ust, 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
possib