VERMONT DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 29 



Dairying As a Special or Co-operative Industry. 



It's an old saying that we better not have all our eggs in one 

 basket, and yet the tendency of the present day is to place them 

 there. We are taught to specialize our work, to labor along one line 

 and labor with all your might is a popular password. It may be the 

 way to succeed as a manufacturer or the sure path for a young man 

 or woman entering a profession to take. But do the laws which 

 govern success and failure in one occupation apply with equal force 

 to another entirely different one? 



The manufacturer may find it necessary to confine himself to the' 

 production of one particular line of goods in order to succeed; there- 

 fore must the farmer who is in the dairy business confine himself 

 wholly to that line of farming to procure the best results from his 

 land? 



We all note with pride the improvement taking place among dairy 

 farmers; better cows, the most economical feeds, and up-to-date ma- 

 chinery are questions uppermost in the minds of Vermont dairy- 

 men to-day; and yet, when we make out our balance sheet and over 

 against the income from our dairy products we ofset grain bills, labor 

 account, taxes, and losses from disease, we are too apt to find, as a 

 brother farmer states it, "our income all promised." 



The values at which many of our farms stand to-day, even down 

 to that low water mark where they would be sold for what the build- 

 ings upon them cost, would indicate that something is v, rong. Men 

 who have stood up in these meetings and told how they were pro- 

 ducing over 400 pounds of butter per cow have moved off their farms; 

 their children are not there and the farms rent for a little more 

 than enough to pay the taxes. Such conditions and results do not com- 

 mend themselves to our children and while we are enthusing over 

 the possibilities of a cow as a machine, they quietly steal away to the 

 cities to engage in other activities. 



It is fairly amusing to listen to reasons people will give for leav- 

 ing the farm. The husband usually makes the change on account of 

 his wife's health; the wife goes because John has to work so hard. 

 The simple truth of the matter is they are probably going because 

 they have failed to make the farm pay. How many of the farmers of 

 Vermont would be anxious to sell out or move away from the farm 

 if, after a good living each year, they could reasonably be sure of from 

 four to five hundred dollars to reduce their indebtedness, or it they 

 have the farm free from debt, to store away in the bank for a rainy 

 day. And yet I think there are ways open where this is possible to a 

 majority of our farmers. 



If you will bear with me I want to suggest a few of them. I do 

 not think we can parallel the plan of a great shoe factory, where ex- 

 pensive machinery, piece-work and large production have cut the 

 little shoemaker out. In the farmer's case we find just the opposite.. 



