DAIRY ASSOCIATION. 293 



We are here. We have looked over the buildings. They are mod- 

 els of their kind, erected of good and enduring material, well built and 

 finished nicely and conveniently arranged, showing that the appropriation 

 has been wisely expended, and when they are completed and equipped, 

 as we are informed they will be, with the latest improved machinery 

 and apparatus, Missouri will have a dairy school and buildings second 

 to none in the country, and superior to most of them. 



Among the neighboring states Missouri has the name of being slow 

 to take up dairying, and annually we have been drawing on them for 

 practical men and speakers to come and "show us !" We hope before 

 long- to reverse the order of things and help "show them." It is now 

 "up to" the farmers, dairymen and creamery men of Missouri to decide 

 whether they will avail themselves of the practical instruction in dairy- 

 ing and creamery work here to be obtained at a light cost, and thus 

 encourage the work for which the appropriation was made. Every 

 member of this association should at once take up the work in their re- 

 spective localities and encourage our young men to come and take the 

 short winter course in dairying, feeding, breeding and selecting dairy 

 cattle, information which I find by experience with creamery work in 

 Missouri, many of them need. 



I desire to call the attention of the association to the poor facilities 

 provided for the exhibit of dairy products, machinery and dairy cattle 

 at the State Fair at Sedalia. All who attended the fair this year will 

 doubtless remember that a very small space (about 8xio feet) in one 

 corner of Agricultural Hall was provided for the dairy exhibit, with a 

 very small refrigerator for butter exhibit — and it always out of sight. 



A search warrant would finally locate the dairy machinery exhibit 

 in a little shed alongside one of the main buildings, and the dairy cattle 

 under a tent or tied to a barbed wire fence surrounding the enclosure. 

 The horses, mules, fat cattle, sheep and chickens were nicely housed 

 and provided for. An effort should be made by this association to se- 

 cure a good dairy building on the State Fair ground, in which all dairy 

 products, apparatus and machinery should be exhibited. Space should 

 be provided for operating hand machinery and a glass front refrigerator 

 provided for the butter exhibit. 



The coming session of the legislature will no doubt make — as it 

 should — a very liberal appropriation for improvements on the State Fair 

 grounds, and we should request and urge the board to set aside a rea- 

 sonable amount for a building, to be used as above suggested. Much 

 good can be done for the dairy interests of the State if the superintend- 

 ent is a live, up-to-date dairyman, and the dairy interests should be con- 

 sulted in deciding upon and arranging this part of the premium list. 



