10 

 V. COL. PUTNAM'S STATEMENT OF BUTTER, Sie. 



To the Trustees of the Essex ^Agricultural rociely. 



Gentlemen, — The subscriber would submit to your considera- 

 tion the following statement of facts in support of his claim for 

 the premium ofiered by you on the Management of a Dairy, in 

 the year 1825. 



The premium is thus stated : 



*' For the greatest quantity of good butter, in proportion to the 

 number of cows producing it (not less than four) made on any 

 farm from the 1st of June to the 1st of November ; and the quan- 

 tity of butter averaging not less than seven pounds per week for 

 each cow, — twenty dollars," &c. 



My farm is situated in the North Parish in Danvers, and con- 

 sists of about one hundred acres. My whole stock of cows is 

 eight, all of the common native breed ; from these I selected five 

 for the purpose of ascertaining the quantity of butter that could 

 be made in the time above-mentioned. They were kept and fed 

 through the season separate from the other stock ; and their 

 milk was entirely used for the making of butter. During the last 

 wintet" my cows were fed on barley straw, salt hay, corn fodder, 

 fresh meadow hay, with some of the common flat turnips. They 

 were thus fed on coarse and cheap fodder until about the 10th of 

 March, after which they were fed with Enghsh hay, and receiv- 

 ed about one pint of Indian corn, on the ears, a day, to each cow, 

 imtil about the middle of May. — From this time they fed in the 

 pasture ; — and through the whole season, in addition to the feed 

 there obtained, received between four and five quarts of Indian 

 meal per day for each cow. In September when the feed of the 

 pastures was nearly dried up, they were fed with the suckers of 

 about two and a half acres of Indian corn ; after this, for a num- 

 ber of weeks they received about one bushel of mangel wurtzel to 

 a cow, a day, — one half in the morning and the other at night. 

 These are all the kinds of food they have received, and the quan- 

 tities are stated as near as they could be ascertained, — my direc- 

 tions having been to supply them with these quantities, neither 

 more nor less. 



It will be recollected that the season in this vicinity has been 

 unusually dry and warm. In consequence, common pasture land 

 iias yielded much less feed than usual. This was pecuharly the 



