300 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



proportions and running a cooperative or private creamery. The chief 

 object is to illustrate the ordinary operations of dairy and creamery 

 management, and to develop the industry in the State. The work is 

 on a commercial scale, and, in accordance with the object, is purely 

 practical. The whole effort is to make a good, uniform product, and 

 market it at a price which will give a good showing on the right side of 

 the ledger. In the nature of the case, the conditions are opposed to 

 ex])erimental work, and often render such work well-nigh impracticable. 

 The time and energies of the station dairymen are exi)ended in attend- 

 ing to the ordinary operations of the dairy and in jireventinga huancial 

 loss. Any experimental work done is purely incidental, and, indeed, 

 not infrequently the only experimental feature about the work is that 

 dairying is an experiment in the State. 



The station has little to publish beyond the financial statement, and 

 possibly the data showing the efiiciency of the creaming and churning 

 operations. On the whole, it is very doubtful if the results of such 

 work are very far reaching, and they will not justify running the sta- 

 tion dairy along such commercial lines, certainly after the matter has 

 passed beyond an experimental stage. If the conditions are such as to 

 warrant the station in running a commercial creamery, it should not be 

 expected to maintain a large herd of cows to furnish the milk for that 

 pur] ose. The cases are comparatively few where sufficient milk may 

 not be obtained, even if not at paying i)rices, from the farmers of the 

 neighborhood or the college herd. And where this is not possible and 

 there is a lack of sufficient interest on the part of individuals or com- 

 munities to cooperate with the station in such an enterprise, it is quite 

 doubtful whether the station, with its limited means and the many 

 demands upon it, does wisely to shoulder the whole burden and under- 

 take to establish and maintain a creamery as an example. There are 

 already such examples of successful private and cooperative creameries 

 in a majority of the States. 



Generally, it is believed, work of more ftir-reaching influence and 

 more permanent value can be done by cooperating, and by experi- 

 mental work in the station dairy. The ideal station dairy should bo in 

 effect a dairy laboratory, where all the operations in the line of dairy- 

 ing to be studied can be carried out on a sufficiently large scale to give 

 the results a practical interest, or where special studies may be made. 

 It should not l)e required to be self supi)orting, for it will be run on an 

 experimental scale, and there may be losses, for reasons that are obvious. 



For such dairy work and feeding experiments connected with it a 

 large herd is not needed, and is, in fact, a load on the station rather 

 than a convenience. There are numerous examides of this and of its 

 general effect on the work of the station in other lines. The herd, con- 

 sisting frequently of from 20 to 50 cows, and in some cases more, must 

 be fed, and as a result the farm is run princii)ally as a forage farm in 

 which the experimental features are in the minority. The energies 



