478 
Annual Report of the 
attained in the handling of skim milk, until the cheese made from 
it gains a price just below the very finest full cream, bids fair to ex¬ 
ert a marked influence upon the manufacture. It is profitable to 
make creamery butter and the best grades of skimmed cbeese, and 
there is now' a wide disposition to try the experiment. If skillfully 
handled it will pay better than full milk cheese, except in the case 
of the few fancy factories which can return to patrons a large 
average price per pound for milk during the season. The speaker 
illustrated by reference to the results gained by the Freeman meth¬ 
od, and by the old style of creameries. In reviewing the whole 
field, the speaker closed with the opinion that the dairy future is 
full of promise, but that its progress and development call for sim¬ 
ilar advance in the general understanding of the commercial influ¬ 
ences which bear upon it. 
The attention of our northwestern farmers is called to these val¬ 
uable items of information gleaned upon the dairy business, with 
the hope that many who have felt the hardships of raising grain 
under the present expensive system of transportation, will be en¬ 
couraged to follow the example of the thrify farmers of New Eng¬ 
land and New York who are enjoying the benefits of steady and 
remunerative markets for the production of their dairies. 
Western farmers ought not to rest under the standing imputation 
of inferiority. Boston and New York quotations for butter and 
cheese during the present month of February, while the butter 
market is unusually depressed, are in excess of Wisconsin and Min¬ 
nesota prices to an amount equivalent to ten times the cost of 
freight on butter, and five times the cost of freight on cheese. But¬ 
ter sales in Boston on the 16th inst. are reported at 35 to 40 cents 
for choice New York and Vermont dairies, which prices are also 
paid by buyers at the farmer’s door for choice lots; and 25 to 35 
cents for common to good; and, then, with the usual slur on west¬ 
ern slovenliness and carelessness, the quotations wind up with these 
words: “Western butter at 20 to 31 cents.” Factory-cheese sales in 
New r York on the 16th inst., ranged from 16 to 17-J- cents. It costs 
less to make a large quantity of good butter that will sell for 40 
cents than a small quantity of miserable grease that brings only 21 
cents. And with the improved stock used by first-class dairymen 
come other benefits than those of gocd prices for cheese; as the 
beef commands $7 to $8.50 for second qualitj^; $8.50 to $9.50 for 
