254 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



a cut from a larger cheese. It is apt to be mellower, and to have 

 a better flavor. I have never tasted a small cheese that was 

 strictly fine. But whatever is wanted we must make, and stop 

 selling our home dealers all the poor cheese that the regular 

 buyers will not take. We can soon double the home consumption 

 by allowing none but strictly fine cheese to be cut by our local 

 dealers. It will create an appetite for cheese, and soou make 

 people feel that it is better to eat more of it and less meat. This 

 home market is of far more consequence to us than the foreign. 

 It is steadier and more reliable, and costs much less to reach. 



Reduce the Cost of Production. Another important considera- 

 tion is reducing the cost of production. We can do this some by 

 improvements in apparatus and methods ; but we can do much 

 more by increasing the productiveness of our dairies and farms. 

 Our cows all ought to be as good as the best, and in a few years 

 we may have them so. A good yield is thought to be 400 pounds 

 of cheese per annum. Probably 350 pounds is nearer the average. 

 This is about one-half too low. In the Utica Weekly Herald of 

 January third, is a statement of the products of the private dairy 

 of Mr. Nicholas Smith, of Herkimer county. He keeps twenty 

 cows, and has sold 14,200 pounds of cheese made during the past 

 year. This is 719 pounds to a cow. We all ought to know how he 

 selected his dairy of cows and how he keeps them. By imitating 

 his example, we might double our production, which will go far 

 toward reducing the cost one-half. Is not this worth looking 

 after ? . 



Further, we must increase the productiveness of the soil. By 

 under-draining, the proper preparation and use of manures, and a 

 more enlightened system of tillage, we must make two blades 

 grass grow where one grows now. It can be done easily, and in 

 many cases we may increase the yield four or five fold. But per- 

 haps some one will plead poverty — that he has not the means to 

 improve his farm. Then make the farm produce the means. 

 Begin with a small piece — the handiest you have. This will help 

 you put a piece twice as large in proper condition. Keep on in 

 this way, making the increased productiveness of one piece im- 

 prove another, and in a few years you will have means to do as 

 you please. But, if you always look for immediate returns, and 

 do nothing that you do not expect to exhaust the benefits of the 

 same year, you will always be poor, and deserve to be. Till your 

 farm for the future as well as for the present, and you will reap 



