1(50 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



He finds, after following the business for sixteen or seventeen ^ears, 

 thiit there is a large margin left for profit, giving to labor a proper 

 compensation. I am not a dairyman, but I have given the matter a 

 [n-etty thorough investigation, with a view to embarking in the busi- 

 ness. 1 only keep five or six cows ;• but I am satisfied that suc- 

 cessful dairying depends upon a certain condition, and that condition 

 is good cows. Your whole success probably hinges upon that. It 

 will not do to keep a cow that will make but 150 pounds of butter; 

 you want a cow that will make .300 pounds. Then the feed and 

 water have very much to do with it. Then comes skill. These are 

 the three conditions : good cows, good feed, and skill. With these 

 three conditions, success is sure. 



. A question has been raised in regard to over-production. You 

 need not be afraid of over-stocking the market with good butter any 

 moi'e than 3"on are of the bottom dropping out of the business of 

 the farmer. 



I told you I w^as looking in this direction. About a ^ear ago I 

 tried to investigate the matter. I bought a few cows and kept care- 

 ful account of what I fed them, weighing the hay and keeping debt 

 and credit for everything. 1 wanted to find out how much my hay 

 brought me. I had been in the practice of selling it. I found that 

 my hay bi'ought me twenty-one dollars and some cents per ton by 

 feeding it, although I had but average cows and sold my butter for 

 the average pi-ice. 



Mr. Robinson. I find by watering my cows night and morning I 

 get more milk than by watering but once a day. 



Mr. Hammond. I wish to say a little more in regard to Mr. Ellis' 

 manner ofi dairying. He is one of the most successful dairymen in 

 Paris. At a dairymen's meeting that was held at South Paris 

 some ten years ago, he conceived the idea of buying a creamery and 

 starting in a little heavier than he had been. He bought a creamery 

 that was on exhibition there and used it till he exchanged it for a 

 larger one. The farm that he was then living on, and which he 

 occupied till this past season, consisted of only about sixt}' acres of 

 land, or possibly sevent3'-five. He kept fourteen cows on that place 

 summer and winter. He managed in the way that Mr. Harris has 

 suggested, by sowing those dift'erent fodders which come in at 

 different times of the year. He has great faith in sowing oats. He 

 sowed, a year ago last summer, five acres of oats at different times. 

 He fed them to his cows green till the oats got ripe, when he cut a 



