184 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



At the commencement of 1860 there were but seventeen 

 factories in the State of New York. They were increased, 

 during the next six years, to five hundred, and it has been 

 estimated that there are now about eight hundred in the 

 State. 



Last year I, with many other New York dairymen, feared 

 that the cheese interest was being overdone. Prices were quite 

 unsatisfactory. The cost of cows ranged from seventy dollars 

 to one hundred dollars. Labor was high, and we had to pay 

 for flour from fifteen dollars to seventeen dollars per barrel. 

 We had been accustomed to exchango at our doors forty 

 pounds of cheese for a barrel of flour. 



The speculators made a hue and cry that the country was full 

 of cheese ; that the whole West had suddenly sprung into the 

 dairy business, and that they were prepared to ship immense 

 quantities to the seaboard, flooding all the markets of the world 

 — and so our dairymen yielded to low prices, and England was 

 in ecstasies. When the year's operations were summed up we 

 found there had been no over-production, and, instead of West- 

 ern cheese coming East, considerable quantities of New York 

 cheese had been shipped West. 



THE EXPORTS. 



We have given the exports of cheese in 1861 at 40,000,000 

 pounds ; in 1862 the exports were, in round numbers, cheese 

 39,000,000 of pounds, and butter 29,000,000 ; in 1863, cheese 

 41,000,000, and butter 23,000,000 ; in 1864, cheese 46,000,000, 

 and butter 14,000,000 ; in 1865, cheese 47,000,000, and butter 

 22,000,000 ; in 1866, cheese 45,000,000, and butter 5,000,000. 

 For the past year, 1887, the exports of cheese were about 

 65,000,000 of pounds. 



ENGLISH PRODUCTIONS AND IMPORTS FROM HOLLAND. 



According to the estimate of the English shipper, Mr. Welsh, 

 the product of cliecse made in Great Britain the past year, 

 1867, has been 179,000,000 of pounds. We have no estimate 

 of the qiiantity of cheese made in Holland. 



Li 1866 I was in Europe, and obtained for the American 

 Dairymen's Association the quantity of Dutch cheese sent to 

 England that year; it was 80,000,000 of pounds. An approxi- 



