8 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



The time is rapidly coming, in the progress of our farming, 

 when we will look upon the present methods of domestic 

 dairying as wasteful, and an onerous tax upon the hardest- 

 worked portion of the farmer's family. 



Butter has always been a sure means of getting cash ; and 

 this is earned by the hard labor of the women, and often by 

 the sacrifice of health. Much as this labor has been miti- 

 gated by the introduction of improved implements, there is 

 a great step yet to be taken in the adoption of the " cream- 

 ery " system of co-operative butter-making. 



This is not an experiment to be tried : it has been in op- 

 eration for some years, proving highly successful ; and we 

 have a proof of the superiority of creamery butter at every 

 market-stall in Boston. When the New-England farmers 

 reluctantly conceded their own grain and cattle market to 

 the Western producer, they thought themselves secure of 

 the monopoly of dairy products. They were safe while the 

 Weistern farmers followed the old system of domestic dairy- 

 ing, with its careless and varying methods. Upon the estab- 

 lishment of co-operative dairies, taking the cream from 

 hundreds of cows, and producing, under expert management, 

 an unvarjdng quality of product, the prizes had to be 

 awarded to them, and their butter, without depressing the 

 market, took precedence of ours ; for good butter has no 

 difficulty in getting recognition, and generous prices always 

 await it. " There is always room at the top." The superi- 

 ority of the Western creamer}^ product became especially 

 manifest, when in 1876, at the Centennial Exposition, the 

 gold medals for both spring and fall butter went from tlie 

 East, — passing the famous dairies of New York, with their 

 century of renown, past the rich farms of Chester and 

 Lancaster Counties in Pennsylvania, where the stone spring 

 houses cool the pans that have made Philadelphia butter the 

 synonyme of dairy excellence, — and were awarded to cream- 

 eries in Iowa and Illinois. 



The Eastern people were not convinced of the situation 

 by this single success ; but the next year at Chicago, in a 

 full competition, the creameries of Wisconsin and Illinois 

 were decorated with the medals. At the international shows 

 in New York in 1878 and 1879, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illi- 

 nois left only a fifth premium to the Eastern private dairies. 



