82 BOARD OF AGRICULTURK. 



because she has never ministered to the material wants of the butter 

 epicure. The art of simply making butter to please somebody's 

 palate is not like a good deed — a footstep in the ladder reaching 

 heavenward. If all that can be said of one, is that she was a good 

 butter maker, we shall only find in the last just decision the appall- 

 ing words, Mene^ Mene, Tekel Upharsin. 



PROFITS OF THE BUSINESS. 

 By R. W. Ellis— President of the Board. 



A satisfactory consideration of the subject assigned to me requires 

 something more than theorizing. You want facts and figures, and 

 I shall endeavor to give you a few which are entire!}' reliable. You 

 will be able to judge of their value from 30ur own experience. You 

 can tell in less time whether what I shall say to you is true than 

 you could of statements in nearly an}' other branch of farming. 

 The dairy business gives the quickest and most accurate returns 

 The question has been discussed so much that it is almost as diffi- 

 cult to sa}' anything new on the subject as on the question of 

 temperance. We hardly take up an agricultural paper without 

 seeing one or more articles upon the ''profits of dairying." 



In the first place if we would urge any industry upon the farmers 

 of Maine we must recommend something that can be carried on 

 indefinitely, a business that we can apply to our farms permanentl}'. 

 A business that ma}' be profitable for a certain series of years at 

 the expense of the farm is not a business that we can generally 

 recommend. That business which brings in dollars and cents and 

 at the same time keeps up or increases the fertility of the farm has 

 two advantages while any other has but one. The business of 

 selling hay in some localities in Maine is a profitable one for a 

 time, but it cannot be carried on any length of time without serious 

 injury to the farm. By analysis and by experiment it has been 

 proved that every ton of hay that we remove from our farm takes 

 with it in the neighborhood of five dollars' worth of fertility. If a 

 man when selling his hay considered himself obliged, as he ought 

 to, to return five dollars' worth of fertilizers to his farm for every 

 ton of hay sold, he would see very different results in his financial 

 operations from what he does in selling his hay and trusting to luck 

 for something to put back. 



