DAIRYING OUT WEST. 155 



Mr. E. H. Derby, of Boston, one of the statisticians of 

 the Treasury Department, 'estimates that next year 

 China, Japan, and the Sandwich trade will buy of us, 

 if we have it, 50,000 tons of butter and cheese ;' 50,000 

 tons amount to 100,000,000 pounds, or if all in cheese, 

 to the cheese product of New York State, with their 

 1200 factories and 500,000 milch-cows attached to them. 

 From the sweet, nutritious character of our grasses, and 

 from the cool, equable character of our climate, there 

 is no reason to doubt that first-class milch-cows will 

 produce as much butter and cheese as is produced by 

 the same cows in the best pastures of New York, Ver- 

 mont, and Ohio. The two Platte rivers drain a country 

 which furnishes more acres of pasture than all New 

 York State." 



Mr. Curly estimates that 1200 cheese-factories in 

 the great Platte basin, with 500,000 milch-cows, yield- 

 ing $66.50 each, as they do in New York, would return 

 to their owners, clear of all cost of manufacture, $33,- 

 295,000. The city that could be the entrepot of such 

 trade and traffic need not sit in sackcloth and ashes 

 sighing for the days when the Union Pacific Railroad 

 disbursed $2,500,000 annually. 



Hutton & Alsop had 4000 cows that were kept alone 

 to raise calves ; hundreds of people saw them grazing in 

 one herd ; 4000 cows would have yielded them at New 

 York averages, clear of all labor, $266,360. J. "W. 

 Iliff grazed on Crow Creek 3500 milch-cows, which 

 would have yielded clear $233,065. 



Dr. Latham says : " The milk of 600 cows can be 

 manufactured in a single factory. In the States they 



