384 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



and obtain a good price. It nets them about fourteen cents per 

 pound at the factory, which is more than cheese of the same quality 

 would bring in New York or Vermont, or even in Massachusetts, 

 probably by a cent or two cents per pound. This advantage they 

 have by reason of making it here over what they could realize 

 there. 



Col. Swett. I have felt much interest in the subject of asso- 

 ciated dairying for some years, and have been in hopes that we 

 could get a factory started in our vicinity. Week before last I 

 went to the Cattle Show at Dixfield, and took the opportunity to 

 visit a cheese factory which had been put into operation there this 

 season — about the first of July. I was informed that its capacity 

 was for the milk of 300 cows ; and that its cost was $1550. The 

 man who built it told me we could build a good one large enough 

 for the milk of 400 cows for $2500, and perhaps for something 

 less; includiug all the necessary apparatus and fixtures ready to 

 go to work. 



I spent half a day in looking about the place, examining the 

 cheeses, of which five hundred or more were in the drvinsr room. 

 They were as fine as I ever saw, and tasted as well. They had 

 lately begun to sell, not many of them being ripe enough for 

 market. The price obtained was fifteen cents per pound. Their 

 weight was from 35 to 50 pounds. I conversed with the farmers 

 there about it, and I found no one who did not intend to increase 

 his number of cows next season. 



From what I have seeft and heard and read, I am convinced that 

 there is no branch of farming which promises such prosperity for 

 us as cheese making in factories. The cow is the best machine 

 to convert hay and grass into cash that has ever been discovered, 

 and the factory system relieves our wives and daughters of 

 severe hard work. I believe they are a great thing for Maine 

 fanners. 



Mr. Goodale. With jour leave I will read from a letter lately 

 received from Mr. Norton of Avon, formerly a member of the 

 Board from Franklin County, and one of the fanners concerned in 

 the cheese factor at Strong. He says, " We are having a favor- 

 able season and shall make about thirty tons from two hundred 

 cows ; and I believe we shall realize double the profit from the 

 milk made into cheese by factory which we could get from tho 

 same in butter made in the families. I have two cows which have 

 given milk enough to make one hundred pounds of cheese per 



