194 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



The Chairman. This subject of breeding is one of the very 

 highest importance. You remember that a great deal of ex- 

 citement was created, a few years ago, when Mr. Campbell, of 

 Vermont, went to the World's Fair with his sheep and took the 

 first premium. It appeared, on subsequent inquiry, that it was 

 but the imported blood of ten years previous that had gone 

 back to Europe in competition with the French Merinos, the 

 first in the world. It was the result of that careful breeding 

 and feeding which have been referred to here. 



Mr. Hubbard, of Brimfield. With regard to the improve- 

 ment of stock, I think there is no person who has travelled over 

 the State and visited the various agricultural societies, who will 

 not say at once that the stock in Massachusetts has been im- 

 proved over what it was in former years. Now the question 

 comes, " In what manner has it been improved ? " We all say, 

 " By the introduction of thoroughbred stock." 



One word with regard to the milk and cheese produced in 

 Massachusetts. I have about as much to do as any one with 

 making up the reports to which reference has been made, and if 

 we take the statements of those reports, we do not get a fair 

 statement of the products of the cows of this State. There are 

 some dairies which carry milk to the factory only during the 

 excessively hot weather of July and August, and sometimes only 

 from the middle of July until the first of September ; but those 

 cows are included in the number of cows on which the calcula- 

 tion is made, bringing the average per cow down lower than it 

 would otherwise be. Then most people feed their calves, which 

 are worth from five to twenty-five dollars, which is a large item 

 to be added to the income of a cow. 



Now, none of the factories very near me have run, for the 

 last two years, more than three or four months a year. The 

 dairies, in that section, previous to the factories' starting, are 

 making butter and selling milk. The factory with which I am 

 connected, started about the first of April this year. Previous 

 to the first of April, the calves from the cows of the dairies were 

 feeding, and the milk before that time was used in the manu- 

 facture of butter. The factory (and mine is only a sample of 

 others) closed its operations in making cheese in October, and 

 from that time forth, the milk in that section was carried to the 

 condensing factory in West Brookfield. There is a large item of 



