and the rougher lands to grazing, with the view of purchasing young stock, supplying milk on the railway lines, or converting it into butter and cheese.

Associate dairying prevails in New York and in other states, and has already been adopted to some extent in our own state. Two cheese factories are in operation one at Alstead and the

other at Orford.

The Secretary applied to the owners of the factories for statements of operations. Mr. Tillotson, of the Orford establishment, gives but few facts, with no figures regarding profit. He says:

"The building is thirty by eighty feet, with engine room, press room, and dry room on lower floor. The second and third floors are occupied entirely for drying. We are using the milk from two hundred and fifty cows this season; in the best of the season making four hundred and fifty pounds cheese daily. The temperature of the milk while setting is governed by hot and cold water carried around the vats in pipes from the engine. The whey is all carried away in troughs to the piggery, which is twenty-four by thirty feet, with wings upon either side, eighteen by fifty-six feet, and eighteen by seventy feet."

Mr. Dinsmore, of the Alstead factory, says:

"I have kept fifty-four cows on my farm in Alstead, N. H. I commenced to make cheese in my factory May 16th, and closed September 15th. Number of pounds of milk received from fifty-four cows, from May 16th to September 15th, was one hundred and seventeen thousand three hundred and three pounds. It took nine and one half pounds of milk to make one of cheese, equal to twelve thousand eight hundred and seventy-three pounds of cheese.

"Cheese (average net 15 1-8) .

$1,947.04

Butter made from Sept. 15 to Dec. 1, 1,527 lbs.,

Received for pigs sold from May 1, to Oct. 1

125.00

"I have also raised nine calves that I value at ten dollars each. If I had made cheese all through the season it would not take on an average over nine to nine and one-quarter pounds of milk to one of cheese. One gallon of milk, which weighs eight and one-half pounds, will make a pound of cheese in the months of October and November. I did not take any extra pains with my cows; I only gave them two quarts of meal apiece, in the spring before they were turned out to pasture, and they have had none since."

At the Lebanon Farmers' Meeting the dairy question was discussed in some of its branches, especially in the matter of cooperation. O. S. Bliss, of Vermont, Secretary of the Dairymen's Association, made an hour's talk on the subject, which we hoped to lay before the farmers of our state, but are compelled to reduce it to a mere synopsis. He said co-operative dairying exists in New York and New England, so far, only as an experiment, and is as yet not perfect, with buildings and apparatus inadequate. Cannot say it is just the thing for cheese, but for butter making it is all right. Cheese making impoverishes the soil. It was falling off in Ohio, in Herkimer County, N. Y., and other places, on that account. Smaller ratio of cheese per cow is made in older countries. It is proposed to make butter instead of cheese by co-operation. There are objections, but it has been successful elsewhere. What is desired is good feed throughout the year.

He spoke of a new method of stocking the dairy, by which we can make butter in winter, on good feed. Good grass is most important, but it must be supplemented in winter. The objection to summer butter is met by the statement that cold water is needed. Milk should be cooled to fifty-eight degrees. The method in Vermont is to cool the milk, set in old pans; deep pails not adopted, though coming in use. The theory is, all milk must be cooled to fifty-eight degrees, then permitted to rise by heat of the room. Makers regard seventy degrees as incapable of souring milk until the cream rises. Process at factory, Orange County, is to set in deep pans, skim about thirty hours after setting, as all the butter cannot be worked into cheese. Process of saving butter from the whey of cheese, tried at factory at Milton River, successfully. Experiment of skimming at twelve hours has been tried and the

result is that we cannot tell the difference between it and other cheese. Butter is made from the milk and the cheese brings the same price as full cream cheese; all milk should be ripened before

using to secure best result. Set the cream away until it becomes slightly acid; skim before souring. Less butter is produced when acidity has progressed. Cream always sours before it yields butter. Saltpetre is injurious, has no preservative principle. It is used to keep meat from taking too much salt. Never recommend potash, except to correct acidity in connection with annattoein. The quality depends on the feed. No objection to carrots. Every dairy woman makes the best butter, but cannot get the best price. Do not depend upon breeds. Whole milk butter best for

sea use.

The above in short are the hints given by Mr. Bliss. They will serve as suggestions for future discussion.

WINTER DUTIES.

[An Address by James O. Adams, Secretary.]

It was formerly the practice of farmers, like certain classes of animals, to hibernate to shut themselves up during the winter months, and do little else than consume the farm crops, which they spent the spring, summer and autumn in producing. If they could maintain sufficient vitality to draw up a pile of wood, give their cattle feed enough to keep them in a healthy state, and once a week exchange a load of wood or produce for groceries-the trader naming the price on both sides - it was too often the realization of their fondest anticipations. They never read an agricultural paper, for there were none to read; and never saw a halfTM dozen books on farming in all their lives, while farmers' clubs were institutions entirely unknown.

There are, at the present day, too many who have inherited from their fathers hibernating habits. They are as useless to themselves and the world, through the winter months, as so many Esquimaux. They are content to follow in the footsteps of their ancestors, live as their fathers lived, and dying, bequeath their stupidity to their sons and daughters, even in this day of agricultural knowledge and rural improvement. Fortunately, not the entire generation that preceded us had this patrimony to leave to their children, or more fortunately, many at the present day have transferred all such legacies to the indolent and unambitious, and made for themselves, by foresight and industry, a possession and a name worthy of an honorable record.

The majority of New England farmers to-day find the winter months quite as profitable, and presenting quite as important and oftentimes more pressing duties than those of seed time and harvest, even more so in regard to social and intellectual culture. I propose, during the few minutes I may speak to you, to suggest

some of those duties which should engage the hands, and especially the intellects of New Hampshire farmers, during the winter

season.

The first demand comes from the barn; and with those farmers who depend much on their stock for profit, it comes with irresistible force from the young and as yet untrained horse, that with proper care will, one day, command its hundreds in the market; from the milk-giving cow that daily fills the milkman's cans; from the faithful ox that is gaining strength for labor or flesh for. the butcher's cart; from the fleecy flocks, which though now unremunerative, should be remembered for their past utility and be cared for, that they may again serve the purpose for which they have been kept; and not the least of all, the demand comes from the young and growing stock which will soon be sold, or take the place of those mature and hardy animals which now give character to our flocks and herds.

Without going into particular processes, it is enough to say that regularity in feeding, an abundant supply but not a surfeit, clean stables, protected yards, adequate shelter and pure, fresh water of moderate temperature, are the chief requisites of successful stock tending on our New Hampshire farms, during our winter months. The labor necessary for this, with the care of the poultry and the swine, the providing of wood for household use and possibly to pay the blacksmith and the shoemaker the oversight of the vegetables in the cellar, the breaking of roads over our deep valleys and wind-swept hills, with such other duties as day by day appear, will occupy the time of one active man, at least, on each farm, during the work days of winter.

If the farmer be the owner of wood and timber lots, and draw therefrom to market and to mill; if he has a surplus of hay and straw, of vegetables, fruit or grain to sell, and purchasers contract for their delivery; if he unwisely postpones his threshing until the snowy season, as many farmers were once accustomed to do; if he be so situated as to find it to his advantage to buy manure at the village or city stables, or has a warm cellar for composting; if he possesses a muck bed, inaccessible in summer time, which he can work in winter; if he cuts posts and rails for farm fences or railways, or lumber for building; if, in short, he engages in any of the labors which are open to him, as well as others, and promise him advantage, he will find the pressure of winter days upon him quite as potential as those of summer.