VIII PREFACE. 



The work will be found to contain an account of the 

 most enlightened practice in this country, in the state- 

 ments of those actually engaged in dairy farming ; the 

 details of the dairy husbandry of Holland, where this 

 branch of industry is made a specialty to greater extent, 

 and is consequently carried to a higher degree of per- 

 fection, than in any other part of the world ; and the 

 most recent and productive modes of management in 

 English dairy farming, embracing a large amount of 

 practical and scientific information, not hitherto pre- 

 sented to the American public in an available form. 



Nothing need be said of the usefulness of a treatise 

 on the dairy. The number of milch cows in the coun- 

 try, forming so large a part of our material wealth, and 

 serving as a basis for the future increase and improve- 

 ment of every class of neat stock, on which the pros- 

 perity of our agriculture mainly depends ; the intrinsic 

 value of milk as an article of internal commerce, and as 

 a most healthy and nutritious food ; the vast quantity 

 of it made into butter and cheese, and used in every 

 family ; the endless details of the management, feeding, 

 and treatment, of dairy stock, and the care and atten- 

 tion requisite to obtain from this branch of farming the 

 highest profit, all concur to make the want of such a 

 treatise, adapted to our climate and circumstances, felt 

 not only by practical farmers, but by a large class of 

 consumers, who can appreciate every improvement 

 which may be made in preparing the products of the 

 dairy for their use. 



The writer has had some years of practical experi- 

 ence in the care of a cheese and butter dairy, to which 

 has been added a wide range of observation in some of 

 the best dairy districts of the country ; and it is hoped 

 that the work now submitted to the public will meet 

 that degree of favor usually accorded to an earnest 

 effort to do something to advance the cause of agricul- 

 ture. 



