1874.] 
AMERICAN AaRICTJLTURIST. 
91 
and as being in the herd for the whole year, 
the product would be 2,933 pounds each. But 
it was far from being a herd of thirty cows. 
Of Renella, Margery, and Thrift, we had only 
the fag end of their unfavorable milking of the 
previous year. They were entirely absent 
eight, nine, and seven months, equal to an ab¬ 
sence of 2 cows for 1 year. Those sent to Illi¬ 
nois being deducted equal an absence of 1 cow 
1 year. The 7 two-year old heifers and the 9 
aborting animals would be liberally treated if 
we were to count them as equal to half as 
many cows, or deduct 8 for them for the whole 
year. 
These deductions will bring the herd of the 
year to nineteen average cows, yielding an av¬ 
erage of 4,615 pounds, or—calling 2 16 /ioo pounds 
a quart—to an average of 2,146 quarts. 
The foregoing is of course only an estimate, 
but it is an estimate based on a carefully kept 
record. Knowing the character of each ani¬ 
mal, I think I have overstated none of the de¬ 
ductions, and that it is well within the limit 
of fairness to rate the herd of Jerseys for the 
year at nineteen cows. If our first object were 
to make a large product of milk and butter, 
the yield would have been considerably greater 
than it was, for there are a number of animals 
which would be discarded to make room for 
larger milkers. For instance, Flora has lost 
one quarter of her udder, and others have, for 
various reasons, fallen off in milking value. 
Our main purpose is to breed Jerseys for sale; 
Flora and the others spoken of are naturally 
excellent, and they bring calves of first rate 
quality. Therefore they are kept and are prof¬ 
itable. If a cow is a good breeder and brings 
valuable calves it pays us to retain her whether 
she is now a large milker or not. Then, too, 
we feed for breeding, not for milk, and for 
good milking condition, not for fat. Probably 
our product of butter could have been increased 
from one fourth to one third by the liberal use 
of corn-meal, but this would have given the 
cows, and probably their calves, a tendency to 
take on fat, which is exactly what is not wanted 
in a butter-making animal; would have in¬ 
creased the danger of milk-fever and the risk 
at calving time; and would, if continued, prob¬ 
ably have sent the whole breed to the shambles 
earlier than the less stimulating food they get, 
which consists (in addition to their hay and 
green fodder) almost entirely of wheat bran. 
Some years we have roots, but this time the 
drouth prevented. 
How much the severe and long-continued 
drouth affected the year’s yield it would be 
idle to guess, and there is no use in a farmer 
imagining what would have been if—and if, 
and if. Every year is full of “ifs,” and they 
may as well be disregarded first as last. The 
foregoing is an exact statement of what hap¬ 
pened at Ogden Farm in 1873. I wish it had 
been ever so much better, and it should have 
been better, but I have set forth all the draw¬ 
backs we can fairly claim, and the account is 
presented without complaint. We have the 
satisfaction of knowing that it is better than 
the average. 
While it is not our first object to make a 
large product of butter, this is a very import¬ 
ant object, and we do make all we can. Dur¬ 
ing the past year we have bought milk from 
near neighbors, and this year we propose to 
buy from others a little farther away. In time 
we may extend to all who care to sell to us, 
who are near enough foi their milk to be 
brought without too much jolting. We pay 
four cents per quart delivered at the milk 
house. What we have bought this year has 
made (by frequent experiment) just about one 
pound for each twelve quarts, averaging the 
different seasons. If we get 48 cents for the 
butter we have the skimmed milk for profit. 
In 1873 we bought 15,422 quarts, which, by 
the above calculation, made 1,285 pounds of 
butter. Much of this was sold for 50 cents 
per pound, not much for less, and some of it 
being worked in (in the churn) with our own 
cream for $1. 
The whole amount of butter made, includ¬ 
ing what was consumed on the farm, during 
the year was 5,912 pounds. Deducting for the 
purchased milk 1,285 pounds, leaves 4,627 
pounds for our own herd. Of this, taking out 
for the 15,494 pounds of milk (of the nine 
natives and odd two Jerseys) equal to 7,206 
quarts, yielding, at 12 quarts to the pound, 600 
pounds of butter, 4,027 pounds is to be credited 
to the regular list given above. Dividing this 
by 19, we have a yearly average of 212 pounds 
per cow. 
Aside from what was consumed on the farm 
we sold butter for cash to the amount of $4,- 
472.85 over all expenses. The purchased milk 
cost $616.86, leaving as a net income $3,855.99. 
The proportion of this due to the natives and 
odd cows is $574.52, leaving $3,282.47 for the 
regular herd. This divided by 19 gives an av¬ 
erage income of $172.76 per cow. In making 
up this account we have deducted $269.02,12^ 
cents per pound on 2,153 pounds of butter sold 
in Boston—this being paid for freight and 
commission; including this, the sales amounted 
to $4,741.87. 
We have had no difficulty in keeping up the 
price to one dollar per pound with all our reg¬ 
ular customers, of whom we have all we can 
supply with certainty, and could probably ad¬ 
vance it without losing many of them. The 
irregular surplus has been sold mainly for 50 
cents per pound, but if there were more of it it 
could be placed at a higher price. We have 
one advantage in being near a place of summer 
resort, giving us a market at full rates for all 
we can make at that season, thus avoiding the 
necessity of bringing most of our cows in in the 
autumn, as we should have to do if we depend¬ 
ed on a city market. 
Do you ask how such prices are to be got ? 
I answer, by making a really good article 
(which comparatively few people in American 
cities ever see), by putting it in the consumers’ 
hands in the most attractive form possible, and 
by teaching them to depend on it by always 
giving them a supply and never having any ir¬ 
regularity in the quality. Give them this and 
your butter will become a necessity to them, 
they will no more return to the ordinary “ first 
quality ” of firkin butter than you would your¬ 
self ; they will go without butter first, and so 
would you. This involves the necessity of ed¬ 
ucating your public, but it is remarkable how 
readily and quickly they take the instruction. 
The palate, of course, has most to do with the 
matter, but the eye is an important organ to be 
considered. A friend writing from Boston, 
speaking of our butter as the best she has ever 
seen, says: “ I don’t know how your dairy 
woman looks , but I am sure she must be an ar¬ 
tist in her way, to send forth such beautiful 
looking pats, so perfectly stamped and so neatly 
done up. It is the most inviting looking but¬ 
ter we ever saw. The color is perfect and so 
is the consistency. It quite spoils us for what 
we were eating before, though at the time wo 
thought that excellent.” When people get into 
this frame of mind they can be depended on 
for permanent custom at high prices. 
Of course many a farmer will lay our suc¬ 
cess (in the matter of price) to our situation, 
and so be inclined not to take a suggestion from 
the example. But every one who makes butter 
to sell makes it for a market, and in every mar¬ 
ket the best butter commands the best price. 
If all were first rate, high prices would be un¬ 
known, but the fact is that there is very little 
first rate butter to be bought anywhere, and 
there is a fair field open in every town in the 
country for an improvement. Of course it is 
only near wealthy communities that really ex¬ 
travagant prices can be obtained, but it should 
be borne in mind that the extra price is all 
profit , and if it is only 15 cents, or 10 cents, or 
even 5 cents, it adds so much to the net income 
of the dairy. 
It would surely be safe to predict that the 
number of people in America who would gladly 
pay for their table butter fifty per cent more 
than the regular price of their markets, will in¬ 
crease quite as fast as they can be supplied 
with a first rate article. In Philadelphia the 
whole class of well-to-do people (not rich peo¬ 
ple only), pay for their butter much more than 
the highest market price of New York. Away 
from home they eat no butter, not being able 
to get anything to compare with that made iu 
the counties near them and brought iu fresh 
every week. The more fastidious of them are 
supplied by specially good makers, and pay 
from 90 cents to $1.10 per pound. When they 
go to the sea-shore or to the mountains in sum¬ 
mer they add the considerable cost of having 
it brought to them by express, packed in ice. 
This well-fed community has learned by expe¬ 
rience what good butter is; they economize iu 
other things if necessary, but they must have 
their accustomed good butter or none at all. 
In every city, town, and village in the land 
there are plenty of people who can be easily 
brought to the same way of thinking. It rests 
only with those who supply them to teach 
them the way to go. 
It is reported that at a meeting of the Amer¬ 
ican Dairymen’s Association, a prominent mem¬ 
ber said: “ Butter-making is a fixed science. 
Everybody knows all about it; it is of no use 
to bring it up here.” I have no doubt that this 
opinion is widely shared by the farmers of the 
country, and especially by their wives. It is 
true they know how to skim a pan of milk, 
how to work the dasher of a chum, how to 
squeeze out half the buttermilk with a wooden 
spoon, how to shovel in the salt, and how to 
stow it away in streaks in a firkin. Judging 
from the butter one sees (and smells) in the 
markets, a majority of them consider this the 
whole of the “fixed science.” Those who 
know more about it know very much less, and 
there is not a single item of the process from 
the selection of the cow to the packing for 
market on which they do not crave more light 
and need more. We are, after all these centu¬ 
ries, on the very eve of knowledge, and those 
who first confess their ignorance and make the 
earliest attempts to learn are those to whom 
success and pecuniary reward will first come. 
The royal road to good butter-making is not 
yet plain, but I believe that those who use Jer¬ 
sey or Guernsey cows, and who set their milk 
iu deep cans (with cool water about them) 
have found its beginning. ’ 
