Philadelphia, Nov. 6th, 1843.

Noticing in your October number an account of a dairy on Long Island, I am induced to give you a description of one in this vicinity. Mr. Henry Charley has a dairy farm near Laurel Hill, where he keeps from 40 to 50 cows, consisting of Ayrshire, Holderness, Alderny, Durham, and a few natives; but mostly crossed with a fine, thorough-bred Short-Horn bull, and is raising full bloods, and high grades of this breed as fast as possible. He makes veal of his bull-calves, and raises all his best heifer-calves from his best cows for his own use. I found the cows luxuriating in a rich clover pasture when I visited them last summer between 2 and 3 o'clock, the hour for afternoon milking, from which they were taken by the herdsman, and driven half a mile to the barn. This is a stone building 100 feet long, 46 feet wide, with a wing of 60 feet, the same width as the barn, high walls, and steep roof, which make it capable of holding a great quantity of fodder, consisting last year mostly of cornstalks, (some of which he bought very cheap of his neighbors, while others let theirs stand in the field and this spring raked them up and burned them,) rye straw, and oats unthrashed, all of which he cuts and steams—sometimes with a little hay cut also and mixed with the above articles. These are all steamed together, or each separately, (as best suits the appetites of the cows) in a large vat, connected with a pipe through which the steam passes from the boiler, which stands in a room adjoining with stone or ground floor. The chimney is of sheet-iron running up through the roof, and coal used for fuel, renders the risk for insurance at a very low rate. The water is supplied from a spring running into the yard, and thence through a pipe into the boiler. The cows are also watered from the same when the weather is stormy in winter, and they are not allowed to go out. But to return from this digression. After the fodder is sufficiently cooked, which takes but a short time, it is taken out into other larger vats or troughs, with scoop shovels, and there left to cool; then a suitable portion of Indian meal or ground rye, buck-wheat, or oats, or any two or all four mixed and ground together, (which in my opinion would be better,) adding a portion of ship-stuffs, shorts, or even bran. This is the food for the cows at all seasons, except when there is a full supply of grass. They are driven to a woods pasture for exercise and air when there is little or no grass. Air and exercise are indispensably necessary for the health of cows, and without these, the milk will always be more or less unhealthy, according to the nature of their confinement.

When the cows were brought into the yard, I was puzzled to know how they were to be handled; but the stable doors being thrown open, each cow entered the door nearest her stall, and went to it with as much regularity as a young miss goes to her seat in a boarding-school. There is a drop in the floor immediately behind the cows, 14 inches wide and 4 inches deep; into this all the excrements fall, the water running off immediately to a reservoir prepared for the purpose of receiving it; this, together with all the manure, was taken away daily, and put upon the land or crops or in a heap to make compost; so that the premises were kept perfectly clean and sweet. The floor was covered with a thin bed of cut straw, which was passed off with the manure as it became soiled, and by being cut, worked immediately into and incorporated itself with the manure, without vexing the husbandman or gardener as long green manure so frequently does. The floor behind the cows, between the trough to catch the liquid and the wall, is six feet wide, with strong plank platforms or tables on which to set the vessels containing the milk. There is an open space directly over the vat for steaming, where all the feed is cut and passed down through a hopper into the vat; also, hoppers or spouts leading from the meal room over head directly into the vats, which contain the steamed feed for cooking. The mangers in which the cows are fed are broad, so that the food may be thrown into them with scoop shovels without waste, of which I found nothing of the kind about the whole premises. If a little too much feed is given to one animal, and consequently left, it is carefully scraped out and fed to one having a better appetite; thus the mangers were kept clean and sweet. Mr. Charley feeds roots, but to what extent I did not learn. I hope he may be induced to write you a letter, giving a description of his cutting machine, which does its work better than any one I have ever seen; having two blades coming together like shears, cutting corn-stalks through their joints with as much apparent ease as a pair of tailor's shears would cut a thread.

There is a stable for dried cows which were feeding for the butcher. Box stalls are provided for cows about to calve; the young cattle are kept by themselves, as are also the calves. Mr. Charley was not at home when I visited his dairy; but this disappointment to me was made up by the kind Mrs. C., who, with justifiable pride, showed me her spring house with its large copper caldron for scalding her milk tubs, pans, pails, churns, &c. &c., in the best of order, all of which she personally superintends and looks after; and whenever there is an overstock of milk for city customers, it is here converted into butter of the choicest quality, and each market-day finds her at her stand with her butter and lots of garden vegetables, the raising of which she also superintends and takes into the city at the dawn of day. That some families are sick and others miserably poor, is not strange, to one who looks behind the curtain and sees what can never otherwise be described.

S. A.

For the American Agriculturist.