26 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



pay in Essex County. A four-weeks-old calf generally sells for 

 about as much money as an average yearling. 



The fact that but little stock is raised in the county, and that 

 usually from favorite or superior animals, shows that farmers 

 do not find it for their interest to pursue this branch of hus- 

 bandry. Neither can cattle be bought and fatted with profit, 

 as they could before the modern facilities of transportation from 

 the West. 



The dairy is, and must be, the only branch of stock farming 

 which will prove profitable in this section of New England. 

 The production of milk for market is fast becoming a leading 

 business, and the large proportion of population who depend 

 upon the farmer for a supply of milk, will make this a prin- 

 cipal department of husbandry in the future. There is a mis- 

 taken idea abroad concerning the profit of this branch of farm- 

 ing. If we reckon milk at the wholesale price, and take into 

 account the market value of the provender and the average 

 quality of cows kept for this purpose, we shall probably find 

 the actual profits of producing milk extremely small. This 

 department of farming has engaged my attention for some 

 years, and I find the annual results average very nearly the 

 same. 



I have usually kept a herd of from sixteen to twenty or 

 more cows, and have endeavored to procure as good a quality 

 of stock as could be obtained with reasonable effort, and to 

 feed as highly as farmers usually consider judicious. The 

 result has been, that the cows have yielded on an average from 

 twenty to twenty-two hundred quarts of milk annually ; vary- 

 ing with the quality of pasturing and freedom from accident to 

 the stock. The average quantity of milk annually produced 

 by cows throughout the country is estimated, I believe, at less 

 than eighteen hundred quarts, and it is probably safe to esti- 

 mate the average quantity of milk obtained from the cows of 

 Essex County at not far from two thousand quarts per year. 



The average wholesale price of milk is about four and a half 

 cents per quart, making the average annual income of cows 

 from ninety to one hundred dollars. To offset this, we must 

 reckon the value of about two tons of hay, pasturing, a supply 

 of green fodder in the fall, and ten or twenty dollars' worth of 

 grain, to say nothing of labor and interest on capital. 



