58 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



statement to the effect that we had about reached the limit 

 of the profitable production of milk ; that it was no longer 

 of any use to keep a cow with a view to profit from her 

 milk, but simply to keep our farms in order and make our 

 lands rich. Well, I made the remark there, that if people 

 thought they could not realize any profit from keeping ordinary 

 cows, I hoped they would at least give the Holstein cow a 

 trial before they gave up. I think I may offer the same 

 advice to the gentlemen here present, although I do not 

 believe they are in any such condition as Dr. Loring 

 described most of the farmers of New England to be in with 

 regard to the raising of milk. 



Mr. Barrus of Goshen. There are always two sides to a 

 question. I know in my own town a gentleman imported, 

 in 1873 or 1874, two Holstein cows and a bull. One of the 

 two cows would give from thirty to forty quarts per day. I 

 do not know what it would weigh ; probably from sixty-five 

 to eighty pounds. But that milk was good for nothing, com- 

 paratively, for butter. You could hardly get any butter from 

 the milk of either of the cows ; what you did get was very 

 poor indeed. The milk was good. One of those cows was 

 sold in Northampton, and the man kept her for a milch cow, 

 and she yielded the best of any cow that he had until she 

 was seventeen years old. He killed her last fall. 



As far as the quiet nature of the animals is concerned, I 

 will say that I bought two imported bulls, one imported by 

 the gentleman to whom I have referred, and the other by the 

 Shakers of Enfield. They were in the market for a long 

 time, and I bought them at six years old. The pair weighed 

 3,800 pounds. There was very little difference in their 

 weight. I paid a hundred dollars for them ; one of them 

 was very vicious : it was as much as a man's life was worth 

 to take care of him. Our people have gone out of that 

 breed. They took their cows to those bulls, and there was 

 quite a large number that got into that stock to a consider- 

 able extent, but, as I say, they have all dropped them, with 

 one exception. Aside from that one herd, I do not know of 

 a single animal in our section of the country, although they 

 were distributed lai'gely around in three or four towns there. 



Mr. Upton of Adams. I do not want to take up much 



