SIXTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART V. 333 



I bv?Iieve I can truthfully say to you, and facts will bear me out, that 

 there has been some progress made in the dairy industry of Iowa during 

 the past year. There seems to be an awakening or a realization of the 

 fact that our climate, in fact our general surroundings are adapted to 

 the dairy industry and that the maintenance of the fertility of our soil 

 demands that in the future we engage even more extensively in this 

 branch of the industry than in the past. It is just beginning to be real- 

 ized by the average dairyman of Iowa that the dairy cow has great pos- 

 sibilities. The further we go into it, the deeper we investigate, the more 

 profit we can see in it. The great trouble with the average dairyman 

 in Iowa has been that he has had an idea that in order to get a good 

 herd of cows he has had to expend a considerable amount of money, 

 but it is gradually dawning upon us that it does not cost us any more to 

 shelter a cow and but little more to feed a cow that will give from three 

 hundred to five hundred pounds of butterfat, than one giving but one 

 hundred and sixty pounds, as the average cow does today, but we realize 

 that a great deal of this is in the fact that we have not gone about this 

 matter intelligently, that we have not studied the question as we shouid 

 have done. 



Another great reason for our lack of success or backwardness in the 

 business is that we have not got down to the idea that we are going to 

 make it a permanent business, it has S'imply been a side issue. We have 

 accepted what we have got out of the dairy business as a matter of 

 course and have not investigated. The great trouble with the average 

 dairyman in Iowa today is he is not an investigator; he has put his trust 

 in God and a straw stack instead of the silo and ensilage, but thanks 

 to the dairy schools of the state, to the agricultural colleges, the farm 

 institutes and last but not least (and I believe now I am about to mention' 

 one of the most productive things that has been undertaken, — the but- 

 termakers' meetings in Iowa) — have done much to spread the doctrine 

 of good dairying and today we can go anywhere in the state and see a 

 result of education along this line. 



There is much to be learned and much can be accomplished by study- 

 ing the question of feeding and breeding, but in justice to my hearers 

 and in justice to the speakers who are to follow mo on this question, I 

 am going to treat this lightly, but with my experience of two years in 

 filling the silo and feeding ensilage I do not believe that to the dairyman 

 one-half of the benefit has ever been told. I believe it is the solution of 

 getting interest out of our high priced lands. I believe it is the only 

 true solution that has been offered. I believe this question of feeding, 

 should be kept prominent before the people of Iowa; I believe this should 

 be impressed upon them; I do not believe a single agricultural meetingr 

 should be held but that question of feeding ensilage should be brought 

 up, and the fact should be impressed upon the dairymen that they are 

 never going to have it down to a paying proposition until they go Into 

 the dairy business and adopt the silo as the way of feeding. 



The dairy industry in the state of Iowa has never up to the present 

 time been general. It has only been in certain localities that the Indus- 



