VERMONT DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 91 



This matter of co-operation is something of great interest not only 

 to farmers, but to all men in all ranks of life at the present day. We 

 have all sorts of organizations — labor organizations, lawyers' organiza- 

 tions — and there is co-operation in capital going on more and more all 

 over the world, and men are almost compelled to combine for their 

 own interests, and among the classes of men who are combined to 

 stand by their own interests the butter makers are among the first. I 

 have not got time to pay the tribute I would like to to the dairy 

 interests and its value to the State and to the Nation. One of the 

 advantages of co-operation in any business, and especially among 

 butter-makers, is that men can join together and put what they know 

 into a pool, and then each man can pull out what he knows and what 

 the other man knows. The butter associations of the various States 

 of the United States are a form of co-operation among butter makers 

 which has resulted in better dairymen, better farmers and a better 

 class of people all round. Take it in Wisconsin when Governor Hoard 

 first took an interest in the dairy industry of the State. The first meet- 

 ing of the dairy association was attended by seven men in 1871. Hiram 

 Smith said a few years ago the principal subject of discussion at that 

 meeting was whether it was best to drive a cow into the barn with a 

 bulldog or a pitchfork. Since 1871 Wisconsin has become a great dairy 

 State; since 1871 the cow has been busy hooking the mortgages off 

 the farms; since 1871 we have changed from a grain growing State 

 to a dairy and butter producing State, and cheese producing State, and 

 pig producing State, and hog producing State. We have got normal 

 institutes there, and we have got a splendid agricultural college there, 

 and these things have come largely from the Dairy Association meeting 

 away back in 1871, reinforced by thirty-two years of steady labor among 

 the farmers in that State. 



We want co-operation among the butter-makers in order that we 

 may have laws upon the statute books of the State and Nation that 

 shall bring to the farmer, to the butter-maker, to the dairyman, the 

 honest results of his toil. We want co-operation among the butter- 

 makers of this country in order that colored oleomargarine shall be 

 swept from our markets, and we are going to get it out. We nad a 

 fight, the greatest in a certain way known to this country, when the 

 farmers went to Congress and said we want you to place a ten cent 

 tax upon oleomargarine colored to look like butter, which can be pro- 

 duced cheaper than butter and sold on the market at a butter price. 

 There never was such a stirring up among the farmers, there never 

 was such a fight, and for once the farmer went into Congress and made 

 them give them what they wanted. Miles upon miles of pieces of 

 literature were scattered over the country for the National Dairy 

 Union, of which Governor Hoard was President, and a whole host of 

 members of Congress who said they would never vote for the bill got 

 into line and voted for it. Any one who has to represent a district in 

 Congress has to do what he knows that his people want him to, and 

 when those Congressmen saw what was expected of them they came 



