372 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



A state dairy commission can render valuable service to the cause 

 of dairy progress by issuing quarterly or semi-annually bulletins in 

 which is plainly and truthfully set forth results of the inspections made. 

 This will show to the creamery or cheese factory makers or managers 

 and their patrons the effect of the bad work or the good work they are 

 doing, and its final effect on the quality of the butter or cheese product, 

 and consequently upon the profits. 



In the great battle for dairy progress and against ignorance, un- 

 cleanliness and bad practice, a state dairy commission can render valuable 

 service to the cause by being at the front and on the firing line sounding 

 forth the bugle call, "Forward," in tones of such clearness and force and 

 persuasiveness as to be everywhere heard and heeded. 



But the state dairy commission must be supported. There is no 

 organization in any state which can or should give greater aid and 

 support to the dairy commission than a state dairy association. In my 

 own state the state dairymen's association has been instrumental in se- 

 curing more effective legislation for the promotion of the dairy and 

 agricultural interests than any other agency. It has secured the establish- 

 ment of the dairy and food commission ; it conceived and secured the es- 

 tablishment of the first dairy school on this continent. In 1900, at the 

 meeting of the Wisconsin Dairymen's Association at Watertown, Pro- 

 fessor W. A. Henry said : "This Dairy Association is the parent of the 

 Wisconsin College of Agriculture. What that college is today and what 

 its ambitions are rests largely in the backing and help it receives from 

 this Association ; and as a child we are loyal to our parent." To that 

 association also is largely due the originating of the Wisconsin Farmers' 

 Institute. 



Of Wisconsin farming in the early seventies it might well be said 

 that 



"Many men wound In and out, 

 And dodged and turned and bent about, 

 And uttered words of righteous wrath. 

 Because 'twas such a crooked path." 



The continued raising of wheat had well nigh robbed the soil of 

 its fertility, and the chinch bugs were running riot over the wheat fields, 

 made scant in yield by following the process then in vogue. But in 1872 

 a few pioneer thinkers became convinced that Wisconsin farmers were fol- 

 lowing a "maze of calf paths" in their thinking and practice. They 

 believed that some of the calf paths in the minds of those farmers should 

 be obliterated and new paths opened as conditions for successful achieve- 

 ment. They determined to do something to make the crooked paths 



