42 



A farmer in Gill whose main object is a butter dairy, gave me 

 an account of his management. The account is not so definite 

 as could be desired, but it may suggest some useful hints. 



From twelve cows he one year sold to the amount of three 

 hundred and sixty dollars ; two hundred pounds of this were 

 cheese ; the remainder was in butter, which brought twenty 

 cents per pound. The price of the cheese was not remember- 

 ed. He connects with his dairy the raising of pigs, and the 

 year above referred to, he sold two litters of pigs for fifty-nine 

 dollars and seventy-five cents. His sows have two litters each 

 per year. He likewise raises all his calves. With one cow 

 this year he raised four calves. He gives his calves when first 

 taken off, new milk for three weeks ; afterwards skimmed 

 milk and meal. He prefers for this purpose, a mixture of rye, 

 Indian and oat-meal. The season I visited him, he had sold 

 ten cows of his own raising, and retained their calves, at a price 

 averaging thirty-two dollars each. From another dairy in the 

 northern part of the county, after supplying butter and cheese 

 for a large family from a dairy of thirty cows, the farmer sold 

 five thousand pounds new milk cheese. A small dairy in Ash- 

 field gave milk and butter for a family of thirteen persons ; and 

 besides this the farmer sold from them three hundred pounds of 

 butter, and six hundred pounds cheese, mostly new milk cheese, 

 in the same season. In Biickland it is stated to me, that many 

 farmers on farms of one hundred acres, keep ten cows and lay 

 up three hundred dollars from their proceeds. 



The sales of the dairy produce of another farmer in Coleraine 

 amounted one year to twelve hundred dollars. The number 

 of cows I was unable to ascertain. This is without doubt the 

 most extensive establishment in the county. The dairy hus- 

 bandry in Franklin county must be considered as a small in- 

 terest, and the produce by no means equals the demands of the 

 county. I will subjoin a statement given me of the butter and 

 cheese received and sold at one store in the town of Rowe in 

 one year, 1836. Under the great difficulties of obtaining the 

 desirable information, I am obliged to avail myself of whatever 

 I can get. 



