Litchfield enquirer., 1870-02-10
MILK.

, The following communication iron
 Richard Goodman. Esq. was read befor,
 the Housatonic Valley Milk Association a,
 it's annual meeting reported in our last is.
 sue:- 4 A. $
 In the first place congratulate not on
 iysthe producers oi the milk, but our rail
 roads conveying it. and those portions oi
 Massachusetts and Connecticut from which
 1t is carried, on the great success of the
 enterprise. Milk is HOW conveyed on the
 Housatonis Railroad from it's extreme
 northerly point; It is carried from farm s
 eight to twelve miles from the dspots, and
 not only has the number of producers in.
 creased in every village along ths route
 but the number of cans of milk from near
 ly ever producer of last year has doubled and in many cases quadrupled.
 ''Those send milk who never sent befote, And those who did. now send the morel
 "Mr. Goodrich has shown in his letter on the subject, addressed to the farmers of Berkshire that when the milk train started in October. 1867, it carried forty-four cans, and increased to an average of about two hundred and thirty cans per day in 1868, and to about three hundred and ninety cans in 1869. and I have no doubt a con !. siderable increase could be shown up to this date. The farmers of Berkshire are alive to the subject and one after another they are swinging round into the circle and coming in for their share of the nim- ble sixpences which as the country people suppose constitute the atmosphere of New York City, as We used to think gold was the composition of its pavemants Bat we guess like aa uncomfortable place low CT down it is paved mainly with good in- tention-promises which, like pie-crust, are made only to be broken. rejoice that ths producers of milk are successful, that the railroads reap the benefit from the business, that the middle-men who have done so much to build up the business are getting their reward, that the city milk. men get pure article, which will bear great deal of croson water and that those poor deluded mortals who live in cities, csn occasionally get something for them selves and their babies beside the distiil- cry swin run through stump tail COWS. But hnvonA khsN T ~nSr;~n ns kl,> .:--1.. which business like this gives to every farmer and farmers boy, compelling them to bring their farms up to the greatest producing form. their cows by best of pas turage, boiling and steaming food, to the nrAAAn.s -:iA- .---a--li-,-~.1s nvvPtuB oH hands at work every day in the year as in other business, instead of half their time in the winter idled away or spent of the farm in teaming or outside employment. This stimulus is being felt all over the county and I account for the otherwise anomalous fact of the decrease in COWS in Massachusetts by surmising that we are finding out that we can keep a less number of good cows moro proatably than great CT number of poor ones. Another great subject for oongratrlation arising out of the success of sending milk away is the emancipation of our women. A change coming over the spirit of their dreams. Heretofore man has been what Thackery the great satirist calls the ''King of the Preside" He has made every one stand around just as Louis Napoleon does or did in France, but as the personal government is giving way to constitutional forms there, here the Queen of the freside is asking her rights and we hope she will usurp the do. main of the garden and of the orchard, occasionally look after the calves, and set an example to those seventy thousand vir- gins in Massachusetts who are not and cannot get married, by taking hold of hor- ticulture and light outdoor work, and competing at our fairs with brothers and fathers. Fs'--5# .sE .Y=H -g@.csYs
 "Now, as to the profit of milk bnsiness there can be no question. In Q few local ities where for . shors period from adven- tious circumstances butter ranges from forty-five to fifty cents, perhaps nearly as much can be got from an ordinary COW as by selling her milk, but those favorable conditions are rare, ,and butter-m making. ev- en when it nets thirty to forty cents per pound. taking the labor and all into con sidsration, is not as profitable or pleasant . business as selling milk. The cheese makers are doing good business in their estimation. especially just now when the article is scarce abroad owing to the un- favorable season last year, but the maxl- mum rate of net profit is but fifteen dol lars per hundred pounds of cheese. It 1 takes on an average ten pounds or five
 quarts ofmilk to as pound of cheese, at
 this rate five hundred quarts for hun.
 pounds. bringing the milk at three cents a
 quart only--ths year round. But most
 cheese manufactors put the average at nol
 over thirteen dollars per hundred pounds,
 so.that tho price for milk never reaches
 more than two and one half cents per |