318 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



Vs'HAT WE PROPOSE TO DO IX THE DAIRY DEPARTMENT 

 OF THE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 



(Dean H. J. Waters.) 



I naturally feel some hesitation in attempting to answer this ques- 

 tion because, like President Jesse and Secretary Ellis, I am not a dairy- 

 man, and it would be more proper for Professor Eckles, who has charge 

 of that Department and is a specialist along that line, to undertake to tell 

 you what is proposed to be done by the Agricultural College in dairying. 

 I want to say, however, that as far as I am concerned and as far as the 

 Agricultural College is concerned, we have an abiding faith in the dairy 

 industry and believe that it is permanently established in Missouri ; that 

 it will develop and grow so that in a very short time ^Missouri will be an 

 important dairy State. I do not mean that we are looking for any great 

 boom along this line or that this industry is likely to have a mushroom 

 growth ; it is not best that it should, neither for the State nor for the peo- 

 ple who are connected with it. The industry should grow gradually but 

 steadily and grow w-ith the experience and with the success of the men 

 who are engaged in it. 



In assisting in the development of the dairy industry, the College 

 will have no occasion to relax its efforts in behalf of the other live stock 

 interests. There should be no conflict between the beef and dairy inter- 

 ests. They are working to the same end and accomplishing the same 

 general good, viz., the establishing of our agriculture upon an enduring 

 basis. No community, state or nation has ever built a prosperous and 

 enduring agriculture upon any other foundation than that of live stock, 

 where the chief products of our fields and pastures are marketed in some 

 form of live stock and the fertility retained to fatten the soil. The long 

 continued selling of hay and grain will bring depleted soil and an impov- 

 erished people. 



It will therefore be the chief aim of the College with the assistance 

 of all stockmen to bring the grain farmer to realize this permanent suc- 

 cess lies in the line of animal husbandry. It may be special dairying or 

 special beef making or it may be a combination of the two in which the 

 high priced butter fat is sold as butter and good beef calves are raised on 

 such cheap material as skim milk and corn meal. 



As far as the special work in dairying is concerned, we feel that the 

 College, w'ith its new dairy building and apparatus, with its herds of 

 dairy cows, with its trained faculty, with our faith in the future of the 

 industry and enthusiasm for its success, is in position to render valuable 

 service to the State, 



