346 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT, 



Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, New York and other dairy 

 states have devoted much attention to the promulgation of dairy litera- 

 ture, and one of Wisconsin's latest is a 5ook every cow boy should pos- 

 sess — yes, and every cow boy's boss. It is called "Investigations on 

 INIethods of Milking." It lies on my desk still unread, but I am going 

 to tackle it when I get- back home. The pictures in it are well worth 

 the price of admission. 



All the government bulletins are free for the asking, and state bulle- 

 tins are sent on the same easy terms to residents. I believe a small fee 

 covering postage and actual cost of printing will fetch those of other 

 states. I may say in passing that for the dairyman who is also a gener- 

 al farmer, there are scores of bulletins on topics which touch dairying 

 on the edges. Send to the Secretary of Agriculture, at Washington, for 

 a Hst of Farmers Bulletins, then pick out what you want, or you can 

 say, like the Texas cow boy of the bill of fare in a fashionable eastern 

 hotel, "just gim me from here down to here," and corrall the whole bunch. 



I come now to the most important branch of dairy literature : The 

 Agricultural Press. You will not hold me unduly responsible for this 

 definition, when I hasten to add that its importance is due to the form, 

 rather than to inherent qualities. 



^Modern advertising makes it possible to furnish for a cent or two 

 a copy, a weekly dairy paper of from 8 to 32 pages, containing news 

 items, reviews of bulletins, special articles written by experts, reports of 

 dairy meetings, reports of creamery patron investigations, correspon- 

 dence by practical dairymen either asking information or giving their 

 experience, market reports with articles on market conditions, questions 

 and answers on veterinary matters, etc., etc. 



The cheapness, the periodicity, the method of grasping at salient 

 facts of real moment and presenting them in condensed readable form, 

 the winnowing out of chafif and preservation of the good wheat, the 

 peculiarly complex nature of the modern newspaper as censor, pulpit and 

 forum — all these stand for the reasons why the dairy press, representing 

 the few strictly class papers and the "Dairy Department" of general 

 farm publications, constitutes the most important branch of the litera- 

 ture of dairying. 



I will consider briefly the relations of the Dairy Paper to the De- 

 partment of Agriculture, to the Agricultural colleges and to the Dairy- 

 man. 



The National Department of Agriculture is doing a wonderful work ; 

 and the notable feature of this work is that, as our very efficient Sec- 

 retary of Agriculture, Mr. James Wilson, says, "Agriculture is in its 

 infancy." There is so very much more to come than what is passed in 



