246 STATE BOAED OF AGEICULTURE. 



miles distant, what impediment does distance interpose to a product like wool, 

 worth in market twenty to fifty cents per pound? Taking the price of laud and 

 labor in Washtenaw county as compared with those above named, were enough 

 of the Avool of the world's consumption is produced to fix the price of ours, we 

 raise it at a loss. Milk, butter, cheese, and beef are as well articles of general 

 and indispensable use. Farmers would not think of keeping house without 

 some of these products of the cow. Marketable butter, cheese, and condensed 

 milk are productions requiring specific skill, and the use of improved meth- 

 ods and machinery to produce. Hence there ought not to be danger of success- 

 ful competition with us in this business by barbarians, or on land worth much 

 less than ours. Here seems to be an opening for cooperation among farmers. 

 If there is a greater profit in manufacturing or changing the form or quality 

 of a raw product so as to make it more merchantable and therefore create a 

 larger market over the production of that raw product, here is a de])artment in 

 farming where the farmer may secure both. On small farms, under this sys- 

 tem of mixed farming, it is not possible to keep many cows ; but no farm is 

 so small as not to keep one or more. And here comes in the proper work of 

 association or the factory system of making butter, or cheese, or condensing 

 milk. No one farmer needs to be at the expense of a suitable building, putting 

 in needed machinery, and furnishing skilled labor to manufacture the milk 

 from his own cows alone. It may be jointly owned by a neighborhood. Under 

 this system the best possible results may be worked out for this department of 

 farming. It offers the means of making ihe best possible quality of goods at the 

 least possible cost. It provides a way for relieviug the wife of a heavy burden, 

 and goes far in removing the vexed question of keeping a hired girl. In fact, the 

 making of butter and cheese from the milk of two to eight cows in the farm 

 house is in keeping with the practice and times when the itinerate shoemaker was 

 called in every fall to make up the winter's supply of shoes for the family. 

 Farmers must seek the cheapest methods of producing their goods or fall behind 

 in the ouward march of other industries which take up and utilize every im- 

 proved method. Processes once profitable have been superseded by a better. 

 Wide-awake men take up these and make a success of them. The practice of 

 farmers in their business must be as intelligent and economic as the prac- 

 tice of tradesmen, if they would have their business equal the profits of the trades- 

 men. 



And now how can I better show you that dairying in this country can be made 

 profitable than by comparison. I will take the keeping of sheep, which is sup- 

 posed to be a profitable stock to keep on the farm, as a standard of profit by 

 which to measure the profit of the cow. I shall give you the results of the two 

 kinds of stock handled on my farm in the year 1875 and allow the keep of ten 

 sheep to equal the keep of one cow. I had that year fifty-three sheep. 



They sheared 392 lbs. wool, which sold at 36 cts. per lb 8141 12 



'' raised 25 lambs estimated at 13.00 75 00 



Giving as the returns of 53 sheep $216 12 



Or for 10 sheep 40 74 



Our cheese factory commenced making cheese the 3d of May and ran six 

 months. I put into the factory on that day the milk from three cows. The 

 3d of June four more, and from that time on till the close of the season with 

 seven. These three cows one month and seven cows five months gave 34,201 



