SECRETARY'S REPORT. 35 



or about sixteen millions of pounds. A writer in the Journal of 

 Commerce states that from a careful examination of the Custom 

 House records at New York, it appears that the exports of cheese 

 in the year 1859 amounted to 9. 28^,000 lbs. ; in 1860 to 23,252,000 

 lbs., and in 1861 to 40,041,000 lbs. This includes probably not 

 only what was shipped from New York to Great Britain, but to 

 the West Indies, California, and elsewhere. 



It would seem, therefore, that the foreign demand has of late 

 been increasing far more rapidly than the production here ; and 

 when we bear in mind the very high prices which beef and mutton 

 command in England — that to be sold fresh they must be produced 

 on the spot — that to make cheese there, costs the dairyman not less 

 than twelve to fifteen cents per pound ;* that it can be easily and 

 cheaply exported to arrive there in good condition ; there can be 

 little doubt that the foreign demand will continue to increase to a 

 very great extent, if we only produce an article which gives ample 

 satisfaction. 



With the foregoing considerations before us, I respectfully sub- 

 mit that the cheese dairy oifers a very promising field of enterprise 

 for the farmers of Maine. That the amount of butter might be in- 

 creased to advantage, and that its quality, as a whole, by the 

 bestowal of more skill and care, might be greatly improved, I also 

 believe, but inasmuch as the quality of butter depends so greatly 

 upon the flavor and quality of the summer feed, it is doubted if any 

 amount of skill and care would raise it at once to an equality with 

 THE BEST made in sections more highly favored by nature ; nor at 

 all, until our pastures are greatly improved. But for cheese, the 

 quality of which depends principally on the mode of manufacture, 

 we need only skill and enterprise to render its extensive produc- 

 tion at once a very profitable undertaking. The price which cheese 

 bears with us, as might be expected, is higher than where more 

 plentifully manufactured. I found only one instance during the 

 past summer in Androscoggin, Franklin, Oxford or Cumberland 

 counties, where the farmers were getting less than ten cents for 



* Morton's Cyclopedia of Agriculture gives the cost of producing a gallon of milk 

 in Gloucestershire — cows fed on grass and hay, and sold lean when unfit for dairy 

 purposes — at 6 l-8d (12 1-4 cents,) and in Cheshire — cows at pasture in summer, 

 with turnips and a little cut grain in winter — 6 l-2d (13 cents,) The price 

 realized — made into cheese — is 7 3-4d (15 1-2 cents) in Gloucestershire, and 7 7-8d 

 in Cheshire — 15 3-4 cents per gallon. 



