DAIRY MEETING. 1 29 



keeping cows and producing all the milk I could, and I was 

 breeding- up a few cattle. I bought a full blood Durham bull and 

 raised up a herd of 40 cows from that sire, and I am going to 

 stand here and say that it was as good a herd of cows as I ever 

 owned in m\- life. Unfortunately, they were burned vip and I lost 

 that breed. Then I commenced with the Holsteins. At that time 

 there were but few of that breed in this section. A young man 

 bought a Holstein sire and brought him into the town and I gave 

 him $30 for 20 calves, and raised them. They were nice looking 

 calves but when I got them up to cows they were not good for 

 milking purposes. I was disappointed in them and turned them 

 away for beef. But another sire came into the town and we pat- 

 ronized that one and finally 1 bought him and we raised up an- 

 other herd of grade Holsteins and there was not a poor one in 

 the whole lot. Everybody had a good cow who patronized that 

 sire, and that blood still exists in my neighborhood and town. 

 They were fine, beautifully shaped animals. Generally the larger 

 the cow the poorer the quality of the milk. That first sire was 

 from the Aggasiz family, a great large fellow ; the other one 

 was from the Mercedes and it was a compact built animal. The 

 Holstein people saw that they were breeding their cattle too 

 large. The quality of the milk was not good enough. They 

 began to breed for a better quality of milk and began to run the 

 size down a little, and today the Holstein cows are better cows 

 for milk than they were 25 years ago — for quality, not for quan- 

 tity. What was done with that Durham and Devon cross of 

 cattle? In 1890 a depreciation in the beef growing interests 

 struck this country, and farmers could not live by raising beef. 

 They did not turn away those beautiful steers for cows because 

 they wanted to, they did it because they had to. The time the 

 beef growing interests were the hardest in Maine was the time 

 just after the West was settled and eastern money had gone out 

 there, and the ranches had been built up and cattle had been 

 bred until there were 1,000 cattle to every 100 inhabitants. That 

 was too many, and the price went down. We had no foreign 

 markets and we could not handle the beef products of the coun- 

 try at a high price. Hence the farmers of Maine had to accept 

 dairying. It was a good business ; it has always been a good 

 business. But to accept dairying they needed a better cow, and 

 they took the Jerseys, and within the last 25 years the Jersey 



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