ADAPTABILITY OF MAINE TO DAIRYING. 267 



The one supplies the head, the otlicr tlie hand. Together they are 

 invincible, and form one complete whole. 



So far we have had only cheese factories on the associated plan. 

 The associated system embraces not only this, but the making of 

 batter and the condensing of milk. The time is not distant when 

 we shall have creameries, or butter factories, and also condensed 

 milk factories. This is assumed, as much as that the march of 

 improvement is to be onward. 



The tendency of the times is toward co-operation and associated 

 effort. The farmers have been the latest and last class to avail 

 themselves of its beneSts ; and its capabilities were never so 

 plainly apparent as now, in the form of associated dairying. 

 There is also another plain fact apparent to the keen observer, and 

 that is, that the tendency is also toward specialties. Not that the 

 farmer is to devote himself wholly to one thing, but that he is 

 to make one branch the leading one about which all the other 

 farm operations shall cluster as auxiliaries and helpers. In the 

 past history of New England agriculture we recognize first one 

 specialty, then another, cropping out. The first was that of grain, 

 the second was wool growing, the third was potato culture, and 

 the last, noblest and best, yet in its infancy as a specialty, is 

 dairying. We would not be understood as advocating this as the 

 whole business of the farmer, or for all farmers, for this would be 

 without wisdom. But, for a large class, and for even whole sec- 

 tions, to make this the leading branch of farm operations we feel 

 assured is sound sense and based on evidence conclusive. 



