328 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



war is over, our country will be stripped of every good cow we possess 

 unless we fill the stalls with good cows now. I believe this so thoroly 

 that altho we started with a little herd we are making arrangements to 

 have just as many good cattle, sired by good sires and from good dams 

 as we can possibly own when this war is over. 



There never was a poorer demand for poor cattle than there is today 

 and in all of my experience of a score of years there has never been 

 such a good demand for good cattle at high prices as there is now and 

 this demand will not cease until the European nations are restocked as 

 they were before the war. And furthermore, I thought I knew the im- 

 portance of the dairy cow but I have just come to the realization of her 

 real worth. I knew that if she was properly cared for she was a cash 

 producing animal that made communities prosperous. But there was 

 something about the dairy cow I did not know. Since the war began 

 in Europe we have been reading of the terrible slaughter that has been 

 going on in the trenches and we are appalled. We are now becoming 

 so accustomed to it that we read thoughtlessly, but when we sit down 

 in our calmer moments and think what it really means, it seems beyond 

 comprehension. 



The slaughter in the trenches is not large however as compared with 

 the slaughter in the homes of Europe today. If you have looked over 

 your papers you will notice that the infant mortality of all nations en- 

 gaged in the war has ranged from 40 to 98 per cent — in other words, 40 

 to 98 per cent of the infants born during the past three years have died. 

 England has been buying our condensed milk and our butter and her 

 mortality is only 40 per cent. In France it is 58 per cent. In Servia 

 they have no cows, and generally speaking there are no children in that 

 nation under three years of age. That's what the dairy industry means. 



If, at this time, we permit our good cows to go to slaughter, then I 

 say to you that we are not far away from the time when we are going 

 to increase very largely our infant mortality. But about this time we 

 begin to learn something of the value of butterfat. Experiments carried 

 on by certain investigators, particularly McCollum, show that butter fat 

 possesses a certain unknown soluble which is essential to the mainten- 

 ance of the human being. In countries which have few dairy cows and 

 where little or no milk, or the few other foods which contain this sub- 

 stance are fed, the effect is plainly shown by the stunted appearance of 

 the people. India and parts of China are examples. In Denmark when 

 they first put in the cream separator and the farmer wished to sell 

 largely of his butterfat, they began to live on skim milk. Then disease 

 attacked the people in the rural communities. Wlien whole milk was 

 again placed in the diet normal conditions were restored. 



Personally, from the standpoint of patriotism, I believe that every man 

 on a farm in the state of Iowa should begin building up the livestock 

 of his farm. The man who milks cows cannot do a more patriotic thing 

 than to head his herd with a good sire and build up the productive pow- 

 ers of his herd, knowing that in one generation it is possible to build 

 up the herd production one hundred pounds or more. 



