VERMONT AGRICULTURAL, REPORT. H 



DAIRYING IN VERMONT. 



While Vermont is capable of producing more and better 

 butter per acre than any other of the New England States, owing 

 to her shady and well watered hill pastures, her sweet and nutri- 

 tious grasses, early cut and well cured, her large acreage of 

 forage crops, including the corn crops used almost exclusively 

 for the silage, while all these natural advantages pervade Ver- 

 mont throughout, yet there are some things, some practices prev- 

 alent among Vermont dairymen that ought and must be elimi- 

 nated before these natural advantages can be made to avail us their 

 best results. 



Argument upon argument has been made, rule after rule 

 has been laid down by our institute workers how to breed and 

 care for the dairy cow, — how to weed out cow-boarders and 

 establish the three hundred pound herd, — how cleanliness is 

 indispensable from the udder to the churn, how to preserve cream 

 and milk in its best form for making a first-class product, be it 

 either for the sale of sweet cream or milk, to make butter or 

 cheese. And, after all this hammering and pounding, I believe 

 is safe to say, that but a small percent of our cream and milk 

 reach the factory or its market in condition for making a first- 

 class product. 



In many, alas too many cases of private dairying, the lack 

 of care and attention in handling the milk and cream prevails, 

 and I cannot pass the point without saying that these seeming 

 small neglects, make all the difference between profit and loss, 

 success and failure in the dairying. No butter or cheese maker 

 can make a good article out of the tainted milk or cream, and 

 hence comes in a low price, and little or no profit for the dairy 

 product. Your early cut clover, your corn ensilage, your out- 

 put for concentrated feeds, the sweet grasses of your pastures 

 are all scaled down in profit to poor house conditions. 



Another quite as discouraging and unjust feature of carry- 

 ing poor milk to our butter factories, is the effect upon such 

 patrons as are pains-taking and furnish a good quality of goods 

 the entire year around. The poor grade may be less even than 

 the larger portion of the product going to the same factory, but 



