18 ILLINOIS dairymen's ASSOCIATION. 



For the growing stock. 



Any statistics of the milk product of the country that does not take ac- 

 count of these three requirements must be defective. 



I am led to make this statement from an examination of the report of 

 the Commissioner of Agriculture for 1883, in which he attempts to show the 

 average number of gallons of milk per cow in the different States in the 

 Union. Take the State of Louisiana, with its 146,454 milch cows and 282,- 

 418 "other cattle," and the Commissioner makes the average product of milk 

 to he 20 6-10 gallons per cow per annum. ISTow it seems to be patent to the 

 most casual observer that with that average of mi'k per annum per cow, it 

 would be impossible to supply the quant ty of milk required for the support 

 of the growing stock, leaving entirely out of the account che milk consumed 

 in families, and that used for making butter and cheese. 



It should be stated in this connection that the quantity of butter and 

 cheese reported in this and other Southern States is very small. 



Then again, the reports from the Department of Agriculture are not in 

 harmony with each other, for in the report of the Commissioner for the year 

 1877, he says, " that the butter product of the United States may safely be 

 put at 1,000,000,000 of pounds," whereas in 1883 he returns the butter product 

 of the country at 800,000,000 of pounds. 



No one, not even the Commissioner of Agriculture, supposes that the 

 butter product of the country has fallen off twenty per cent, in six years, for 

 these six years have been years when the price of butrer has been very high, 

 and everything has conspired to stimulate the dairy industry to produce the 

 largest quantity of butter possible. 



How, then, are we to account for these discrepancies in our official sta- 

 tistics? They can be accounted for only in one way— a want of uniformity 

 in the manner of estimating the products of the dairy. 



That the statistics of our agricultural products are made up largely of 

 estimates, all will admit. 



The statistics of our corn, wheat, oat and hay crops are made up of esti- 

 mates. 



The statistics of the dairy must be made up in the same way, for no one 

 supposes that the milk is all measured, and the butter and cheese all weighed 

 and reported. 



The Commissioner of Agriculture in his report for 1883 says, '' the milk 

 taken as food in the farmer's family must be considered as an addition to 

 the average given " of the annual milk product of the country. 



Were it possible to fix a basis (that could be adopted by our oflScial sta- 

 tistician) for estimating the daily consumption of milk in families, the aver- 

 age daily consumption of butter per capita, and the average quantity of milk 

 required for the growing stock, and make our statistics conform to those 

 estimates, there would be a uniformity in our official reports that would be 

 be truly refreshing. 



We have made our estimate of the milk product of this State on the fol- 

 lowing basis, that the average consumption of milk in families is one pint 

 per day per capita, (this being Mr. X. A. Willard's estimate, made nearly 

 twenty years ago); that the consumption of butter of this State will be equal 



