98 BOAKD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Afternoon Session. 



The Board was called to order at two o'clock by Major 

 Phinney, who stated that the subject for discussion this after- 

 noon was the Dairy. 



NEEDS OF THE MASSACHUSETTS DAIRY-FARMER. 



BY A. W. CIIEEVER, EDITOR OF THE "NEW ENGLAND FARMER." 



Mr. Chairman, — Farmers of Massacliusetts : — According to 

 the programme announced by your Secretary, the subject for 

 discussion this afternoon is, "The Milk, Butter and Cheese 

 Dairy, and the Methods of Marketing," — a broad subject, 

 indeed, and one which might well occupy a whole week, 

 instead of a single afternoon, for the dairy lies very near to 

 the foundation of our present system of agriculture. 



When the time shall come, if it ever does, that our earth 

 becomes so densely populated by mankind that there will be 

 no room for domestic animals; when steam, or other power, 

 shall replace that of oxen and horses, and when each individ- 

 ual shall be compelled to derive his food from the very smallest 

 possible area of land, then, if not before, the tillers of the soil 

 must become independent of animal labor, animal food, and 

 also of animal fertilizers as an aid in the production of food. 



But with our present habits and customs, and with our 

 present limited knowledge of the laws of plant-growth and 

 soil-fertilization, it is difficult to realize to what an extent our 

 comfort and happiness depend upon our domestic animals, 

 and especially those which give us our milk, our butter and 

 our cheese. 



I might refer to statistical reports, and read to you the 

 number of pounds of butter and cheese, and the number of 

 quarts of milk yearly consumed by the people of our State or 

 of the United States, — of the value of our dairy products 

 shipped to foreign countries ; but I will only allude to what 

 many of you, perhaps, already know, that the money paid for 

 the butter which we spread, ever so thinly, on our slices of 

 bread, exceeds the cost of the bread itself; that the butter 

 bills at large hotels and restaurants, and of the great majority 



