346 STATE BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. 



THE DAIRY INDUSTRY IN MICHIGAN. 



BY PROP. R. S. SHAW. 



Tlie live stock industry of Michigan has not been developed to the 

 extent that the existing conditions will permit. 



According to the census of 1900, this State ranked thirteenth among 

 the states of the Union, with a total valuation of live stock amounting 

 to 175,999,051.00. On the other hand, however, it is not expected that 

 Michigan should rank among the first in the live stock industry, as 

 large areas are devoted to other lines of business, particularly fruit 

 raising. The percentage of tillable land is not as large in Michigan 

 as in some other states, owing to the ruggedness of some portions. 

 There is still, however, room for both development and improvement, 

 especially along the line of dairying. According to the census quoted 

 above, Michigan ranked twelfth among the states in number of dairy 

 cows with 534,000. 



The natural conditions found in the greater portion of the State of 

 Michigan are preeminently adapted to the dairy business. The cli- 

 matic conditions are not extreme; the cold is not prolonged and severe 

 in winter, and the same is true of the heat in summer. The precipita- 

 tion is such as to render the production of forage, fodder, soiling crops 

 and pasture, in abundance, a certainty. Our lands are well interspersed 

 with living streams and lakes furnishing excellent water. Michigan is 

 the home of corn and clover, two essentials in the dairy business. In 

 some sections there are large areas of low lying lands, too wet to pro- 

 duce crops without drainage. With the present prices and scarcity 

 of labor, the farmer can scarcely afford to reclaim these lands, and even 

 if reclaimed under present conditions, but little profit would be received 

 from them under a cash crop system. If such lands are not so ex- 

 cessively wet as to produce the coarser sedges, no better return can be 

 secured from them than that made by the dairy cow. In fact, the dairy 

 farmer possessed of such land, producing a fair quality of grass, is in a 

 way fortunate, as these conditions produce succulent feed at a time 

 when the meadows are brown and sear. 



Some portions of Michigan are badly in need of the dairy industry to 

 restore fertility to lands exhausted by continuous cropping. The ques- 

 tion frequently arises, how does the keeping of dairy cows tend to in- 

 crease the productiveness of the farm more than other lines of live 

 stock? The answer is found in the fact that through keeping the dairy 

 cows and feeding the products of the farm to them, the maximum 

 amount of fertilizing material is left to return to the land. In the 

 operations of dairy feeding it becomes possible for the dairyman to pur- 

 chase rich, copcentrated feeding stuffs, which, after feeding, leave addi- 

 tional fertilizing material. When farm crops are fed to live stock and 

 converted into marketable or manufactured articles, they will return a 

 much greater revenue than can be secured from the sale of the crops 

 in the crude form. The sale of the entire crop, each succeeding year, 

 removes the plant foods from the soil slowly but surely and produces 



