The record-union., 1891-02-09

q
occasionally, but it must be fresh, and not
stale.
Drinking water In winter should be
tepid, not cold, and always fresh and
clean.
Feed very early in the morning as soon
as the chicks come out OF the brooders.
Never keep them waiting for breakfast.
Milk may be given, but should be fresh
and the residuum carefully removed, but
do not substitute it for water. Give water
to chicks from the start. Curds may be
given two or three times a week, also
fresh buttermilk. Milk, however, is not
necessary where it is difficult to procure.
s A chick should weigh pound when
five weeks old. The average is pound
at six weeks old. 1t should be ready for
market when eight weeks old. To fatten
for market give plenty of wheat and
cracked corn.
Matching should begin in October and
end in April or May.
1t costs five cents in food to raise one
pound of chick. The cost of eggs, labor,
buildings, ETC., is extra. The heaviest
cost is in the eggs (Which are high in
wiDter), as they often fail to hatch.
Hens are better than pullets for produc-
ing broilers. The males should not be
less than ten months old.
Eggs from fat hens, molting hens,
immature pullets, or from hens in the
yard with cocks having frosted combs,
chilled eggs, very small eggs, viii not
give good results.
In majority of cases the failure is due
to the eggs and not the incubator.
Never try to save work. One-half of
the failures occur from parties desiring
the incubator to work without attention.
Too much faith in the regulator is danger
Gus. You must always ''be on deck"
If rightly managed, an incubator will
pay for itself the first hatch, but there is
more in the man than in the incubator.
Brains make an important factor. Learn
all you can by observation.
CLEANLINESS IN BUTTER-MAKING.
1t has probably never been claimed that
godliness is in the least degree essential
to the making of good butter; but its twin
virtue, cleanliness, is certainly the very
foundation for a good grade of that ar
ticle. Much is said regarding the manner
of setting the milk, of the best styles of
churns, the breeds of cows employed, the
proper degree of granulation, etc. While
such matters are important to the making
Of good butter, they are all of no avail
without cleanliness. By good butter is
not meant simply butter that is not
strong or free from any distinctly un-
pleasant taste, but butter which has the
sweet, delicious flavor that brings to ones
mind visions of rich meadows, clover
blossoms and golden cowslips.
There is rich, delicate flavor to pure,
| untainted cream that will be transmitted
| to the butter if no foreign odor or sub
| stance is introduced. And it should be
known by every person making butter
| that milk and cream very quickly absorb
| all prevailing odors or tiavors with which
| they may come in contact. 1t is not suf-
| ticient to be fastidiously clean-no food
which has distinct odor should be
| placed in the same room with milk or
| cream.
| Many housewife wonders what 1t is
| that causes 81 peculiar taste to her butter,
or why it is that her neighbor's butter
| brings q fancy price the year around,
| while her own is sacrificed atthe fluctuat-
| ing market prices. l wish to ask this
| puzzled butter-maiSer few questions,
| and il she can answer any one in the
affirmative she has at least one solution
| to the bad taste of her butter:
| Does the milk come from the barn
covered with specks of filth and dirt,
| dropped during milking from the poorly
! bedded and unbrushed cows? If so, do
| you only strain the milk through the
coarse tin strainer? Does sour milk and
sediment accumulate in the fine seams Of
the milk pans or cans? Are your milk
vessels washed in doubtful water and
| used without being scalded? Is your
| miik-room poorly ventilated? Is food
with strong odorS, such as fish, vegetables
! and meat, placed in the same room with
the milk?
In order to make good butter all these
details must be attended to. Ii they are
not, it is impossible to secure sweet, finely
! Favored butter, such as many consumers
are willing to pay an extra price to OBJ
| tain. Many farmers family would
enjoy an increased income if, instead of
producing an Indifferent grade of butter,
selling it at the grocery at market rates,
they took the pains to make a fine quality,
| ~.av, f1,
price.
We once had two neighbors on whose
farms the dairy business was prominent
feature. The butter from one farm was
| sold to city customers at forty cents a
| pound the year round; the butter from
| the other was sold at the village grocery,
the price sometimes falling as low as fif-
| teen cents a pound. The facilities for
making butter were about equal on both
| places, the number of cows kept about
the same; yet the income from one farm
! far exceeded that from the other. The
difference lay in these points: On one
| farm the most scrupulous fastidiousness
was observed in every detail of the but
| ter-making. On the other these little
matters were not considered Of sufficient
importance to 'bother" with. 1t was
pet phrase with the people on this place
| that they couldn't ''bother'' with any of
those minor matters in life, which are the
very tn1ngS Inat IN tne emu insure sue
| cess to ones operations.
In butter-making the entire process is
composed of one detail after another, and
| the person who has not the inclination to
observe these in his dairy opera
tions may very safely count on his butter
business being failure. When the
spirit that anything is good enough to
selP' pervades ones operations in dairy
there is sure to result striking difference
in profits from what there would be had
the work been done in the right way
| american a g7icMtturist.
WOOD AND COAL ASHES.
Wood ashes, as well as plant ashes of
all kinds, is intrinsically an excellent
! fertilizer, since it contains the solid in
gradients required by all plants, even
though in different proportions. The
value of ash varies materially in accord
ance with the degree of heat to which it
| has been subjected when made. In gem
/ eral, the hotter the fire, the less active will
be the ash as fertilizer, and if it I,ns
been actually melted, as in the vitrified
ash that comes from the straw-burning
engines, its present value becomes almost
| nun.
In the use of ash it is very essential to
see that particularly when fresh) it does
| not come into immediate contact with the
| trunks, stalks or roots. Fresh wood ashes,
when leached with water, yield largely
an intensely caustic lye, which will
promptly attack and corrode the bark or
root-crown much more rapidly than does
| the blackest of alkali. The lie becomes
milder as the ash grows older, and in clay
soils, as well as in those containing
much vegetable matter (humus), there IS
much less risk of damage at any time
| than in open, sandy or silly soils poor in
| humus.
| In general, ashes should be spread
broadcast over the surface of the ground
and be allowed to be washed in by rains
or irrigation, and not placed around the
| trunks of trees or over the stools of peren-
niais, as is too often done. If plowed in
| shallow with stubble or weeds the latter