1890.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 199 



In starting out in the dairy business, if you will pardon a 

 word personal, in a locality inaccessible to the milk trade, I 

 had somehow, in common with the rest of mankind, imbibed 

 the idea that a man so situated must work at a disadvantage, 

 as compared with those who were so favorably situated as to 

 be able to make milk for sale. Not liking to be outstripped 

 by my fellow farmers, I was led to investigate the business 

 of cheese-making and of butter-making, with a view to learn- 

 ing whether I would get left by pushing this work as a spe- 

 cial feature of my own farming. Through my own work, 

 and wherever opportunity afforded, I pursued these investi- 

 gations, and with results that were a complete surprise, and 

 which left me fairly well satisfied over my own situation. 

 No one needs to enlist in milk wars to battle for prosperity. 

 There are other fields of triumph quite as inviting. 



Cheese. 



Cheese-making affords an outlet for an unlimited amount 

 of milk. Althouo;h Americans are not a cheese-eating: 

 people, yet here in New England there is room for much 

 more of consumption than we are at present affording of 

 production. Comparatively little of the cheese consumed 

 here is made from our own milk. This is especially true in 

 your thickly populated State, while in Maine the people 

 mostly go without cheese. I once made a tour of observa- 

 tion across Washington County, eighty miles, without being 

 able to learn of a single cheese made that year in the county. 

 Since that time, however, I am glad to be able to say that 

 the farmers have had their attention called to the business, 

 and are now doins; somethino; at it. 



I am aware this is an old-fashioned product of the farm 

 here in New England, and that, for reasons not apparent 

 to me, it is looked upon by most of our people as out of 

 date. The impression seems to prevail that the making of 

 cheese is only resorted to when and where people know no 

 better, or where nothing else can be done with the milk. 

 But there was never a greater error. Cheese-making, under 

 proper surroundings and with the exercise of the business 

 energy called into requisition in the milk business, will 

 reward the operator with fair returns for the outlay, and 



