BUTTER AND CHEESE. 129 



showing than either New York or Vermont, both reckoned 

 as dairy States. It now requires nearly ninety thousand 

 cows to supply the people of this Commonwealth with the 

 milk they use as milk : this allows eighty quarts a year to 

 every person, — a very moderate estimate. Repeated experi- 

 ments on a large scale have prpved that in handling milk, 

 changing it from vessel to vessel, measuring and using it, 

 there is an average loss of one-eighth of the whole : so 

 this would leave for actual use less than a quart a day for 

 every five persons. This is an estimate, of course ; but it 

 results in a quantity of milk (thirty-six million gallons) 

 very closely approaching that reported as the total milk 

 product in the State Census. (See Table I.) We know 

 that more or less milk is brought into the eastern part of 

 the State for sale in our cities; but this is offset by a daily 

 shipment of ten thousand quarts of milk to New York from 

 various points in Berkshire County. The regions of greatest 

 milk production for sale are naturally those nearest the 

 large cities. In proportion to the number of cows kept, the 

 most milk for sale is produced in Middlesex County, and 

 next come Norfolk, Bristol, and Plymouth. 



Twenty-five and thirty years ago, there was made annually 

 in the State over seven million pounds of cheese, being 

 more than was then needed for home consumption. Now, 

 less than three million pounds are made yearly ; while the 

 people of the State use at least double that quantity. A 

 large part of the Massachusetts cheese is, I fear, of what is 

 called the "white-oak" variety, or skim-milk; so that proba- 

 bly the entire milk product of not more than three thousand 

 cows should now be reckoned as made into cheese. More 

 than half the cheese product of the State is reported by 

 Worcester County, and in Worcester and Berkshire together 

 seven-eighths of it is made. 



There remain just about sixty thousand cows in the State 

 as butter-makers, producing annually eight million pounds 

 of butter: this agrees with the census. The counties of 

 Worcester, Franklin, and Berkshire, are, in this order, those 

 of largest production : these three report more than half of 

 all the butter made in the State ; and the five western coun- 

 ties give fully three-quarters of the whole eight million., 

 pounds. But the people of Massachusetts consume four 



