PROFITS OF PRIVATE DAIRYING. J^Q 



If the formers in our county, tind of the State at large, who are not 

 ah-eady doing so, will make a specialty- of dairying, I am well satis- 

 fied that the}' will receive much more profit than they are now 

 making under the system of husbandry which now prevails. 



Question. If we all make a specialty of dairying, where shall 

 we find a market? 



Mr. Hammond. There is no difficultN' about that ; and the same 

 statement would apply to the cheese business. I had the handling 

 ot our South Paris cheese factory for two years, and the only diffi- 

 cult}^ I found was that we could not make cheese enough to go 

 around. There is no sort of difficulty in selling all the first (|uality 

 of cheese and butter you can make. You needn't be afraid of over- 

 stocking the market. 



Mr. W. W. Harris said : I have certainly been very much inter- 

 ested in listening to the figures presented by the member from 

 Oxford. It is a better showing than I supposed he could make. 

 For some years I was accustomed to sell milk, thinking it more 

 profitable for me than the making of butter would be. Becoming a 

 little tired of the style of the milk business, I experimented some- 

 what in butter making. I found we could make good butter, and that 

 I could get about the same amount of money from the milk in the 

 form of butter that I could by selling it by the quart. I got the 

 appliances for making butter, and am satisfied with the result. I 

 do not think any one who has listened to the statements given by 

 Mr. Hammond, will require me to endorse the idea that dairying in 

 Maine will pay. An}' of you farmers here in this locality who have 

 been making butter, can see there is a profit in it. I have tried it 

 and I know there is. One great objection that arises, and I have 

 heard it urged since I came here, is the trouble to the help in the 

 house. That objection is not so serious as it might be. With a 

 creamery, a butter- worker and some ice, and the attention of the 

 man of the house, there is but very little that need be done by the 

 women. 



The Secretary has asked me to speak on the outlook of dairying. 

 I told him I could conscientiously speak encouragingly of it, and I 

 can. At a previous meeting, where we were discussing the raising 

 of sheep, I asked the question, " Who ever knew of an intelligent 

 man that kept a flock of sheep of an}- size, and properl}' cared for 

 them for a series of years, that didn't make money by it?" and the 

 answer was that it never was known to fail. At another meeting, 



