THE MODERN FARM 



about 1880 the making of cheese in factories and the 

 home production of butter and cheese were the chief 

 branches of dairying. Even ten or fifteen years later, 

 with the exception of farms near the railroads, cheese 

 was an important dairy product in our State and 

 county. Cooperative creameries were started about 

 1880, and these, within a few years, almost entirely 

 supplanted the cheese factories and the home manufac- 

 ture of cheese and butter. From 1880 to 1895, co- 

 operative creameries increased in the State from less 

 than half a dozen to over sixty. Since about 1900, 

 however, there has been a steady decline in butter-mak- 

 ing, with a constant increase in the shipping of milk. 



Coincident with the changes in the leading branches 

 of farming practised within the county came changes in 

 the class of cattle kept. As soon as the growing of beef 

 and of sheep, on the cheaper but more fertile lands of the 

 West, made the production of these meats of doubtful 

 profit in New England, our farmers were led to see the 

 advantages of the purely dairy type of cattle. A com- 

 bination of the beef type and the dairy type of cattle 

 might have been valuable up to the days of cheap West- 

 ern beef, but not after that. Prior to about 1870 the 

 Shorthorn and the Devon breeds of cattle held a promi- 

 nent place in Litchfield County, but with the lack of 

 profit in beef and with cheaper horse labor, these breeds 

 no longer filled the requirements of our farmers. 



