MILK FARMING. 281 



TfflRD DAY. 



The last session of the meeting was held on Thursday 

 morning, beginning at 9.30, Mr. Brooks in the chair. 



The Chaieman. We are to have this morning, for our 

 opening lecture, a paper on milk farming by a gentleman 

 who keeps a large dairy and furnishes milk to the city of 

 Holyoke and to the village of South Hadley Falls, making 

 it his business — Mr. Newton Smith of South Hadley 

 Falls. 



MILK FARMING. 



BY NEWTON SMITH OF SOUTH HADLEY FALLS. 



Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Board of Agricul- 

 ture: — I am very far from coming before you as a volun- 

 teer. I appear rather as a drafted man ; inasmuch as it is 

 at the unexpected and urgent solicitation of our worthy 

 Secretary that I have written a short article. Those who 

 remember our Civil War will recall the fact that the drafted 

 man was either obliged to pay his commutation, furnish a 

 substitute, or go himself. I cannot get excused by paying 

 commutation, the Secretary will not accept a substitute, and 

 there seems no way but for me to do my best, leaving you 

 and the Secretary to sufier the consequences. 



Milk is one of the prime necessities of life. While the 

 luxuries of life are generally costly, its necessaries are often 

 otherwise. No doubt the milk producer would sometimes 

 reverse the order of things to his own good fortune and to 

 the misfortune of the consumer. I imagine that if our milk 

 would always command a generous price most milk farm- 

 ers would consider themselves equal to its production with- 

 out further discussion of the subject. But milk does not 

 command a generous price. It would seem, then, that a 

 part, at least, of the task in hand is to ascertain, if pos- 

 sible, how, in the present condition of things, we can make 

 milk producing profitable ; or, in other words, to show how 



