SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VI 383 



Mr. Wentworth: I will ask anyone who has a resolution to offer to 

 give it to either Mr. McMurray, Mr. Stnbbs or myself, in writing , and 

 it will be given consideration. Please do this before nine o'clock. 



SECOND DAY'S SESSION. 



The President: We are favored in having witJi us this morning 

 that well-known authority on dairy cattle, Hugh G. Van Pelt, who 

 will speak to us on the subject of "The Greatest Opportunity 

 Available to the Buttermaker and His Patrons." 



THE GREATEST OPPORTUNITY AVAILABLE TO THE BUTTER- 

 MAKER AND HIS PATRONS. 



BY HUGH G. VAN PELT. 



I know of no one thing that has been done in any state which is of 

 greater importance in the advancement of the dairy interests of a state, 

 in the advancement of better agriculture in a state by way of main- 

 taining soil fertility than the Avork being done by the Iowa State Dairy 

 Association. There is probably nothing which can he done which will 

 prove of greater benefit to a state than that which can be done in the 

 betterment of dairy conditions within a state. 



I remember well when this show was first started and my own con- 

 nection with it. When I first came back to Iowa I was asked to address 

 the state dairy association at Cedar Rapids. There was a very large 

 attendance at the meeting and I gave a talk which I had taken a great 

 deal of time to prepare. I believe that the talk was fairly good but 

 somehow there did not seem to be the sympathy which I felt would be 

 forthcoming were I talking to good dairymen. After the meeting was 

 over I tried to analyze the reason why and, upon inquiry, found that 

 in the whole body there had been just two dairymen or producers of 

 milk present. The rest were buttermakers, railroad men, etc., and nat- 

 urally not greatly in sympathy with what I had to say about mere 

 cows. One of these dairymen was the president who had to be there 

 because he was president and the other was a breeder of Red Polled 

 cattle. 



I felt that there should have been a more general interest on the 

 part of the dairymen in these meetings and when I went home after 

 the meeting I said to my wife: "I am going to do one of two things — 

 either get the people of Iowa to thinking dairy cows or else I'm going 

 back where people do think of dairy cows." For I believe that the dairy 

 cow is the greatest producer of good for man and the greatest conserver 

 of soil fertility to be found. Now, I didn't particularly care to go back 

 east so I resolved to do what little I could to arouse interest in the 

 dairy cow. I felt that the buttermakers could do a great work in this 

 respect and that 1 could safely appeal to them for every buttermaker 

 in the state ol Iowa knows that unless milk is produced in large amounts, 

 profitably and in a sanitary manner that his task is one of the hardest 

 in the world. 



