As a maker, I have had opportunities of seeing milk in all stages and in all conditions, and I have found it an invariable rule that the milk furnished by farmers who read and studied the dairy question in all of its phases; who were conversant with dairy literature and adopted the most improved methods extant for producing an abundant, pure and rich flow of milk, were enough affected by the ideas absorbed from library and press to be unconsciously moulded by their influence. On the other hand, farmers who never read; who avoided all progressive methods as “new-fangled notions” and clung to the primitive ways of their ancestors, forgetful that those ancestors adopted nothing new because there was no new thing to adopt, furnished milk sometimes good, often poor, and never profitable to themselves. A man who doesn’t have an opinion on the relative value of milch breeds, who doesn’t know how to feed scientifically and who has narrow conceptions of systematic dairying, generally is, in this competitive epoch, an agricultural cipher. The other day the writer inspected two cheese factories, separated by only a few miles, each being located on admirable sites and accessible to water. Previous to my visit I had been told that the maker in B——’s factory had, during the past season, produced poor, uneven stock, which was a surprise to his friends, as his trade reputation was excellent. On the other hand, I knew that the cheese from W——’s factory, although manufactured by a man of less experience than his rival, had sold at prices above the former’s and footed up a lower ratio. As soon as I had seen the interior of each building the sequel was made plain to me, and subsequent investigation proved it. The first named factory was a mere shell, furnished with utensils both primitive and worn out; the second was a tight, plastered structure and equipped with all of the paraphernalia essential to a modern cheese building. The competition was like running a pony express against a United States mail train.