STATE DAIRY ASSOCIATION. 385 



Stock, with the exception of cows, on his farm unless he gets two returns 

 every year. The farmer cannot keep sheep unless they bring him both 

 wool and lambs ; he makes the old mare work and pay her board and raise 

 a colt besides. We could not keep hogs in Iowa or Missouri if they re- 

 produced themselves in the ratio of one to one, as cattle do; and so, if 

 one expects to get profits from cattle on high-priced land, either in Iowa 

 or Missouri, or elsewhere, he must get two returns from them, the calves 

 and the butter. So it is easy to predict that the dairy business in Mis- 

 souri is bound to increase. You will have to obey the law of the land. 



The dairy business tends to a uniform distribution of the wealth of 

 the community. In the dairy sections of Iowa, or of any other state, you 

 will notice that the farms appear very much alike. They all have good 

 houses and big barns, windmills and well-kept fences, and there is a gen- 

 eral air of prosperity. The farmers all milk cows and send their product 

 to the creamery and they have money in sight. Then visit some section 

 where the dairy is not a large item. You will find, perhaps, a magnificent 

 farm with a large house and a half dozen big barns, windmills and feed 

 lots, sheds and other things of that kind, and then you will ride half a day 

 past farms with small houses, little stables and no evidences of anything 

 more than a bare existence for their occupants. The man with the big 

 barns, by reason of his superior business ability, in feeding cattle perhaps 

 has all of the accumulations these other fellows should have had in the 

 last decade, or longer. This cannot happen in a dairy section. The man 

 that milks the cow gets his money in small quantities and it doesn't drift 

 into the hands of some fellow with superior business tact. This uniform 

 distribution of wealth in a community is a mighty good thing for men of 

 small means, and it is perfectly safe to urge the farmers to go into the 

 dairy business. 



Don't worry about the probability of over-doing the business. There 

 is nothing in that. There is too much confinement and hard work and 

 head work about the dairy business to suit everybody. There are plenty 

 of men who don't like to work quite enough to be successful in the dairy 

 business, and for that reason the business will not be over-done, and for 

 that reason the business is a safe one for a man who will do the work 

 and submit himself to the confinement. And then, the price of butter is 

 almost a uniform price. The average yearly price of butter, that is, the 

 price for which a man sells the whole of the butter produced by the cow 

 in the milking period, is very nearly uniform, and the average price of 

 butter for a series of years is almost on a dead level, and the price is 

 always high. 



The money that a man makes from the cow comes to him in small 



A-25 



