No. 6 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 201 



herd and its product if no monetary advantage accrued. The bet- 

 terment oi" the herd can hardly fail to entail an increased income. 

 Not so of the milk, however. ISuch of you as can market your own 

 products may find it so. But those who have to pool an extra clean, 

 sweet milk at a creamery with that made under uncleanly conditions 

 have little reward other than an approving conscience for their pains. 

 To such I would say keep at it; the time is coming when virtue will 

 have a reward other than itself. The alkaline tablet teet, the curd 

 tost, the nose test, the fermentation teet, poor butter and stiffer back- 

 bones in the operators' backs will all help to hasten the day of 

 cleaner creamery milk, and of premiums for those who bring it and 

 demerits for those who do not. Make the best and cleanest milk you 

 can afford to i)roduce, put brain® into the operation, put milk, butter, 

 or cheese in attractive shape, get your products known and the like- 

 lihood of success will be enhanced. 



III. NEW NOTIONS. 



Prophecies are cheap and are generally worth what they cost. 

 One need not fear, however, that his prophetic hens will come home to 

 roost if he is careful to date his ideas far enough ahead. So I will 

 say that in 1950 such and such will be the vogue as regards milk 

 making. 



MILK MAKING. 



In 1950 cows will be milked by machinery and fed rations we now 

 do not dream of. Their numbers may not be increased, but their 

 abilities will be vastly augmented. Only the best will be used, for 

 behold, the problem which has vexed the ages, the production of 

 either sex as desired, will have been solved. From the surplus of 

 females the best only need be kept — the survival of the fittest. Elec- 

 tricity or some other of the wonderful forces as yet but partly under- 

 stood will render sanitation and cleanliness easier, cheaper and more 

 certainly effectual. The immunizing theory will have been worked 

 out to its logical conclusion, and all cattle in their early calfhood will 

 be vaccinated — to use a common term — with the sundry toxins, etc., 

 enabling them to resist all disease, I shall mightily miss my guess 

 if means of localizing and killing bacteria within living tissues be 

 not developed. Thus may disease in human and in brute creation 

 be attacked in three different ways, prevented by inoculation, cured 

 by medication, and best of all, eradicated by better methods and a 

 better popular appreciation of them. 



And as for the men, as I said at the outset, there will be a new gen- 

 eration. Let it be our w ork and our pride to give these little folks 

 the best chance. Let us not be like the dwellers in the Azores of 

 whom it is said that they pray ever to be spared the impiety of wish- 

 ing to know more than did their fathers. 

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