178 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



a mere matter of profit, I do not see any better class of cows 

 than the ordinary native cows of New England ; and if I was 

 to-day getting up a herd of cows merely for the purpose of pro- 

 ducing butter or milk, calculating the cost of those animals and 

 what they would give the year round, I apprehend I might go 

 farther and fare worse, than to select fine animals from our 

 native stock." But, the gentleman adds, " the great difficulty 

 about our native stock is their offspring ; you can have no cer- 

 tainty that the children of these dams will equal in any respect 

 the dams themselves." 



A thorough sifting of native herds would much benefit the 

 owners. Select from the herds all cows which give but twelve 

 hundred to fifteen hundred quarts of milk per year, and sell or 

 send them to the ])utcher, and supply their places with cows 

 giving from twenty-five hundred to three thousand quarts per 

 annum, or raise such stock ; it will cost no more to feed the 

 latter than the former. Many of our farmers measure and 

 weigh the milk from each cow, and do not keep any that do 

 not come up to their standard in amount of milk and quality. 

 Careful and patient experiments would show that some cows 

 were kept which did not really pay for their keeping ; and with 

 stock-keeping, as with all mercantile transactions, to make a 

 thing pay well one must count the cost. There sliould be no 

 conflict of feeling between tlie advocates of these respective 

 breeds. There is room for all, and for native cattle also, if they 

 are improved natives. 



A few statistics may not be unimportant in considering the 

 value of the dairy products of tiie United States. The total 

 product of butter in the United States and territories, in 1850, 

 was 313,345,30l3 pounds; in 1860, 469,681,372 pounds; being 

 an increase in ten years of 46 per cent. We have not the sta- 

 tistics of 1870, but at the same rate of increase they would give 

 an amount of 685,934,082 pounds ; which, estimated at 33^ 

 cents per pound, would be worth -f 228,578,224. In our own 

 State, the valuation of cows and heifers in 1855 was -$4,892,291 ; 

 in 1865, it was <|6,537,630 ; an increase of 33 per cent, in ten 

 years. At the same rate of increase, it would give $8,716,840 

 in 1875. The product of the dairy of this Commonwealth, in 

 1855, was ;J2,898,696 ; in 1865, -13,091,462. At the same rate 

 of increase it would be, in 1875, $3,292,392. 



