REPORT OF STATE DAIRY [NSTRUCTOR. 



To the Commissioner of Agriculture: 



I have the honor to hand you herewith my first annual report 

 as dairy instructor. 



I was appointed to this office on Dec. i6, iqti, and at that 

 time was ignorant of the details of its manifold duties which up 

 to this time so far as I, at least, was concerned, had been en- 

 shrouded with a mantle of authority beneath which burned a 

 lamp of mystery. I immediately began to familiarize myself 

 with the workings of this branch of the Department. 



My first duty was to take the place of an institute speaker 

 who had been called home suddenly, which continued until 

 the end of the year. The middle of January, when Mr. Embree 

 was again brought into the State in response to the very general 

 demand for him to talk about cooperative exchanges, it was 

 thought fit that I accompany him as a representative of the 

 Department. I have since thought many times what good for- 

 tune this was, for had I been left to my own inclinations I 

 should have visited those localities where only the most prom- 

 ising herds were kept and in sections where dairying was an 

 acknowledged industry. I knew quite a lot about these sections 

 to begin with and had it not been for this trip with Mr. Embree 

 into those sections of Maine where cows are kept for family 

 convenience and not as a branch of farming, this report would 

 certainly have been much more glowing about our live stock 

 industry, for on this trip 1 saw and had an opportunity to study 

 dairy conditions at their worst. 



I discovered at once that while a fur cap might keep one's 

 head warm, it would not save a man from perishing if his 

 hands and feet and body were exposed to a drifting storm in 

 zero weather. Nor would glowing reports of what dairymen in 

 Auburn, or Gorham, or Turner, or Paris, or Farmington, our 



