FACTS FOR FARMERS.

Waikato Times, Volume I, Issue 46, 15 August 1872, Page 2

FACTS FOR FARMERS.

It is necessary for successful oheese-making tbat means should exist in all dairies for preserving a suitable temperature throughout the year ; the oold of a severe winter being hardly less injurious thiln the heat of summer. Care should also be taken to secure a plentiful supply of pure water, effective drainage, by which the water may be carried rapidly away, thorough ventilation, and facilities for the exercise of the most fastidious cleanliness. The building should, if possible, be built on the side of a gentle declivity facing east, and sheltered from westerly winds. In order to maintain an equal temperature, the walls should be of a considerable thickness, and built with a hollow space in them, through which a current of air may pass ; the roof, should be of materials that are non-conductors of heat, with a ceiling nnderneath, with the walls lime washed. The floor should be sunk about three feet under ground, made to slope to a drain (with trap) in the and well paved. Ou three sides of the dairy small arches should be turned about three foet high, carrying a shelf of slate or marble three feet wide, to hold the pans containing milk, and a little above this shell, ventilating bricks should be placed with sliding shutters over them to open or shut, according to the weather. Several landed proprietors in Shropshire and Cheshire (England) have recently erected expensive and highly ornamental dairies on their estutes, fitted up with massive marble table and milk and with a constant stream of water passing through them, but these are kept more as a luxury than as an object of profit, and they sometimes lack many essentials to a go6d dairy, because the architects who plan them are seldom or never practical farmers.

In an address recently delivered in Canada by Mr. L. "B. Arnold, of Itacba, N. Y., and which we find epitomized in ' Tho Prairie Farmer,' he stated th.it the variations arising from the nature of land are very important to the dairyman. xMilk is very different when produced ou high well-drained pastures from that produced on low mid wet land, and it must be treated differently to obtain the beat results. The milk from the dry pasture remains sweet and sound longer, and it requires much more abuse to spoil it tuan tlie 111 illc from wet ground, and it has a much better flavor and odour, and makes finer buLter. Milk from marshy ground has a strong, sourish smell, and sours and taints so easily that it requires to be very thoroughly aired and coolcd to make a passable product from it. Wet and dry seasons require a corresponding variation in the treatment of milk to work it into good cheese. A writer in " The Bost >n Cultivator" thiuks the farmer who works from eight tj ten hours a day, and then devotes the rest o his waking honrs to stu :y and to planning for future work, nine tirnjs out of ton will bo more successful, will live longer and live happier, and exert a wider and better influence among his neighbours, than he who labours from 12 to 10 hours, and allows his brainpower to remain idle. Muscle may be a primary element of success in farming, as it must be in many other occupations, but unless controlled by a sound and active intellect, it will accomplish little. He adds " when Igo about among farrrers and note the want of system so manifest in their work, the hap-hazard way in which they manage their affairs, and the amount of time and labour which they absolutely waste through ignorance, carelessness, and lack of forethought, I wonder that their reward is as great as it is. I have seea men tug with all their strength at huge stones, when by taking advantage of one of the most simple of mechanical laws, they might have moved the stone in much less time, and with a trifling expenditure of muscular power, and the lifting of those stones was simply an illustration of the way in which they did the whole of their farm work."