St. Landry democrat., 1886-06-19
MILK OR BUTTER.
Points to be Considered by Every Farmer
and Dairyman.

Points to be Considered by Every Farmer
and Dairyman.
Every man who enters into the dairy
business must determine for himself
| which branch he will follow, and will
probably settle the question according
to his surroundings. As rule, far
mers are very fond of following the
same occupation as their neighbols,
and usually there are but few butter-
makers in sections where milk is made
to sell in cities. and few sellers of milk
where the custom is to make butter.
At the same time. it is not ALWAYS adj
visable to run in the same grooves with
your neighbors.
There is much to be said in favor of
milk selling. There is nothing but the
raw material to be made and shipped,
requiring but few utensils and little
skill beyond feeding the cows Judi
ciously, but for this very reason the oc-
cupation is always crowded. Men who
can do nothing else can feed and milk
COWS and haul the milk to the railroad
station: but as railroads mu tiply, these
producers of milk also multiply. until
now We hear of starvation prices for
milk in the neighborhood of all large
cities.
With butter-making in addition to
producing the raw material. the dairy
man becomes manufacturer: and while
it is true that he may remain for all
time only able to produce the crudest
possible article, yet the possibilities are
all open to him of reaching the highest
standards and reaping the largest
profits No matter what his surround
ings, or where he may be located if he
has the right material in his own brain
and heart, there are even possibilities Of
a national reputation open to him. As
the progressive step is taken from being a
producer only of the raw material to thas
of manufacturer, there must, of course.
be additional responsibility and greater
skill at command of the successful but
termaker. As he rises in the scale, the
number of his competitors becomes less
and less, until he feels utter loneliness
when he reaches the summit of his
fame.
1t has been figured out that while it
costs 81 cents on dollars worth of
butter for transportation, it costs 13 1-3
cents on dollars worth of milk for
transportation. These are, of course,
only relative figures, governed by
mans immediate surroundings. bu5
they give some idea of the difference in
cost of delivering the two articles.
While butter may be sent any distance,
provided it is we'll packed and properly
made, milk ilktransportation must be always
limited until some more convenient and
economical method of handling it than
the present is invented.
So far as the drain upon the farm is
concerned, the philosophers all decide
in favor of butter. claiming that the
man who sells milk sells his farm, all of
which is probably more matter of
theory than practical fact. ANY farm
will run down and out if not properly
taken care of, and with intelligent man
agement any farm will retain its fertility. /
without regard to the amount of milk
sold off it. 1t has been proven in Eu-
rope that a well-set pasture on good.
strong land will last several hundreds
of years, though it supplied grass for
dairy herds and beef cattle promiscu-
ously; and that ought to satisfy the
average dairyman, for in this country =,
men and their children seldom hold to
one calling beyond the second genera-
ton.
The main virtue, however, in butter
making with the average dairyman is
that it leaves the skim-milk and butter-
milk on the farm to be fed to pigs,
calves, chickens, and even back to the
cows. The least enthusiastic rate these
by-products of the butter dairy at twen-
ty-tive cents per hundred pounds, which
is probably a little more than half their
value when judiciously fed. Whenever
you see butter-maker getting rich,
you may be sure he is wise man in the
use of his skim-milk and butter-milk.
and with the modern methods of deep
cold setting and use of the centrifugal
ma ehir es this skim-milk is still more
than it was few years ago.
The successful dairyman makes every
edge cut, and is never above turning to
profit the so-ealled waste products Of
he dairy.-A"ericam Dairymam.