No. 6. DEPARTMENT* OE AGRICULTURE. ?85 



to ine, that there was a terrible waste going on because of a lack of 

 knowledge all over the United States in dairy work. In 1886 I 

 caused to be taken a cow census of the town of Ellisburg, New York, 

 the second dairy town in the United States, containing 5,280 cows, 

 300 dairy farmers all at work in the cheese factories. Mr. Jenkins 

 took the census at an expense of about $500, having the entire sum- 

 mer in hunting out the work of every individual cow, taking the 

 amount of food that she consumed, pasturage at $9.00, and summing 

 it up, and going to the cheese factory, and learning what she would 

 earn, and then holding up the mirror to the patrons and the farmer 

 to look at it, and brought the farmers of Ellisburg in debt $25,000. 

 It seems the feed the cows had consumed would have sold at the 

 local market for $25,000 more than the cheese factories returned. 

 That created a great deal of consternation in the town of Ellisburg. 

 In two years from that time he went and took another supple- 

 mentary census and found there had been a remarkable revolution 

 in the economic progress of those people. From that time to this 

 that foolishness has died out in the town of Ellisburg. But it is all 

 over the country. I have had about a hundred herds taken in Penn- 

 sylvania; fifty herds taken at Melrose; fifty herds taken out in an- 

 other portion. This census was taken in Ohio, and here are various 

 columns. The first in number *of the patron. No man's name is given, 

 but every patron can have his number if chooses. The number of 

 cows, the estimated cost of the keeping, number of pounds of milk 

 per cow, return from the creamery per cow, number of pounds of 

 butter per cow, profit or loss per cow, received for $1 worth of feed, 

 average price of milk per hundred. Now, in the column that will 

 interest you most is the profit and loss per cow. This reckons for 

 every dollar's worth of feed. In that column of figures below $1.00 

 represents the loss — that is the difference between the figure and 

 $1.00 is the loss. For instance No. 2 the return for $1 was 95 cents, 

 and the loss was five cents. Another one 66 cents, loss 34 cents on 

 every dollar, and so on. Now, you would be perfectly amazed at the 

 lower economical skill and judgment of the men who are keeping 

 cows, the number of men. Now, before I start my talk this after- 

 noon, which is based partly on a lesson in cross breeding — I want 

 to give you some calculations worked out from the recent cow cen- 

 sus taken in Minnesota. I want this thought to underlie all you 

 hear from me afterwards, taking it as a two-foot rule in your pocket 

 to measure things by. You know there is an old saying that every 

 man gives of his own measure, that a man who carries a two-inch 

 measure gives from that standard, another man a two-foot measure 

 gives that much more. Every man comes to his task, every man 

 comes to his cow, every man comes to his fellow-man, every man 

 comes everywhere by that power of measurement that he has estab- 

 lished in his own mind. At the close of the Minnesota cow census 

 which has just been finished in Hoard's Dairyman, I divided the 

 patrons into two classes: the readers and the non-readers. I be- 

 came wonderfully impressed in my investigation and study with 

 the fact that the power of every man over his own fortune in this 

 business depends upon the attitude, the way he opens his mind, the 

 manner with which he receives impressions. 



The question of whether he reads or not. Out of the 100 patrons 



50—6—1905 



