CHAPTER XVI 



THE DAIRY. 



Of all the means by which farmers convert the productions of 

 the soil into merchantable products the dairy is the most scientific 

 and systematic. At the same time, if its various operations are 

 conducted with care and on sound business principles, it is by far 

 the most profitable, and* conduces more than any other to the 

 proper maintenance of the fertility of the soil. 



Dairy farming includes the preparation for market of the three 

 great staples, — milk, cheese, and butter. 



Farmers living within easy reach (and in these days two hun- 

 dred miles of railroad are easy) of a''large market for milk, have 

 generally found that, in view of the less care required, the most 

 profitable course to pursue is to sell the entire product of milk to 

 the wholesale dealers. Were this course pursued for many years 

 in succession, without the purchase of food from exterior sources, 

 the result would be injurious to almost any land. But since it is 

 universally found to be profitable to purchase brewers' grains, bran, 

 linseed meal, cotton-seed meal, or other concentrated food, it is 

 probable that the amount of phosphates and of ammonia restored to 

 the farm in the purchased food, compensates for the loss of mineral 

 matter in the milk sold. For the future, — for that day when the 

 constant removal of more earthy plant constituents than are 

 restored in the purchased food shall have materially lessened the 

 productiveness of the land, — there is no doubt that means of 

 restoration will be found that do not now exist in an available 

 form, or that such as do now exist will be more largely made use 

 of, and that when the addition of large quantities of phosphoric 



