THE DAIRY FARMER AND CREAMERIES. 119 



In providing for interest charges T noticed he charged six per cent 

 interest on $1G0 an acre. He stated $160 as the price of good 

 farms in Herkimer county. In the western part of Canada there is 

 a group of three counties where dairying has been followed for over 

 twenty years, and land cannot be bought under $100 per acre. 

 There are many farms in Michigan, Ohio, Illinois and Wisconsin 

 which have doubled their values in ten years, which could not be 

 bought for less than forty to fifty dollars an acre. This indicates 

 pretty clearly what we have to face in fertile conditions, most of 

 which have resulted from the pursuit of dairying. It is not the 

 value of land that will determine the superiority of one part of the 

 coumtry over another, in dair}- success. I mention these values as 

 showing the effect of dairy influence on soil fertility, and general 

 improvement in farming. 



It is not the value of land in any particular district that will count 

 far in the element of cost immediately. Cheap land is a great 

 advantage to a State for dairying. The competition of the 

 immediate future will be in the capacity of the individual cow, who 

 after all determines the cost of the butter. 



I prefer to treat that part of the farmer's work which concerns 

 the production of crops, and the making of cheap cream from the 

 most economical animal. In choosing your cows you must decide 

 after you have the breed which commends itself to vour iudgment 

 which cows in your herd are the best to perpetuate. It is a very 

 simple thing to note which are the best feeders and which give the 

 greatest quantity of cream or butter by an occasional test. What 

 you must fear most from the west is not the superiority of the cattle 

 which they have to-day, because they are not so good as yours, but 

 the care and attention which they give their stock, and the pains 

 they take to improve the next generation. 



We must remember that it is not the cow of the breeders makinor 

 great tests that we have to compete with, but those animals on the 

 plain ever^'-day farm which make from 250 to 350 pounds of butter 

 per year. The feature of w( stern competition which 30U must 

 watch most closely is the energy and persistent faith of the men 

 who are raising their standards of butter capacity. Recollect that 

 the standard cow of fourteen pounds of butter per week, or 300 

 pounds of butter per year, as defined bj' the American Jersey Cattle 

 Club is a limit which has probably been exceeded by a much larger 

 number of matter-of-fact farmers owning high grades than by the 

 regular Jersey breeders. 



