DAIRY FIXTURES. The principal appa ratus for large dairies should be, a steam engine, or other means for heating and power, cheese presses, cheese vats, curd cutters, dippers, pans, or other utensils. for setting milk and raising cream; also churns, butter table and worker, pails, and cans for milk, and packages for ship ping the merchantable commodities. (See But' ter, Cheese, etc.) These of course will be of the latest and most improved forms. In the article of cloths, to be used in bandaging cheese, it is now manufactured especially for the pur pose; so also, are the boxes for packing, and the dairyman can now order just such fixture for one, or of any required size for the other. Annotto is now prepared with special relation to the wants of the dairyman, and so are all of the other materials needed. Hoops for holding the cheese while being pressed, are now made of various materials, the best probably, being those of galvanized iron, turned over stout wire at the top and bottom. Bent hoops of elm or hickory, and those made of wooden staves, handed with iron, are also in use, but are decidedly inferior, since they are much more difficult to keep clean. (See article Cheese.) On page 261 we have shown some of the most approved forms of dairy fixtures: Fig. 1, heater; Fig. 2, perpendicular gang curd knife; Fig. 3, horizontal curd knife; Fig. 4, cheese hoop; Fig. 5, a modern cream raising apparatus; and Fig. 6, one of its cans.
DAN. The use of dams and embankments, to form reservoirs of water, is important in dry localities and countries, as a means of securing a supply in times of drought, when the supply is not easily reached near the surface. As a means of securing power for mechanical purposes' the use is in agriculture; nevertheless, there are many situations where two purposes may be subserved in this way, that of forming a never failing pond of water for stock, during the dry season, and of supplying power for running various farm machinery, during the spring, late autumn and much of the time in winter.
No specific directions can be given for the for mation of dams or embankments. When the head is not more than four or five feet, a simple' embankment of earth to be protected from the burrowing of musk-rats and other water animals, by means of planks,' set upright, edge to edge, closely, and at least two feet below the bottom of the pond. with a waste way in the most con venient place, to allow the surplus water to pass off freely; this will be all that will be neces sary when the head is of a height sufficient to endanger the bank by the overflow of water. We give an illustration showing how an em bankment may be built in a depression, showing pond of water and trees ten years planted. The earth excavated to deepen the pond may form the embankment. This may be cheaply done by any of the modern scrapers which dump without' stopping the team, and at the same time the operator may spread the earth, so but little levelling will be needed. Dams may sometimes be made to serve the purpose of furnishing a supply of water to the house and out-buildings, when the elevation of the locality contaiuing water is sufficiently above the buildings to form a sufficient head when conducted in underground pipes. Thus the water of a higher level, by means of a suitable dam, may be made to operate a f9untain and supply ornamental and other ponds and streams near the dwelling. So, again, water is sometimes conducted in underground pipes, where the level of the pond is not much below the level of the barn, and the water is pumped, by wind or other power, thence into a tank, placed at a sufficient height, for distribu tion. The pipes for conducting the water must be quite tight, and of sufficient strength to resist the strain, according to the height of the water head. Thus, the pipes may be conducted over inequalities in the land, care being taken that at no place they rise higher than the pond or pool from which the water is taken.