a few years enough to retire and lives in that town, said to me ago, "If I could have known in the previous twenty years what I have known in the last five, I would have been worth more than double the amount of money that I am, but it is too late now. I have got to be an old man." He came to me about sixteen years ago and said, "I have a herd of high grade Shorthorn cows. The best I can make tnose cows do is 150 pounds of butter apiece,and when I undertake to crowd them in any way I notice at once that when they get up to a certain pitch they commence to fatten, and away goes that feed. They begin to flesh up, and consequently shrink in milk. I wish you would tell me what you think I had better do." "Well, Mr. McPherson," I said, "I do not think if I were you, that I would undertake to go out and buy the Tom Fool breeding of everybody, with the idea of making myself better off. I would purchase the finest dairy sire that I could find in the country. I would rather pay a good, high price for that very animal in your work than I would to put him into a thoroughbred herd." Finally he said to me, "Tell me where to buy such an animal." I had some correspondence with different parties, and he finally purchased a two-year-old Jersey sire. Then I said to him, "I would take his daughters, they will be one-half Jersey.-and I would breed them to their own sire, and that would give you in time a herd of cows three-fourths Jersey in breed, with only one-fourth of the original Shorthorn mother, as a foundation stock. His Shorthorn cows were all strong and healthy cows, and made first class Shorthorn stock. And I want to say now that both the Jersey and the Guernsey nick very kindly with Shorthorn and Ayrshire blood. In breeding there is what we call a right nick and a wrong nick, and the Holstein and Jersey as a rule do not seem to nick kindly. In the course of time Mr. McPherson's herd were the granddaughters of that original sire. They were not inbred any more after that, but were bred to a sire out of the same family from which the first one came, which is of general fame. In 1888 those granddaughters produced 336 pounds of butter per cow. You can see that there was a constant weeding. This sire was kept until he was seven years old, and there were a great many successive granddaughters that came in the same way. He was careful in selection, he was weeding, selling off and constantly breeding in this way, until these inbred granddaughters showed in three generations an increase from 150 pounds of butter produced by their mothers, to 330 pounds of butter per cow. That simple story contains my idea. MR. KING. I thank Gov. Hoard for bringing up that point. It is one I have always believed, that with a strong solution of prepotent blood it is possible to build up beyond the expectation of anybody who has not followed the question closely. Now I would like to ask whether the gentleman did any better than he could have done with the same care and the same weeding from a thoroughbred Jersey herd. Gov. HOARD-No; but he started with ordinary foundation stock. He was trying to do the best he could with what he had. If you ask me what in my judgment I would do,-I would get into thoroughbred blood just as quickly as I could, because every animal then has a certain breed value as well as a performing value. I told you of Gen. Burchard's herd of thoroughbred Jerseys in our Home Creamery, and the amount we paid him in cash, besides returning him the skimmed milk. When a man tells you that grades are just as good as thoroughbreds,-that depends. A thoroughbred man can make more out of thoroughbreds than a grade man can make out of grades. Prof. JORDAN-I want to say just a word before leaving the hall. You know it is sometimes said that one can find out what people think of what he says, often, by the comments afterwards. A lady who was in the audience this morning came to me and said "I heard a gentleman sitting near me say, 'Well, it is of no use to buy any more grain'." And I thought that if this audience, or any portion of it, had acquired the notion that I did not believe that food amounted to anything, I had better say something. I cannot for the life of me imagine how anybody could get that idea. I believe in grain food, as a tremendously important factor in dairying. Just how to feed, when to feed and how much to feed,— upon that depends the success of dairying, very largely. What I was trying to show up this morning was the idea of playing upon the quality of the milk at will with the food. We have no experiments yet which determine what effects long continued processes of feeding are working out, through a change in the constitution of the animal; but we have experiments that mean a good deal with reference to what I was trying to talk about this morning,—as to whether sudden and peculiar changes are made by food, in moving up and down the percentages of the various constituents of the milk. Feed the cow the very best you can, study the question of foods, of balanced rations, for upon the way in which you feed will depend your success in a large measure. One of the things that impressed me to-day was the definition which Governor Hoard gave of art,-"The ability to see." The purpose of the State College is to enable people to see; not the old men so much, but the young men; those are the ones that we wish to make see. You demanded an institution of that kind, and I maintain that you are not, as you should, keeping faith with the institution, with the National Government, with the State Government, unless you send us more young men that we may make them see. A gentleman who has been speaking here to-day came to me and in a jocular way said, "Professor, could you do any better farming than we because of some of the things you told us this morning?" I said, "Sir, that will depend very much upon whether I am a better business man than you are, or not. If I am as good a business man I can do better work because I know those things." Is agricluture the only profession or business in this country in which intelligence is at a discount? Is the modern knowledge of no account? And is there a young man in this room who proposes to be a farmer who is willing to do less than to get the best he can, and are we of no use to him? FRIDAY EVENING. MEETING CALLED TO ORDER AT 7.30 P. M. Mr. VINTON-There is a little matter that I wish to refer to for a few moments, and I think I will take this opportunity to do it. In these meetings we have the largest liberty to say anything that we can think of, but we are always good-natured-never get up a controversy. This forenoon at the end of Prof. Jordan's very able lecture he had an addendum, in which he pitched in with a most unmerciful scathing of Nutriotone. Now that hit some of us, and if we ought to be hit that is all right. Since that time three or four good men have punched me and said, "You have given a recommendation of this thing, and what is it all about?" Well, I have given a recommendation of this very thing that has been so unmercifully scathed here to-day, over my own signature, and men have a right to punch me, as things now stand. But I am not alone; there are other men here who have recommended it. Here is Mr. Daggett, who is on record as recommending it; here is Mr. Gilbert; and down in my own county there is Byron Kimball, one of the most level headed and best farmers, who has recommended it. And the strongest recommendation of all has been given by the Rickers that run the Poland Spring House. Now if this article has no redeeming feature it ought to be thus unmercifully scored, and we are all wrong, surely, and ought to repent. For myself, if I am in the wrong and am convinced of the fact, I am willing to admit it; and you cannot say anything here or anywhere else in condemnation of patent medicines, that I will not endorse. But in regard to this article, inasmuch as we are on record as recommending it, it does seem to me that we are placed in a false light. We are either right or wrong in regard to the matter. I have just this to say, which is what Prof. Jordan said in his admirable lecture,-I submit the evidence. I had a colt three years old that was called a very valuable colt; I had paid $75 in cash for the use of the sire. I wanted a good colt and I had a good colt. He was taken sick, and grew worse and worse. I had two veterinarians, but he grew worse and worse and I expected he would die. I got some of this article and gave it to him just according to the directions. He soon began to mend, and mended rapidly, and in a short time was well, and has been well ever since. The Rickers give us very strong testimony to the value of this article. They tell us that, with their large number of horses, they never have had anything that keeps their horses in such good condition. A member of the Board said to me this afternoon that he would give a dollar a pound for it if he could not get it without. Three weeks ago I had a valuable cow that was taken sick. She would not drink, she shrank up in her milk, and a quarter of her bag caked up badly. I did not have any Nutriotone, but I went to the store and bought some and gave it to her according to directions, and in two days she was well. Now that is on our side. As I have given a public recommendation, I will say exactly what I did in the recommendation, that I believe it is a tonic. It is not a food, and I have said to their most active agent in this State that they should not claim that it was a food; although we all know that anybody who has any patent medicines says what he likes,and people may believe just as much as they have a mind to. I will agree with Prof. Jordan that it ought not to be put upon the market and pressed with all its vigor as a food, but I do believe precisely what I said in my recommendation, that it is a tonic, and I believe it is valuable as a medicine for horses. I know Prof. Jordan says that they ask four or five or ten times as much as it is worth, and that you can go to the druggist and get the ingredients and mix them yourself. This is precisely the argument that is used in regard to phosphates, but we farmers do not do it, we say it is not practicable, let somebody else do it. As I said, if this article has no redeeming feature whatever, we are all wrong and ought to repent. MR. MCKEEN. I wish to say that we Mr. CHAIRMAN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: have here an exhibit from the factory of the Maine Condensed Milk Company at Newport. It arrived late and was not placed on exhibition. I understand that they are doing quite a good business at this factory. It is a new dairy industry in the State of Maine, and for that reason deserves notice in a meeting of this kind. You will notice that they have four different brands. I understand they are selling it freely through the South and portions of the West. And while up to the present time the furnishing of milk for the manufacture of this product has not given the farmers the encouragement that it was supposed it might, I believe that in the future there is a chance for a profitable output in this direction. It is an encouragement for us as Maine dairymen that we are extending the variety of our dairy products, placing them upon the market in various forms, forms that were not known in former years. You are, no doubt, all of you familiar with the fact that through the efforts of the board of agriculture and the members in our |