58 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



HOW TO LESSEN THE COST OF PRODUCING A 



POUND OF BUTTER FAT. 



By Prof. C. L. Beach, Burlington, Vt. 



Specialized dairying has recently celebrated her Golden Jubi- 

 lee, her fiftieth anniversary, as we might say. I refer to the 

 national dairy exhibit at Chicago in October. It was a very 

 interesting and profitable exhibit for one to study. All the 

 appliances which are used in the handling of milk and the manu- 

 facture of butter were on exhibition ; all kinds of separators, 

 combined churns and workers, cream ripeners, starter cans, all 

 sorts of appliances for bottling, sterilizing and pasteurizing 

 milk, — everything one could think of to use in any way in the 

 creamery or the farm dairy, or in the care of dairy cattle. On 

 the other side of the exhibit were 600 dairy cattle, some of the 

 finest animals which exist in this country. It was a wonderful 

 exhibit, and I can imagine that an elderly man, or even a middle 

 aged dairyman who reviewed that exhibit, might have said to 

 himself, perhaps rather thoughtfully and sorrowfully, something 

 like this : If I could have had these opportunities when I started 

 out in life, I might have made more of a success. And there 

 is some truth in that, too, because the most of those appliances 

 have been invented in the last 10 or 15 or 20 years. And I can 

 imagine that a young man who is just starting out might have 

 looked upon it in a different way and said to himself, If I am 

 to make a success, if I am to make a profitable business out of 

 dairying, I must take advantage of all these opportunities, I 

 must have the best appliances for the handling of milk and for 

 its manufacture. I must have better cows. And I think a 

 young man who viewed that exhibit would go away with new 

 hope. The exhibit was, then, an epitome of the great progress 

 which has taken place in dairying in the last forty or fifty years. 

 It was also prophetic of the great advance which is to take place 

 in the near future. It might be well to recall the conditions 

 which have brought about this development. I think there are 

 four conditions, and they are operative today. The first is the 

 application of co-operation in the manufacture of dairy prod- 

 ucts. The second is education : First, of the investigational 



