us BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Fxih. Doc. 



profit by these examples. In some localities a very satis- 

 factory market has been built up for skim-milk and butter- 

 milk sales for household use. But vast quantities of these 

 waste products in creamery districts still yield next to 

 nothing. It should not be forgotten that the components of 

 skim-milk give it a relative fertilizer value of about ten cents 

 per hundred-weight, for the compost heap, or direct applica- 

 tion to crops. A careful feeder should realize at least twenty- 

 five cents per hundred-weight for skim-milk, and about as 

 much for good buttermilk, as food for any young grovving 

 animals, including poultry. Experimental evidence favors 

 swine as utilizing these articles to a better advantage than 

 other domestic animals. But skim-milk is worth at least 

 half a cent a pound (fifty cents per hundred- weight) for 

 family use, when compared with other food products of the 

 form. Sales to town and city housekeepers can be urged on 

 the ground that skim-milk at a cent a pound, or about two 

 cents a quart, is cheaper, upon the basis of actual nutritive 

 value, than any other article of animal food ol)tainal)le, even 

 at the prevailing low prices. If properly used, householders 

 can well afford to pay ten cents a gallon and even three 

 cents a quart for sound, separator skim-milk from cream- 

 eries and dairies. The use of skim-milk by bakers and in 

 domestic baking should be greatly increased ; a loaf of skim- 

 milk bread is more nutritious and more easily digested than 

 one made of water. Creameries and dairymen connected with 

 agricultural fairs w^ill do well to cause special premiums to 

 be offered for skim-milk bread. It would be a public bless- 

 ing to have an abundance of skim-milk on sale, at the prices 

 stated, in all our towns and cities. Public opinion should 

 be brought to bear upon the misguided municipal officials, 

 who, in a few large cities, still absolutely prohibit the sale 

 of this cheap and desirable article of human food. 



Creamery management offers opportunity for material im- 

 provement in the interest of economy, and which, being 

 effected, should increase the dividends to patrons or the 

 price of milk. The greatest present waste is in the hauling 

 of milk from the farms to the creameries or separating sta- 

 tions. This is a sort of indirect taxation, which it is diffi- 

 cult to express in figures. But the time lost by teams and 



