excellent and entirely
satisfactory aroma, and yet. if greasy,
salvy and lacking texture, it will be de
ficient in fiavOr-will lack that especially
delicious quality which @ratities tho
palate.