26 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Cattle Foods and Methods of Producing Tliem; 



BY A . W . CHEEVER, 



Agricultural Editor "New England Farmer." 



Mr. CJiairman,, and Ladies and Gentlemen: 



I am very glad that the subject for our consideration this after- 

 noon is so closely related to the one treated by the lecturer of the 

 forenoon. Had the Secretar}' of your Board of Agriculture, when 

 selecting- topics for discussion here to-day, given you a lecture in 

 the morning on cattle breeding, in the afternoon on horticulture, 

 and in the evening on the education of farmers' sons, 30U might 

 have found it a little difficult to "switch off'" from one train of 

 thought to another more or less remote. In conventions like these 

 you are holding I like to see the subjects investigated as far as may 

 be, — clear to the bottom, and all difficulties arising, met and over- 

 come, or the methods of meeting them clearly pointed out. 



In the lecture of the morning, Mr. Barnes endeavored to show 

 you wh}' j'our cheese factory enterprise has not had a greater suc- 

 cess, and chief among the reasons given is the fact that you sent 

 too little milk to the factory. You built a fine, large structure, and 

 fitted it up with all the appliances for making a large amount of 

 cheese, but failed to furnish the one essentail factor — milk. He 

 tells 3'ou, that you not only send too little milk while the season 

 lasts, but you make the season too short at both ends. Carrying 

 on a business of this kind in a small, half hesitating way, the profits 

 are necessarily small, and this leads to the temptation of hiring cheap 

 help, "which is often the dearest in the end. Having compared the 

 profits of 3'our factory with the one at Houlton, he has shown you, 

 not only that one is earning for its patrons nearly twice as much as 

 the other, but that the product of one factory is establishing a rep- 

 utation in the market, which will allow of a great increase in the 

 amount of goods manufactured, with no danger of over-stocking the 

 market. 



