326 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



The hog is one of the Canadian farmer's best friends, but our Canadian 

 hog today is not a third cousin to the hog that used to be grown. Our 

 market demands a hog varying from lOU to 220 pounds. We have to rely 

 largely on the British market, and the British people will not eat thick 

 fat meat. Our own people have come to have the same tastes, so we must 

 grow lean meat. Our market demands bacon with streaks of lean. At 

 our fairs in Canada you very rarely see a fat hog. Of course, we cannot 

 raise fat pork in competition with your corn-fed western hogs, but for our 

 market we do grow a satisfactory and perfect hog. The Yorkshire, 

 Tamworth, and Long Berkshire, in the order named, are our favorite 

 breeds for fjractical use. 



I will next take up ow^ dairy industry and try to tell how perfectly 

 organization has helped to build it up. Last year our Canadian dairy 

 products were valued at |2.5,000,000. We used to grow wheat, wheat, 

 wheat. We depended on wheat for ready cash, the boys depended on 

 wheat for a pair of new boots, and the girls depended on it for the 

 new dress. But wheat went down in price and the Canadian farmer had 

 to get something else to bring him ready money. Dairying has done this. 

 It has gradually driven out wheat and the Canadian farmer is now no 

 longer dependent upon wheat. Through it he has quit the credit system 

 and paid off his mortgage. There is no question but dairying has helped 

 our farmers as much as any other one thing. 



This building up of the dairy industry has not been accomplished by 

 guess work. From the first it has been fostered by legislation. At the 

 beginning we started out a series of traveling dairies. They were laughed 

 at by the farmers, but we had a work to do and went right on. We went 

 into every county in Ontario. We got out big bills and advertised 

 liberally. Many came for curiosity. Lots of these came to scoff, but if 

 some of them did not remain to pray they at least went back home and 

 quietly began to practice the methods we had taught them in these travel- 

 ing dairy schools, and this accompanied by dairy education resulted in a 

 greatly increased quality of butter. 



Then we have permanent dairy schools. The first one was at Guelph 

 and we have established two more. There are 250 students at these three 

 schools, and it may seem strange to you but no small proportion of these 

 students is made up of cheese and butter makers who have had years of 

 experience in their business. In spite of their experience these older men 

 have recently seen the younger fellows, who had been thoroughly trained 

 in the dairy schools, turning out a better product and getting more money, 

 and they saw that they too would have to keep up with the procession. 

 So w^e have some men fifty years old taking the course in these dairy 

 schools and learning scientific methods. And scientific methods, by the 

 way, are only proper methods done by rule. 



But we are now meeting a new obstacle, running against an unlooked- 

 for snag. As the factories come to get old they are not cared for so well 

 in some cases, and from one cause and another we find bad flavors creeping 

 into the product. So we are going to send competent instructors to every 

 factory that has any difficulty of this sort and these instructors will study 

 the situation and stay right there until the evil is remedied. 



A few years ago we found that our Agricultural College at Guelph, 

 and an extensive college it is too, was only reaching comparatively few 



