1(34 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



up and bet'onie an actuality and a fixture among us. If its intro- 

 duction is attempted, we hope it will be better supported than has 

 been most of our cheese factories. We believe much good is yet to 

 result to our dairy interests through the medium and encouragement 

 of the Grange in the count}'. 



Cheese. — In the production of cheese, our count}' ranks low in 

 amount but high in quality. During the season of 1873, or nine 

 yeais ago, twelve cheese factories were in operation in the count}'. 

 The past season only two have been in operation so far as we know. 

 Instead of this decrease there ought to have been an increase. If 

 the cheese factories had been properly supported, they would have 

 all been succesful and among the best paying farming enterprises. 

 They were built with a rush and with too great expectations. They 

 were poorly supplied with milk and soon were given over, and 

 remain to-day monuments of folh' to the unbusiness-like ventures. 

 The wants of the communities to-day are that they be reopened and 

 run on business principles. The farmers in their reach should stock 

 up their farms with cows and supply these factories liberallv with 

 milk, even up to their utmost capacity. The season should be 

 extended from the first of IVIay to the first of December. Make it 

 a business and it becomes a business that will pay. Every factor}' 

 that has stuck to it has paid. Evej-y one that will go into business 

 common sense like will succeed. We believe the time will come 

 when not only cheese factories will be rebuilt in this county and 

 operated, but creameries oi- butter factories and factories making 

 both cheese and butter. Much has been learned by the experience of 

 the past. Much is yet to be learned. One thing we have learned 

 to a certainty, and that is, we laid out too much for buildings at the 

 outset. 



Mill: — The production of milk, whether for sale or manufacture 

 into butter or cheese, is a point in our dairy interests of greatest 

 importance. Near Belfast and the larger villages there arc large 

 herds of cows devoted to the supi)l}' of the demand for milk. The 

 business is popularly supposed to be a very remunerative one ; but 

 it has its outs and its exactions. It is a laborious and pains 

 demanding part of our dairy interests ; and if, after years of close 

 attention from 3 o'clock A. M. to 9 P. M., the milkman secures a 

 handsome competence, he certainly deserves it. To produce good 

 milk demands many conditions : healthy cows having good milk- 



