No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. «21 



slio earned at the creamery and what she cost in feed. 



From this mass of testimony, the best that has ever been at- 

 tempted, we find that fully one-third of the cows are kept at actual 

 loss. 



Think what a drain upon the farmer and the country this is. Is 

 it not time that the men who keep cows tried to obtain a better 

 understanding of what it means to be a dairy farmer? 



The Upward Step. 



We are all effected by our environment. How universally true is 

 the old saying ''A man is known by the company he keeps." There 

 is no getting away from the influence of association. Every farmer 

 is subject it. The books and papers he reads are his associates, just 

 as much as the men he meets. One of the greatest dairymen Wis- 

 consin ever produced was Hiram Smith, of Sheboygan county, who 

 died in 1890 and for whom one of the important buildings on the 

 University Campus, the Hiram Smith Hall, was named. One of his 

 favorite sayings was, "A registered sire is a great educator. It is 

 an upward step." He had seen farmers about him in all stages of 

 development and with no development and he declared that there 

 was no hope of a man's upward progress as a farmer just as long as 

 he kept a grade or scrub sire. Here again do we see the effect of 

 the law of association. We have noted it ourself in hundreds of 

 instances. All about us in Jefferson county, Wisconsin, now noted 

 for its production of dairy cattle, are farmers who have made hand- 

 some progress in knowledge and w^ealth. Their progress dates from 

 the very hour that they commenced keeping a pure-bred sire. A 

 large proportion of them are Germans, who have been obliged to 

 learn to read English in a slow and difficult manner. They saw the 

 improvement that came in their neighbor's cattle from such a sire. 

 That set them to thinking. Buyers came and paid more for the 

 heifers and cow^s from such sires. The buyers were a different order 

 of men. They talked on an upward grade. Here was another 

 association. One good sire at registered prices succeeded another. 

 That was more association. Their minds began to expand; they 

 could see more in this business of dairy farming. Their farms are 

 selling for |100 to |150 an acre. They sell annually a half million 

 dollars' worth of cattle. Their sons are going ahead, making more 

 intelligent dairy farmers than did the fathers. They are attending 

 the short course at the College of Agriculture. Several of them 

 have branched out into breeding registered cattle. In 20 years there 

 will be hundreds of such breeders in Jefferson county. Who can 

 measure the influence and effect upon a farmer when he commences 

 to associate with pure-bred cattle? 



Yes, Hiram Smith was right, "A registered sire is a great educator." 

 Verily, ''A man is known by the company he keeps." Scrub cattle 

 will liold a man down to scrub ideas on general farming. There can 

 be no "upward step." The influence is retroactive on both the 

 fanner and his cattle. Better ideas lie at the bottom of all better- 

 ment. 



There are a hundred copies of dairy and agricultural papers read 

 by our Jefferson county farmers today where there was one 20 years 

 ago. The barns, the fences, the fields of alfalfa, clover and corn, all 

 show an upward trend in thought as well as in the methods they 



