382 



Missouri Agricultural Report. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF A DAIRY FARM. 



(John Hosmer, Marshfield, Mo.) 



I never before made an address before an audience of any 

 kind. I am entirely inexperienced. This is unnecessary informa- 

 tion as you will discover before I am through. Had I my friend 

 Brandt's gift of gab, I could make a very creditable talk even if 

 I did not know my subject. That's the advantage of being a "book 

 farmer." However, I ought to know something about cows, for 

 figuring on H. B. Curler's basis, I have had twenty years' experience 

 with an average of eighty cows, which is equal to one thousand and 

 six hundred years with one cow. In that time even a blockhead 

 ought to have absorbed some ideas. 



Profits from dairying paid for tliis farm home. 



It once was a common expression that "any fool could farm," 

 but that is no longer true. It takes as much smartness to make a 

 success of dairying as it does in any other line. The business will 

 find use for all the brain power that any man can bring to bear 

 upon it. Why, it takes more gray matter, more "white-horse 

 sense" to be a cow keeper than it takes to be president of the Bank 

 of Crescent — ask Mr. Lewis if it does not. In that capactiy, if in 

 doubt, he merely says "No." The dairyman must decide and act 

 upon a thousand and one little details ; failing pastures worry him, 

 rations that are economical must be figured out, or an off flavor in 



