The next time it was made it had the same fault; and it then occurred to me that it might be the churn. I accordingly returned to my old mode of washing it, and never after was there a complaint of any unpleasant flavor in the butter.
I mention this to show the amateur dairywoman how very essential is cleanliness in every article she uses. A regular dairymaid would have known this, but a town-servant thinks that if she washes a thing it is sufficient: but more than mere washing is required; every article must be scrubbed with soap, wood-ashes, and soda, and then placed for hours in the open air.
Now glass is much easier kept sweet and clean, and for that reason is greatly to be preferred; but I am writing for those who may wish to reap profit from their "farm of four acres," and I fear little would be gained if nothing but glass were used in the dairy.
Our land turned out better the second summer than the first. We made nearly two tons and a half of hay from each acre. We were enabled to mow the whole three acres, as we had "common rights" in our neighborhood, where the cows could pasture during the spring. Had we been without this privilege we could have mown only two acres, and as hay was $21 the load, the additional acre was worth $50 to us, with the exception of $3 75 for making it. We were advised to have an after-crop, but did not; it would have made the land very poor for the next year, so that what we gained in hay we must have expended in manure.
We were well satisfied with the profit we derived from our pigs during this second six months. All the summer we kept four, at an expense of fifty-eight cents weekly, which was expended for two bushels of fine pollard (bran and meal).
We had such an abundance of vegetables from the garden and orchard, that we must have wasted cartloads, if we had not kept pigs to consume them. As soon as the hay was carried they were turned into the meadows, and suffered to remain there till they were put up to fatten; a process which pigs must go through, though ducks can dispense with it. I have already stated the expense of fattening them, and we never found it vary more than a shilling or two in a pig.
We always found for our family that a bacon pig of sixteen stone (244 pounds) was the best size, and for porkers about eight (112 pounds).
Our fruit was as plentiful as our vegetables,—indeed we might have sold the surplus for many dollars; but we soon found that to do so was to lose caste in the neighborhood. One piece of extravagance we were guilty of the first winter and spring we passed at A. The gardener had a little fire in the grapery during the severe weather, because he had placed some plants in it. We were told we could continue it till the grapes ripened for a "mere nothing." Now "mere nothings" mount up to a "considerable something." The coal and coke consumed before they were ripe cost $20. It is true we had them in July instead of September, but we should have liked them quite as well in that month.
It was a bad grape year, too,—at least with us. I don't think we cut more than twenty pounds weight. Hothouse grapes are not dear at $1 the pound; but we should have had them equally good by waiting two months later, when they would have cost us nothing.
Had we purchased the produce we received from our garden during the year, it would have been worth two guineas weekly. Our peaches, apricots, and nectarines, were abundant, and very fine. We had two splendid walnut-trees, and a mulberry-tree of immense size, which was an object of special abhorrence to "nurse," as for more than two months in the summer the children's frocks, pinners, &c., were dyed with the juice of the fruit. They could hardly pass near it in the season without some of the ripe berries falling on their heads, and it was hardly possible to prevent them escaping from her to pick them up. Mulberry-pudding made its appearance often on the nursery-table, and jars of mulberry-jam were provided to secure the same dainty through the winter.