138 



NEW ENGLAOT) FARMER. 



Map-ch 



f reference was given to the Onondaga salt, 

 le gave the process adopted at the Onondaga 

 salt works for niakiiig a pure article of salt, 

 and said the t^alt sent out by the company as 

 F. F. D. salt, was warranted to be equal to 

 any of the foreign brands. 



The Wednesday evening session was occu- 

 pied by Prof. W. H. Brewer, of Sheffield Sci- 

 entific School, Yale College, subject: "Cattle 

 Breeding with refex'ence to Cheese Dairying," 

 and by Prof. Brewer, of New Haven, who 

 read a paper by Mr. Webb of the firm of 

 Webb & Turner, dealers and shippers in New 

 York, on the subject of the cheese trade, es- 

 pecially foreign. From Mr. Webb's state- 

 mt-nts it ajipcars the amount of cheese made in 

 the Britisli Islands the current season is, in 

 roimd numbers, 179,000,000, lbs., an increase 

 over last season of 30,000,000 pounds. 



On Thursday morning the question of purity 

 of liavor ill eluese, which was laid on the table 

 A\ ednesday, was call up and further discussed. 

 Much fault was found with those dairymen 

 who leave their milk standing in tin cans in 

 sun, on the "loading platform," before taking 

 it to the factor)'. A little milk thus brought 

 to the factory damages the whole "batch" for 

 the day. The practice, also, of covering milk 

 up tight immediately after milking, in order to 

 keep the pigs or the cat out of it, was severely 

 condemned. Before milking, the cows should 

 be in a perfect state of calmness. They must 

 not be beaten to make them "stand." The 

 milkman should carefully and gently clean ofi" 

 the teats either with a wisp of hay or cloth be- 

 fore setting the pail under them. 



With regard to rennet, it was considered by 

 the Convention entirely unsafe to depend upon 

 city butchers for the article. These men bring 

 the calves a long distance before killing them. 

 The young animals become hungry, their 

 stomachs inflamed, and the rennet obtained 

 from them diseased. The practice, also, of 

 bleeding the calves before killing them, in 

 order to make the veal white, is fatal to pure, 

 healthy rennet. The rennet obtained from 

 farm killing is by far the best, and, if it can 

 be procured at any price, the only kind that 

 should be used in making cheese. A resolu- 

 tion was adopted recommending the use of tin, 

 instead of wooden pails, for milking. 



The subject of butter-making from whey 

 was next discussed. The distinctive feature 

 in this discussion was that, invariably, theorists 

 and chemical men were opposed to tlie feasi- 

 bility of the idea, while practical dairymen 

 were in favor of it. 



Mr. Kenney of Cortland had made the past 

 season from the milk of 900 cows 288,781 

 pounds of cheese, and from the whey 3000 

 pounds of butter. Both the cheese and the 

 butter brought the highest current prices. 

 The sub-whey left after making the butter 

 proved as good for fattening purposes as that 

 fed before any butter was taken out. This 

 was accounted for, by Prof. Brewer, from the ' 



fact that neither the cheese nor the butter em- 

 bodied the fattening propeties of the milk — 



sugar. 



]\Ir. X. A. Willard delivered an address, re- 

 viewing the cheese market fur tlie past ten 

 years, especially 18G7, and pointing out the 

 vital necessity on the part of American dairy- 

 men, of providing themselves some means of 

 securing trustworthy weekly or semi-monthly 

 reports on the actual state of the trade. lie 

 began by noticing the fact that while all other 

 articles of food had advanced in price. chee.>-e 

 had dropped down far below prices of ordin- 

 ary times. The cry of over-production and 

 glutted markets had scared dairymen into 

 throwing their commodity on the market, 

 thereby giving all advantage possible to the 

 dealer. In tbe absence of any direct means 

 of information, the producer is obliged to de- 

 pend upon llying rumor and the word of the 

 buyer for his knowlctlge of the n)aiket. Ex- 

 perience has shown that neither of these sources 

 can be safely depended upon. With regard to 

 the iiitluence England has on our market, the 

 speaker said that coimiry takes from us 40,- 

 000,000 pounds a year, and makes our mar- 

 ket prices on 200,000.000. 



Had the American Dairymen's Association 

 provided some means at its Convention last 

 year for obtaining reliable weekly reports 

 from the market and the factories abroad and 

 at home, the past season would not ha\ e wit- 

 nessed so many dead losses to the manufactur- 

 ers. They would have had the back-bone to 

 stand firm and demand jn-ices for their cheese 

 which the known amount made and in market 

 would have warranted them in demanding. 

 As it is, no better result can be reasonably 

 looked for another year. Unless this evil is 

 remedied, the middle-men and the retailers 

 must continue to regulate the profits of the 

 dairymen's labor. 



Mr. Willard's address was replete with sta- 

 tistics and other valuable information. It was 

 listened to with attention, and it told pereepti-. 

 bly on the members of tlie Convention, with 

 respect to the vital necessity of immediate ac- 

 tion in the matter under discussion. 



The afternoon was taken up in further dis- 

 cussing some means of devising a plan for the 

 furtherance of the commercial interests of 

 dairymen, which resulteil in referring the 

 whole suject to a committee composed of the 

 Hon. George Williams, W. 11. Comstock, Dr. 

 L. L. Wipht, (J. B. Weeks, Oneida ; D. Mark- 

 ham, Jefierson ; C. If. Wilder, Wisconsin ; 

 Burton Armstrong, Ohio ; Chas. E. Chadwick, 

 Canada; W. E. Duboise, Massachusetts. 



The following are the officers elected for 

 the year : — 



President. — Hon. Horatio Seymour. 



Vice Presidents. — Alvord, of Onondaga; 

 Williams, of Kentucky; Lewis, of Oneida; 

 Elmer, of Alleghany ; Dubois, of Massachu- 

 setts ; Walker, of Oswego ; King, of Illinois ; 



