Norwich bulletin., 1914-07-02
NEW ENGLAND AND MILK.
By George French

By George French
 New England ought to solve what is called the milk problem. but she only great staples of the six states, but in. Stead of being growing industry it is diminishing. 1t has been so thor ougfily commereialized that there is now in it but little money and scarcely no interest. It has immense possibili- ties.s WhN is it that it Is impossible now. to bAy a pound of that fine old fashioned butter that was made by hand from cream raised on milk set in big shallow pans! Why IS IL that appreciation of this kind of but ter. and almost Knowledge of it, has gone out of the minds of nearly all men and women? It is a fact that moderns, do not know what good but ter is and it is the fault of the farm nearly gone out of the world. Good cheese is rapidly becoming mem ory.
 Just to show that the contention made that milk raising in New Eng land may be profitable: There Is a man in Middlesex county, Mass, who Same from Sweden 21 years ago, wear- ing wooden shoes. He went to work as common farm hand. Now he has & fine farm Of 50 acres. keeps 60 cows and four horses. He raises all their feed When he took the farm it was barely keeping three cows and one horse. He sells from $500 to $1.00O worth of hay. beside. every year How does he do it? By using his brains nothing else. His farm is worth more than s25, 600. Twenty years ago a Worcester county, Mass, man took his fathers farm of 210 acres, with debt of 5000 along with it. He paid the debt, bought on about 800 acres more and has become wealthy, for a farmer. He has not made all his money. selling. milk to the Boston con- tractors. He says he cannot make money that way-that all he gets out of it is the manure to enrich his land. But he has always raised lot of milk, and now has about one COW for every acre he owns. His head work enables him to get money out or his land through keeping a lot of cows. If he had specialized and trademarked his product, and sold it direct to con- sumers he might have made twice as much as he has. A couple of years ago an association in New Hampshire made a thorough test, and found that the prize COW produced $21 gross pro- 1t (feed deducted1 for one month. If this can be done as a test, is it not reasonable to figure that with average intelligence and care common cows can be made to pay at least s5 a month profit, or pay for themselves in one year2 Twenty eight years ago man in Windham county, Vermont, worked for-his father two years and then bought the farm of 100 acres, giving a mortgage for the entire purchase price, $3,700. It was supporting four cows, 20 sheep and one horse. Now he has 90 milch cows, 35 young stock. seven horses and about 50 hogs. He has built & $11. .000 barn and a S6, 6,500 house He specialized raising cream. A man in New London county, Conn.,, bought a farm 30 years ago, and gave a s9,000 mort gage on it. For ten years he tried to get ahead by raising little of everything, and selling a little of everything he raised. Then he went to raising thorougbred Guernsey cattle, and became well to do and noted as a breeder. Cattle did it, though not in this case milk as a direct product.
 I could go on with these instances of success, but I have cited enough to show that New England can make money with COWS. That many men in New England do make money raising milk merely shows that many more men could also make money in the Gan1e manner