BUTTER MAKING - Hon. A. B. DICKINSON, of Hornby, Steuben Co., a practical Farmer of close observation and large experience, has recently published a Letter on the subject of Butter-making, which contains many suggestions which Dairymen may profit by noticing. We copy the following portion:      The churn should be as nearly straight up and down as possible, as the dash should stir all the milk every stroke it makes, so that the butter in the churn should all come at the same time. If the milk is too cold, the only safe way to warm it is to place a pail of milk in a large boiler of warm water, to bring it to the exact temperature. It should be a few degrees warmer in cold than warm weather. As soon as the butter has come and gathered, take it immediately from the churn in its warm state, and put it in a large wooden bowl, which is the best vessel for the purpose; then put it in cold, soft water; then commence pulling the butter over with the ladel in so gentle and careful a manner as not to affect the grain for as sure as that is injured at the washing or working, the butter becomes oily and can never be reclaimed. Every particle of milk must be washed out, and then season with the best of Liverpool salt. Set the bowl away until the next day, and when sufficiently cool, work the mass thoroughly, but not so as to affect the grain, and on the third day pack it away if it has assumed the right color. Examine it well before packing, and be sure there is no milky water runs from it, fas as sure as it is packed with the least drop in the butter, you will hear from it the next March or April. The sooner you dispose of unwashed butter the better, as a little milk would not harm it much for immediate use.      If your spring or well is hard water, I would advise saving ice from rivers or streams, though the water is hard, as the lime never congeals with the ice. Save rain water, and then with ice you will have soft water sufficiently cool to wash your butter, without wich no man nor woman can get the milk out without injuring the grain, so that the injurious effects of the lime-water will not exhibit itself in six months. Soft water is as indispensible to wash butter as fine linen. From all this I do not wish to be understood that washing butter is positively necessary if it is to be used within a few weeks. Jamestown Journal (Jamestown, NY) May 7, 1858; page 2. A VISIT TO A NEW-YORK FARM. Editorial Correspondence of The New-York Tribune. - Lenox, Geneseo Co., Sept. 4, 1858.      I yesterday gratified a wish, long entertained, by visiting the farm of Maj. A. B. Dickinson, in the township of Hornby, Steuben County. The ride thither, eight miles from the Erie Rail Road at Corning, lies through a region well calculated to set off to advantage any good farming that may be discovered at the end of the route, having been despoiled of its natural beauty and grace by the lumberman, and not yet re-created by the husbandman - a region of ragged forests, bushy clearings, scanty crops and thinly scattered habitations, so ill adapted to human comfort that one could hardly wish there were more of them, unless they were better. The road is such as this style of country produces; only at intervals and with difficulty admitting of the passage of one wagon by another. Winding upward through a wide ravine you come at last to the ample farm - some eight hundred acres in area - which Maj. Dickinson has hewed out of the primitive wilderness, while several other farms, surrounding this and adjacent to it, belong to the same owner, and are mainly cultivated under his direction. I spent some five hours - part of them rainy ones - in traversing this "home farm," and gleaning what I could of information and direction for the guidance of younger or less successful farmers from Maj. Dickinson's explanations and answers. Discarding the order of time, I can best condense this information for use by bringing it under heads of Soil, Drainage, Irrigation, Tillage, Crops, &c., I shall now proceed to do.      I. Soil - This is mainly a clay loam, of good medium quality, like that which prevails through the greater portion of Chautaugue and other excellent grazing counties of our State. The timber - mainly Beech, Maple, Hemlock, &c. - was cleared off from ten to thirty years ago. It lies some six to eight hundred feet above the surface of the tributary of the Susquehanna at Corning to which its waters descend, and is not over-looked by any land in its vicinity. For the most part, it slopes moderately to the creek-beds by which it is intersected. There is an abundance of (naturally) quite as good land in our State yet covered by the primitive forest and for sale at $5 to $10 per acre.      II. Draining - I believe there is not a rod of tile laid on this farm, and not a dozen rods of covered slope drain. But the Major has a home-made, or at least home-devised, "bull plow," consisting of a sharp-pointed iron wedge or roller, surmounted by a broad, sharp shank nearly four feet high, with a still sharper cutter in front, and with a beam and handles above all. With five yoke of oxen attached, this plow is put down through the soil and subsoil to an average depth of three feet, in the course which the superfluous water is expected and desired to take; and the field thus plowed through and through at intervals of two rods down to three feet, as the ground is more or less springy and saturated with water. The cut made by the shank closes after the plow and is soon obliterated, while that made the by roller or wedge at the bottom becomes the chanel or a stream of water whenever there is any excess of moisture above its level, which streams tends to clear itself and rather enlarge its channel. From ten to twenty acres per day are thus drained, and Major D. has such drains of fifteen to twenty years standing, which still do good service. In rocky soils, this mode of draining is impracticable; in sandy tracts it would not endure; but here it does very well, and, even though it should hold good in the average but ten years, it would many time repay its cost.      III. Irrigation - Hill's like Major D.'s are apt to have springs near their summits, and his land has many. His mode of draining adds considerably, in effect, to their number. The water flowing from several of these is restrained by dams, forming shallow reservoirs, which are plowed from time to time when empty, so as to render their contents muddy when they shall next be filled; if geese and ducks resort to them or a barn-yard drains into one of them, so much the better. The water thus enriched, and warmed by the heat of the Summer sun is conducted by open ditches, roadside and other, over many adjacent acres, with a resulting increase of fertility marvelous to behold. Hard, white clay is thus transformed into black mold or muck in the course of a few years, producing most luxuriant harvests, especially of grass. It is quite within bounds to estimate the increased yield of Hay because of irrigation at one ton per acre annualy, worth at least $6; while the original cost of irrigation is often less than that sum.      IV. Products. - Grass, Hay and Beef are of course the staple products of such a farm. More than two hundred acres of this "home farm" are annually mowed, yielding from two to four tons per acre, and averaging from 2 1/2 to 3 tons. A single stack near the principal barn contains one hundred and twenty loads, estimated at eight to one hundred tons. Wheat and Indian corn are grown to but a moderate extent; of the latter, one piece, planted June 19 (the incessant rains of the last Spring forbade an earlier preparation), will yield fifty or sixty bushels of shelled corn, with twenty wagon loads of Pumpkins, per acre; another piece is but fair. Of Buckwheat, many acres are growing; it is a good crop, and no more. Turnips, the grasshoppers have taken care of. (It has been dry here for some weeks previous to today, and these cormorants are very abundant.) Of Peas, there is a large and thrifty field, sowed late, and just beginning to blossom. Should frost hold off till October, the yield must be large, and, if sent green to New York, they would probably pay well. The kitchen Garden shows a greater abundance of Beets, Carrots, Parsnips, Onions, &c., than I ever before saw on so small an area. The Grapes are equally luxuriant.      But the pride of the farm is its display of its Potato. Eighty-five acres are covered with the Irish staple, whereof some thirty acres were planted early and are now nearly if not fully ripe, while the residue were put in from the middle to the last of June, and are now just coming into blossom. No where in America, hardly in Ireland itself, were such fields of Potatoes ever seen. They are mainly of Bermuda stock, one remove from the semi-tropical island, the seed having been grown here last year from imported potatoes of that year's growth. The rows, even, were half a mile long, and are straight as an arrow's flight; there is not a weed to each row; and not a missed hill per acre; and in one large field,  not one to ten acres. Should frost hold off the the 1st of October (the usual time on these breezy nights) the yield cannot fall short of three hundred bushels per acre, and may reach four hundred. Nothing like rot is seen, in fact, a glance at those hardy vines, so rank, so green, so thrifty, would convince any one that rot is here all but impossible. Let me give, as well as I may from what I learned on the spot, some notion of the means by which such a result has been so nearly attained: -      The ground is first plowed deeply and thoroughly, each land being marked out by the help of guides, and no crooked furrow allowed, whatever the excuse for it. It is then furrowed three feet apart, with equal exactness as to regularity. A subsoil plow is then run in the furrow, mellowing and pulverizing the soil as great a depth as the strength of the team will allow. The seed, previously cut so as to apportion but two eyes to each piece, is dropped on the mellow soil thus pulverized, being zigzagged from side to side of the furrow, so that, though each piece is distant one foot from the preceding, it is eighteen inches from that which lies directly behind it. A broad two-horse plow follows, convering the potatoes as deeply as possible; then a roller rolls the surface flat and compact, and the planting is done. The next week, the field is thoroughly harrowed, now and then uncovering a potato, but rooting up the embryo weeds and breaking up any crust which may have formed over the sprouting potato. So soon as the rows have fairly appeared, plowing between them is commenced, and continued till the 1st of September - some of these fields having been thus plowed a dozen times, though they were  planted but little more than two months ago. No hoe is taken into the field, but any weed that may have escaped the harrow and the plow is pulled out by hand. Of this, however, there is little to do. When the crop is ripe, a potato-digger drawn by two horses turns them out as fast as ten men can pick them up, and thus the work is done. I estimate that this year's crop delivered at Corning will cost Maj. Dickinson $50 per acre, and that (should no untimely frost blast his hopes) they will sell there for $150 per acre, giving him a clear profit of at least $5,000, and perhaps $8,000 on his potato-crop alone. For 1858, I call that doing well.      - The principal, almost the only, fertilizer applied to these spacious potato-fields was Turf Ashes, prepared by the process I shall now endeavor to describe.      V. Paring and Burning. - I have read much of this process in English works, but, like most people, I had little faith in what I was grossly ignorant of. I here saw it in progress, and will endeavor to give some idea of it.      Along the sides of the road, there is apt to be a pretty thick turf, especially where the soil is clayey and moist and has not been disturbed for years. This is plowed up thoroughly and left to dry a few days; then a fire is kindled upon one end of it, fed by any chips roots, pieces of stumps, &c., which may be accessible, and when well started the dryest sods are piled on, then others, until a small pit is constructed, from which a white smoke faintly issues. While this was indling, the operator has started another; while this is getting hold, he is covering this, and so on. Two hours after starting, a week's rain would not extinguish one of these pits; it may burn more slowly, but, with a few sods thrown on whenever the fire seems on the point of bursting out, it will burn till the last turf has become ashes. The land being plowed, Maj. D. estimates that a good, experienced hand will turn two hundred bushels per day, and that one hundred bushels will sufice for an ancre of potatoes. The total cost of the two hundred bushels will not exceed $2; their value is from $12 to $20. Of course any other grass land may answer as well for this purpose as roadsides; but where these are abundant and convenient, there is no need of looking further. And, though it is very true that gravelly or sandy lands afford no turf equal in value to that obtained from clay loam, yet I doubt if there is one farmer in our state who might not obtain suitable turf at little or no cost if he would. Here is one who will try.      Salt and Plaster are extensively used as fertilizers by Maj. D. He procures the former (refuse salt) by the boat-load from Syracuse, at a cost here of some twenty cents per bushel. Plaster costs him $1 per ton at Corning. He attributes his immunity from rust in good part to salt. As to plaster, he considers it good if applied to any crop at any time, but he uses most of it on grass land, especially on meadows. I am not sure whether it was he or another friend who said he should prefer to sow it immediately after taking off a crop of Hay.      VI. Fruit. - The number of his fruit-trees is moderate, but they are very thrifty. His is confident that he can take cherry trees already covered with Black Knot and cause the disease to disappear and the tree become perfectly healthy. His prescriptions, aside from careful and thorough setting, generous manuring and good mulching, are washing with strong ley every other fall (to destroy eggs deposited in crevices of the bark) and placing a handfull of soft soap in the crotch of each tree in the spring, to be gradually dissolved and smeared over the trunk by the rains of spring and summer, to the intense disgust of all aspiring insects. I did not see a caterpillar's nest on one of his trees.      - So much for the famous farm, on which I spent an agreeable though not an idle day. Doubtless, I have in some respects misapprehended or misrecollecte what was told me; but on one point I am not mistaken - namely, that the product of this farm is more than double per acre than of any other in its neighborhood. Why this is, I have endeavored to ascertain and to set forth. Imperfectly as I may have succeeded, there are not many farmers who may not derive valuable hints from this hasty account of a farm among the hills of Steuben. H.G. Albany Evening Journal (Albany, NY) September 28, 1858, page 2.