98 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



their grasp, provided they have at the same time, by and 

 through a study of the laws of feeding, by weighing and 

 measuring, and balancing rations to individuals, reduced the 

 cost of prodution to fourteen cents a pound. The profitable 

 dairy cow to-day is the one producing the pound of butter 

 at least cost ; and this must be our standard of measurement. 

 The dairy is our sheet-anchor in New England, and, as a 

 people, we have not entered into an appreciation of its value. 

 If you can sell your hay and grain at market prices, in your 

 barns, and your pasturage for what it is worth, and retain 

 the food elements for maintaining your farms, — yes, for 

 increasing their fertility, — you have as good a business as 

 a man need ask for. The dairy offers this, and more, but its 

 demands are exacting. There must somewhere be a perfect 

 ration for each individual, and the conditions for success 

 require a patient searching for this, through series of experi- 

 ments. Our animals are but tools in our hands, to be 

 changed, molded, reconstructed, as we may desire. The milk- 

 men whose cows yield annually six thousand pounds of milk 

 per head, are not vexed about this problem, provided that, 

 by the same study of rations, by the same care and skill in 

 breeding and feeding, by selecting food with sole reference 

 to results, and with no thought of first cost, they know that 

 each cow is yielding a profit. It is the want of this knowl- 

 edge which has emptied so many barns, and chilled so many 

 hearth-stones. Knowledge is power, and to know that any 

 line of operations is successful, gives not only confidence, 

 but assurance and courage. Here, to my mind, is the great 

 want of to-day. How few can stand and say, " I know" 

 the cost of production in the classes in which I am 

 interested. Give us this knowledge as the result of com- 

 bined work in our organizations, and agriculture will at once 

 step to its proper position. For want of the application of 

 business principles, the keeping of accounts and knowing 

 where profit is sure to be found, we are here to discuss 

 together these important questions. 



The cranberry grower of the Cape, who intelligently pre- 

 pares his bog, sets and cares for his crop, and observes the 

 conditions which govern, does not need to discuss the 

 question before us. Here is an industry worth nearly three- 



