ADAPTABILITY OF MAINE TO DAIRYINQ. 259 



THE ADAPTABILITY OF MAINE TO i)AIllYING. 



By J. W. LANG, Skcrbtabt Mainb Dairyman's Associatiok. 



The adaptability of Maine to dairying is attracting- considerable 

 attention at present, not only from our own citizens and farmers, 

 but also of those of other States. This being the fact, the object, 

 aim, and province of this paper is to show in a clear and concise 

 manner that adaptability in as full and complete proof as may be 

 under the circumstances. It is confidently believed and has been 

 urged by the writer, and others, for years, that dairying was 

 specially adapted to the soil, climate, condition, and locality of 

 Maine. We believe that dairying ought to become, and shortly 

 will be the leading branch of our farm industry and economy. 

 The three specialties of dairying, sheep husbandry and orcharding 

 are eventually, and at no distant day, to assume their rightful and 

 leading place. That they are to become the three about which all 

 other branches and farm operations will cluster and become auxil- 

 iary to. ^ 



Adaptability means fitness for, suitableness to, qualification and 

 just appropriateness in all its parts. The scope of this paper will 

 embrace this as applied to our subject. The adaptability of Maine 

 to dairying as a whole State taken together is meant. It is not to 

 ehow that separately of any section, or even of the older settled 

 parts. That some portions of the State are better adapted to 

 dairying than others is a well known fact, but this is not what we 

 are called upon to show ; but rather we are to ehow the suitable- 

 ness of Maine to dairying in all its branches, from the forest to the 

 ocean, from the fertile fields of Aroostook to the green valleys of 

 the Saco and the Piscataqua and the St. Croix, In all the length 

 and breadth of the land the Androscoggin, the Kennebec, the 

 Penobscot valleys, amid the green hills and vales of Waldo, 

 Franklin and Oxford, and in all the limits of the Dirigo State, no 

 portion of our goodly and far-reaching domain is to be omitted. 

 The adaptability of all the parts are to be shown and proven 

 beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt. There is no town that 

 has not cows, and which is not more or less interested in dairying. 



