it has been able to harness the elements to the car of civilization, and make the invincible powers of earth and air agents of human progress; and, while crowning with immortal bays the brow of learning, it has poured its richest treasures into the lap and around the feet of labor. Society, led by science and the arts, attended by wealth and fashion, makes every day larger demands upon its members, and requires a different life from that our fathers led,-one more in accordance with its past achievements and future expectations,-better houses, richer furniture, handsomer grounds, costlier entertainments, higher personal graces, and broader hospitality. As wealth increases and knowledge becomes diffused among the people, their demands will be diversified and augmented, until everything offensive to taste and Christian morals will be excluded from the land, and society reach its highest state.

You see now the reason and the necessity for the education of labor,-you see now, with whatever degree of success our ancestors drew their support from the soil, we, even by the practice of the same prudence, industry, and economy, can arrive at no such result, partly because advancing civilization has multiplied our wants and increased our duties, but principally for the reason that in our attempts to subdue the earth and exercise dominion over it, learning is a weapon which gives to its possessor an advantage for which no amount of industry, no degree of economy, and no power of bodily endurance can compensate, and hence the impossibility of successful competition for the rewards of agricultural industry while the farmer remains ignorant of those discoveries in science and inventions in the arts, which have revolutionized labor, and made brain superior to muscle. The dairyman and cheese manufacturer must now bring to his occupation an amount of knowledge altogether beyond what has hitherto been deemed sufficient, and I know of no way by which this knowledge may be made to strike so deeply and so rapidly into the minds of the masses as by the instrumentality of asso

ciations and conventions like this, where neighbor can meet neighbor, and discuss improvements, and correct errors.

Many farmers think it entirely sufficient to study nature and copy her processes. These men hold fast to the traditions of their fathers, and rejoice in following a system that is independent of science and the arts, but they forget that nature never reared a Flying Childers, a Flora Temple, nor a Dexter; no lordly Durhams nor sleek Devons roam her forests, no Leicesters nor South-Downs feed in her pastures, no golden cereals ripen on her prairies, no melting fruits load her orchards. But the yellow maize waves its leafy banners, and the tall wheat bends its imperial head in graceful homage to the intelligent husbandman, who by a new creation has added these products to the means of human existence.

The trees of the orchard and garden reach out their perfumed branches and drop their purple treasures into the lap of the successful cultivator, whose art has conquered nature and crowned the hill-tops with golden fruitage.

So in the cheese-making art, the dairyman who stands idle, following old traditions, will soon find that his product is not wanted in the markets of the world. If Michigan hopes to retain her prestige and keep pace with the advance civilization of the age, it must be done through the efforts of agriculturists and agricultural associations, where the best men shall be drawn together for discussion, and where the experience of the best farmers shall be exchanged,- men who can warm into honest enthusiasm concerning the capabilities of your farms, instead of belittling and bemoaning home and glorifying other lands. Here your statesman, your editors, your eminent professional men, should meet and indicate by their presence and counsel that they have an interest in the welfare of this State; that they have faith in her resources; that her fertile soil, her healthful climate, her established institutions of learning, and her sweet and nutritious pastures, still hold out inducements for the rising population to make a home and competence for

themselves in her charming valleys and upon her verdant plains.

When Jesse Williams, the unpretending farmer of Rome, in 1850 conceived the idea of associated dairies, it was forced upon him as a necessary means for accommodating members of his own family. He had not the remotest idea that he had hit upon a great principle, that was of wide application, and which was destined in all coming time to be the means of lifting heavy burthens from the arms of toil. But aside from the burthens of toil and the drudgery from which this system operates, to relieve our farmers, it has developed another great economic principle,-the means of producing food cheaply,a principle which the Creator, in His infinite wisdom, it seems to me, is now impressing upon the minds of people, by the establishment and wide spread dissemination of this system. The question of food, in all densely populated countries, is one that underlies all others. No nation can rise to the highest civilization and power without her people are supplied with an abundance of cheap and nutritious food. Where food is scarce, or wanting in nutrition, there you will find poverty, squalid wretchedness, demoralization and crime; elements of weakness opposed to progress and civilization. Food nourishes not only the body but the brain, and the cheapness and abundance of good food has had much to do in the rapid progress and active development of mind among the American people. But the population of the United States is increasing with wonderful rapidity, and already the supply of meats is becoming comparatively scarce. They are to-day at a price that poor people have a difficulty in obtaining them; and as our population increases there will be a still further scarcity of meats for the supply of our people. Some other form of animal food must be substituted for beef, and the question is becoming every year more and more urgent, how can it be produced cheaply; and in my opinion we must look to the dairy as the chief means of solving this difficulty. I can illustrate this more sat

isfactorily, perhaps, by showing the comparison between the relative cost of producing beef and cheese. A steer which will weigh 1,500 lbs. at four years, must be a good animal, and will yield, say 1,000 lbs. of meat. Three steers, on the above assumption, would produce 3,000 lbs. of beef. Now a good cow will yield from 500 to 600 lbs. of cheese per year, say 450 lbs. per year, and deducting the first two years in which, as a heifer, she yields nothing, we have 4,500 lbs. of good animal food. In other words these steers, at four years old, representing twelve years growth of beef, amount to 3,000 lbs., while one cow, twelve years, for cheese, represents 4,500 lbs. But a pound of cheese is equal in nutrition to two pounds of beef, which would make the difference still greater, giving for the dairy 9,000 lbs. of food on the one hand, against 3,000 lbs. of meat on the other. Then there is the cost of cooking to be charged against the beef, which, as you will see, adds further to the expense of that kind of food. Who shall say that in the mysterious workings of Providence the establishment and spread of the factory system has not been for some wise purpose, more beneficent than that which has been commonly assigned to it, and that in coming time millions of people are to draw their supplies of annual food from this source.

In regard to milk as an article of food, Dr. O. C. Wiggins, inspector of milk in Providence, says the nutritive value of milk, as compared with other kinds of animal food, is not generally appreciated. There is less difference between the economic value of milk and beef steak, or eggs, than is generally supposed. The quantity of water in a good quality of milk is 86 per cent. In a round steak 75 per cent. In fatter beef 60 per cent. In eggs about 68 per cent. From several analyses made last winter he goes on to say: "I estimate sirloin steak (reckoning loss from bone), at 35 cents a pound, as dear as milk at 24 cents a quart; round steak, at 20 cents a pound as dear as milk at 13 cents a quart, and eggs, at 30 cents a dozen, as dear as milk at 20 cents a quart."

Many laborers who pay 17 cents a pound for corned beef would consider themselves hardly able to pay 10 cents a quart for milk, when, in fact, they could as well afford to pay 15 cents. Milk is a most wholesome and economical food for either rich or poor, and it ought to be more largely used. If the money expended for veal or pork were expended for milk, I doubt not it would be an advantage both to the stomach and pocket, especially during the warm season.

Relatively speaking, then, milk is the cheapest animal food that can be used. Whether farmers can afford to produce it cheaply is a matter for them to decide. It is very probable that were they to ask a very high price, a very large number of our people would refrain from its use, from mistaken notions of economy, notwithstanding they might be excessive meat-eaters.

But it has been urged that there is likely to be an over-production of diary products, and therefore it must be unsafe to continue the business of dairying. It is now twenty years since this prediction was made, and yet we come no nearer its fulfillment to-day, it would seem, than when it was first assumed. We are producing in the United States 700,000,000 lbs. of butter, and 250,000,000 lbs. of cheese per year. The butter is nearly all consumed among our people, or, at least, there is but little for us to export. We send abroad annually about 60,000,000 pounds of cheese, but the time is coming, in my opinion, when all our cheese will be needed for home consumption. Our annual consumption, of late years, has increased at the rate of 13,000,000 lbs. per year, and that there is still a margin may be seen from the following estimate:

Our population is now about 40,000,000. Say that each individual should take only one ounce of cheese per day, or a third of an ounce at each meal, simply as a corrective of other food. Now, this same quantity distributed among our 40,000,000 of inhabitants would make an annual consumption in the United States of 910,000,000 of pounds, which is 660,000,000