THE DAIRY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 916, 20 September 1889, Page 18

THE DAIRY.

EDUCATED DAIRYMAIDS. Some replies given by a pupil at the Munster Dairy School, near Cork, at a recent examination, are worth quoting, as they show how well some of the Irish girls have understood what they have been taught at the excellent institution referred to. The system of scouring cream and its advantages are thus described : ‘ Cream should always be corked, and then kept sweet, until you require to churn it, when it has to be ripened. For churning, cream should be just a little thick, the beginning of thickness and the beginning of sourness. For this purpose it has to be ripened about 15 hours before being churned. This is done by heating the cream according to the season and the kind of cream. In summer you should always manage to have the cream for churning at 58 deg., in winter it may be 60deg.—separator cream may be a degree or two more. When cream is ripe you obtain more butter, a fuller flavour, and better colour than if it were churned sweet,’ In describing the proper system of cleaning milk vessels, the pupil said : ‘ They should first be well washed and brushed with tepid water, and afterwards scalded with boiling water, in order to destroy the little living things in milk that get into the crevices. The vessels should be afterwards carefully, dried.’ Next she gave the causes which delay the production of butter in churn* ing : —‘ When cows are a long time calved. If tfie cream is too low a temperature when putting into the churn, or the churn may not be worked st the proper speed. If by accident soda should get into the churn. Sweet cream will take a longer time to churn than ripe cream.’ The following reasons were given against allowing milk to stand a long time before the cream is taken off :—‘lf the tnjljk is nGt skimmed at the proper time it will be over ripe for churning. Butter will be inferior in qualityit will contain a deal of curd, and very likely it wilt be spur.’ As to preparing vessels in which butter jp packed, this intelligent dairymaid said i —-‘ Before packing the butter the vessels should be scalded vyitk brine, and then neatly lined enside with paper, which excludes the air better than muslin. If boxes are used, jt is well to have them lined inside with paraffin wax.’ Otjfier replies were equally well given.

MANURING ON DAIRY FARMS. The opinion is held by some that dairy farmin'? is an exhaustive system, and we have even knovv.ii kind! f.is tu object to the introduction of this mode on to their land, on the plea that it deteriorates soil more quickly than other kinds of farming. It is, of, course, quite possible to conceive of a system of keeping cows which shall add nothing to the soil, but, on the contrary, take everything out of it; and it would, perhaps, not be difficu’t to find individual dairymen who follow this bad practice

in every district. But that dairying properly carried out really enriches the soil is a fact not very difficult to prove. In a paper read by Mr Howman some yeais ago before the British Dairy Farmers’ Association, the matter was, so far as we are aware, first presented in its true bearings, and the subject came up for discussion again at the Ipswich meeting of last year’s conference. A few calculations will show us exactly, how the matter stands. Ash or mineral, matter exists in milk to the extent of about eight-tenths of a per cent., and if we allow that a cow yields 600 gallons per annum, she will extract some 501 b of manurial matter from the soil in.the form of grass 'and fodder during that period. Out of this quantity only some 301 b represent the valuable substances, phosphoric acid and potash, and if we take a herd of say fifty cows, it follows that the total amount of these materials removed from the farm, or such portions of it as grazes them in summer and grows fodder for the winter, is considerably under a ton, and would be replaced by about three tons of mineral phosphate and two and a half tons of kainite. Besides these, however, there is the nitrogen which is removed in the albuminoids of the milk, and which is the most serious part. The fifty cows would remove about 2000 pounds of it, or as much as is contained in five and a half tons of nitrate of soda. In round numbers, however, and at present market prices, these manures, to make up for all that is removed, would amount to thirty shillings per head. These amounts of fertilising ingredients, however, never are really taken away, but, on the contrary, tend to accumulate in' the soil. We have supposed the case where the animals are fed on homc-groi!vn food only, but let us now consider the circumstances where cake and other foods are used that are purchasedin, and the manure from such applied to the land. Suppose the animals to be receiving four pounds of cotton-cake (decorticated) daily per head, it will amount to over half a ton each per annum for l.he time in milk, or say twenty-five tons in all. Analysis shows this to contain about 3,000 pounds of nitrogen and 4,000 pounds of mineral matters, or, in other words, a half more nitrogen and twice as much mineral matter as is contained in the milk. Besides this, however, there is the residue left from the consumption of the grass, fodder, or other materials, while many people give far more than the equivalent of 41b of decorticated cotton-cake per head daily— the writer, for instance, allowing 101 b of mixed meals. It will thus he seen that, even after allowing a wide margin for waste, there is a large surplus of fertilising ingredients returned to the land in the manure of the animals, so that dairy farms, where there is even a very small quantity of purchased-in food allowed, must of necessity become more and more fertile, more especially as the fertility is added in the be..t of all forms —farmyard manure. For the sake of simplicity we have supposed the milk to be sold clean off the farm, but it is evident that where it is utilised in various ways at home there is some residue left, and therefore less to replace. Butter, for instance, being a hydrocarbon, removes absolutely none of the valuable ingredients, though the skim-rr.ilk does. It is to be regretted, however, that manuring on a dairy farm is often a very one-sided affair. The muck is generally spread on the arable fields, and the pasture lands are left to starve. This is not as it should he, and is, perhaps, the reason why a dressing of bones did so much good on the Cheshire pastures, a circumstance which no text-book on agriculture must omit to notice if it is to be considered complete. It would be a better plan to. give the pastures and meadows a dose each in its turn at regular intervals, and perhaps mow for hay the first year if the grass threatens to be too strong. It is also to be regretted that cows’ dropping lie all of a heap in the fields and not nicely spread about, as is the case with sheep, this, no doubt being one of the reasons why feeding with sheep improves land, and thus the summer’s cow-dung is almost lost. We have heard of farmers who sent boys through the fields at intervals to spread out the little heaps, and, considering the value of cake-fed manure, it almost seems worth while to do so, and could not fail to improve the grass. At present it is either killed out at the spot or grows so rank that the animals will not eat it.

It will thus be seen that a comparatively small amount of purchased-in feeding stuffs or manure will replace the fertilizing ingredients removed by a fairly large herd of cows, while a surplus is sure to accumulate for future crops if the business is conducted in the ordinary way. M.C.