time to indulge in theories and construct plans by which the
rivalry among factorymen may be kept within a limit sufficiently
circumscribed to prevent the fear of loss of patronage from
interfering with, and lowering the standard of, our cheese. It
is too often the case, nowadays, that factorymen are deterred
from a full and complete discharge of their duty to themselves,
their patrons, and the world in general, by a fear, by no means
groundless, that a bold and upright course with regard to the
material brought to them will result in a damaging, if not
entire loss, of their occupation.
The unwise extent to which men have gone in the erection of
cheese factories, has increased competition to an extent
decidedly prejudicial to the interest of the cheese-consuming
world. A., having invested his entire capital in the
construction and equipment of a factory, will be quite likely,
when B., C., and D. erect factories in his immediate
neighborhood, to hold his peace when sundry varieties of swill
milk are offered at his door, instead of speaking out an
equivocal protest against the insult thus offered to his
professional pride and sense of decency.
To the dairyman naturally given to slovenly and careless habits,
the restraint to which he might otherwise be subjected is
practically removed when nearly equi-distant from his place of
abode there are three or four factories, instead of one, and he
knows that if rejected at one place, he can without
inconvenience go to another, and thus it transpires that at five
factories in every ten there will be found a conspicuous absence
of thorough and inexorable discriminations which ought always to
prevail in the receipt of milk for factory purposes.
For this abuse there is, in our estimation, a remedy however
theoretical and visionary it may appear, and that is concert of
action and co-operation among factorymen. Men in all branches of
business, nowadays, associate with each other, and form
themselves into bodies for the purpose of closer union and
mutual protection, and when this is done for the general good,
as well as individual advancement, the purpose is laudable and
universally successful.
We know of no business in which the necessity of combination is
so great as that of cheese-making, and, what, let me ask, could
be more desirable and praiseworthy than an association of
cheese-makers, for the purpose of sending the swill milk of the
country to the hogs, where it belongs, instead of making it up,
as at present, for human consumption.
We have an idea that such an association might be successfully
formed, and that, when once in effectual operation, it might ask
the legislative body of its country to enact a law, entitled "An
Act for the suppression of swill milk, and for the general good
of mankind," in which it should be provided, among other things,
that in every case where a dairyman has left a factory on
account of having had his milk rejected for cause traceable to
his negligence, that in all such cases, the factory or factory
company knowingly receiving the milk of such rejected party,
shall be liable to some appropriate penalty.
The extreme sensitiveness of milk in the absorption of taint
from the atmosphere, or any substance with which it comes in
contact, ought to be thoroughly understood by all persons
engaged in handling it, but, we believe, that but few
comparatively are alive to the true facts of the case. I
herewith present several paragraphs clipped from journals of
recent date:
"There are seventy-five cases of typhoid fever in the town of
Port Jarvis. Dr. McDonald attributes the spread of the disease
to the use of milk from the farm of Mrs. Thomas Cuddebach, in
whose family there have been several typhoid cases, holding that
the milk conveyed the disease germs. Nearly all of the parties
now sick had used milk from the farm."
"A dairyman from Dundee has been apprehended and fined for
allowing his wife and daughter to milk cows and assist in the
sale of milk, after they had been engaged in nursing a child
suffering from scarlet fever. No less than nineteen cases of
fever, four of which resulted fatally, were traced to this act
of carelessness."
With these facts in view, how can it be expected that any amount
of diligence on the part of a cheese-maker can atone for the
unpardonable sin committed, day after day, by the heedless and
unobserving patrons, of leaving a can of freshly drawn milk
standing all night in an unwholesome barn or yard, until it has
absorbed a whole family of pestilential odors, and then to carry
it to the factory to corrupt and poison everything with which it
comes in contact.
Some may suppose it a mere theory to speak of a condition of
things in which abuses of this character can not be found, but
during an experience of five years as cheese instructor, in the
Province of Ontario, during which I superintended the making of
cheese in about 400 different factories, and during the last
year inspected the milk from about 65,000 cows, the property of
about 7,000 dairymen, I occasionally made up vats in which there
was no discoverable taint and which, I was pretty certain, came
from the farms of well drilled, well posted dairymen, and, from
a circumstance of this character, I am led to the conclusion
that what has been done once can be done again, and I make such
facts a text upon which I found my plea for more thorough
co-operation and diligent painstaking in the work of producing
milk for factory purposes.
* * * * *
There may be times when peculiar atmospheric conditions will
exert unfavorable influences, and seasons when drought and wet
weather will produce changes, over which human efforts have no
control, and for these sufficient allowance must be made. We
quarrel with the stupidity, shiftlessness, and ignorance of men,
and not with the providence of God.
In this day and age of the world there is no excuse for
ignorance upon the points to which we have alluded. Wisdom
uttereth her voice in the streets, and he who will not hear her
ought to be drummed out of the camp of dairymen. As a rule, a
common carpenter puts more thought into his business in a month
than many dairymen do in a year. Indeed, it would be difficult
to point out a single branch of human industry, of one-half the
magnitude which the manufacture and sale of cheese has reached,
carried on in a manner so slipshod and slovenly as dairying.
The banker, the columns of whose ledger fail by one cent of
balancing, spares neither time nor money in searching out and
correcting the error; the merchant brings to bear upon his
business a care and insight so unceasing and laborious that his
locks are soon sprinkled with premature silver; the machinist
works to plans from which the variation of a thousandth part of
an inch can not be allowed to pass uncorrected; but the dairyman
too often stumbles along through his work without thought, or
employs the little intellect he has in putting in and harvesting
his crops, leaving the dairy in the meantime to take care of
itself. There are too many men engaged in dairying who can see
nothing in the business beyond the factory dividend; men to whom
filling the milk pail and the can are the Alpha and Omega of
life. To such men such a thing as an ambition that their county,
town, or neighborhood shall attain and hold a reputation for
being the banner cheese district of the State or nation, is as
thoroughly unknown as the configuration of the bottom of the
Dead sea.
In saying what we have about the patrons of cheese factories,
and the closer and more thorough co-operation among them, we
have been actuated by no feelings of unkindness or ill will, nor
have we arraigned them upon trivial or imaginary charges. The
indictments we have found against them are all true bills,
against which too many of them will be unable to sustain the
plea of not guilty. We have been constrained to our present
course by an overmastering sense of the importance of greater
care, deeper thought, and closer union in pushing forward one of
the greatest industries of the day. I am confident that before
another step can be taken in advance it must be preluded by a
correction of the errors which we have feebly attempted to
portray, all of which lie outside and prior to the factory. As a
body, cheese-makers can do little better than they are now
doing, until there is some improvement in the material upon
which they are called upon to exercise their skill, and the
practice of crimination and recrimination, the factorymen
tossing the blame upon the dairymen and the dairymen upon the
factorymen, which is made use of to conceal the real source of
our mistakes, will continue to shield him from the eyes of a
discriminating public until the care and diligence of dairymen
strip him of this shelter and drive him forward on the march to
improvement.
* * * * *
REMEMBER _that $2.00 pays for_ THE PRAIRIE FARMER _from this
date to January 1, 1885; For $2.00 you get it for one year and a
copy of_ THE PRAIRIE FARMER COUNTY MAP OF THE UNITED STATES,
FREE! _This is the most liberal offer ever made by any first-class
weekly agricultural paper in this country._
* * * * *
[Illustration]
VETERINARY
Impaction of the Paunch.
Impaction of the paunch (the first stomach or rumen) in cattle,
sometimes also called grainsick or mawbound, differs from bloating or
hoove, mainly thereby that the distention is more solid than gaseous, it
being either with food alone, or with food and gas. Symptomatically it
differs also from hoove by the absence of eructation, and by the
hardness of the flanks and the smaller volume of the swelling. It arises
from gorging with almost any kind of food, even with grain or with
chaff, at a sudden change of diet; but it is particularly liable to
arise from a surfeit of turnips, fresh grass, or any other succulent
food at the commencement of the season. The instrument called a probang
ought to be introduced, either to decide whether the case be one of
hoove or one of mawbound, or to ascertain the degree in which the latter
disease exists. If the probang bring on a sudden rush of gas, the
disease is wholly or chiefly hoove; and if it encounter a solid
resistance, the disease mawbound, and exists in a degree of aggravation
proportioned to the nearness of the point at which the resistance is
felt.
In mild cases of impaction of the paunch, when the animal does not seem
to suffer much pain, and is not materially fevered, but merely ceases
rumination or chewing of the cud, refuses to eat, and lies long and
indolently in one posture, a dose of oil, or a little forced walking,
are frequently sufficient to effect a cure. In cases which, though on
the whole mild, are accompanied with a kind of inertia, or with an
insuperable reluctance to rise or to move about, stimulants, such as
ether diluted with alcohol and water, may be required to rouse the
paunch into renewed action; but whenever such remedies are necessary,
they must be given in cautious doses, and always accompanied with some
gentle purgatives. In very bad cases, when the animal seems sinking
through inertness into death, or in which moans, swells at the sides,
becomes almost as a board in the flanks, appears to suffer great and
increasing pain, and seems eventually to be overwhelmed with anguish and
to be passing into unconsciousness, it must be promptly decided whether
we have sufficient time and encouragement to try the effect of
stimulants, purgatives, the stomach pump, and other comparatively gentle
measures; and if not, we should, without much delay, cut through the
left flank into the paunch, and with the hands withdraw the contents.
The cutting operation itself is attended or followed with little danger;
but in the extracting of the food, no matter how carefully performed,
some small portion is liable to drop into the abdominal cavity; and
this, in consequence of its indigested condition, resists absorption or
expulsion, undergoes an irritating decomposition, and may very probably
originate some serious inflammatory disorder. Any animal which has
suffered a very bad case of impaction of the paunch, ought, immediately
after complete restoration to health, to be sent to the shambles; for,
independently of the lurking danger consequent on the artificial
extraction of the food, or even upon the relaxation which follows the
administration of a stimulant, the paunch is so much overstretched and
injured by the mechanical effects of the distension as to be temporarily
incapacitated for the proper discharge of its functions.
Queries Answered.
PROBABLY RINGBONE.--W. B. S., Sciola, Iowa. In the absence of any
information to the contrary, the lameness may be regarded as due to the
development of ringbone. There is no certain cure for this disease. All
that may be expected from treatment is to retard or stay its progress or
development; but in all cases more or less stiffness or lameness will
remain, depending upon the extent of its development. Then, subsequent
hard work, or any cause of renewed irritation, will be apt to further
aggravate the case, and cause additional enlargement and increasing
lameness. The usual course of treatment in such cases consists in
blistering or firing, or both combined, with subsequent long rest or a
season's liberty on pasture.
* * * * *
Uneasiness is a species of sagacity; a passive sagacity. Fools are never
uneasy.
* * * * *
REMEMBER _that $2.00 pays for_ THE PRAIRIE FARMER _from this
date to January 1, 1885; For $2.00 you get it for one year and a
copy of_ THE PRAIRIE FARMER COUNTY MAP OF THE UNITED STATES,
FREE! _This is the most liberal offer ever made by any first-class
weekly agricultural paper in this country._
* * * * *
[Illustration]
HORTICULTURAL
Horticulturists, Write for Your Paper.
Lessons of 1883.
BY O. B. GALUSHA.
Progress in all arts and sciences is the one grand aim of all
associations and of all agricultural and horticultural societies and
journals; and to study the results of each year's experiences and
observations, comparing them with those of previous years, and also with
the ideal of perfection which each laborer in these several departments
of industry has pictured in his own mind, is the best preparation for
achieving desired results in the future.
In the present paper we will take a brief retrospect of the fruit crops
of 1883, and inquire into the causes of successes and failures.
STRAWBERRIES.
We begin with the strawberry, which, though small and unpretentious, has
been from year to year rising in importance until it has become second
only to the apple in the estimation of a majority of consumers.
The past year's experience has taught, as does that of each year, that
great care should be taken in selecting varieties adapted to each
particular soil and situation. This may be said to be the important
thing in strawberry growing.
It is a difficult thing to find such varieties by the ordinary means of
selecting; namely, recourse to the catalogues of growers. Man has a
wonderful amount of selfishness in his composition. I say wonderful, for
it is a wonder when we consider how much better he would enjoy life were
all selfishness eliminated from it, and benevolence, coupled with true
self love, were substituted. "Each crow thinks its own young the
blackest," and each (almost) originator or "exclusive owner" of a new
variety of plant or tree, labors hard to convince himself and others
that he has the best of his kind; but, owing to the weakness of human
nature, even the sincere among these are liable to be biased, and thus
mislead others. The only safety, therefore, lies in planting such
varieties as you know to succeed well near you in similar soil, while
new varieties, commended as superior by persons of known integrity and
experience, for similar soil and climatic condition, should be tried
only on a small scale as an experiment. If they succeed, you can soon
have plenty of plants of your own growing--if you prefer to grow them.
This advice, though often before given will bear frequent
repetition--for the desire for "something new" is as prevalent with us
now as it was with the Athenians in St. Paul's time. We have seen Big
Bobs, Great Americans, and other monstrosities dwindle to pigmies in the
hands of ordinary cultivators, and the demand for Sharpless become less
sharp through its sensitiveness to the influence of Jack Frost; and
hosts of other sorts, really good and valuable somewhere, and under
peculiarly favorable conditions to be comparatively valueless for
general cultivation. Therefore every person designing to plant should
repeat to himself this injunction--"Go slow on new varieties."
It is not desirable for persons who plant for their own use solely to
select the pistillate varieties; for these, although the most profusely
productive when well fertilized, are liable to overrun their staminate
neighbors, and soon render the "strawberry patch" unproductive, or
productive only of small or imperfect fruit. The leading pistillates
offered in the catalogues now are Crescent, Col. Cheney, Windsor Chief,
Jersey Queen, Big Bob, Manchester, Green Prolific, Golden Defiance,
Champion, Park Beauty, Gipsey, and some others.
There are a few sorts, having perfect blossoms, which give profitable
returns on a variety of soils, and which may be considered safe to
plant. These are Charles Downing, Miner, Bidwell (kept in single rows or
single plants), Piper, Cumberland Triumph, Phelps ("Old Iron Clad"),
Sucker State, Finch, Capt. Jack (acid), Longfellow (with good, rich
culture), Mt. Vernon (late), and for sandy soil, Kentucky (late). This
list may be said to constitute the cream of the thousand and one
varieties offered which have been well tested. Of course those who grow
strawberries for market will plant largely of some of the pistillate
sorts, owing to their great productiveness.
The past year has taught the folly of too great haste in removing the
covering from strawberry plants; as those which bloomed early were badly
damaged by the frost. Plantations, also, which were partially screened
by rows and belts of evergreens produced twice to three times the
quantity of fruit that was obtained from the same varieties fully
exposed. Plants in orchards also escaped to a great degree, for the
trees were in leaf when the destructive frost occurred, and thus gave
partial protection. Strawberries are at home in a young orchard; the
cultivation given the plants is good for the trees, and the slight shade
of the young trees is no perceptible detriment to the plants or fruit.
The general crop was about one-third an average--the chief damage being
done by the frost--though the tarnished plant-bug was very destructive
in Southern Illinois, and did some damage in other localities. Prices
were from fifty to a hundred per cent higher than usual--supply and
demand being the factors, in the fruit trade, as well as in all others,
which regulate prices.
Spring is better than summer or autumn for planting strawberries. In
thirty years' experience in strawberry culture I have never, except in
two instances, found any advantage in summer or fall planting, and in
these pot-plants were used, which are too expensive for general planting
and not always preferable. Three or four of the varieties named, 100 of
each, planted as early in spring as the ground is in good condition, in
rows three to three and a half feet apart, and confined, as they run, to
narrow strips, will give an abundance of fruit for two or three years
for a large family. Certainly such planting and care is as good an
investment as can be made upon any farm or in any garden.
RASPBERRIES AND BLACKBERRIES
were more nearly a failure, generally, as a crop, in 1883, than
strawberries, but owing to a different cause, namely, the severe cold of
the previous winter. None of the cultivated varieties escaped unharmed
wherever the mercury sank lower than 30 degrees below zero, and 32
degrees below was marked nearly everywhere north of the latitude of
Peoria and Bloomington, in Illinois, and in many places 36 degrees below
was recorded. Blackberries also suffered; even the hardy Snyder not
escaping; and a similar disaster threatens the crops of these species in
1884, for as I write, on a clear, sunny day, the mercury has not risen
higher than 16 degrees below zero, and this morning (January 5,) was 33
degrees below here in Peoria, and 35 degrees below in Bloomington. The
canes went into the winter in good order, however, and, if no intense
cold prevails hereafter, the damage may be less than last winter when
they were not as well hardened.
Since we can not prevent the recurrence of these polar region
down-pours, we can prepare our canes of raspberries and blackberries for
enduring such extreme cold, by commencing cultivation early in the
spring and discontinuing by the middle of June, also by stopping the
growth of young canes, by pinching or chopping off, when not more than
two and a half feet high, and again, as soon as another foot in length
is made, stopping both uprights and laterals. If all weak canes are kept
cut out, and those shortened for fruiting the next year not allowed to
stand nearer than eight or ten inches of each other, they will become
"ripe" and firm in texture before cold weather overtakes them. The
hardiest of the red varieties are Turner, Thwack, and Cuthbert; and of
the black-caps, the Soughegan (earliest), Tyler, and Gregg (latest). The
black-caps named endured the winter fully as well as the hardy red
varieties.
Of blackberries the Snyder still heads the list for hardiness and
general value north of the latitude named, though Early Harvest bids
fair to be of value. Taylor was damaged a little more than Snyder, while
Barnard, Ancient Briton, and Stone's Hardy rank with Snyder for
hardiness.
Raspberries and blackberries should be planted early in the spring, if
not done in late autumn, in rows six to eight feet apart. Red
raspberries may be set two feet apart in the rows, and black-caps and
blackberries wider--two and one-half to four feet, according to stock of
plants or desire for quick returns; for all will bear the next year
after planting. Give good cultivation the first year and mulch in the
fall, along the rows of both raspberries and blackberries, with manure
free from grass seeds, and cover the entire surface between the rows of
blackberries with old prairie hay, corncobs, or straw; or, if
cultivation the next year is intended, the inter-row of mulch may be
omitted.
The intense cold of these two consecutive winters should not deter land
owners from planting these fruits. These extremes come in cycles; and,
though old Jupiter is now, and was last winter, exerting an unusual
disturbing influence upon our planet, he will this year calm his temper
and give us nine or ten years of respite from his powerful magnetic
sway.
CURRANTS, GOOSEBERRIES, AND GRAPES
were less affected by the severity of the winter of '83-'84 than by the
late frosts of spring, which destroyed the young shoots of grapes and
the blossoms and young fruit of the berries. Currants are yearly growing
in favor and the price of the fruit advancing; and now currant culture
is profitable and likely to continue so for a series of years.
Ground can not well be made too rich for currants and gooseberries.
Plant in rows four feet apart and plants three feet apart in the rows;
give thorough culture or deep mulch over the entire surface, cut out all
wood of three years' growth (or after first crop is often considered
better), and a good crop is almost certain. Red Dutch, White Grape,
Victoria, and Versailles are still the favorites; and American Seedling
(or Cluster) and Houghton are usually the most profitable gooseberries.