HOW CAN WE COMPETE WITH THE WEST IN DAIRYING. 59 



(3) Dairy sanitation. I fear that I may be treading upon 

 dangerous ground if I touch upon the relation of bovine tuber- 

 culosis to the dairy industry and to Western competition. Yet it 

 seems to me that a word is necessary. I have no hesitation in 

 saying, that eradication is proving the wisest policy in 

 this State. Over a fifth of its entire bovine population has been 

 subjected to the tuberculin test. It has cost but 24 cents per 

 head to test them, and only a small percentage of disease has been 

 found. Whole townships, almost I may say, entire counties 

 have only tested cows therein. Several creameries receive milk 

 from tested cows only and some advertise the fact in the sale of 

 their goods. It undoubtedly helps in competition, and I should 

 persume would raise the price in certain markets. Similarly the 

 knowledge that the animals are kept under sanitary conditions 

 and in cleanliness aids in the sale of the product, especially if it 

 be milk, and if these facts be called to the attention of a discrim- 

 inating constituency of consumers. 



My hearers will recollect that I told them at the outset that 

 I had no startling news to declare, no certain remedy to propose 

 for the ills of Western competition. You now realize full well 

 the truth of my statement. I am not sure, however, that I feel 

 sorry that there is no easy way to meet this rivalry. Were there 

 such, incentives to earnest work would be lacking. There is now 

 every reason to study, to strive, to progress. I have simply em- 

 phasized and reiterated those things which I doubt not were 

 known to you before. It may be, however, that in this far too 

 imperfect survey of the dairy situation I have dropped hints 

 which may be of service to some in bettering their practice and 

 enlarging their experience. In some direction perhaps your out- 

 look may have been made more clear by words of mine. I surely 

 hope so, for what are reading, study, practice and experience 

 worth except as guides to future and to better endeavor. 



Coleridge, (whose work we of the University of Vermont, 

 in particular, prize, since the foremost American student of 

 Coleridge was in years past our president,) says : " To most men 

 experience is like the stern lights of a ship which illumine only 

 the track it has passed. " Let us remove our light of experience 

 from the stern to the prow, let us rather liken it to the head light 

 of an electric car illumining the path before, let us as dairymen 

 walk in the light of past experience, our own and that of others, 

 if it be trustworthy and applicable to our circumstances, to a higher 

 plane of achievement in the varied phases of our calling. 



DISCUSSION. 



Question — I would like to ask Professor Hills concerning 

 the law passed at the last session of the legislature requiring 



