312 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



of improving the breed of milch cows in this country would receive a new im- 

 petus and this be the means of accomplishing much good in that direction. 



Dr. AVight spoke in regard to his observation of dairies in Vermont, where 

 one man made one hundred pounds of cheese a day, and a neighbor but forty 

 pounds a day witli a larger dairy, the diiference being attributable to the dif- 

 ferent plans of the proprietors ; one selected from his lierd the best, the other 

 took them as they ran, without regard to good, bad or indifferent. 



Hon. \\. L. Webber, of East Saginaw, said that a man who owned a herd 

 of young cattle must experiment to find which were lit to keep and might lind 

 not more than thirty per cent ■worth preserving. Tliis would be an expensive 

 experiment; but if the herd were of good stock then he would probably find 

 tliat full seventy per cent of the herd were worth keeping for dairy purposes. 

 He advocated a systematic effort to improve the breed of milk cows in this 

 section of the country. 



George F. Lewis, editor of the Saginawian, then followed with 



''a scold at the kecreant city citizen." 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentj.emen: — It is now near twenty years 

 since I came to the Saginaw Valley, came from the old Macomb, a fine agri- 

 cultural county; commenced at the outset to talk agriculture to the people of 

 Saginaw ; have talked it ever since ; talked it till I am tired ; and as women, 

 who are better than men the world over, scold when they are tired, I propose 

 to exercise a woman's privilege and scold. 



What did you come here for? To have a visit and a good time with these 

 admirable gentlemen, Judge Marston, George Lord, George Lewis, Fitzhugh, 

 Gustin, Merrill, Miller and the others ; to indulge in a little mutual admira- 

 tion and get fat on the elaborate elegancies served up at the farm, or did you 

 come for business? Li a few years the entire industries of this section are to 

 be changed. Very soon the bark of Mr. Saw Log and the growl of S. Saw 

 Mill, Esq., will be numbered among the forgotten luxuries of Saginaw valley. 

 Lumbering, which is the foundation of eighty per cent of the business of 

 every city in the valley, will be finished within the life of a generation, A 

 moment that is lost is lost forever, and that's what's the matter with a pine 

 tree. He is the best man who best stimulates the next grand resource so that 

 the one shall so help on and merge into the other, as to obviate the possibility 

 of any hiatus in business. Some are now doing this; that's the chief trouble 

 with Judge Marston. But why am I tired, and why scold? 



At the outset, under the pressure of a full head of ''youthful ardor," I 

 said to the late Joe Hess of East Saginaw, one of East Saginaw's brightest and 

 most practical of the early settlers of that mercurial city, "this must be a 

 good country for farming." He replied " not a bit of it ; it is too low, marshy, 

 clayey, cold and wet." Dr. Hill, Saginaw's representative in the State legis- 

 lature, paraded the same ideas before the citizens of all the State, and with 

 only now and then an exception, the people of Saginaw valley said amen. 

 There were less developments then than now, and no wheat maps. Little by 

 little tlio agricultural interests grew ; there were county fairs, afterwards State 

 fairs, and finally, the grandest of them all, these farmers' institutes, and 

 now tlic tide has turned, 



Tiicn why scold? 1 don't scold at everybody. Many have been liberal, aye, 

 lavisli in their efforts to aid the agricultural societies, but I scold at the people. 



