54 Missouri Ayricultaral Report. 



PRESIDENT'S OPENING ADDRESS. 



(Geo. O. Moshcr, Kansas Oity, Mo.) 



Gentlemen of the Missouri State Dairy Association : 



The seventeenth annual meeting of our organization finds us 

 in the most gratifying environment as compared with the past. 



We are beginning a new era, this being the first meeting under 

 auspices which ally us with the other great agricultural and breed- 

 ers' associations of the State, and thus draw more attention to the 

 dairy industry in the position it must occupy in our State, as land 

 gradually becomes higher priced and farms cut up into smaller 

 tracts. The experience of Missouri in the raising of cattle has been 

 always along beef lines. As one gentleman recently expressed 

 it, every effort was made to get fat on the animal.- Any cow 

 that could have a calf was considered good enough to give milk. 

 A good illustration of this is given in Professor Eraser's object 

 lesson, where he shows 19 good dairy cows worth 1,900 of the 

 kind which give only enough milk to pay for their feed ; or, as has 

 been shown in Hoard's Dairyman cow census, many of these cows 

 were fed at an actual loss to the owner, not counting the value of 

 his time in care of his herd nor the investment in the cows. A 

 most lamentable picture. 



I believe one of the greatest boons to the farmer is the Ex- 

 periment Station and the institute work under its direction. We 

 have the men in Missouri who are doing this great work of build- 

 ing up our agricultural wealth until she is an empire beyond ques- 

 tion. Take the matter of com breeding and selection. If followed 

 out intelligently, it is not such a burdensome task ; yet if each far- 

 mer will adopt this system, it will add millions to our annual corn 

 crop. The same statement applies to the work Mr. Ellis 

 and Dean Waters are doing along the lines of stock breeding, and 

 our own Professor Eckles, in the dairy division, is undoubtedly 

 adding to the worth of our herds of dairy cows by advice in breed- 

 ing and feeding which is hard to appreciate, unless one follows 

 the history of the work which has to be done. 



The intelligent and painstaking care which Dr. Luckey, our 

 State Veterinarian, has exercised, will minimize, and finally, prac- 

 tically eliminate tuberculosis from Missouri herds. 



The good roads propaganda is a child of the Experiment Sta- 

 tion, and bids fair to have a vigorous and valuable development. 



