DAIRY SKIMMINGS.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 351, 16 March 1889, Page 5

DAIRY SKIMMINGS.

Guernseys. — The Guernsey cow is a {rood stionsr tanner's cow, wtighing usually | from 900 to 1,200 pounds and over. They have {jood bono* and muscles. Their calvet are of good sizo and make pood veal ; they have ffoocl, hardy constitutions, are erood feeder? and will bear forcing wnen butter brinjr=! remunerative prices. They have a beautiful, yel'ow skin, con c equently they pioduce yellow butter, oven in winter. Their but'er needs no artifi< ial colouring afc any season of the year. They have a quiet, even disposition. Their teats are of good size ; they >:ive a good ! flow of milk nearly to calving time, and frequently they cannot be dried o(F even for the ex>od of the cow or the call: they are carrying*. Their butter pi'oducfc U equal to, if nob better than any cow that the writer has had anything to do with.

Mongrel Cattle. — The "common cow,' the Breeder '« Gazette says, is abused 'imply because she is a " scrub '' which fails to pay a reasonable interest on the investm nfc in herself, and her keep. If the cnmmo.i cow can give as good an account of herself at the pail and butter tub as the grades of the j improved dairy breeds, which are within the reach of even the commonest farmer, I no one has words of abuse for her It is because shn cannot do this that telentless war is waged upon her. It is because she has times without number been demonstrated a comparatively ofttimes an absolutely — profitless machine for the performance of the duties demanded of her that she is told to " £0." It is because a cow can now be produced at a cost but little enhanced that on the same keep will far surpass her in the output of valuable products that she has " got to go." If the common cow we>e fed, cared for, and culled as those cattle ate which sur-h writers delight to call " fancy," in something less than half a century she would cease to be a " scrub."

The Thermometer ix the Dairy. — Without a good, all gla^s, dairy thermometer, there if so much guess work that in winter, nt least, you are s-ure to run afoul of that rocky question, " Why doesn't the butter com 9 ?" This question admits of page atter page of answers, but it is sufficient to say here that one reason why it doesn't come is, because the temperature of the cream is not right. The thermometer will tell you in a much better and cleaner way than your finger.

The Bkst Butter Cloth. — "The best butter l cloth ' is parchment paper," say* a dairy expert. " This i o practically air, water and grease proof, and does not stick to the butter. It is cheap, strong and very convenient to use for prints or rolls, and looks much better than muslin. When you wrap your butter in parchment paper consumets cannot speculate as Jo whether the butter cloths began life as a part of shirts or sheefs. Yes, I know things can be wa e hed clean, but it does not need a vivid imagination to weave an unsavoury history out of the wa p and woof of some butfer clothe." \\ c have little doubt that the paper here meant is that used by the Auckland Dairy Association as noted in these columns on a previous occasion. Good butrer cows will make a pound of butter to every fourteen or eighteen pounds of milk, cays the Mirror and Farmer. "General purpose cows" want from twenty-two to thirty-one pounds, and some cows would i equire fify pounds of milk to make a pound of butter. Average dailies requite somewhere about twenty-five pounds of milk to make a pound of butter.

Nervotis Cows. -"I have seen a great many heifers and cows," says a New York Tribune correspondent, " in a tremor of excitement while pome ignorant or brutal fellow was milking them. I never knew them to be made quiet and willing; to be milUed by scolding, kicking or pounding, but they might have been made docile by early and gentle handling. It is safe to say that rough usage of cowe often occasions the loss of half their milk. They refu.«e to ' givedown,' and that di ies them up rapidly. Boys, dogs and heedless men worry them when driving from the field. Irregular feeding and milking, and everything 1 out of the regular order, disturbs, and therefore damages them. Change of residence frequently caupes cows to shrink their milk for a whole year. A noted Holstetn butter cow, taken to the fair to test her butter making qualities, made only a pound of butter from forty-four pounds of milk,

whilo in the quiet of her home she made a pound of butter from twenoy-one pounds and throe ounces of milk. Perhaps she \va^ extia nervou 1 , but all cows have nerves enough to require that their treatment be gentle »nd regular."

Make thk Most of Natural Advantages. — Every fanner, say«< the Farm Journal, onn produce some one thing or *-nm6 line of commodities to a little better advantage than he can any other. Every farm has its peculiar strong points and excellence- 5 , or is-, at least, better adapted to homo classes of products than to otheis, and tluse peculiarities, whatever they may be, and however slight their prominence, should be madethemosfc of. Study yourself, jour land, your markets, your roads— nil yoursur ou tidings — and push things in the direction of the best po-sible combination that can be made of all these.