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

of pounds more than we are producing. But, suppose we deduct 10,000,000 of inhabitants as non-consumers, and allow half an ounce per day for the thirty million of people, and we have an annual consumption of cheese amounting to 342,000,000 of pounds, which is still about 100,000,000 of pounds more than the whole country produces. The fact that cheese is a wholesome, nutritious, and economical article of food, and one of the cheapest luxuries of the table, must, it would seem, bring it largely into use.

But, you will ask, what are the living vital questions of the day in dairy management, and what can this association do to bring about the most desirable results in manufacture?

Until quite recently, neither the dairy farmer nor the cheese manufacturer has fully understood the causes of milk taints, or the influence of ferments upon the products manufactured. The cheese-maker, groping along in the dark, has employed certain agents and manipulations to bring about a desired result. From the experience of others, or from his own practice, he has fixed upon a set of rules, which, with good material, and under favorable circumstances, have accomplished the object sought, the turning out of a good product. But, if the material happen to be faulty, and the circumstances unfavorable, he fails of success, though operating under the same rules. Again, he has learned that faulty milk, under certain manipulations, need not be lost altogether; but may be turned into a second-class product.

For several years past the great effort of manufacturers has been to devise means for making a good product out of bad material.

Of course much has been learned from these experiments, concerning the treatment of bad milk and floating curds, but at what a fearful cost? And the result gained is, that, although faulty milk may be turned into an inferior or secondclass product, no skill has yet been able to convert it into the best goods. Had we known precisely the nature of the causes

affecting milk, and had the energies and unceasing exertions of manufacturers been turned to the prime causes of their troubles and the correction of faults at the fountain head, the great bulk of American cheese, to-day, would have been of superior excellence, quite beyond anything yet produced.

Suppose a woolen manufacturer, skilled in the machinery and running operations of his factory, but with no knowledge as to the qualities of wool, should attempt to make superfine broadcloth from the coarse, almost worthless, tags taken at the factory. He finds it does not work satisfactorily, and cannot be made into fine goods.

Supposing, then, that he attempts to alter his machinery and adapt himself to the situation, would you say that this man is adopting the best plan for success? Would it not have been better to have studied the character of the raw material,-to have selected his wool in reference to the quality of goods he was seeking to make, since no amount of ingenuity and effort on his part will enable him to manufacture superfine cloth from coarse, refuse material? He may learn some useful lessons in the management of this kind of wool, and perhaps the goods may be sold in market at a low price, sometimes covering the cost of production, and sometimes not.

Well, the manufacture of American cheese has been carried on somewhat upon this principle. Milk is brought to the factory, and the manufacturer cannot tell what is the trouble with it. He soon finds it will not work up into first-class goods, and so he does the best he can to save it from loss, turning it into as good a product as he knows how.

It is now known that milk is changed from its normal condition by fungi,—living organisms that take possession of the fluid, and by their growth and multiplication bring about the various phases of coagulation, and the breaking down of the lumps of curd upon the shelf, until it assumes a mellow, flakey condition, fitted in flavor and texture for the human stomach. Certain germs or spores of fungi are supposed to be natural

to all healthy milk, while the same character of germs also pervade the atmosphere, and these last, falling upon the milk, are absorbed in it, where they multiply and grow, and thus the milk curdles and turns sour, developing what we call lactic acid fermentation. The rennet is supposed to contain an immense number of spores, and its effect in curdling milk is attributed to the living organisms which, by their multiplication in the milk, cause curdling, or coagulation of the fluid. They go also into the cheese upon the shelf, and, under favorable temperatures, they perform the important office of breaking down the caseine, and converting the cheese into a mellow, delicate morsel of food. Now so far as these fungi are concerned, they are the cheese-maker's real friends, and under favorable conditions as to temperature, time, and place, they may be controlled to do the cheese-maker's bidding. But it is altogether different with those fungi which have their origin in putrid animal matter, or in filthy vegetable composition. Their influence is altogether harmful, and it is from these organisms, which get possession of the milk, or the cheese upon the shelf, that nearly all the trouble comes in prosecuting the cheese making art.

We now have positive knowledge that milk is tainted in the cow's bag, before it is drawn, on account of the cow's inhaling the odor of putrifying animal matter, such as that coming from deaconed calves, dead horses and the like, left exposed to decay in the open air; that the filth from vegetable decomposition adhering to the udder and hair of cows, while passing through swales and slough-holes, becoming detached while milking, and falling into the milk, even though in minute quantities, spoils the milk, and unfits it for manufacture into a good product; that filthy stagnant pools are filled with living organisms, and the animals drinking from these pools take them into the system, when they are carried into the circulation and are secreted in the milk, tainting it and producing the same character of filth as that from which they