Vermont Dairymen's Association. 115 



Let nie say right here that the co-operative creamery and factory 

 have done more to build up the dairy business in this state than 

 any other thing that I know of. They have made it possible for 

 the small dairyman to do as well as the large one. Let us im- 

 prove them. 



In my own town I think that the dairy output has doubled 

 in the last ten years. Send just as good clean milk to the cream- 

 ery or factory as you would keep at home. If we patronize a 

 creamery our skim milk becomes a source of profit. A neigh- 

 bor who keeps sixteen or eighteen cows said that his skim milk 

 paid his hired man this season. He fed it to pigs and marketed 

 them when five or six months old. We should keep pigs that 

 will be ready for market early. When a pig will dress 150 to 200 

 pounds sell it ; you have about all of the profit. 



Raise good calves. Get them well started and then keep 

 them growing. A calf that is starved the first year will never 

 get over it. One good one is better than two poor ones. When 

 she becomes a cow she will produce as much butter and sell 

 for as much as the oth.er two, at one-half the cost of keeping. 

 The practical dairyman must have for a motto ever before him 

 in stable and calf barn and pig sty this one word, "Cleanliness," 

 without which success may turn into failure. 



All honor to the cow as a mortgage lifter. The help prob- 

 lem is one that confronts every farmer more or less, whatever 

 specialty he pursues. This must be solved in part by making use 

 of labor saving machines, doing less work by hand and more 

 with horses and engines. We can plant and take care of a field 

 of corn without the aid of a hoe and keep it free from weeds. 

 We should buy the best tools and then take care of them — re- 

 member that rust will destroy quicker than wear. When not in 

 use keep them housed. It will pay. In my father's family the 

 help question was solved by a team of six boys "of which I am 

 the smallest." This I presume is the best way, but notwithstand- 

 ing many of us continue to depend on hired help. The cheapest 

 man that I ever hired was the man that I paid the most. If 

 you can get a good man, hire him, pay him well and keep him. 

 Don't make a machine of your man. Consult with him about 

 the farm work, give him a day occasionally when the work is 

 not pressing, furnish plenty of good reading for the long even- 

 ings, and above all let him know that you place confidence in 

 him and you will not regret it. Help that can not be relied on is 

 a misfortune and should be dispens^ed with as soon as possible. 



The practical farmer must keep his buildings in repair. 

 Lumber is not as plenty and cheap as it was a few years ago and 

 it costs less to take care of a building that it does to repair one. 

 If it is necessary to build put as much under one roof as possible, 



