BRITISH DAIRYING. 



CHAPTER I. 

 AN IDEAL DAIRY FARM. 



A Model Farm. Pasture and Meadow. A Special Point. An Accessory 

 Farm. Production of Milk. A Pleasant Picture. Sheds and Out- 

 buildings. Crops. A Perfect Little Dairy. The Live Stock. 



FROM the point of view on which a practical dairy farmer 

 takes his stand, any dairy farm comes within the limits of 

 ideality if, during the period which stretches back to the begin- 

 ning of the eighties, it has yielded a profit of 8 or 10 per 

 cent, on the tenant's capital, and kept the family ! This is 

 understood to include the value of the services performed by 

 the farmer and his wife and children. Indeed, an average 

 profit of 5 per cent., after the accounts have been debited with 

 all payments and depreciations, is one which, unfortunately, has 

 of late years been far too much " honoured in the breach than 

 the observance." 



Ideal dairy farms, maintained for fancy, regardless of 

 profit, and dairy farms, not ideal, which have yielded reason- 

 able profits, are not quite so numerous now as they were a 

 dozen or fifteen years ago. During the seventies, and for 

 some years before them, there was inducement enough to com- 

 bine the ideal with the practical in dairy farming ; at all 



B 



