662 KOAED OF AGRICULTURE, 



gathering of this convention these two days that we might confer 

 together with the sole thought of being able when we go back to our 

 farms and factories to produce better millv, cream and butter, and that 

 means an increased consumption and a better demand, and a better price. 

 In visiting a number of creameries my observation has been that these 

 factories are conducted along well-deflued business lines, malting the 

 best possible product with the equipment and material at hand. My 

 own personal experience convinced me years ago that the man that 

 feeds tlie cows, milks and cares for the product. 



In addition to the educational influences at work in our State, the 

 Agricultural College, the Experiment Station, the Dairy Association and 

 the agricultural literature, the leading States are sending men into the 

 field to instruct the buttermakers in the application of these principles 

 which long and careful experiments have shown are tlie basis of the 

 most successful buttermaking. They are sending men to farms to investi- 

 gate the kind of cows kept, returns secured from them, feeds used, 

 and from this data are showing the farmers how to increase the profit 

 on the cows he is keeping, whether they be few or many, and how to 

 improve -the quality of their output. 



In spite of the help to be secured from literature, the men who 

 most need the work which has been done are the ones least apt to 

 turn to the helps that are available. The history of the educational 

 work in New York State shows that very profitable returns have been 

 secured from carrying the work of education to the farmer by means of 

 such investigation as is suggested above, and by demonstrative experi- 

 ments carried on in communities in different parts of the State. The 

 neighbors will learn from such experiments more accurately than from 

 the printed page. 



Minnesota, as a result of this class of work among her buttermakers. 

 has secured a large proportion of the prizes at the recent exhibit at St. 

 Louis. The Dairy Commissioner of that State estimates from carefully 

 compiled data that the premiums above market quotations received on 

 Minnesota butter by creameries which have heeded the suggestions of the 

 field instructors has amounted to over .$1,000,000 since the system was 

 first started some three or four years ago. 



I believe the time has come when the dairy intei'ests of Indiana will 

 justify at least a beginning of this character of work, and that the Daii'y 

 Association can in no other way forward the interests of conservative 

 dairying as by the use of their best efforts in securing the field investi- 

 gation and instruction in the creameries and dairy farms of the State. - 



In compliance with the instructions of the last convention, our legis- 

 lative committee has succeeded in securing the help of the State Live 

 Stock Breeders' Association and Corn Growers' Association in an effort 

 to secure funds for this and similar work with corn and live stock. 

 A report of the progress will bo submitted by the committee. 



