Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1894-07-25
FARMERS VOLUME,
lhIrty-Sixth Annual Report of Sec
rotary State Board Of Agriculture.
together With Reports on PomoIoqy. Cattle
and Experiment Station.

the forthcoming report of Hon. B. Walker
Mckeen, secretary of the State board of
agriculture.
The secretary's report together with the
reports OF the State Pathological Society,
the cattle commission and the Maine ex-
pertinent station comprises over 300 pages
and glimpse at the contents, it is impossi-
Bile to give any adequate abstract, will con-
vince those interested in these subjects of
the value as well as interest that is COM
piled in this volume.
About 40 pages of the report are devoted
to report of the last annual meeting of the
board and include comprehensive abstracts
OF the remarks on that occasion. The sue
ceeding ten pages comprise the statistical
tables of the Agricultural societies with
financial statements of each.
Included in this volume is the lecture bv
Secretary McKeen at the Worlds Agricul.
tural Congress at Chicago, Oct. IS, 1892,
his subject being "a Brief Glance at
the Agriculture of Maine" This lecture
was deemed by the leading Chicago news
papers at the time as one of the ablest, if
not the best, lecture delivered before that
Congress by any representative of a states
agricultural bureau. 1t is pithy without
loss to the interest, and it affords the most
comprehensive presentation of the agricul-
ture Of Maine that seems possible within
the limits of such an article. Everyone at
all interested in the subject will read it with
pleasure, and the Maine farmer may we'll do
so with pride.
The rapid increase of dairying in this
State not only warranted the efforts and
expenses necessitated by the State dairy
meeting at Foxcroft last December, but al
so the full account that the secretary makes
of it in his annual report. The addresses
of Hon. w. d. Hoard, DR.. G. A. Bowen
and Prof. Jordan at this meeting are meaty
and need reading and rereading if produc-
tive of the greatest value.
Among the papers at institutes that
of John Gould, dairy editor of the Practi-
cal Farmer, on the dairy at the Worlds
Fair all will want to read. 1t includes
descriptive account of the work done there
together with summaries of the results. 1t
may be of interest to repeat here his state
ment concerning the results of the ninety
days dairy test:
"This of course puts the Jerseys at the
top of the list, and--if these 25 cows are
fair sample of the average. Jersey-to
the front as the great producing dairy
COW of the day. True it is, if the
produce, butter and cheese, had been
figured at market rates-as they should
have been-there might have been some
minor changes, but this remains,-that the
best milk is none too good for butter, and
cheese as well, and in the contest to obtain
it, the Jerseys won, with the Guernseys a
very close second, and the Shorthorns no
mean competitors. If market rates had
been the final umpire between cost
of food and production, it will be
seen that two Guernseys were in the very
front rank as cheese producers, and also
this that if any of the dairy breeds have
cows enough to select from, so that the in
dividual merit of the cows performing, is
of high order, great things can be attained,
and what is more, the final heifer test
showed conclusively that this individual
temperament is born with cows, and not
created afterwards, for the heifers gave
milk as rich in fats, as did the old cows and
that all future feeding and care can do, is
to bring them up to the normal limit OF
milk flow.
One can see lessons by the score in the
&c AI.A. anlx hat q
sons? Oh, many; but the greatest one of all
is that breeding and influence of family
heredity is what makes good cows, those
that can be depended upon Though good
breeding results in great many blanks and
lgood-for nothing cows and that cows born
without possibilities, can never be fed into
profitable ones, and that while sinful man
can be born again, a COW, with now and
then an individual exception, is practically
interchangeable in her qualities and
while foods may influence the amount of
milk she gives, to greater or
| less extent, the quality remains fairly
constant through lite; that talk has been
more abundant in the past than the butter
product of some great cows, judged by the
| Chicago test. That there are good cows in
| all breeds, and in the future, pedigree will
need to be not only backed up by perfor-
nance of the COW herself, but what has
been the records of her family; that II fed
we'll and properly, and the butter made as
it may be, breed distinction has lost its hold
! in good butter production, that the good
butter COW is the best cheese COW, and
in the future butter and cheese will De
made from fat and caseine, and not the
.total SOLIDS" and while many other things
could be pointed out, one other thing Is 60
| ing to be made more prominent than ever
that fat fed in the food does not reappear
corresp ondingly in the butter fats and we
are not certain, but incline to the pehei,
that the unofficial tests OF the past VIII
form little part of the dairy literature OF
the future, and the butter tests OF Cmcago