712 TliA.\SACTIOi\S OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



large i(0\\^ worth no more than the ineat and skin, and also the 

 pork raised and fattened from the millc and M'liey supplied from the 

 cow, and the butter made before and after th© cheese season. The 

 old rule of " a pig to a cow " will not hold good where cheese is 

 made, unless a little grain is supplied, but three cows wiM maintain 

 two pigs. A good cow will make ten dollars worth of butter, which, 

 with the calf at ten dollars, and a hundred pounds of pork, a moder- 

 ate estimate, will figure up the nice little income of ninety dollars 

 and over. It is not common for the owners of cheese factories to 

 buy the milk. Large producers deliver their own milk. Small 

 dairyman, uniting, hiring one of their number or alternating. A 

 word in regard to the comparative production of beef and cheese. 

 It is estimated that the feed which will make one pound of beef will 

 produce twenty pounds of milk, which milk will make two pounds 

 of cheese. A fair average price for beef during the past year in 

 New York city would be fifteen cents per pound retail, and for 

 cheese twenty-five cents. Thus it will be seen that the farmer's 

 grass and grain, when retailed from the butcher shop and grocer's 

 counter, stand to him in the relation of production and sale, as beef 

 or cheese, of fifteen cents to fifty. A number of things would enter 

 into the question of comparative profit between the two, such as the 

 labor connected with the production, &c. One of the nicest points 

 growing out of this relative production would be the comparative 

 benefit or detriment to the soil. Would the raising of a drove of 

 young cattle and their fattening, and ultimate loss to the farm of the 

 material which made the growth, and the valuable constituents 

 which made up their organization, reduce the amount of phosphate 

 and intrinsic ingredients of the soil more than the annual drain to 

 supply the material, and sustain the functions and elaborate the tis- 

 sues necessary to furnish the required amount of milk. My vote 

 would be on the side of the dairy, as less exhaustive and more pro- 

 fitable. The philosophy and the science involved in this query I 

 leave for the consideration of our philosophers and professors, who 

 are amply competent to digest the subject, and serve us with the 

 fects. 



Mr. J. \^. Lyman. — I am, for my part, grateful to Mr. Curtis for the 

 full and careful way in which he has met this inquirer. Thousands ot 

 farmers all over the country are out of heart about their wheat and 

 their wool, and are looking toward cows and a cheese factory. On 

 a, strictly dairy fUrni, in a good grass country, a place ought to carry 



