246 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



grocer. I have been a country merchant, and can still see and 

 smell the vile stuff that made up the larger portion of our ship- 

 ments. Contemplate, if you will, what pleasure or profit there is 

 in milking cows and caring for the product on the average Mis- 

 souri farm as it is usually handled. Why are the boys leaving the 

 farm, and why does another man's son hesitate to take the place 

 of the one just gone? Who is entitled to the credit for that stable 

 aroma in that milk? Who is to blame for the conditions that exist? 

 Should we wait for officers of the law to enforce reform? Let U3 

 take up the cross and bear it cheerfully. Let us build up respect 

 for the business in which we are engaged. Do not wait for a 

 neighbor or a community to begin. It is a thing that ive can do 

 alone. If it is your wish to sell cream, prepare for it, and strive 

 to excel in that line. 



I am at a loss where to begin this reform. Some say get better 

 cows. In defense of- the cows permit me to say that comparatively 

 few cows in our State have ever been invited to participate in a 

 reform. They have had sentence pronounced upon them without 

 a trial. Some say practice better feeding. To this we can all 

 agree if it be made to read more intelligent feeding, but other 

 factors are of equal importance. Some say there is no profit, unless 

 we can get a better price for our product — a view that I once held. 

 About that time when I was dreaming of getting a customer for 

 fancy butter at about sixty cents a pound, Ex-Gov. Hoard of Wis- 

 consin, to whom I owe so much, said in the Dairyman, in reply to 

 a question along that line, "study not to increase the price of your 

 butter, but to reduce the cost of production." This impresses me 

 as the essence of the whole matter. It remained for me to deter- 

 mine the many factors that influence the cost of production, and 

 I continue to find them. The problem will afford any man ample 

 opportunity to exhaust all his mental forces, and I do not wish it 

 understood that I have proven more than a few of them. My 

 advice is to begin the new order of things with the stable or a 

 place to properly care for cows with comfort to the attendant. If 

 you are milking five cows on the run in a barn lot sell two of 

 them and use the material which the money will buy, as I direct, 

 and you will be well repaid. If you are milking ten cows in an 

 apology for a stable, six of them can be made to yield more net 

 profit. Assuring you that I have no patent on stables or appli- 

 ances, will pass the stable matter, except as it may be mentioned 

 in a general way as a highly important factor in the economical 

 production of milk, cream, butter or animals. The same sort of a 



