296 ANMAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



Smith for 1905, and they are hit'Jier ajjain this winter. Labor costs 

 full $5 a mouth more, and cows liave advanced one-third in value. 



At the best, then, the increased price received — and it has been 

 substantial — leaves the daii ymen little if any better off financially 

 Than he was before. It is not my purpose to create a hue and cry 

 for better prices, although from Ihe foregoing it must be apparent 

 that we need and must eventually have them. The sooner the con- 

 suming public realizes these facts the better for us, and I have 

 cited them hoping that they may come to its notice, at least in some 

 slight degree, and help to controvert the columns of nmtter, editorial 

 and otherwise, that have lately appeared in the press of New York 

 City howling about the Milk Trust and the opulent dairymen, who 

 are waxing fat on the products accruing from the advance of one 

 cent a quart to the consumer for his milk, one of the cheapest and 

 most nourishing articles of food he is placing on his table; and that 

 the dairyman, too, may stop and consider whether he is getting 

 what he should from his cows. The trouble has been, and is now, 

 that men are waiting for an advance in price to help them, rather 

 than exercise themselves in doing what they can within themselves 

 to decrease the cost of production. My observation has been that 

 the man who folds his hands and sits on the fence and howls about 

 existing conditions and fails to do the first work — such as he and 

 he only can do — will howl until Gabriel blows his trumpet, for he 

 will be in no condition to receive the benefits when they do come. 

 When, under Nehemiah, the walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt by a 

 weak people beset with foes, the task was accomplished by each man 

 building over against his own house. I well remember twenty years 

 ago, when milk would scarcely average |1 a hundredweight an- 

 nually, dairymen were sending up a howl of no profit, and longing 

 for the day of higher prices. Well, this winter the price Is double, 

 and the howl about his non-paying dairy, like the poor, is still with 

 us, except from those whom the old man with the scythe has gathered 

 in — let us hope to the land of milk — and money. At the same time, 

 men made money from their cows then, as they do now. 



What are the requisites? None that I know are new. I can but 

 emphasize, for the most part, some very old truths. 



THE BETTER COW 



Long has this been tried, and although substantial progress has 

 been made, yet here is the greatest leak. Too many cows — like 

 Pharaoh's lean kine — are eating up the yield of the profitable ones. 



One reason why there is not a more substantial advance in the 

 I)rice of milk is that we are making just a little too much. The cut 

 in price of five cents a hundredweight in the spring of 1909 by the 

 Bordens, with labor so high and feed higher than the year before, 

 was only possible because there was plenty of milk in sight. The 

 elimination of the least profitable coavs would reduce the quantity 

 put on the market, and thus enhance the price on a basis which al- 

 ways works— that of supply and demand — and those left wnll pro- 

 duce a profit worth while. In the report of Mr. Smith referred to, 

 his best producing cow made milk at a cost for food of .4817 a hun- 

 dredweight; the poorest at a cost of 1.227 a hundredweight; .102 

 as against .261 fat a pound, .118 as against .224. In all the years 



