THE DAIRY FARMER AND CREAMERIES. 115 



year if he wills it. Many have willed it and the result is in our 

 town and city markets we have choice of increasing quantities of 

 choicely-made butter. I wish to speak of the farmer's connection 

 with butter-making, as we now think of his share in woolen factories. 

 The sheep farmer is quite content to grow wool, and he needs no 

 great amount of persuasion to convince him thatj^his connection 

 ends with the raw material, for his advantage no less than for that 

 of the consumer of the manufactured goods. To grow wool of a 

 satisfactory quality requires more knowledge and experience from 

 the feeder than was formerly expected of a family weaving its own 

 raw products. 



With the progress of civilization we have changes on all sides of 

 us, and the most remarkable of all the changes we have seen in our 

 century is in man himself. Man is never a constant quantity in any 

 age of the world's histoiy. Every change he is subject to is accom- 

 panied by a change in his wants and general mode of living. With 

 his advancement there comes an expansion of his wants and these 

 new wants are reflected in the development of new industries. 

 Hence it is that we are asked to reform old habits, to adopt new 

 methods, and to enlarge our faith in the farm. 



Every year the tendency^ of modern farming specializes the work 

 of the husbandman to that of a grower of raw materials. It may 

 be objected by some that this is a narrowing of the farmer's life. 

 Those who have seen the change wrought on the life of the farmer 

 regard this as an advantage from every point of view. The old 

 view of farm life required the farmer to be a man of all work in a 

 very much wider sense than he now is, but experience has decided 

 that a limitation of sphere is widening his capacity for his more 

 specialized function of a grower of raw material. 



To know his soil, to understand the special food wants of the 

 plants he grows, the method of cropping which will be most suited 

 to his circumstances are questions which farmers may study to 

 much greater advantage if they have not to divide too much of their 

 attention. To succeed in growing well any one farm plant might 

 well engage the attention of a life time. The cost of cultivating 

 any one of our regular farm crops is now discussed by farmers with 

 far greater seriousness than in former years, because their cultiva- 

 tion requires more intelligent effort than formerl}', and any loss 

 sustained in any one of the items of cost greately effects the margin 

 of profit. 



