34 STATE BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. 



product is wholesome. He sells it for a couple of cents a pound, 

 perhaps four cents a pound, more than the groceries receive for the 

 material which they furnish him. Then the grocery made a half 

 cent a pound over the price paid the farmer. The wealth of the 

 butter renovator then represents the accumulated profits of the 

 product of a host of farms. Did you ever stop to think who the 

 members of this host are? If you have you can foresee the point I 

 want to make. 



One of the worst enemies with which the dairy industry in Michi- 

 gan has to contend is the man with one or two cows. Because of the 

 bulk of the butter made in Michigan, fully three-quarters of it is 

 made upon the farm and not in the creamery, I am compelled to empha- 

 size the fact that the owners of these two-cow dairies are the men 

 who give a black eye to the reputation of Michigan butter and they 

 are the ones which make possible so many renovating factories. 

 One of the economies which this convention ought to consider is 

 the elimination of these small dairies and the substitution of herds 

 that number not less than ten cows. I need not argue in this 

 presence in favor of the creamery as against the home dairy, 

 as that question is not directly involved ; but I must argue in favor 

 of the idea of doing dairy business on business principles, either on 

 a scale which makes financial success possible or not at all. I believe 

 it to be clearly demonstrable that no farmer can make expenses 

 with two cows where the butter is made at home if he reckons the 

 health, strength and work of the w'omen of his family as worth any- 

 thing. What we need is fewer herds and more cows. Then we shall 

 have silos and all modern conveniences; then we can discover dairy 

 economy. 



The next point to be noticed is one relating to the supply of milk 

 to our city. The city man and woman, as well as the city boy and 

 girl, recognize milk as a most excellent food and find it an indispens- 

 able element in the daily ration. Of late they have been taugl^t to 

 regard the milk as sold from the wagons of the peddlers as a nasty 

 solution of barnyard compounds and withal a veritable Pandora's box, 

 dumping diseases of all descriptions into the family. As a result 

 the per capita consumption of milk is decreasing in all our cities, 

 a fact that works to the injury of the consumer as well as the producer. 



Nor is the evil easy to remedy. In the first place, the complaint 

 is in part well founded. Milk producers are proverbially filthy. 

 They will not use stalls that compel the cows to keep clean; they 

 will not properly clean the udders and moisten them; they will not 

 strain the milk in a clean place through cloth and will not properly 

 care for the milk, once produced. They neglect to feed after milking 

 and often clean out the stables just before milking. In either case 

 having the stable full of vile smells when the milk is passing 

 through the air in fine streams. The consumer is learning about 

 these things much faster than the producer is learning to correct the 

 evils. To produce clean milk a man must have clean cows, milked 

 in a cleanly manner in a pure air into clean pails and the milk at 

 once removed and aerated and cooled in a clean room where the air 

 is fresh and pure. 



I have said that the consumer learns about the filthy milk faster 



