LOW AVEBAGE OF PRODUCTION. 409 



butter. The average of our milk dairies, as they are usually 

 kept, is not over five hundred gallons a year; of the butter 

 dairies, one hundred and fifty pounds; of the cheese dairies, 

 three hundred and fifty pounds per cow. These averages can be 

 increased full one half, in the simple items of selection of cows, 

 more suitable and abundant food, and increased care in their 

 keeping. The requirements to constitute a really good dairy, 

 may be somewhat more expensive, but much less so in propor- 

 tion to the additional yields to be obtained from it, than in the 

 loose and negligent way in which they are now managed. All 

 these improvements we have suggested; and why not at once 

 adopt and act upon them? A wise forecast will do so. 



The dairy is already a large and increasing interest in our 

 country. "Wide regions in the Northern States are admirably 

 adapted to it, and poorly adapted to any other branch of agri- 

 cultural production. They can grow neither grain, wool, horses, 

 or beef cattle profitably. Under a mixed system of crops and 

 farm stock, in past days, the average value of such farms was 

 scarcely twenty dollars per acre. Under the dairy system, well 

 brought into use, they are now worth fifty to a hundred dollars, 

 even with the moderate yields we have mentioned. The majority 

 of these farms occupy elevated, moist localities, where the neat 

 stock require six months of stable-feeding, with a winter climate 

 severe and inhospitable. But they are compensated with an 

 abundance of the sweetest grasses, and the purest water grand 

 aliments of the choicest dairy production. They teem with 

 broad, rich landscapes, pure air, a most health-sustaining atmo- 

 sphere, giving stamina to a vigorous, industrious people. 



These superior dairy regions, too, are limited in extent. The 

 States of New York and Pennsylvania, possess more exclusive 

 dairy lands than any others yet known, although other adjoining 

 States furnish them to a limited extent. There may be other 

 lands at the North-west yet untried, as in Northen Michigan, 

 18 



