30 THIRTY-FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



The hand separator has taken the small producer in and instead of 

 having to dispose of his product at the country store at a price little 

 above that of soap grease, he comes into the general market through 

 the creamery with a product nearly as good as ours. This kind of 

 dairying is spreading not only in the East, but throughout Iowa, 

 Nebraska and other Western States, where the farmer's main business 

 is grain or stock raising, thus leaving the dairy part with no labor 

 account to charge up against it. 



I once heard a manufacturer of tinware explain how they built 

 up their trade and made their money. He said: "We bunch several 

 things together; pans we sell at cost to get the customers, and the 

 other articles that come in with the order we rely upon for our 

 profit." And so in Vermont dairying as a standby is the best thing we 

 have. It has many advantages. It requires a certain amount of 

 labor that can be turned to account when needed in harvesting other 

 crops. Its products are continually being turned into money and it 

 keeps up the fertility of the soil. 



Now some farmers by the careful use of fertilizer and the silo have 

 increased the productiveness of their farms to the extent of keeping 

 ten to fifteen cows more and in many instances have taken this course, 

 which means more help at least eight months of the year, and although 

 the dairyman has the fun of doing more business, usually comes out 

 at the end of the year about as he did before, financially. Suppose, 

 instead of the extra cows he adds one hundred sheep chosen from some 

 one of the mutton breeds, I think he can easily produce $4 per sheep in 

 lambs and wool, the extra man he can do without. There is that back 

 pasture that has been growing poorer on his hands every day, that 

 he can improve with the sheep, the supply of grain that he had to 

 buy for the cows the sheep will do without if he gives them good hay, 

 and the four hundred dollars, with a little care and not too much 

 prejudice against the sheep, can be made pretty much all profit. It 

 seems to me a great mistake for New England farmers to let go of 

 sheep husbandry entirely. I would not have all sheep nor necessarily 

 stick to that breed that brought such fabulous sums a few years ago. 

 But Vermont farmers must take into consideration Vermont condi- 

 tions in order to succeed. Our acreage of pasture is way in excess of 

 our suitable tillage land, the silo is helping to bring these extremes 

 together. I think a flock of good sheep will help to reduce them still 

 more. 



Here is the University of Vermont, with 29,000 acres of land on 

 their hands, yielding, as they state in their centennial book, a yearly 

 income of nearly $5,000. We will give them the benefit of the nearly 

 and it makes a return of 17 1-4 cents per acre. There are a good 

 many dairymen with the same kind of land and getting about the same 

 returns. It is a matter of vital importance to them to conduct a line 

 of farming that will make this land pay them something. 



Another opportunity is in the line of poultry. One farmer, a little 

 below here, produces from his hennery from $100 to $-500 worth of 



