VERMONT AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 51 



withdrawn for sale nearly 47,000,000 acres of public land to be 

 held as forest reservations. 



GRASSES. 



In 1815 the hay product of this country is reported to 

 have been 12,839,141 tons, New York State alone producing 

 one-fourth of that amount. The hay product in 1898 reached 

 the enormous amount of 66,000,000 tons. Today the livestock 

 of the country dependent upon grasses and forage plants for 

 their food supply is in round numbers 138,000,000 valued at 

 nearly $2,000,000,000. This increase in livestock has arisen 

 not only through the opening of new grazing lands, but 

 through improved systems of agriculture which have materi- 

 ally increased the forage product of the soil. 



THE DAIRY INDUSTRY. 



Progress in dairying has been equal to that in any other 

 branch of agriculture. In 1865 there were five hundred (500) 

 cheese factories in operation in the State of New York and 

 1000 ten years later. In Ohio one cheese factory was started 

 in 1861: in 1874 there were 100, and nearly 500 in 1880. There 

 are now about 3000 in the whole country and practically all 

 the cheese of the United States is made in factories. The 

 same general plan was adopted for butter-making and all 

 now know how common creameries are now and how useful 

 in the counties where located. Creameries were first estab- 

 lished in New York in 1861; in Ohio in 1865; in Illinois in 

 1867 and in Iowa in 1871. There are now seven or eight 

 thousand creameries in the United States and the system is 

 extending rapidly. Not half of the butter of the country is 

 yet made in creameries, but farm dairy butter is mainly con- 

 sumed locally so that the creamery grades practically control 

 the large markets. The yearly dairy producton of the Union 

 is now estimated as follows: 



1,430,000,000 lbs. of butter, valued at $257,400,000 



300,000,000 lbs. of cheese valued at 27,000,000 



2,090,000.000 gals, of milk, valued at 167,200,000 



a grand total of 451,600,000 



If the proper feeding value of skim milk, butter-milk and 

 whey are added, and the value of the calves dropped yearly 

 the annual aggregate value the product of our dairy cows in 

 America, is over $500,000,000. This is a very conservative 

 estimate and thought by some to be too much so. 



Next to the adoption of the factory associated system, 

 which is of American origin, the one thing which during re- 

 cent years has given the greatest impetus to the dairy indus- 

 try in this country is the introduction of the mechanical 

 method of skimming or separating cream from milk. The 



