126 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



quietly gaining in numbers, until now she is found, either as full 

 blood or grade, on nearly every farm in central and southern Maine. 



She has been the factor that has so leavened the stock of our 

 State that when the time had come, and beef raising was forced to 

 give place to butter dairying upon Maine farms, we found ourselves 

 in possession of many cows well adapted to this special industr}-. 

 Although insufficient in numbers for our wants, yet here were 

 enough for the nucleus of an ultimate whole. 



When the laws of supply and demand — the force that controls the 

 movements of the world — had forced the farmer to recognize this 

 future, he found the work of nearly half a century of acclimating 

 and breeding the Jersey cow already accomplished, thus adding 

 another fact in support of the axiom : ''There is ne'er a lack but 

 the world e'en fills it." 



Our State was particularly fortunate in the quality of the animals 

 comprising those first importations. They were of marked character 

 and rugged make up, with well developed milking organs, and much 

 constitutional vigor. 



Quantity and quality of butter has been the object sought for by 

 our breeders, and the pernicious custom of breeding for solid colors 

 and fancy points has never prevailed among our farmer breeders as 

 it has in some sections of the country where the external and not 

 the internal qualifications determined her value. 



It is not claimed that every Jersey cow is a good one. Among 

 them are to be found poor and inferior ones as there are in all 

 breeds. I am speaking of the Jersey cow in the interests of our 

 working farmers, and a poorly paid and depleting agriculture. I 

 believe her to be the key that unlocks the treasure that lies hidden 

 all up and down these hills and valleys. Through her agency the 

 products of these fields and pastures, these clays and loams, can be 

 converted into that substance that passes current in every market 

 of the world without discount, and a larger margin be retained by 

 the yeoman tillers than by an}- other process yet employed. 



Were I treating of the Jersey cow from any other standpoint 

 than as a money maker for the poor man, I might tell her history 

 for the last ten years, that sounds like a fable. How the great 

 Eurotus first startled the world by producing 778 lbs. 1 oz. of butter 

 in eleven months and six days. How, in the following year, Jersey 

 Belle of Situate yielded 705 lbs. in 365 days. How incredulous the 

 public were At the report of the yield of the Canadian cow, Mary 



