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size and value of the farm, the aggregate would be small. The 

 gains of the merchant, if his business is profitable, will be in 

 proportion to the capital employed which he can manage to 

 advantage. In order that the profits of a farm should be large, 

 the farm must be as large and as much of it must be cultivated 

 and improved as the farmer himself can well superintend, and 

 as his means enable him to bring into culture and use. We have 

 no right to demand impossibilities ; and the same rules which 

 apply to commercial and manufacturing pursuits apply to agri- 

 culture, as far as we look to it as matter of pecuniary loss or 

 gain. 



VIII. Dairy and Milk Establishments. — Middlssex county 

 is not a dairy county. Properly speaking, there are no large farm 

 dairies. No cheese is made unless in very small quantities for 

 family use ; and the butter made, of which in the aggregate 

 there is a considerable amount, finds a cpiick and weekly mar- 

 ket in the capital and the other large towns in the county. A 

 very large proportion of the population of the county are en- 

 gaged in commercial, manufacturing and professional pursuits, 

 who, of course, must have their bread buttered for them as they 

 have no time to do it for themselves. The farmers of Middle- 

 sex therefore find a ready and a cash market for every thing 

 which their farms or gardens produce. 



I have many returns of the average yield of cows in but- 

 ter, some of which I will give. From the nature of the 

 case, so various are the animals, so different their feed and con- 

 dition, so great or so little the skill employed in their manage- 

 ment, that it becomes difficult to infer any general rule as to 

 their product. I can only present the different statements and 

 leave to my readers to draw their own conclusions. 



In Waltham, the cows in June average six lbs. of butter 

 each per week ; this upon grass only. One farmer in this town 

 states the average yield in June at seven lbs. butter per week, 

 and from June 1 to November 1, at five lbs. per week. In 

 South Reading, in the best of the season, the average is from 

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