BUDDING
This is usually given under the article on peaches. But, as it is a general subject, it should be in a separate article, reserving what is peculiar to the different fruits to be noticed under their respective heads.
Budding.
Budding small trees should usually be performed very near the ground, and on a smooth place. Any sharp pocket-knife will do; but a regular budding knife, now for sale in most hardware-stores, is preferable. Cut through the bark in the form of a horizontal crescent (a in the cut). Split the bark down from the cut three fourths of an inch, and, with the ivory-end of the knife, raise the corners and edges of the bark. Select a vigorous shoot of this year's growth, but having buds well matured—select a bud that bids fairest to be a leaf-bud, as blossom-buds will fail—insert the knife half an inch below the bud, and cut upward in a straight line, severing the bark and a thin piece of the wood to one half inch above the bud, and let the knife run out: you then have a bud ready for insertion (c in cut). The English method is to remove the wood from the bud before inserting it; this is attended with danger to the vitality of the bud, and is, therefore, less certain of success, and it is no better when it does succeed. Hence, American authorities favor inserting the bud with the wood remaining. Insert the lower end of this slip between the two edges of the bark, passing the bud down between those edges, until the top of the slip comes below the horizontal cut, and remaining contiguous to it. If the bud slip be too long, after it is sufficiently pressed down, cut off the top so as to make a good fit with the bark above the cut (b in cut). The lower end of the bud will have raised the split bark a little more to make room for itself, and thus will set very close to the stalk. Tie the bud in with a soft ligature; commence at the bottom of the split, and wind closely until the whole wound is covered, leaving only the bud exposed (d in cut). It is more convenient to commence at the top, but it is less certain to confine the slip opposite the bud in close contact with the stalk: this is indispensable to success. We have often seen buds adhere well at the bottom, but stand out from the stalk, and thus be ruined.
Preparation of Buds.—Take thrifty, vigorous shoots of this year's growth, with well-matured buds; cut off the leaves one half inch from the stalks (e in cut); wrap them in moist moss or grass, or put them in sawdust, or bury them one foot in the ground.
Bands.—The best yet known is the inside bark of the linden or American basswood. In June, when the bark slips easily, strip it from the tree, remove the coarse outside, immerse the inside bark in water for twenty days; the fibres will then easily separate, and become soft and pliable as satin ribbon. Cut it into convenient lengths, say one foot, and lay them away in a dry state, in which they will keep for years. This will afford good ties for many uses, such as bandages of vegetables for market, &c. Matting that comes around Russia iron and furniture does very well for bands; woollen yarn and candle-wicking are also used; but the bass-bark is best. After ten days the bands should be loosened and retied; then, if the bud is dried, it is spoiled, and the tree should be rebudded in another place; at the end of three weeks, if the bud adheres firmly, remove the band entirely. Better not bud on the south side; it is liable to injury in winter. In the spring, after the swelling of buds, but before the appearance of leaves, cut off the top four inches above the bud; when the bud grows, tie the tender shoot to the stalk (growing bud in cut, f). In July, cut the wood off even with the base of the bud and slanting up smoothly.
Causes of Failure.—If you insert a blossom-bud you will get no shoot, although the bud may adhere well. If scions cut for buds remain two hours in the sun with the leaves on, in a hot day, they will all be spoiled. The leaves draw the moisture from the bud, and soon ruin it. Cut the leaves off at once. If you use buds from a scion not fully grown, very few of them will live; they must be matured. If the top of the branch selected be growing and very tender, use no buds near the top of it. If in raising the bark to make room for the bud, you injure the soft substance between the bark and the wood, the bud will not adhere. If the bud be not brought in close contact with the stalk and firmly confined there, it will not grow. With reasonable caution on these points, not more than one in fifty need fail.
Time for Budding.—This varies with the season. In the latitude of central New York, in a dry season, when everything matures early, bud peaches from the 15th to the 25th of August—plums, &c., earlier. In wet and great growing seasons, the first ten days in September are best. Much budding is lost on account of having been done so late as to allow no time for the buds to adhere before the tree stops growing for the season. If budding is performed too early, the stalk grows too much over the bud, and it gums and dies. It is utterly useless to bud when the bark is with difficulty loosened; it is always a failure.
BUSHES
The growth of bushes over pastures, along fences, and in the streets, shows a great want of thrift, and an unpardonable carelessness in a farmer. In pastures, so far from being harmless, they take so much from the soil as to materially injure the quality and quantity of the grass. The only truly effectual method of destroying noxious shrubs, is by grubbing them up with a mattock. Frequent cutting of bushes inclining to spread only increases the difficulty, by giving strength and extension to the roots. Cutting bushes thoroughly in August, in a wet season, and applying manure and plaster to promote the growth of grass, will sometimes quite effectually destroy them. Larger trees, as the sweet locust, that are troublesome on account of sprouting out from the roots, when cut down, are effectually killed by girdling two feet from the ground, and allowing to stand one year. The tree, roots, and all, are sure to die.
BUTTER
Raising the cream, churning, working, and preserving, are the points in successful butter-making. To raise cream, milk may be set in tin, wood, or cast-iron dishes. The best are iron, tinned over on the inside. Tin is better than wood, only on account of its being more easily kept clean. No one can ever make good butter without keeping everything about the dairy perfectly clean and sweet. Milk should never stand more than three inches deep in the pans, to raise the best and most cream. It should be set in an airy room, containing nothing else. Butter and milk will collect and retain the flavor of any other substance near them, more readily than anything else; hence, milk set in a cellar containing onions, or in a room with new cheese, makes butter highly flavored with those articles.
Temperature is an important matter. It should be regular, at from fifty to fifty-five degrees of Fahrenheit's thermometer. It is sometimes difficult to be exact in this matter, but come as near it as possible. This can be well regulated in a good cool cellar, into which air can be plentifully admitted at pleasure. Those who are so situated that their milk-house can stand over a spring, with pure water running over its stone floor, are favored. Those who will take pains to lay ice in their milk-rooms, in very warm weather, will find it pay largely in the quality and quantity of their butter. Those who will not follow either of the above directions, must be content to make less butter, and of rather inferior quality, out of the same quantity of milk.
Skimming should be attended to when the milk has soured just enough to have a little of it curdle on the bottom of the pan. If it should nearly all curdle, it would not be a serious injury, unless it should become old. If you have not conveniences for keeping milk sufficiently warm in cold weather, place it over the stove at once, when drawn, and give it a scalding heat, and the cream will rise in a much shorter space of time, and more plentifully. Milk should be strained and set as soon as possible after being drawn from the cow, and with the least possible agitation. The unpleasant flavor imparted to milk from the food of the cows, such as turnips or leeks, may be at once removed by adding to the milk, before straining, one eighth of its quantity of boiling water; or two ounces of nitre boiled in one quart of water and bottled, and a small teacupful put in twelve quarts of milk, will answer the same purpose.
Milking should be performed with great care. Experiments have demonstrated that the last drawn from a cow yields from six to sixteen times as large a quantity of better cream than that first drawn. Careless milking will make the quantity of butter less, and the quality inferior, while it dries up the cows. There are probably millions of cows now in the United States that are indifferent milkers from this very cause. Quick and clean milking, from the time they first came in, would have made them worth twice as much, for butter and milk, as they are now. Always milk as quickly as possible, and without stopping, after you commence, and as nearly as possible at the same hour of the day. Leaving a teacupful, or even half that quantity, in milking each cow, will very materially lessen the products of the dairy, and seriously injure the cows for future use. Great milkers will yield considerable more by having it drawn three times per day. The quantity of milk given by a cow will never injure her, provided she be well fed. As it takes food to make meat, so it does also to make milk; you can never get something for nothing. The best breeds of swine, cattle, or fowls, can not be fattened without being well fed: so the best cows will never give large messes of milk unless they are largely fed.
Churning.—This is entirely a mechanical process. The agitation of the cream dashes the oily globules in the cream against each other, and they remain together and grow larger, until the butter is, what the dairy woman calls, gathered. The butter in the milk, when drawn from the cow, is the same as when on the table, only it is in the milk in the form of very small globes: churning brings them together. The object then to be secured, by any form of a churn, is agitation, or dashing and beating together.
Temperature of the Cream should be from sixty to sixty-five degrees—perhaps sixty-two is best. This had better always be determined by a thermometer immersed in it.
Many churns have been invented and patented; and every new one is, of course, the best. A cylinder is usually preferred as the best form for a churn, and the churning is performed by turning a crank. An oblong square box is far better than a cylinder. In churning in a cylinder, it may often occur that the cream moves round in a body with the dasher, and so is but slightly agitated. But change that cylinder into an oblong square, and the cream is so dashed against the corners of the box that a most rapid agitation is the result, and the churning is finished in a short space of time.
Any person of a little mechanical genius can construct a churn, equal to any in use, and at a trifling expense. It is well to make a churn double, leaving an inch between the two, into which cold or warm water can be poured, to regulate the temperature of the cream. This would be a great saving of time and patience in churning. Those who use the old-fashioned churns with dashes can most conveniently warm or cool their cream, by placing the churn containing it in a tub of cold or boiling water, as the case may require, until it comes to the temperature of sixty or seventy degrees.
To make butter of extra quality for the fair, or for a luxury on your own table, set only one third of the milk, and that the last drawn from the cow. The Scotch, so celebrated for making butter of more marrowy richness than any other, first let the calves draw half or two thirds of the milk, and then take the remainder. This makes the finest butter in the world.
Preserving Butter depends upon the treatment immediately after churning. Success depends upon getting the buttermilk all out, and putting in all the salt you put in at all, immediately—say within ten minutes after churning. Some accomplish this by washing, and others by working it, being much opposed to putting in a drop of water. Those who use water in their butter, and those who do not, are equally confident of the superiority of their own method. But all good butter-makers agree, that the less you work butter, and still remove all the milk, the better it will be; and the more you are obliged to work it, the more gluey, and therefore the poorer the quality. Very good butter is made by immediately working all the milk out and salting thoroughly—working the salt into every part, without the use of water.
Working over butter, the next day after churning, should be nothing more than nicely forming it into rolls, without any further working or any more salt. An error, that spoils more butter than any other, is that of doing very little with butter when it first comes out of the churn, because it must be gone through with the next day. Many do not know why their butter has different colors in the same mass—some white, and some quite yellow, and all shades between. The reason always is, putting in the salt immediately on churning, but neglecting to incorporate that salt into every part of the mass equally: thus, where there is most salt there will be one color, and where less, another. Another evil is, when the salt is thus put in carelessly, while much buttermilk remains, that salt dissolves; and when the butter is worked over the next day, the salt is mostly worked out, with the milk or water left in, the previous day. The addition of more salt then will not save it. It has received an injury, by retaining the milk or water for twenty-four hours, from which no future treatment will enable it to recover. We recommend washing as preferable; it has the following advantages: it cools butter quickly in warm weather, bringing it at once into a situation to be properly worked and salted. The buttermilk is also removed more speedily than in any other way; this is a great object. It removes the milk with less working, and consequently with less injury, than the other method. These three advantages, cooling in hot weather, expelling the milk in the shortest time, and working the butter the least, lead us to prefer using water, by one hundred per cent. We have for years used butter that has been made in this way, and never tasted better. Butter made in this way in summer will keep well till next summer, to our certain knowledge. Immediately after churning, pour off all the milk and put in half a pailful of water, more or less according to quantity; agitate the whole with the dasher, and pour off the water. Repeat this once or twice until the water runs off clear, without any coloring from the milk, and nearly all the buttermilk is out; this can all be done in five minutes after churning. Press out the very little water that will remain, and put in all the salt the butter will require, and work it thoroughly into every part. All this need occupy no more than ten minutes, and the butter is set away for putting up in rolls, or packing down in jars the next day. Such butter would keep tied up in a bag, and hung in a good airy place. Best to put it down in a jar, packed close; put a cloth over top, and cover with half an inch of fine salt. The only difficulty in keeping butter grows out of failure to get out all the milk, and thoroughly salt every particle, within fifteen minutes after churning. Speedy removal of buttermilk and water, and speedy salting, will make any butter keep.
This subject is so important, as good butter is such a luxury on every table, that we recapitulate the essentials of good butter making:—
1. Keep everything sweet and clean, and well dried in the sun.
2. Milk the cows, as nearly as possible, at the same hour, and draw the milk very quickly and very clean.
3. Set the milk, in pans three inches deep, in good air, removed from anything that might give it an unpleasant flavor, and where it will be at a temperature of fifty to sixty degrees.
4. Churn the cream at a temperature of sixty-two degrees.
5. Get out the buttermilk, and salt thoroughly within fifteen minutes after churning, either with water or without, as you prefer. Mix the salt thoroughly in every particle. Put up in balls, or pack closely in jars the next day.
6. Remember to work the butter as little as possible in removing the milk; the more it is worked, the more will it be like salve or oil, and the poorer the quality: hence, it is better to wash it with cold water, because you can wash out the buttermilk with much less working of the butter.
7. To make the best possible quality of butter, use only one third of the milk of the cows at each milking, and that the last drawn.
8. In the winter, when cream does not get sufficiently sour, put in a little lemon-juice or calves' rennet. If too white, put in a little of the juice of carrot to give it a yellow hue.
BUTTERNUT
This is a rich, pleasant nut, but contains rather too much oil for health. The oil, obtained by compression, is fine for clocks, &c.
The root, like the branches, are wide-spreading, and hence injurious to the land about them. Two or three trees on some corner not desired for cultivation, or in the street, will be sufficient. A rough piece of ground, not suitable for cultivation, might be occupied by an orchard of butternut-trees, and be profitable for market and as a family luxury. The bark is often used as a coloring substance.
CABBAGE
The best catalogues of seeds enumerate over twenty varieties, beside the cauliflowers, borecoles, &c. A few are superior, and should, therefore, be cultivated to the exclusion of the others.
Early York is best for early use. It is earlier than any other, and with proper treatment nearly every plant will form a small, compact, solid head, tender, and of delicious flavor. No garden is complete without it.
Early Dutch, and Early Sugarloaf, come next in season to the Early York, producing much larger heads.
Large York is a good variety, maturing later than the preceding, and before the late drumheads.
Large Drumhead, Late Drumhead, or Large Flat Dutch, are the best for winter and spring use. There are many varieties under these names, so that cultivators often get disappointed in purchasing seeds. It is now difficult to describe cabbages intelligibly. Every worthless hybrid goes under some excellent name.
A Dutch cabbage, with a short stem and very small at the ground, is the best with which we are acquainted. Of this variety (the seed of which was brought from Germany), we have raised solid heads, larger than a half bushel, while others called good, standing by their side, did not grow to more than half that size. This variety may be distinguished by the purple on the top of the grown head, and by the decided purple of the young plants, resembling the Red Dutch, though not of quite so deep a color.
Red Dutch, having a very hard, small head, deep purple throughout, is the very best for pickling; every garden should have a few. They are also good for ordinary purposes.
Green Curled Savoy, when well grown, is a good variety.
The Imperial, the Russian, Large Scotch for feeding, and others, are enumerated and described, but are inferior to the above. It is useless to endeavor to grow cabbages on any but the best of soil. Plant corn on poor land, and it will mature and yield a small crop. Plant cabbages on similar soil, and you will get nothing but a few leaves for cattle. Therefore, if your land designed for cabbages be not already very rich, put a load of stable-manure on each square rod. Cabbages are a very exhausting crop. The soil should be worked fully eighteen inches deep, and have manure well mixed with the whole. The best preparation we ever made was by double-plowing—not subsoiling, but plowing twice with similar plows: put on a good coat of manure, and plow with two teams in the same furrow, one plow gauged so as to turn a light furrow, and the other a very deep one, throwing it out of the bottom of the first; when the first plow comes round, it will throw the light furrow into the bottom of the deep one. This repeated over the whole plot will stir the soil sixteen or eighteen inches deep, and put from four to six inches of the top, manure and all, in the bottom, under the other. We have done this admirably with one plow, changing the gauge of the clevis every time round, and going twice in a furrow: this is the best way for those who use but one team in plowing; it is worth much more than the additional time required in plowing. Enrich the surface a little with fine manure, and you have land in the best possible condition for cabbages. This is a fine preparation for onions and other garden vegetables, and for all kinds of berries. Subsoiling is good, but double-plowing is better in all cases, where you can afford to enrich the surface, after this deep plowing.
The alluvial soils of the West need no enriching after double-plowing. Land so level, or having so hard a subsoil as to allow water to stand on it in a wet season, is not good for cabbages. They also suffer more than most crops from drought. One of the most important offices of plenty of manure is its control of the moisture. Land well manured does not so soon feel the effects of drought. One of the best means of preserving moisture about the roots of cabbages, is to put a little manure in the bottom of the holes when transplanting; put it six inches below the surface. Manure from a spent hotbed is excellent for this purpose; it is in the best condition about the time for transplanting cabbages. It is then very wet, and has a wonderful power of retaining the moisture. Manure from the blacksmith-shop, containing hoof-parings, &c., is very good. If the manure be too dry, pour in water and cover immediately. Set the plant in the soil, over the manure, the roots extending down into it, with a little fine mould mixed in it, and it will retain moisture through a severe drought; no further watering will be necessary, and not one out of twenty-five of all your plants will fail to make a good head. In climates subject to drought in summer, cabbages should be set out earlier; they require more time in dry weather than in wet. Should they incline to crack open from too rapid growth, raise them a little, and push them down again; this will break some roots, and so loosen the remainder that the growth will be checked and the heads saved. Winter cabbages should be allowed to stand in the ground as long as possible, without danger of freezing in. The question of transplanting, and of sowing the seed in the places where they are designed to head, has been much controverted. We have succeeded well in both ways, but prefer transplanting; it gives opportunity to stir the ground deep, and keep down weeds, and thus preserve moisture until summer, when it is time to transplant; it also makes shorter, smaller, and straighter stems, which is favorable to a larger growth of heads. Sow seed on poor land; the plants will be straighter, more hardy, and less affected by insects. Seed for early spring cabbages should be sown on poor soil in September or October; if inclined to get too forward, transplant, once or twice; late in fall, set them close together, lay poles in forks of limbs put down for the purpose, and cover with straw, as a protection from severe frost; the poles are to prevent the covering from lying on the plants.
Preserving, for winter or spring use, is best done by plowing a furrow on land where water will not stand, and placing the heads in the furrow with the roots up. Cover with earth from three to six inches deep, letting the roots protrude. The large leaves will convey all the water off from the heads, and they will come out as fresh and good as in the fall. If you wish some, more easily accessible, for winter use, set them in the cellar in a small trench, in which a little water should be kept, and they will not only be preserved fresh, but will grow all winter, if the cellar be free from frost. They are also well preserved put in trenches eighteen inches deep, out door, with a little good soil in the bottom, and protected with poles and straw as directed for winter plants. Cabbages that have scarcely any heads in the fall, so treated, will grow all winter, and come out good, tender, fresh heads in spring.
Transplanting.—This is usually done in wet weather: if it be so wet as to render the soil muddy by stirring, it injures the plants. This may be successfully done in dry weather, not excessively hot. Have a basin of water, in which dip the root and shake it, so as to wash off all the earth from the seed-bed that adheres to it. Put the plant in its place at once, and the soil in which it is to grow takes hold of the roots readily, and nearly every one will live. Transplant with your hand, a transplanting trowel, a stick, or a dibble made of a spade-handle, one foot long, sharpened off abruptly, and the eye left on for a handle. Put the plant in its place, thrust the dibble down at a sharp angle with the plant, and below it, and move it up to it. The soil will thus be pressed close around the roots, leaving no open space, and the plant will grow. Do not leave the roots so long that they will be doubled up in transplanting—better cut off the ends.
Large cabbages should be three feet apart each way, and in perfectly straight rows; this saves expense in cultivating, as it can be done with a horse. The usual objections of farmers to gardening, on account of the time required to hoe and weed, would be remedied by planting in long, straight rows, at suitable distances apart, to allow the free use of horse, cultivator, and plow, in cultivating; thus, beets, carrots, cabbages, onions, &c., are almost as easily raised as corn. An easy method of raising good cabbages is on greensward. Put on a good dressing of manure, plow once and turn over handsomely, roll level, and harrow very mellow on the top, without disturbing the turf below; make places for planting seeds at the bottom of the turf; a little stirring of the surface, and destruction of the few weeds that will grow, will be all the further care necessary. The roots will extend under the sod in the manure below it, and will there find plenty of moisture, even when the surface is quite dry, and will grow profusely.
Seed.—Nothing is more difficult in cabbage culture than raising pure seed; nothing hybridizes worse, and in nothing else is the effect worse. It must not be raised in the same garden with anything else of the cabbage or turnip kind; they will mix in the blossoms, and the worse will prevail. Raise seeds only from the best heads, and only one variety; break off all the lower shoots, allowing only a few of the best to mature. Seeds raised from stumps, from which the head has been removed for use, will incline the leaves to grow down, as we often see, instead of closing up into heads.