Farmers' Institutes. 49 



FIFTEENTH INSTITUTE. 



The Fifteenth Farmers' Institute of the Society was held in the Town Hall of 

 Great Barrington on Thursday, Nov. 15th. The meeting was largely attended, 

 and included many prominent and enterprising agriclturalists. and quite a num- 

 ber of ladies. 



President Kellogg in announcing the first topic of discussion to be Milk pro- 

 duction, read the following item : 



"There are nearly $2,000,250,000 invested in the dairying busi- 

 ness in the country, said an officer of the Erie Milk Pro- 

 ducers' Association; 'That amount is almost double the money invested in 

 banking and comin rcial industries. It is estimated that it requires 15,000,000 

 cows to supply the demand for milk and its products in the United States. To 

 feed these cows 60,000,000 acres of land are under cultivation. The agricultural 

 and dairy machinery nd implements in use are worth over $200,000,000. The 

 men employed in the business number 700,000, and the horses nearly 1,000,000. 

 The cows and horses consume annually 30,000,000 tons of hay, nearly 90,000,000 

 bushels of corn meal, about the same amount of oatmeal, 275,000,000 bushels of 

 oats, 2,000,000 bushels of bran, and 30,000,000 bushels of corn, to say nothing 

 of the brewery grains and questionable feed of various kinds that is used to a 

 great extent. It costs $400,000,000 to feed these cows and horses. The aver- 

 age price paid to the laborers necessary in the dairy business is probably $20 a 

 month, amounting to $168,000,000 a year." 



"The average cow yields about 450 gallons of milk a year, giving a total 

 product of 6,750,000,000 gallons. Twelve cents a gallon is a fair price to esti- 

 mate the value of this milk at a total return to the diary farmer of $810,000,000. 

 Fifty per cent, of the milk is made into cheese and butter. It takes 27 pounds 

 of milk to make one pound of butter, and about 10 pounds of milk to make one 

 pound of cheese. There is the same amount of nutrition in 3^ pounds of milk 

 that there is in one pound of beef. A fat steer furnishes 50 per cent, of bone- 

 less beef , but it would require about 24,000,000 steers, weighing 1,500 pounds 

 each, to produce the same amount of nutrition as the annual milk product does." 



Henry Noble of Pittsfield, a member of the Board of Agriculture, took the 

 lead in a discussion on the diary, principally the producing of milk for sale. 

 There are three branches to this industry: Milk for market; butter and cheese ; veal. 



Raising veal is profitable, said Mr. Noble, and is the best thing that can be 

 done with the dairy when the farmer lives convenient to market. One cow 

 ought to bring in $75 to $85 in seven or eight months. A man near Pittsfield 

 puts seven veal calves on one cow in a year. In Franklin county they go farther 

 and, after the calf has suckled for four to five weeks he is taught to eat corn 

 meal, so that he soon lives on it altogether, and the cow takes another calf in 

 his place. 



Butter and cheese making pays better when the farmer can leave his milk at 

 a creamery, or uses the best apparatus in making butter and cheese himself. He 

 then saves the butter-milk, whey and skim milk, which are worth to him for 

 use on the farm one cent a quart. 



Coming to the selling of milk, Mr. Noble gave a chemical analysis of the fluid, 

 showing its different constituents — caseine, salts, water, fat, nitrogen, etc. 

 Logically following from this the way to produce milk is to feed to cattle the 

 food that contains the most of these parts. The cow should have an abundance 

 of pure, healthy water, when she wants it. If fed on dry food water is needed 

 twice a day ; if on steamed or moist food, or ensilage, once a day, and in both 

 instances the water should not be cold. 



