DAIRY MEETING. 145 



and labor lost. Better for the calf and less labor, to be fed on 

 the dry hay at the barn with their ration of skim-milk. 



In closing I wish to say that perhaps some of my practices 

 which I have here laid down as necessary for others to follow 

 may seem trifling and unimportant. But I wish to say they are 

 the price to be paid for reliable and continued success. Given 

 a calf well born, and the course I have prescribed, followed to 

 the letter, and a sound, healthy, vigorous and thrifty heifer is 

 insured, one that will grow up into a cow that will be the pride 

 of her owner. And besides, it costs not a whit more to do these 

 things in the right way. and win success, than to follow the 

 wrong course and invite failure. 



THE PRODUCTION AND HANDLING OF SWEET 



CREAM. 



By J. D. McEdwards, Livermore Falls. 



I have been in the creamery business or farming all my life, 

 and I will try to give you a little of my experience, although I 

 have not had time to prepare a paper. The sale and production 

 of sweet cream is a great factor in this State. I remember 

 my first experience in farming. I was born on a farm, and my 

 early days there have always been the memory of my life, one 

 that I shall never forget, especially when my father would call 

 up stairs at four o'clock in the morning (there were three boys 

 of us) "Boys, get up!" We would go out to the barn, and we 

 did not have barns such as some of those here in Maine. Occa- 

 sionally the wind would blow through the windows, the dressing 

 would be frozen and we would have to cut it with an axe. We 

 would sit down and milk the cows, and sometimes it was 30° 

 below zero. In the summer time they would switch the flies oflf 

 and switch my face, and in the winter time the dressing would 

 cover the cows, so that my recollection of the farm is not very 

 pleasant, but my sympathy has been with the farmer and I have 

 been connected with him all my life. W^hat we have to fight 

 most in the production of sweet cream is bacteria, in other 

 words, dirt. Most of this dirt comes from the udder and sides 

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