PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND 57

In the same year the live stock of the Province included,—

Horses - - - - 25,674 Other Horned Cattle - — 45,730 Colts and Fillies — - 11,718 Sheep - - - « 147,372 Milch Cows - - — 45,849 Swine - - — - 42,629 Working Oxen - - — 116 Hens - - - — 485,580

An important supplement to the mixed farming of the province, from which these results were obtained in 1891, has recently been found in the dairy industry. Five years ago the first dairy station of the Province was established at New Perth. Since then thirty-two cheese factories and four creameries have been established throughout the country. These are, with one exception, managed upon the co-opera- tive plan. A number of farmers form a joint-stock company, erect a building, furnish the plant that is required, employ a skilled dairy-man, supply milk—for which part of the price is paid in advance of the sale of the productvmake and sell the cheese and

butter, and divide the balance of profit, after paying all expenses, at the end of the year. The exception in the case is Mr. Benjamin Heartz, of Charlottetown. Mr. Heartz has, from time to time, imported a large number of pure-bred Holstein, Guernsey and Jersey cattle, and has set about the manufacture of butter in a factory of his own. This new industry is well adapted to the Province. Its products in cheese and butter have found a ready sale in the markets of Great Britian, as well as in those of the neighboring Provinces, Newfoundland and the West Indies, and are regarded as really first-class in every respect. In the summer of 1896 cheese manufactured and sold in the Province amounted to 1,612,209 lbs., the value of which, in cash was $141,235.19. During the summer of 1896 and the Winter of 1897,

———that is, within a year—the product of our butter factories amounted to 225,802 lbs—the value of which was $41,706.37.

These amounts are the results of the early and tentative efforts of less than three thousand farmers. It is estimated that, when the dairy industry, which is yet in its infancy, shall have attained the proportions of which the farming population of the Province is capable, they will be quadrupled without detracting from—perhaps,