state Dairy Association. 245 



minority to do the same thing. If, in due time, a few dirty 

 crooked dairymen fail to catch the proper spirit. State laws and 

 city ordinances emanating from the dairymen themselves, should 

 be passed requiring rectitude of them. There can be no gain- 

 saying that voluntary action upon the part of the dairymen to 

 bring about perfection will lead to a better demand and better 

 prices for dairy products. What is better, it will win for dairy- 

 men the universal esteem of all mankind. 



BETTER DAIRY FARMING. 



(By C. T. Graves, Maitland, Missouri.) 



Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: 



In consenting to take part in these exercises it is more than 

 likely that I failed to appreciate the magnitude of the meeting. 

 I regarded it as a sort of "experience meeting," where a small 

 number of farmers would assemble and recite the ups and downs 

 that we experience on the farm ; but upon receipt of the programme 

 I find that we farmers are to mingle with the leading talent of 

 our State and of greater places. In the quiet of the little farm 

 home, or on a blue grass carpet, among the cows for inspiration, 

 I can tell to a visitor the things that have cost me time and money 

 in handling live stock the past twenty years, but before an audience 

 of this character it is different, and I feared to trust myself to 

 make a talk. 



My remarks are intended to apply to the small dairyman or 

 farm.er, who does not milk to exceed fifty cows and preferably not 

 m.ore than twenty. I will make no attempt to advise the two hun- 

 dred cow dairyman. I can see how cows can be made profitable 

 and the business be made gratifying so long as the owner does not 

 have to become a slave to the business. Let us not censure the 

 son or the hired man for his inability to see fascination in groping 

 about in a cramped, dark, filthy, cheerless building filled with 

 cows plastered with their own voidings. Marvel not at the lack 

 cf appreciation of milk products so long as you see the fields being 

 robbed of fertilizer that is so frequently found in the bottom of a 

 glass when the would be consumer of milk is about to empty his 

 glass at his city home or boarding house. Have charity for the 

 packer and grocer who has undertaken to sell as human food much 

 of the butter that finds its way from the country store to the city 



