202 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



The North Turner factory, before referred to, in 1887, 

 netted its patrons $1.15 per hundred for all the milk worked 

 up for the season ; and this when the greater bulk of the 

 milk, remember, was made in early summer, when its value 

 is always at the lowest. In 1888 the net was a trifle less ; 

 while the present year, not yet figured, it will fully equal 

 that of 1887. There is no reason why a community of 

 Massachusetts farmers cannot do as well as this (and prob- 

 ably better) , provided they furnish as good milk and make 

 as good a product. Nearly all home productions bear a 

 higher value here than in Maine. I do not now recall any 

 exception to this. 



For milk made into cheese at a factory, averages would 

 stand as follows : One hundred pounds common country 

 milk will make eleven pounds cheese, green weight ; which, 

 ripened, shrinks six per cent, or, sold green at twenty-five 

 days old, as much of it is, shrinks three per cent. 



100 pounds milk makes 10.34 pomids em-ed cheese, at 12 cents, . f 1.24 

 100 pounds milk makes 10.67 pounds green cheese, at 12 cents, . 1.28 

 100 pounds milk paid in 1887, North Turner factory, . . . 1.15 



There is a value to the whey product coming from cheese- 

 making that should not be overlooked, though there is little 

 reliable data to draw upon for facts concerning it. But 

 dairying of whatever kind is dependent on attention to small 

 fractions, and even so small a one as the whey should not be 

 omitted. A certain milk farmer, sharp, as they all must be 

 to make anything out of the business, boasted that he paid 

 his taxes entire for the year on the half-cent per can addi- 

 tional he succeeded in getting from the contractor on his 

 milk. The resulting whey from the cheese business must be 

 worth that small figure, and therefore worthy of attention. 

 The proteine compounds and the principal part of the fats are 

 taken out of the milk by the curds ; so, as a food material, 

 the whey is not only extremely diluted, but is also one- 

 sided in its contents, and for both reasons needs to be intel- 

 ligently fed. The food nutrients left in the whey are not 

 diflerent from what they were in the milk, and are worth 

 just as much for food. Whey should be fed combined with 

 other nutrients of the proper kind, and nev^er alone, as is too 



