That which is taken off is fresh and sweet, and is in condition to make the finest flavored butter. The management of the milk is without doubt the best that has yet been discovered, and should be generally adopted whenever good butter is sought after.

The churning and working of the butter does not differ materially at the faotories from that of other experienced manufacturers. The cream is churned in the barrel and a half dash churn, and the butter worked with a lever upon an inclined slab. The whole system commends itself to the dairy public, especially to the butter districts, and if the cheese makers would adopt it at their factories for making spring, fall, and winter butter, large sums would be annually saved, and the public greatly benefited by being able to secure readily a desirable article.

DAIRY PRODUCTS OF THE UNITED States.

The following tables give the number of pounds of butter and cheese made in different sections of the Union, according to the census returns of 1850 and 1860. The total production of butter in the United States and Territories in 1850 was 313,345,306 pounds, and in 1860, 469,681,372 pounds. Of cheese, the product in 1850 was 105,535, 893 pounds, and in 1860, 103,663,927 pounds, showing an increase in the production of butter and a decrease in cheese during that decade. From the tables it will be seen which States are largely interested in this branch of industry:

Amount of butter and cheese made in 1860 and 1850.

Amount of butter and cheese made in 1860 and 1850.-Continued.

We have not the exact figures at hand for giving the statistics of butter and cheese made in the Union during the. year 1865, but the production of cheese in the middle and western States alone, it is believed, was more than 200,000,000 of pounds. From facts gathered by the American Dairymen's Association, it is known that there are now upward of a thousand cheese factories in operation throughout the United States. If the number of cows to each be estimated at 50), we have half a million of cows employed in the associated dairies, and if the average annual yield per cow be put at 300 pounds, we have in the aggregate 150,000,000 pounds. But there are a large number of private or family dairies in operation, especially in the eastern and middle States, the production of which, it is believed, will more than make up the estimated annual product of cheese to 200,000,000 pounds.

AMERICAN DAIRYING.

If the value of the cheese product of 1865 be put at an average of 15 cents per pound, it shows a total of $30,000,000, while the butter product, if no larger than that of 1860, at the low estimate of 25 cents per pound, would amount to over $114,000,000. In the estimate of the cheese product it will be proper to remark that the quantity is presumed to be the amount sold, and does not include that consumed in the families of producers.

EXPORTS OF CHEESE AND BUTTER.

The statistics of the trade show that the dairy products of the country are becoming an important branch of commerce.

The following table gives the quantity of butter and cheese exported from New York for a series of years:

1858

1859

1860.

1861

1862

1863

1864.

1865.

Cheese. 5,098, 000 9, 287, 000 23, 252, 000 40, 041, 000 38, 722, 000

Butter.

40, 781, 168

14, 174, 861

49, 755, 842

43, 101, 000

The decrease in the cheese exports of 1865 from those of the year previous, resulted from an extraordinary home demand, which took large quantities of cheese at a price in advance of what shippers felt warranted to pay for it to export. The shipments abroad have been mostly to Great Britain."

A light exportation for a number of years has been kept up with the West Indies and with South America, the trade with the latter being for the most part in a poorer grade of cheese made from skimmed milk. Recently this character of cheese has found a favorite reception in China, where parcels have been sent in exchange for tea.

It is believed there is a wide range of markets yet unopened for the disposal of American cheese, needing only a little enterprise on the part of dealers for its introduction; and that when once introduced, it will increase steadily until a heavy foreign demand is reached.

Great Britain alone can now take considerably more than our surplus, and since the qualities of adaptation of styles to her needs meets, year by year, greater favor, the time cannot be far distant when America will be regarded, if she be not already, the great cheese producing country of the world.

DAIRY FARMING,

WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE FARM OF THE WRITER.

BY ZADOCK PRATT, PRATTSVILLE, greene coUNTY, NEW YORK.

This article is not designed to describe the methods of dairy farming which are successfully practiced by the writer. In the Patent Office Report (agricultural) for 1861, the reader will find a very full and minute account of the Prattsville dairy and the method of butter making practiced there, to which, for the better understanding of the statistics appended to this article, his attention is directed. My object here is rather to show the results of dairy farming for seven successive years, as ascertained by a careful and systematic method of keeping an account of all the products of the farm-the expenses incurred, deducing therefrom the net profits of cultivating it. By doing this, I hope to encourage my brother farmers to manage their farms more intelligently, and by ascertaining the net profits of wool growing, dairy farming, stock breeding, or the culture of particular grains or grasses, to learn whether their labors meet with the proper reward. In the article referred to above it was remarked that butter making in this country has been most successfully carried on within that belt of territory, varying from twenty-five to fifty miles in width, which begins with Orange county, near the city of New York, and extends from the Hudson river in a northwesterly direction perhaps one hundred or one hundred and fifty miles into the heart of the State of New York. Within this belt lies the town of Prattsville, situated in the northwest corner of Greene county, adjoining Delaware county; and this town and the adjoining town of Ashland may be fairly called the butter making region of Greene county.

In 1824, when the writer first located here and began to build his tannery, which afterward turned out a million sides of sole leather, all this region was a dense forest of hemlock, which yielded to the tannery one hundred and fifty thousand cords of bark. After the hemlock forests were cleared away and the tannery was removed to another locality where hemlock was nearer at hand, the writer, who, like many old tanners, had a regard for hemlock lands, felt confident that these lands would prove good for butter making, and at once turned his attention to the subject. The success which has attended his enterprise is best shown in the statistics below. It will be seen from these tables that order,. regularity, attention, "minding your business," are essential to butter making. as they are to success in any department of farming. To this may be added a good thick sod, which hemlock lands afford, and an abundant supply of pure, soft, cool water.

The farm, as heretofore referred to in the report for 1861, contains 365 acres, 40 of which are fine alluvial soil. The residue is hemlock land, the soil of which is loam and gravel, and lies on the castern slope of the Catskill mountain. The average number of cows kept on the farm was eighty, though at one time the number was one hundred. The average quantity of butter for each of sixty-four cows in 1862, as will be seen by a reference to the table, was 223 pounds. The present season this very high average has been a little exceeded; but as the number of cows has been increased to eighty, the large product which they average is still more remarkable.

From the accounts, which have always been kept with accuracy, of the management, products, and expenses of this farm, a summary in the most concise form possible is presented in the following tables: