NEAT STOCK. 253 



Indian meal per day to each cow ; since that time, with nothing 

 but grass. 



While your committee have, in the exercise of their official 

 duties, observed the fair proportions and excellent points of the 

 animals composing the herds of dairy cows submitted to their 

 inspection, in the pens to-day, and have perused the carefully 

 prepared and highly gratifying statements of their owners, a 

 feeling of regret has mingled with their meditations, that in this 

 great county, famed as it is through all the country for its 

 productions of good butter and extraordinarily good cheese, 

 the dairy interest should be represented here by only two 

 competitors, and that in a department of agriculture which is 

 calculated as much, if not more than any other, to call into 

 exercise the best and highest faculties of the farmer, — his 

 reason, his judgment, his ambition and his intellect, — and lead 

 him to the grandest results, both of pleasure and profit, so few 

 have chosen to give us the result of their experience, or a sight 

 of those animals whose generous returns for the labor and care 

 bestowed upon them, in milk, butter and cheese, are filling the 

 homes of the farmers of Worcester county with so many of the 

 comforts and luxuries of life. 



When it is considered how important an interest the dairies 

 are to the farmers of this section of the State, in a pecuniary 

 point of view ; that the milk yielded by the cows of the county 

 gives an annual product of more than a million dollars, it 

 certainly becomes us to inquire whether, with a little more 

 pains-taking in the selection and breeding of animals ; a closer 

 study of the recorded experiences of skilful breeders, both in 

 this country and in Europe ; and a practical test of the result 

 of our own conclusions upon our own farms, we may not make 

 the business of the dairy a greatly increased source of enjoyment 

 and profit. 



You;:" committee believe that there is no farmer in Worcester 

 county so rich as to afford to keep a poor cow, and they feel 

 equally confident that there is none so poor but he may afford 

 to have one good one ; and by a poor cow we mean the ordinary 

 old fashioned degenerate stock of the country, which in the 

 height of the season can only half fill the pail, and -^lose 

 coarse hair, thick hide and gaunt proportions are constantly 

 reminding us of that vision of the wicked ruler, narrated in the 



