farmers should combine and say to the creamery men, "we will compel you to pay us a dollar a hundred for our milk," they would be in the same position as these strikers in large manufacturies, whose course is generally condemned. Now, this gentleman who complained is a traveling agent. It wasn't supposed he could be successful as a farmer, unless he put his time and attention to that alone. If a man attends to his business on the farm, he will do well enough. Eight years ago I bought a run-down farm in Sheldon. Some of the wise men said: "Well, Robert has got it socked to him this time." It cost me $5,000. But I went on and worked and kept along, and from that time to this I have saved a thousand dollars a year for eight years.

MR. WALKER, South Woodstock :-Every man has a right to take his milk to the factory or to manufacture it himself. The true question is, what is best for him to do, both for himself and the community where he lives? In my mind this tendency to centralization is removing the business from the farm into the village. It is depopulating our farms, and making them abandoned. We should be up

and doing, and do more of our business on the farm. This centralization tends to loss of individuality. The trouble is, we are too apt to shirk the work we should do ourselves. We want to have the work done for us instead of doing it ourselves. The strength of the State and of the nation depends upon the farmer and his work. Let each man keep his business on his farm and he will prosper, and the State will prosper, and the nation will prosper. Don't shirk responsibility or work.

A gentleman then arose in the audience and addressed the Chair. The presiding officer introduced the gentleman as Ex-Gov. W. D. HOARD, of Wisconsin.

MR. HOARD, who was cordially received, made the following remarks:

I have been much interested in the discusssion, which has not touched the heart of the question. I have 124 patrons in one creamery, and 86 in another. I paid some of them $63 a head for their cows and returned them their skim milk. I paid others $30 to $35. Gentlemen, God did't make us all in one mould. Individual or personal equation tells here as everywhere else. There is a legitimate method of discussion on general principles, when you consider the two methods of running a creamery-whether co-operative or individual. My son and I have some creameries-one cost us $5,000. We pay the expense of building the creamery. We take the milk, make the butter and sell it, for an agreed upon remuneration, and turn it over to the patrons, the same as cheese factories. The creamery that buys the milk has to assume the commercial risk, and the risk of the market. In private creameries, the owners assume the risk, which has to be paid for one way or another. You can not

load your gun so as to shoot if it is a deer, and miss if it is a cat. When it comes to an individual creamery, it is a question of individual application. We see one man who is a dairyman from the ground up; he has sense enough to have a dairy cow and to give her dairy handling, care and feed. That man gets $63 for each cow. Another man with no dairy sense only realizes $30 or $35. To a general question apply general principles, but the matter of individual remuneration applies here as everywhere else in the world.

One gentleman says we must do everything on the farm. I have only one answer to make to that. You may run everything into the village and cities, but, thank God, you can not run the cows there, and the cow is the basis of our business.

MR. HARWOOD, of Dorset :- We hear a good deal of these creameries in the north, and we come here to learn the best method, whether it is that system or the cheese factory. In our section it is all cheese factory. An effort was made to get a creamery there, but it resulted in another cheese factory. The milk is brought, and the man is credited so much a hundred for so many pounds of milk. The cheese is sold and the money divided after taking out $1.10 per 100 pounds for making, furnishing, curing, etc.

MR. HOSKINSON :-Do you do the boxing?

MR. HARWOOD:-We do the boxing. The managing directors, who are appointed by the stock-holders and patrons, jointly, sell the cheese and divide the money among the patrons. Last year the patrons got 82 1-2 cents per hundred for their milk from the 1st of April to the 1st of December. This year it ranges from 85 cents to 90 cents. October, $1.00; August, 80 cents; July, 70 cents; May, 72 cents; June, 68 cents. Now, the question is, whether we can get more from creameries than what we are doing. If so, we want to shift our system of operation. The price paid has varied from $2 down to $1, according to circumstarces, competition, etc. But for the last four or five years it has been $1.10. The cheese is shipped mostly to Newhaven, Conn.

MR. HOSKINSON :-Last year our patrons received 95 cents per hundred.

MR. HUNGERFORD-I was talking about this private creamery here. We get 17 cents per pound. They sell the butter from 30 cents to 40 cents per pound. Speaking about my traveling, I must acknowledge that for some years I traveled, and I was in a business that paid me something. Some years ago I was in Chester County, Pa. I found the farmers disposing of their products to hucksters, and receiving eight to 12 cents per pound for their butter. I was there at a later time and found these same men shipping their butter to Philadelphia and getting 75 cents per pound for the same butter. They had found out the way to reach the consumer, and get the near home market. The trouble here is that it costs too much to get our products into the hands of the consumer--about five millions of dollars a year-and it is not more than two or three

hundred miles from us. Our foreign export has shrunk over three hundred per cent in the last four or five years. We should make as much as we can out of the home market, and not let the distributor and the carrier have the lion's share.

MR. TINKHAM:-Last winter I was at a meeting of the New York Board of Agriculture. I told them what we we were doing, and they called me an old fogey, when I said that in our town we had not the benefit of any co-operative creameries, and made our own butter. They told me their cows averaged 125 pounds to the cow, and Col. Curtis said that there was in New York a million pounds of butter waiting a market at 12 cents per pound. They said they didn't want any such old-fashioned methods as mine. But I told them I didn't want any methods that would reduce the price from 27 cents to 12 cents, and the yield of a cow from 260 pounds or 275 pounds down to 125 pounds. Now, about creameries, etc.; the man who keeps poor cows and has poor milk, giving only three per cent of fats, ought not to expect to come in on a par with the man who keeps good cows and has good milk giving over five per cent. This buying milk at so much a hundred is a great swindle to the man who has good milk. The average is always brought up at the expense of the better for the benefit of the poorer, and therein lies the injustice. The man who has a good quality of milk looses, and the one who has a poor quality gains, by patronizing creameries. Sometime ago I thought I was not getting a proper price for my butter. I went to the man I sold to, in Boston, to see about it. We put our trade mark on all our butter, so that if it is poor a man need not buy it again. I complained of the price to him. He said he was paying me eight cents per pound more than the highest quotation of creamery butter, which was 16 cents, and he was paying me 24 cents. I think that is the general experience of those who keep good dairy cows, give them good feed, and proper dairy care. One thing that makes the dairy article better, is that the creamery has no control over the product until it is delivered to them. The dairyman has the entire control, and has that advantage. The question is, whether the dairyman will pay attention to the work and do it himself, or have someone else do it. I say any dairyman has it in his power to make better butter than can be made in any creamery. I support that statement by another, that every day in the year the highest price paid in our markets is for dairy butter. The dairyman has it in his grasp to excel by having good dairy cows, and properly feeding and caring for them. If he has those, and puts his soul into his business, he must achieve success-failure is impossible.

MR. WALKER:-That is just what I say, that the very work Mr. Tinkham says should be done is what benefits the community.

Gov. HOARD:-The remarks of the gentleman on the floor in front of me, (Mr. Tinkham), contain the very essence of dairy truth as applied to each individual. At present, dairy knowledge does not seem to be widely diffused. I told you we paid one man $63 per

COW.

He made his cows average 300 pounds of butter and another

man made his cows average 357 pounds: The creameries are beginning to tackle this question on the quality of milk. We have been trying to have the farmers in our part of the country understand the necessity of keeping good dairy cows, and understand the value of their product. We put in two vats in our creamery, and said to the men who brought in the good, rich milk, you shall all pool with each other, and to the men who brought in poor milk, “You shall all pool with each other." We call one the "Jersey" vat—that is the good quality. It had a wonderful effect and caused some complaints, but we found the "kickers were sore because they could not get the six per cent milk to help out their poor milk. But the result has been good. The poor pool is getting smaller every day, and the good one increasing. Every creamery owes it to its patrons to act on that broad sense of justice which gives to each man his due and no more. You have the remedy in your hands. Put aside little jeal ousies, and the small sins that do so easily beset us, " and come together on an intelligent commercial basis. Every farmer is a manufacturer, not a producer. He should remember that, and conduct himself as a manufacturer. There are 1,300 creameries and cheese factories in my State, and I have time and again been called upon to act as arbitrator in matters between the farmers and some of these institutions. I have always found two things at the bottom of the trouble-selfishness and ignorance.

MR. W. P. NOBLE, of Berkshire :-We have heard about the large quantities of butter manufactured from certain cows, and of the good quality of the product, but haven't heard anything said about the feed or the breed of the cows. If one breed is much better than any other, we should like to know it. We are in the business to make a dollar. One reason that has driven the farmers to the creameries has been the inability to procure good help. We must go to the creamery or take our women and put them under the burden of butter and cheese-making, and that is wrong. If we can not get along without compelling our women to do that work, then let us take our milk to the creamery.

MR. TINKHAM :-In Pomfret there is not a herd of cows that is not either thorough-bred or high-grade Jerseys. We commenced with that thirty-five years ago; and Gov. Hoard spoke of the "Jersey" vat. I think that answers the gentleman's question as to the breed. Now, about feeding. We find in Pomfret it is a good plan to feed for about all it is worth. They feed meal to their cows right through the year, feeding each cow according to her capacity. No man can make good butter unless he has a butter cow. Cleanliness must attend the process all through. Good cows, good feed, good care, and intelligent handling. There is the whole secret.

MR. WALKER:-The men, in Pomfret, do the greatest share of the work. They do not ask their wives to do it.

MR. TINKHAM:-No. Some of them do not even have the cans and pans to wash. The men bring in the milk and strain it, and it is the men's business to do that.

MR. WATERHOUSE, of Windsor :-Will any kind or amount of food increase the per centage of fat in the milk?

MR. TINKHAM :-I don't know. On general principles, food that will keep the animal in good order and give her a good amount of flesh, will conduce to a greater yield of butter. It is difficult to tell about that, because cows will differ so, but the cow that is well fed is a better butter producer than one that is poorly fed.

MR. HOSKINSON :-Does not the feed have something to do with it as well as the cow?

COL. CURTIS :-One thing has been known to increase the amount of fat, and only one-Palm Nut Oil; that will do it every time, so scientists say.

A recess was then taken until 7:30 P. M.

EVENING SESSION.

VICE-PRESIDENT STONE called the meeting to order at 7:30, and the St. Albans Glee Club rendered vocal music which was very acceptable to the audience.

HON. F. K. MORELAND, of Ogdensburg, N. Y., was then introduced and read a paper as follows, entitled:

DAIRY SCHOOLS.

MR. CHAIRMAN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN :-Were all the dairymen in the State of Vermont as well informed as the members of this Convention, there would be slight need of myself, or any other, addressing you upon the subject of Dairy Schools. Dairymen who attend and take part in Dairy Conventions are, as a rule, well informed regarding the practice of their occupation. Each one of you here present is acquainted with some farmer so intelligent, pursuing his agricultural methods with so much skill and wisdom, that he is looked up to by his neighbors as a worthy model. His farm and farm buildings, his crops and live stock, all betoken the successful or, rather, intelligent farmer. Now were all the farmers in Vermont alike successful and prosperous, there would be no farms offered for sale, there would be no use for your Dairy Association as a means