No. 105.] 59 



In the town of Hamburgh, which is also in Erie county, there are 

 milked 2,698 cows, from which are made 181,068 pounds of butter ', 

 and 157,845 pounds of cheese. There are several other towns in Erie, 

 and a number in Chautauque and Cattaraugus counties, where the 

 dairy business is carried on to a large extent, and with good profits. 

 The counties of Herkimer, Oneida, Chenango, Broome, Lewis and 

 Jefferson, in the central part of the State, not to name Orange, 

 Otsego, Delaware and St. Lawrence, which I have not visited, have 

 Ions been noted for their excellent dairies. 



Care in breeding and keeping cows, with crosses from the finest 

 imported animals, has given to the dairymen of this State, thousands 

 of milkers, which with the same quantity and quality of food, cannot 

 be beaten the world over. There may be, and doubtless are many 

 larger cows, and those that give more milk, and make more butter 

 and cheese per head ; but it will be found that the increase of food 

 equals, if it does not exceed the increase of milk and butter. 



The quality and flavor of milk have been much improved by drain- 

 ing wet pastures^ and sowing thereon lime, ashes and bone dust. 

 The effect of these fertilizers has been to sweeten the soil, and 

 greatly improve the grasses that grow on the same. Rich and finely 

 flavored butter and cheese, must not be expected, unless the food of 

 the cow is highly charged with the aromuj or essential oil, peculiar 

 to superb butter. 



Close observation and the deductions of science, alike indicate the 

 importance of having the soil free of an excess of moisture, and to 

 contain a full supply of alkalies and phosphates to grow plants that 

 abound in oil, sugar, starch, gum and caseum or cheese. Corn scat- 

 tered broadcast at the rate of four bushels per acre, and cured like 

 oats, is beginning to be used as fall and winter food for milch cows, 

 with signal success. In the best dairies, cows are housed much of 

 the time, in clean, warm, and well ventilated stables in cold weather. 

 Near cities where the milk is more valuable, and land higher in price, 

 soiling is beginning to be practised, and is found to answer a good 

 purpose. By carefully saving the manure of the cows, and diluting 

 it, (both dung and urine) with four times its bulk of water, and 

 watering the field from whence the food was taken, with this liquid, 

 a prodigious increase of vegetation has been obtained. This system 

 literally replaces in a soluble form, to the roots of grass, the very 



