ON THE LAND.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9082, 6 May 1908, Page 7

ON THE LAND.

THE ART OF MILKING.

To a man brought up in a dairy county and used to cows from childhood, milking seems such a simple operation as scarcely to be wovth writing about (says a correspondent of the Farmer and Stock Breeder). Yet,.in judging agricultural labour competitions, I see scores of milkers in a year, and very seldom a really good one. A short time ago there was u silly discussion in one of the daily papers as to which was the proper side to milk the cow from. There is no proper side except the outside. It is merely a question as to which the cow. is accustomed to. Anything strange upsets a nervous cow, and to sit down on a side she is not used to may mean a semi-circular sweep of the leg and a sprawl on the floor. In England we usually milk from the off or right hand side. In the North cows are oftener milked from the left, and it matters as little as from which side a lamb sucks. Milking is one of the most important operations on a farm, and nowhere is the presence of the master more needed than in the milking shed. There should be no talking, which means stopping to listen, and a check of the flow of the milk. There is <ne rule with dairy cows which should never be broken absolute quiet. There should be no racing with a dog when the cows are being brought up from the field. They answer well to the crack of a whip, and it comes in useful when a spiteful master-cow stands in a gateway or narrow lane and gores at the rest as they pass—a by no means infrequent trick. Cows should never be hurried through gates, which often cause hips to be knocked off. A pail of water and a cloth should be taken into the shed, and each cow's udder well wiped with the damp cloth, also the flanks and part of the belly, to remove all loose hairs. A milking stjol should be I4in to 16in high, according to the size of the man. A lower one puts one too much at the mercy of the cow, whilst a high one cramps ( the arms and shoulders. A three-legged stool accommodates itself best to uneven surfaces. I prefer the doping tinned milk pails, without the ordinary bucket handle, which ara made Eimply for the purpose, and can be used for nothing else. Our grandmothers knew nothing of microbes and pure cultures, Lui they used to dip tins in boiling water and hang them out in the Bun just as if they did.

CURING BACON. Bacon can be cured in two ways, bj dry-salting or brine-curing, remarks an Australian paper. The former is most; generally adoptad. To make bacon by the dry process, equal quantities of the best salt and brown sugar are used, with £oz of saltpetre to each pound of the mixture. This is thoroughly rubbed into the pork every second day for a week, and the meat turned at each rubbing. The meat is laid upon a stone floor or slab, ham upon ham, in a pile, and after the first week turned and rubbed about twice in four weeks. Af.er this the hams are hung up to dry in a cool, weil-ventilated room, and finally smoked. Hams lose about 20 rer cent, of their weight in cxiug. F.r brine-curing a series of tanks are necessary, the bacon being shifted from one to the other for about seven days, when it is taken out of the brine and Etackcd in dry salt on the floor for the spice of about three weeks. The bacon (fan then be washed and smoked, or hung up in the green state until required. For hams the same process is follower}, with the addition of rubbing the face of every ham with brown sugar before covering with saltpetre* before laying out singly in rows on the floor. Keep them well covered with salt fo- a week, then brush clean, and stack them for three or four weeks, giving the hams a good pressing. Whe'i washed and soft the hams are batted into shape, and they are then ready for smoking. After, smoking and if charcoal is used for packing, a layer, finely-powcered, should be placed over each, layer of the bacon.