42G Bureau of Farmers' Institutes. 



count of declining years and was made president for that year; 

 Prof. L. B. Arnold, for many years the most experienced man in 

 the country in the chemistry of the dairy, and Dudley Miller, a 

 prominent breeder of Holstein cattle. 



In speaking of the work and influence of the New York State 

 Dairymen's Association, it is impossible to do more than select a 

 few of the most important subjects which have been acted on 

 at different periods of its history. At the very first meeting of 

 the association at Syracuse, a petition was framed to be sent to 

 the Senate and Assembly " to pass such laws as will protect the 

 farmers of the State against frauds in the manufacture and sale of 

 fertilizers," and this petition struck the keynote of the associa- 

 tion's efforts ever since. That note has been, " Down with frauds 

 and imitations masquerading in the guise of pure goods." A 

 committee was appointed to lay this matter before the legislature, 

 and the following year this committee reported that they had 

 waited upon the Senate committee of agriculture and had con- 

 ferred with the executive committee of the New York State Agri- 

 cultural Society, and they believed the time was ripe for a united 

 effort to procure an appropriation for establishing a State experi- 

 ment station. This I believe was the earliest movement in that 

 direction. At the Delhi convention in 1880 the same committee 

 made a further report, showing that it had pursued its work until 

 the legislature of the preceding winter had passed an act establish- 

 ing the New York Agricultural Experiment Station. Its labors 

 therefore were accomplished and the committee asked to be dis- 

 charged. 



At the same convention there appears the first action I have 

 been able to find in our records concerning oleomargarine. A law 

 had already been passed prohibiting oleo., and this resolution 

 re ommended " an amendment of the law requiring the branding 

 of oleomargarine by the manufacturer, was to compel all retailers 

 to inform their customers of its character when offered for sale, 

 and that hotel and restaurant keepers be considered as retailers 

 and compelled to give notice to their guests when oleo., sueine, or 

 other imitation butter is set before them." The agitation on this 

 subject was kept up and in the early winter of 1884 President 

 Lewis and two or three other prominent members of the associa- 

 tion went to Albany to consult with Senator Henry R. Low of 

 Orange county, upon an act which should establish a dairy com- 

 mission in this State with an appropriation sufficient to enforce 



