1889.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 247 



are not eligible for registry with the American Jersey Cattle 

 Club. So you see it is not a case of a fancy and wealthy 

 farmer, for the lady in question is a widow, and has had to 

 labor to bring up and educate a family. When I expressed 

 my surprise at finding this very extraordinary herd up in 

 the State of Maine, — where I should have least expected to 

 find it, though it would not have surprised me in this State, 

 or in Connecticut, — I was told by several men in the audi- 

 ence that two hundred and fifty and two hundred and sev- 

 enty pounds of butter was a very common yield in private 

 dairies. If that is so, it shows that Maine has attained a 

 very high position in dairying, so far as cows are concerned. 

 Now, during a visit of a day or two last May in the 

 county of Franklin in this State, I learned that there were a 

 great many cows sending cream to the creamery at Cenway, 

 and many of them in private dairies, that stood up to two 

 hundred and sixty and two hundred and eighty pounds per 

 cow. The American Jersey Cattle Club consider that a 

 three-hundred-pound butter cow is a splendid animal. It is 

 possible for every farmer in this State, and in the State of 

 Connecticut and in the State of Maine, to adopt that proc- 

 ess of selection which has been presented to us in such a 

 graphic manner by Mr. Bachelder. On the yield of the 

 individual cow, and the expense of manipulating her prod- 

 ucts, the whole question of profit hinges. The closer we can 

 narrow the margin, of course the larger will be the profit of 

 the individual dairyman. There is no profit in keeping ani-' 

 mals, or very little profit in keeping animals giving less than 

 two hundred pounds of butter. The men who have distin- 

 guished themselves in making gilt-edged butter nowadays con- 

 sider that an animal which is not good enough to sell in open 

 market at auction for the price of two hundred and fifty to 

 three hundred dollars is not good enough for their purposes. 

 I can give you the names of several well-known breeders 

 who make butter for the New York market at fifty to seventy 

 cents a pound, according to their customer, whether sold 

 wholesale at the hotels or sold through retail stores at a 

 small rate of commission. These gentlemen are continually 

 selling stock which does not come to their ideal of the stand- 

 ard cow ; but they are always in the market to buy an animal 



