CONSUMPTION OF BUTTEE AND CHEESE. 59 



At the present rate of increase of population in the United 

 States, the year 1900 will find us with 100,000,000 of inhabit 

 ants. If we continue to consume cheese at no greater rate than 

 at present, it will require two and a half times the quantity that 

 we now consume; or 450,000,000 to supply the annual home 

 consumption. The shipping demand must also increase. 

 Nothing but a war with England can prevent it. The English 

 are a cheese-eating people, and are now using twice as much 

 per head as we do. Nor is that rate of consumption likely to 

 be abated. It is the readiest and cheapest way to supply the 

 laboring man with animal food, as it contains twice as much 

 nutrition, pound for pound, as meat; w T hile more pounds of 

 cheese than meat can be produced from a given quantity of 

 feed. The population of England is increasing, while her cheese- 

 producing capacity is not. Germany supplies her with what 

 we do not; and, as no other European country produces any 

 quantity for export, the increasing wants of England must be 

 supplied from the United States. If we continue to consume 

 cheese at the present rate, and England also, the increase of 

 population will require for the year 1900, not less than a 

 1) illion pou n ds ! &quot; 



Then there is the butter interest, larger still. We export but 

 little butter, but we consume three and a half times as much as 

 we do of cheese, varying from thirteen to seventeen pounds per 

 head per annum. I have often heard dairymen predict a high 

 rew T ard for dairy products in the future, especially for cheese, 

 because the demand was so rapidly exceeding the limited capac 

 ity of the dairy districts of the country. The State of New 

 York is more exclusively devoted to dairying than any other 

 State in the Union, but only a small portion of the State is 

 accredited as being good dairy land. 



Pennsylvania has so nearly the same natural advantages and 

 manufacturing interests as the State of New York, that her ag 

 riculture has developed in a similar manner, though without as 

 many vicissitudes. The Keystone of the &quot; Old Thirteen,&quot; 

 Pennsylvania has been the mother of the States upon her west 

 ern boundary; she attracted the first, and has been the theatre 

 of the most successful attempts at foreign colonization. The 

 Friends, the Swedes, the Moravians, the Mennonites, and vari 

 ous other religious sects, have assisted in giving a peculiar 

 character to her institutions, while the superiority of her soil, 



