and thirty-eight cents, and the lowest ninety-nine cents. Compare the average returns per cow with the average selling price of the factory and the pounds of milk required to make a pound of cheese in order to determine how much of the large yield per cow was due to the dairyman, and how much to the cheese-maker and salesman. In the factory reporting the highest average per cow, $55.07, the selling price of the season averaged 14.11c., and the milk taken was 9.67 pounds to a pound of cheese. Comparing this with the lowest average per cow, $31.22, I find that the latter sold cheese for one quarter of a cent less per pound through the season, and used nearly one-half pound more milk to a pound of cheese on an average. But this difference in manufacture and price can form only a very small part of the difference between the low mark at 31 and the high mark at 55 dollars.

The main points in the profitability of dairies are vested in the farm, not in the factory, as the following figures show: Of the dairies sending milk to the sixty factories, the best season's average per cow is $82,17, and the average of all the highest dairies reported by the factories is $50.04. The lowest yield in a single dairy, carrying to the factory during a long season, is $14.50 average money to a cow, and the average of all the poor dairies reported is $29.34 per cow.

FANCY BUTTER.

Prof. Wetherell said what we want is to get the farmers up to the highest standard of butter making, and if we have our market reports, let us know from them what is the highest as well as the lowest price that is paid for it. In this way we shall awaken the inquiry among the people as to how butter is made which commands 75 cents to one dollar per pound.

Prof. Arnold says that some of the highest priced butter that finds its way to market would not keep. It is sold fresh from the churn, every day or every week, and has the aroma of freshmade butter that will not keep.

Mr. Bliss said from his observation of the markets, he has found that what he called "Orange county butter," which brings fancy prices in market, cannot be produced in Vermont. We can only make a standard article that has the keeping qualities, which the Orange county butter has not.

A MODEL DAIRY-ROOM

Mr. A. M. Foster, of Cabot, asked Prof. Arnold to describe a model dairy-room.

Mr. Arnold said, the most that is wanted for the room is to have it close, double-walled, and so it could be kept free from the influence of the outside atmosphere. He preferred the large pans, and would have them large enough for each to hold a milking of his cows; and for the minor details, they must be left to individual preference. He preferred Prof. Wilkinson's system of subterranean ventilation and explained the method of arranging it. The arrangement cannot easily be described. Prof. Wilkinson's own description calls it his "gulf-stream" dairy arrangement, by which, by connecting milk-houses with ice-houses, and building a pool which extends in part beneath the ice and part in the milk-house, he secures a change of water continually, the cooled water under the ice continually taking the place of the warmed water in the milk-house. This change of water will continue so long as the water in one part of the long pool becomes heated by the introduction of the milk. There are points in the plan which are worthy of consideration by all who are in contemplation of milk-rooms. He said that it is important that a dairy-room be made tight;, and to this. end it was necessary that there should be a dead-air space between the walls, so that the temperature of the rooms will be completely under the control of the dairyman. He recommended that the walls be covered with paper, with solid sills, double doors and windows, and all so arranged that there could be no influence on the air in the room from the heat or cold outside. There should be a uniform temperature, if the dairyman would succeed in making butter."

HOW TO MAKE DAIRY FARMING PROFITABLE.

Prof. Leander Wetherill, editor of the Boston Cultivator, read a paper on "How to make Dairy Farming Profitable."

Mr. Wetherell said he accepted the invitation to this meeting, with a view to co-operating with the farmers of Vermont in promoting the interests of the dairy. He said he had heard a gentleman say, to-day, that it is very easy for men to tell the results of dairy products, but why don't they tell us how to do it? He said that was just what was wanted by the people. We desire knowledge on a given subject, and not mere opinions; and his desire this

evening would be to give some hints as to how to make dairy farming profitable.

His observation in this country led him to believe that the best cow, for all the practical purposes of the farmer, is produced by a cross breed between the Short-horns and the Native cow. Such a cross would give the best and largest quantity of milk, and also was the best for beef. He said, also, that the larger breeds, like the Short-horns, would give a larger product of milk for the feed given them, than would be obtained from the smaller breeds, like the Devons, the Ayrshires or the Jerseys; from which he was led to prefer the larger kinds of stock. The cow, the dairymen's factor, is, so to speak, a machine for converting forage into milk, veal, beef, and butter and cheese made of milk. Call the first cost of the machine for making milk $100; it must be kept running day and night, summer and winter, Sundays as well as other days. Suppose it takes 15 pounds of hay a day to run this machine, 20 pounds if she were not comfortably and well housed in cold weather, say 2 to 3 tons of hay a year-this will barely keep the machine running. If not thus furnished the machine stops. If 20 pounds of hay, or its equivalent be required to keep the cow alive, then the owner of the machine gets nothing. Give her 25 pounds, and she gives him 5 pounds of milk equal to one-half pound of cheese a day; give her 30 pounds, and he gets one pound of cheese a day, or 365 pounds a year, or its equivalent. In this calculation, 30 pounds of hay per day, produces 633 pounds of cheese for each ton of hay; 40 pounds of hay per day, would yield 100 pounds of cheese from each tou of hay. On this hypothesis, a ton of hay in excess of the amount necessary to keep up the animal heat and sustain vitality, gives 200 pounds of cheese. Thus it is desirable to get cows that will yield most over the cost of keeping, or of running the machine. If a cow eat 33 pounds a day, or its equivalent of grass. it will require four acres, at 1 tons per acre, to keep a cow a year, which, according to the present hypothesis, would produce 4014 pounds of cheese a year. A farm of 30 acres would support twenty cows, yielding 8000 pounds of cheese; increase the productiveness of the farm one-half, and keep twenty cows that will eat one-half as much again, and we should then get 21,600 pounds of cheese.

If the cheese be worth 15 cents a pound, a farm of 80 acres, at 14 tons per acre, with 20 cows, would give a return of $1,024 50;

increase this by improvement to 24 tons per acre, the 20 cows eating and digesting it, and you have a gross return of $3,240. Thus it is shown that a cow eating six tons of hay, or its equivalent, a year, would produce 400 pounds of cheese per annum, worth $60; while a cow eating and digesting nine tons, would produce 1,090 pounds of cheese, worth $163 50. But, it is said, it would be impossible to get nine tons of hay into a cow's stomach during the year; then he would advise farmers to breed up to that point. To do it, he would select a thorough-bred Short-Horn bull, of the Duchess or Princess family of Bates, and use him on his best cows, and thus breed a good herd of milch cows. No breed of cattle equal these families of Short-Horns, unless it be the Holstein, in converting food into growth and milk; crossed on our native stock, and you get some making 600 pounds of cheese in a season-$90 per cow a year, and a calf worth $20 or upwards.

Mr. Wetherell then gave the record of Mr. Henry Saltonstall's seven-eighths Jersey cow, "Sibyl," which showed that she had produced 13,065 pounds of milk in 365 days, or a little over 64 tons of milk, an average of 35 5-7 pounds per day. Her feed during the year was old upland pasture in summer, with cut corn-fodder in August at night, about a bushel of grain in all between grass and root time, and in winter, what hay she would eat clean, and a peck of roots a day. In July, she made 124 pounds of butter per week. "Sibyl" was bred by Thomas Motley, of Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, probably one of the best breeders of Jersey stock in the country.

In closing, Mr. Wetherell briefly alluded to what had been termed the "drudgery" of the farmer's life, and repudiated the too often accepted theory that there was more of "drudgery" in farmwork than in that of other occupations.

Dr. Horace P. Wakefield, Principal of the State Primary School at Monson, Mass., was next called upon, and gave an account of the management of the farm under his charge. He preferred Ayrshires as the best breed of cows for butter and cheese makers, and gave his methods of feeding-every day in the year a feed of hay, wet with cold water in summer and warm in winter, and sprinkled with wheat-bran. He believed such feed best for dairy cows.

Mr. O. S. Bliss, secretary of the association, then called upon Gov. Hyde, of Connecticut, to give the association some account of

the Devon stock, to which call he responded that the Devons are not regarded as a desirable breed for beef. He said that each and all the different breeds of cattle had their merits, and farmers must adapt their stock to their land. He had tried the Ayrshire, and did not succeed, as he believed. from the fact that his soil was not adapted to that breed of cattle. He was compelled to keep Devons because they were best adapted to his soil and feed. He could not give statistics in regard to any of the breeds, as he had none with him. The Devons, with him, gave more milk and 25 per cent more butter from the same feed. He said that offers had been made to put the Devons in competition with other breeds, without finding any one to take the offer. He had 24 pounds of butter per day from some of his cows; they being fed two quarts of corn-meal per day, in connection with the ordinary pasture feed. While the Devons are small, they have a rotundity and beauty that certainly excels; and when put upon the scales they always disappoint in the right direction. He said that animals should be bred for especial purposes, and he had bred the Devons particularly for milking and dairy purposes. Animals that had been bred with a view to their value for beef, would prove a failure when the attempt is made to make milkers of them.

UNLIMITED MARKETS AND GOOD PROSPECTS.

Mr. Wickson then gave instances of successful dairying in his vicinity, and of the success that has attended skilled breeding with a view to milk-producing qualities, and closed by giving some practical suggestions.

The speaker alluded first to the market as the ultimate test of value and quality in any variety of dairy produce. A knowledge and full understanding of the requirements of the market lie at the foundation of the dairymen's success.

The influence of the trade is toward the sending of a more uniform product from the factories. There are different kinds of cheese wanted. There is white cheese and cheese of deep and light color; there are different sizes and shapes; there is a demand for different degrees of firmness. In each of these classes of demand there may be standards.

Of course, making cheese must always be an intelligent operation because of the variableness of the agencies employed, but there can be a greater uniformity in the mechanical departments.