STOCK-HUSBANDRY IN MASSACHUSETTS. 187 



away, who will be glad to do so. The price of milk, like the 

 price of railroad transportation, is necessarily based, in a 

 measure, on what " the traffic will bear." The milk producer 

 is to be commended for all his honorable efforts towards secur- 

 ing a reduction in his expenses for selling, but he should re- 

 member that the tendency of the age in all departments of man- 

 ufactures is towards a reduction in the cost of manufacturing. 

 The result of the adoption of the associated system of milk 

 supply in the city of Syracuse is, that the consumers get 

 their milk cheaper than in almost any other city ; and I found 

 milk retailing in Springfield, the other day, from the wagons 

 of the new milk association, at sis' cents per quart, and 

 trusted out at that. But the milk association have the facili- 

 ties for making butter, and can use their milk in whichever 

 Avay may prove most profitable. The milk of the country 

 can no longer be made exclusively from the feed in our pas- 

 tures. An entirely ditferent style of farming is now required. 

 Milk can be cheapened in its cost of making, by forcing each 

 acre of the farm to do all it is capable of doing,. instead of 

 letting one-half or three-fourths of it lie comparatively idle, 

 and until we do this we ought not to complain because others 

 are willing to under-sell us in market. By cultivating well 

 all our land, we would find that we could produce all the 

 feed required by our cows, so that the cash received for milk 

 would not, as now, nearly all be required for the purchase of 

 cattle foods, as is the case with far too many of our milk pro- 

 ducers. 



"VVe should also raise more of our cows, and thus save an- 

 other lai'ge item of expense. Massachusetts farmers sell far 

 too many veal calves, as well as others too young to be enti- 

 tled to the name. Killing calves by the thousand, at from 

 three days to four weeks old, entails a public loss ;°and "v^ce 

 should not forget that losses fall eventually upon individuals 

 somewhere, and we may rest assured that the farmer w^ill 

 not escape his full share. There is no time in the life of an 

 animal of the cow kind when it ^vill pay as well for the food 

 consumed, provided it is properly fed and cared for, as dur- • 

 ing its first two years. The experience of all cattle feeders 

 everywhere accords with this statement. Every butter 



