248 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



quotation of the market. 8th December, creamery fancy, forty to 

 forty-two cents, wholesale; State dairy, good to prime, thirty-seven 

 to thirty -nine cents ; choice fresh, thirty -four to thirty-five cents; 

 dairy cheese not quoted at all. 



Under the factory demand, a class of experts have grown up. 

 who have trained themselves to the business, and whose tenure of 

 situation is dependent upon their intelligence and skill in their 

 business. The farmer who makes a poor article can get along in 

 some way and persuade himself that he does about as well as the 

 rest. (I have seldom found a man who would acknowledge that 

 he came short.) But the foreman in a factory cannot hide his tal- 

 ent under a bushel. 



These experts are assisted by each other and by their employ- 

 ers, by the patrons and by the dairymen's conventions, and by the 

 united pressure of associated factories upon the State, so that the 

 aid of science is called in both at private and public expense, with 

 the object of improving dairy products. The inventive genius of 

 the country also is called into play, so that countless methods, 

 called improved, are offered to the public. The ordinary mind is 

 ovei'whelmed in the effort to grasp and discriminate between them 

 all — to prove all things and hold fast the good. 



2d. We see a benefit also in the quantity of the product. Be- 

 fore 1870, American dairy produce commanded a very low esti- 

 mate abroad, neither butter nor cheese coming up to the standard. 

 Now the makers of English cheese can hardly hold their own in 

 the home markets. In 1864, New York produced 85,000.000 lbs. 

 of butter, and 72,000,000 lbs. of cheese. Last year about 100,- 

 000,000 lbs. of each. But though the quantity increases so gi'eatly, 

 the demand, both at home and abroad, keeps up with the supply. 

 Of course there are seasons when the market will be glutted and 

 prices will be low, but the steady increase of demand is quite as 

 remarkable as the increase of supply. 



3d. The system has given a definite value to milk and greatly 

 cheapened its production. Of course the value of milk differs 

 very greatly in different localities, but wherever there is a cream- 

 ery or cheese factory, the farmer may be sure of getting about the 

 value of his milk, according to the season. 



The associated dairy relieves the farmer from all the expense 

 and labor of manufacturing his milk and selling. It takes all that 

 he makes or can make, almost at his own door, and gives him a 

 certain market. 



