402 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



That the dairy cow can be the means through which agri- 

 culture can be put on a permanent and profitable basis is clearly 

 shown by the history of the nation of Denmark. Forty years 

 ago Denmark was on the verge of bankruptcy. The land had 

 been run down through years of continuous grain farming. 

 The people were poor and dissatisfied and were leaving the 

 country for America as fast as they could get the money for 

 their passage. A few of the farsighted men of the country saw 

 a possible solution of their national problem in the dairy cow. 

 Dairying was introduced into Denmark, and now the little 

 nation once poverty-stricken is pointed out as an example of 

 what can be done when the proper system of farming is followed. 

 The country is prosperous. The production of soil has been 

 increased to more than double what it was forty years ago. 

 People no longer have a desire to leave, and, as a whole, they 

 are considered among the best educated and intelligent of the 

 world. The country exports annually over $47,000,000 worth 

 of dairy products from an area of less than one-fourth that of 

 Iowa. 



The relation of the dairy cow to the fertility of the soil 

 should make us all consider her seriously as a means through 

 which we can restore our farming to a profitable basis. We 

 have seen briefly what she has done for a nation. 



Probably some of us have never stopped to consider some 

 of the factors which have contributed to the gradual depletion 

 of our soil fertility. When we see a farmer hauling fifty bushels 

 of corn to town, worth in an average year about twenty-five 

 dollars, we hardly think of him as hauling away fifteen dollars' 

 worth of soil fertility with that corn. Yet if he brought back 

 home in the form of commercial fertilizer the same amount of 

 fertility he hauled off that is what it would cost. Likewise 

 when fifty bushels of wheat is sold sixteen dollars' worth of soil 

 fertility goes with it. A ton of clover hay may bring $17, but the 

 seller is giving away eleven dollars' worth of his soil fertility in 

 the hay. A ton of creamery butter contains about fifty cents 

 worth of soil fertility. And when a dairy farmer buys a ton 

 of bran the soil fertility in it, if bought in the form of commercial 

 fertilizer, would cost $16. The same in a ton of linseed meal 

 would cost $26 and in a ton of cottonseed meal $30. The dairy 

 farmer sells less fertility from his farm, and furthermore, he is 

 constantly buying it in the concentrated feeds and leguminous 



