ASSOCIATED DAIRYINa. 335 



their land is not adapted to grain production ; it is adapted to 

 grazing. They cannot compete with the west in the production 

 of beef, nor with the north in stock raising. Cheese is their 

 spectalty, and they succeed in it. I see not why yon cannot suc- 

 ceed in cheese as well as they. I see not why all the reasons for, 

 and condLtions of, successful dairying do not exist in Maine that 

 exist in the hill country of New York, of Massachusetts, and of 

 tlie other New England States. 



It seems to me that cheese dairying should he your chief business 

 as farmers. Your land it is true may be adapted to other pur- 

 poses. Much of your land is not ill-adapted to grain ; but the 

 great objection to grain production is that j^ou cannot aflbrd it ; 

 joii cannot compete with the west in this production ; you cannot 

 afford the fertilizers necessary to produce grain, to supply those 

 qualities which have been exhausted from your soil, but which 

 still exist in the comparatively fresh lands in the west ; you can- 

 not afford to raise any more grain than is absolutely necessary to 

 keep your land well in grass. If you can keep your land in 

 grass without plowing, every acre you plow runs you in debt. It 

 costs too much to work your land and cultivate your crops ; and 

 it costs you too much to seed your land to grass to make grain 

 raising profitable onlj^. where it is a necessary condition to grass. 

 I think I may assume this to be a fact without attempting to prove 

 it. I think no one will deny that distant as we are from the 

 markets, grass is more profitable than gKain, and that grain is only 

 profitable as an antecedent to grass. Every farmer will raise some 

 grain, simply because every farmer with land enough to make it 

 proper to call him a fai-mer, has some land that must be taken up 

 occasionally to keep it in grass. You might raise in part the 

 grain necessary for your own use ; but seldom a farmer in New 

 England can afford to raise grain to sell. Every bushel that you 

 sell runs you in debt, because you exhaust the soil ; and you will 

 find many farms in all this region that have been exhausted almost 

 to barrenness by this wasteful, ruinous process of cropping, and 

 by selliing your grain, and even selling your hay, when you ought 

 to be buying grain to feed out on your place. You might almost 

 as well sell your manure, I think, to have your farms thrive. 



I think you cannot afford even to raise potatoes for the market, 

 The margin for profit is so small that only occasionally, when the 

 price becomes exorbitant, can potatoes be produced at a profit, 

 and the tendency is, by selling any bulky products of the soil like 



