aan AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 
BUTTER-MAKING WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI. . 
In the early part of the year 1870, at a meeting of the St. Louis 
Farmers’ Club, Mr. Murtfeldt stated that, while the grocery stores of the 
vicinity were placarded with advertisements of Ohio, New York, and 
sometimes Rock River butter, no mention was made of Missouri butter. 
Yet excellent butter is made by individuals in Eastern Missouri. In 
St. Louis, with hay at $20 per ton, and bran and meal at average prices, 
the keeping of a cow amounts to $90 a year, while on a farm with good 
pasture it would probably not amount to one-half that sum. 
Mr. Hedges stated before the same club that the wife of one of its 
members makes butter that would sellin the St. Louis market for Goshen 
butter; yet, said he, “farmers here are killing their calves, and selling 
their hay, and it is a losing business. Yet this section presents exeel- 
lent facilities for raising good dairy stock, as well as beef cattle.” 
Mr. A. M. Swan, of Oregon, Holt County, Missouri, in a pamphlet de- 
scribing the resources of that county, says: “At this writing, poor coun- 
try made butter, some of it half lard, is selling at 40 cents per pound, and 
is difficult te obtain even at that exorbitant rate.” He remarks that 
dairy farming would be very profitable there, but that little land has 
yet been brought into tame pasture. Holt County has the Missouri 
_ River for its western boundary, and is traversed by the Council Bluffs 
and St. Joseph Railroad. The thriving city of St. Joseph, distant about 
forty miles by rail from the center of the county, afiords an excellent 
market for ail kinds of agricultural products. 
Mr. T. T. Turner, a breeder of dairy stock near St. Louis, writing to the 
Department in September, 1870, states that he knows of no organized 
butter dairy within St. Louis County, the only home supply coming from 
farmers who manufacture in small quantities for individual customers. 
The market supply is chiefly derived from Ohio and New York. Through- 
out the year the price of good fresh butter averages 40 cents a pound, 
extra qualities bringing more. The Missouri cheese market is supplied 
from the products of Eastern States. Undoubtedly cheese and butter 
manufacture in Missouri, if conducted on a large scale and sustained by 
capital, experience, and skill, would prove very remunerative. 
Mr. Turner writes that the introduction of improved dairy stock into 
Missouri is of comparatively recent date. Prior to 1865, a few Jerseys, 
and perhaps a few Ayrshires, were owned and bred by small farmers in 
the vicinity of St. Louis, but as late as the close of the war the general 
sentiment among Missouri farmers was adverse to the purchase of im- 
proved stock for dairy purposes. In St. Louis County, since that period, 
the demand for Jerseys has materially increased, although in the State 
at large it is doubtful whether remunerative sales of this stock could be 
made to any extent. The demand for such stock is chiefly from gentle- 
men of means residing near the city who desire superior cows, and are 
willing to pay good prices to obtain them. While purchasers of this 
elass have readily paid for grade Jerseys at auction sales prices ranging 
from $100 to $200 each, according to the grades, farmers, on the con- 
trary, have been disposed to sneer at such “fancy cattle.” As far as 
Mr. Turner’s experience goes, the demand for Ayrshires at fair prices is 
very small. 
In an address before the Ohio Dairymen’s Association, at Wellington, 
Ohio, in January, 1870, Mr. George Williams, of Oneida County, New 
York, stated that one of the most successful dairymen of Herkimer County, 
who bred stock to supply the waste of his herd, has found that not more 
than two in five of his calves prove sufficiently valuable for the dairy to 
