lO AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



put a quarantine on different parts of the State for the brown- 

 tail and gypsy moths for interstate shipments, or shipments 

 from infested to uninfested sections of the State. And practi- 

 cally, in the case of the gypsy moth, no change has taken place 

 for in the past, inspection has been conducted by the United 

 States men or the state men, on all shipments of lumber, tele- 

 graph poles, railroad ties, etc. from the infested section of the 

 State. 



THE DAIRY WORK. 



The work done among the dairymen of the State has been 



done by our State Dairy Instructor in' different forms, and 



especially with the cow test associations. These are of great 



assistance to the dairyman in weeding out his poor cows, but 



they do not give him the proper information as to the cost of 



ihe production of milk; and the dairyman is in a large measure 



to blame for this, as he is willing to sell his hay and other crops 



for a much lower price than he could get in the market, and 



does not expect to get a fair compensation for his labor and 



the money invested. When the best authorities in the country 



tell us that it costs from $ioo to $147 per year to feed and 



care for a cow it must be so, and it will take a very good cow 



to give milk enough to pay her owner, at the price at which 



many of our farmers are selling their dairy product. The 



amount received .for our dairy products for the past year is a 



little more than that for 191 1, which was $10,880,000. For 



the last two years there has been an increase in the number of 



cows kept in the State. Many dairy cows are being shipped 



out of the State to the MidfUe \\''est and many of them to 



Massachusetts, and perhaps we can raise dairy cows and sell 



ther' to good advantage in many parts of our State where the 



hay will not bring a high price and the pastures are not of any 



great value. I think in many cases it is better to raise our 



dairy cattle and sell them when they mature at the present 



prices than it is to feed them and sell the dairy product at the 



prices we have been getting. The number of cows kept in the 



State has increased for two years, from 132,339 in 1910 to 



138,055 in 1912, a gain of 5,626 cows, and many are of beef 



breeds which are taking the place of dairy cattle. 



