SECRETARY'S REPORT. Qg 



indifferent. All would be good, each best for its own specialty, 

 all profitable ; and should the price of wool tumble to-morrow to 

 old rates, the operation would be as judicious and as safe to-day, 

 as it would have been three, or five, or ten years ago. 



The Dairy. My object at this time is more particularly to call 

 attention to the dairy. As will be seen by reference to the vote 

 of the Board of Agriculture, passed at its last session, given on 

 page 59, I was instructed so to do in this report ; and the duty is 

 an agreeable one, convinced as I am that that is a very important 

 branch of stock husbandry, and well deserving greater attention 

 at the hands of the farmers of Maine than it has yet received. 

 Prof Low, in his excellent work on the Domesticated Animals of 

 Great Britain, says, " The dairy is a branch of rural industry de- 

 serving of attention in the highest degree. There are no other 

 means known to us by which so great a quantity of animal food 

 can be derived for human support from the same space of ground." 



The capability of the State of Maine for the production of butter 

 I assume to have been sufficiently proved by the fact that it has 

 been made in quantities nearly or quite sufficient for the wants of 

 its inhabitants. It is true that more or less butter is annually 

 brought into the State for consumption, but the amount is com- 

 paratively small, and at the same time some which is made here is 

 sold to go out. As good butter, too, has been and is every year 

 made here as any which is brought in, and if this be true of only a 

 part, it proves rather a lack of skill or of care in the manufacture, 

 or of proper attention to pastures, than any lack of capability. 



The manufacture of cheese within the State is far more limited 

 than that of butter, and the assumption above made regarding 

 butter could not be made in respect to cheese, and the little which 

 is made is disposed of near by. Maine cheese is scarcely known as 

 an article of commerce in most of our larger towns and manufac- 

 turing villages. So far from exporting any, or even supplying our 

 own wants, we import largely. Probably very few farmers have 

 any adequate idea of the amount or proportion of the cheese con- 

 sumed in the State which is brought from other States. 



It is next to impossible to ascertain precisely the facts of the 

 case, but the opinion expressed by those of whom inquiry has been 

 made on this point, and who, from their position, have the best 

 opportunities for judging correctly, is that not less than three- 



