268 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



fact that it requires more gray matter for the eastern farmer to make a 

 living- than for the western farmer. If the eastern farmer did not use his 

 head any more than the average western farmer he would starve. They 

 have to study the problem of how to build the soil as well as how to grow 

 and market their crops. 



MISSOURI'S ADVANTAGES FOR DAIRYING. 



Last spring I was called to this State to do dairy work, and I came 

 with the dairy interest at heart, and entered the State with enthusiasm. 

 I saw your fertile fields and beautiful pastures and was impressed with 

 the advantages of Missouri as a dairy State, located as she is in the 

 center of the United States and with such unbounded fertility in her 

 soil, and I thought there ought to be something done with Missouri in 

 the dairy line, and was green enough to think that I could induce Mis- 

 sourians to go into it. I then found that Missouri did not even supply her 

 own people with dairy products, but imported them from northern states, 

 states no better fitted for dairying than Missouri, and. frequently not so 

 well, having longer, colder winters and shorter summers. I found that 

 Missouri with all these advantages was sending north many thousands 

 of dollars annually to buy cheese and butter which could be produced 

 cheaper here than in states further north. Frequently during the fall 

 while over the State with farmers' institutes, I inquired of individuals 

 the price of cheese and found it to be twenty cents a pound the State 

 over. What was the local dealer paying for it? It passed through 

 several hands coming through the big cities, and he was paying from 

 twelve to fourteen cents a pound for it. What was the farmer back in 

 Wisconsin getting for it? Back there where they were making money 

 and becoming independent producing this cheese they were receiving from 

 nine to ten cents a pound, for that which the Missourian paid twenty 

 cents a pound, and which could be produced right here more cheaply 

 than there. This is not poetry but plain fact that can be verified at any 

 time. They say that Missouri cannot produce good cheese, but I am 

 satisfied that they are mistaken. 



MAINTAINING SOIL FERTILITY. 



Not only is there money in the dairy business, if it is carried on in- 

 telligently, so far as the business is concerned, but as Prof. Lane men- 

 tioned, it has important influence upon the soil. If one should be put 

 on a poor, sandy or run down soil and, as some people have done, in- 

 vested all their worldly goods in some impoverished soil, not knowing 

 that it was impoverished, he would be compelled to study fertility and 

 would soon recognize that our present manner of tilling the land is ex- 

 travagant, and that wc are losing our fertility rapidly from the fact that 



