No. 4.] UNITED STATES DAIRYING. 139 



yield and an occasional separate churning for every cow was 

 the only method proposed as a substitute for pure guess- 

 work, and no means were offered for detecting losses in 

 creaming and churning, excepting expensive analyses of 

 skim-milk and buttermilk. 



A wonderful change has been wrought in the dairying of 

 this country during the seventeen years which have passed 

 si)ice the State Board last met at Grreenfield. The quality of 

 our dairy stock has very rapidly improved. It is estimated 

 that there are now three hundred and fifty thousand pure- 

 bred dairy animals in the United States, and the blood has 

 been so generally dift'used that over one-fifth of all our cattle 

 are grades. Herds of pure-bred cows and others practically 

 pure in blood, although perhaps not registered, are now 

 common, and there are numerous records of Initter-making 

 herds with a yearly average of three hundred to four hun- 

 dred pounds. Several single animals are on record as yield- 

 ing from eight hundred to one thousand pounds of l)utter a 

 year, and these are not confined to one breed. 



The extension of the creamery system of butter making 

 has been remarkable. There are now but seven or eight 

 States and Territories in which butter factories are not in 

 operation, and the total number in the country is approx- 

 imately ten thousand. Of these there are at least six hundred 

 in New England and seventy of them are in Massachusetts. 

 This extension has been largely due to the introduction of 

 the separator system, or mechanical method of separating 

 cream l)y centrifugal force. This one invention practically 

 obliterates the limitations of butter making, due to climatic 

 conditions, and butter factories can now be operated without 

 ice about as well in Mississippi as in Maine or Minnesota. 

 There are probably twenty-fiv^ thousand centrifugal cream 

 separators now in use in this country, all introduced within 

 fiiteen years. When, for storage purposes or in the work- 

 ing rooms, in extremely warm weather, lower temperature 

 is needed, the perfected refrigerating machines are intro- 

 duced to advantage. These are so efiicient and so cheap 

 that creameries have in numerous cases adopted them in the 

 north as well as in the south, in })lacc of ice. Trans[)orta- 

 tiou facilities have also very greatly improved. All dairy 



