ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 81 



this business from its first introduction in the west, we don't believe that 

 one out of ten are as well off to-day as they would have been had they 

 have stuck to the business they had left. Too many small factorys are be- 

 ing put up, they can't pay. A factory, in a great measure, is like a hotel, 

 it takes a certain number of guests to pay expenses, and when they get be- 

 yond that they make some money. So with a cheese factory. It costs no 

 more to keep five hundred cheese warm than it does one. It costs but ten 

 per cent, more for help to make one thousand pounds of cheese per day 

 than it does five hundred pounds. The factorymen can dispose of, collect 

 for, and disburse, the money for one thousand pounds of cheese per day 

 with the same time and trouble that it would take to dispose of five 

 hundred pounds. 



MILK SUPPLY OF FOX RIVER VALLEY. 



We are indebted to the Chicago Journal for the follow- 

 ing article upon this subject: 



The Agricultural department of the general Government should possess 

 and annually publish actual data of this rapidly increasing branch of our 

 national production, but it is mainly left to the detached fragments of news 

 that creep into the press, which are collated by some industrious lover of 

 statistics, and so an approximate statiement is finally reached. The constantly 

 increasing demand for improved products of the dairy has stimulated 

 endeavor to its utmost, until American butter and cheese, like American 

 wheat, corn and beef, have become staple articles of export, and European 

 markets are supplied from our Western prairies as well as from the glades 

 of New York. It is not the purpose of this article to give even a good 

 synopsis of the products of the dairy farms in the West. Such a work 

 would require a greater expenditure of time than the writer has at command, 

 but having in possession a few figures, thought it might prove interesting 

 to many of your readers to peruse them. 



The item of milk for daily consumption in a city like Chicago is some- 

 thing enormous. This supply must come from the rural districts, and 

 within a limited range, as it is not found desirable to transport the fluid too 

 great a distance. Coming pure from the farms, it might become butter if 

 indulged with too long a ride. The great bulk of the supply for Chicago 



