166 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



Massachusetts, and the failure of farmers to raise their own 

 stock. If more of our dairymen would make use of the 

 Babcock test, determine the dairy abilities of their individual 

 animals, and raise calves from such cows as prove to be 

 most successful milkers, it would go far towards elevating 

 the standard of excellence in the herd. The class of cows 

 and their adaptation to the particular kind of dairying in 

 view is of importance. I have no desire, however, to enter 

 into the quarrel of the breeds, but am simply suggesting the 

 wisdom of looking into this matter, and the folly, as 

 Governor Hoard aptly puts it, of hunting for birds with a 

 fox hound, or for butter with a beef animal. 



The matter of dairy apparatus and appliances merits care- 

 ful study. The market for all classes of dairy goods 

 becomes yearly more critical, and margins of profit grow 

 continually more narrow, particularly if modern apparatus 

 and methods are not used to meet these demands. Mill 

 owners throw aside machinery which cost tens of thousands 

 of dollars, machinery but little worn, and replace it with 

 other apparatus perhaps more costly, which in its turn, in a 

 few years, with its value hardly impaired by use, is cast 

 aside for yet another lot of machines. Why? To save a 

 fraction of a cent in the cost of making a yard of cloth, 

 to lessen the expense of labor, to reduce power bills, — in 

 short, to economize in manufacture. Similarly the wasteful 

 shallow-pan or deep-setting creamer of earlier days must for 

 greatest profit be superseded by the centrifugal separator, — 

 the eight-quart can by the sealed glass bottle. Whatever 

 class of dairying New England is engaged in, it is the part 

 of wisdom to adopt such apparatus as will lessen waste and 

 improve quality. It is not my desire to recommend this or 

 that piece of apparatus, but in general to urge the wider use 

 of modern machines for dairy purposes. 



(b) Economy in Crude /Stock (J,, e., home-grown and 

 purchased feeds). — This, as Rudyard Kipling says, is 

 another story. The discussion of economical dairy feeding 

 in all its phases would take far more time than can be given 

 to it here. Indeed, the importance of wise choice in this 

 matter can hardly be overestimated. For full two and one- 

 half hours yesterday afternoon the dairymen of the State 



