412 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



This can be readily done and with a small outlay. A milk scale, 

 a sheet-paper and a Babcock tester together with a few spare moments 

 of his time would be the equipment. He will, however, tell you that 

 he has no time but he could well afford to take the time if he would 

 eliminate the unprofitable and thus become the gainer financially. 

 True, indeed, it is that many obstacles confront the dairyman which 

 may more readily be overcome in other lines of business. 



The luring wages and comforts of the city and at this time the 

 munition plants entice away the farmer's boy from the farm to 

 take a hand in the manufacture of shot and shell to kill the soldier 

 of other countries while the poor babies in foreign lands are crying 

 aloud for milk to satisfy their hungry stomachs and the farmers' 

 sons in our country are maimed or possibly killed in the twinkling 

 of an eye. All this has a tendency to decrease production, for there 

 is no line of employment which calls for more competent and effi- 

 cient labor. 



The dairyman must ever be wide awake and on his guard for 365 

 days in the year if he would succeed. The Cow is at times termed a 

 Machine, which name, in my humble judgment and estimation, is 

 false and wrong, giving an entirely erroneous conception of the ani- 

 mal which I personally hold in higher esteem and regard. 



No other animal is more ready and willing to respond to kindly 

 treatment than the Goic and will show returns for same in dollars 

 and cents in her product. Have you ever, as a dairyman, tried to 

 remove the dust from her back with the milkstool in angry passion 

 before milking? If so, use the scale afterwards and this first opera- 

 tion will convince you that it was a costly one. On the other hand use 

 the curry comb and brush and then the scale to note the profit ac- 

 cruing from this operation. Remember that the cow has life and her 

 sensitive nerves readily contract and relax which is not the case with 

 the nerveless machine. 



If the cow throughout her lifetime from birth to the gambol were 

 treated according to her real needs and wants, we certainly would 

 have more profitable dairies and better diarymen, better farmers and 

 farms, and larger crops too. Here is the secret to meet the appealing 

 argument of the fertilizer agent when you can produce as evidence 

 her profitable by-product — the indispensable manure. I might at 

 length refer to other important matters in the dairy and to the dairy- 

 man, viz, sanitation, equipment and disposal of the dairy product. 

 These are very frequently neglected or overlooked by the dairyman as 

 well as the State and all this tends to decrease the consumption of the 

 dairy product. 



"The High Cost of Living" is the cry to-day. Place the dairy pro- 

 duct side by side with other necessaries of life — tabulate and note 

 results. The public press and medical fraternity have laid the cause 

 at the feet of the cow and her products in case of epidemics. In my 

 home town an epidemic of typhoid broke out last year, and 'milk in- 

 fection' was the immediate outcry, but no one made mention of the 

 filthy alleys containing garbage which is ever the sweet prey of the 

 dangerous Fly. The sewage disposal plant, often discharging its 

 filth into the near-by stream, went unnoticed. The State should see 

 to proper inspection and resort to rigid measures to compel the 

 dairymen to produce a clean article, for he must often compete with 



