Transactions of the Department of Agriculture of the State of Illinois with Reports from County Agricultural Societies for the Year Volume 13 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1878 Excerpt: ... The Convention: --" How shall we improve the dairy Interests of Illinois?" The importance of this question will be felt if we consider the vast amount of money invested in the dairy business. We have no statistics showing the amount invested in the State of Illinois. It has been stated that there arc 1 022 butter and cheese factories, 460,000 cows, and 1,880,000 acres of land in the State of New York devoted to this interest. If the factories are estimated at $5,000 each, the cows at (10 per head, and the land at 150 per acre, then we have a total sum of 592,720,000 invested by the dairymen of New York. If to this we add the value of the horses, wagons, agricultural implements, etc., required for the prosecution of this branch of industry, we shall flud it will amount to at least $100,000,000 which is invested in dairying In the State of New York. Adding to this the amount invested in the States of Ohio, Illinois und Wisconsin and we find acapital of nearly if not quite $200,000,000 used in the dairy business in these fourStates, a fair proportion of which is invested in the State of Illinois. How best to advance the interest of this branch of industry in this State is now under consideration. We shall be better prepared to devise means for advancing the dairy interests if we tane a view of the obstacles and difficulties to be overcome. One of these is the labor and expense of marketing the milk. This has to be done in seed time and harvest, mid rain and shine. If we take the average distance traveled by the dairymen in taking milk to the factory at three miles, we find that in the three hundred working days in a year he has traveled 1.S00 miles, which is equal to sixty days' travel of thirty miles per day. Valuing this time nt three dollars per d...