DAIRY ASSOCIATION. 343 



THE LITERATURE OF DAIRYING. 

 (H. A. Bereman, St. Louis.) 



Since the days of Cadmus, the Phoenicians or whoever it was that 

 invented books, the literature of the world has been the most potent fac- 

 tor for enlightenment. 



From the old days when the white haired patriarch of a nomadic 

 race, told to a circle of gaping youngsters, gathered among the brown 

 tents tales of daring, wars, conquests, visions, history and prophecies of 

 the tribe — to the knotted cords wherein was woven the history of Peru- 

 vian sun worshipers — to the birch bark picture waiting of North Amer- 

 ican tribes — to the shards, engraved bricks, carved and painted hiero- 

 glyphics of old Egypt — to the wax tablet and stylus of ancient Rome 

 — to the papyrus of the Nile — to the invention of paper — to Gutten- 

 berg's contribution of movable types — to the time of Ben Franklin and 

 the old Washington hand press — to the present pinnacle of advance- 

 ment, the Hoe web press turning out 30,000 perfect copies an hour, of a 

 16-page metropolitan daily, each copy a complete epitome of the world's 

 history for one day at a cost of one penny and left by the R. F. D. at 

 your door — literature has been the banner in the van of the steady march 

 of progress from prehistoric times down to what we are pleased to call 

 our Modern Civilization. 



What literature, and by this I mean all recorded knowledge, has 

 done for the world in general, dairy literature has done, in kind if not 

 degree, for the dairy fraternity. I do not mean to say that the text 

 books on special subjects, the periodical publications, the official bulle- 

 tins, reports and statistical records which constitute the bulk of the lit- 

 erature of dairying, are the whole thing. Indeed it might be difficult 

 to convince the class of husbandmen who "don't believe in book farm- 

 in'," that books and newspapers have any value whatever. But the dairy- 

 man who has achieved success by getting out of the rut of conservatism' 

 and traveling upon the hard high road of up-to-dateness, knows that 

 only out of the vast storehouse of all men's contributions to this sci- 

 ence — has come the knowledge which is power. It requires a tremen- 

 dous assurance for one man to assume that his knowledge is all in- 

 digenous and that "nobody can't learn him nothin.' " The science of 

 dairying is like a vast edifice, yet unfinished, to which each worker in 

 his chosen field has brought one stone of original thought, and the lit- 

 erature of dairying is the cement which binds these stones together in 

 strength and symmetry. 



