SIXTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART V. 343 



Hien at the creameries, the farmers in producing a better quality of 

 milk, and so on, — helping to bring about a better condition, a more 

 profitable condition of things. We need more inspectors, we need bet- 

 ter inspectors in many of our states than we have. You are fortunate 

 in having a good force as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough 

 and you want to double it, and double it, and double it again. 



One of the best things for the dairy industry would be the organiza- 

 tion of test associations. The dairymen of Denmark have probably 

 doubled the value from their herds by those test associations. They 

 simply form a number of patrons into an organization and hire a man 

 to test their cows and give them instructions in feeding, etc. It costs 

 little to do this and I am glad to say there is a beginning in this in • 

 the state of Michigan, where a body of farmers, patrons of one cream- 

 ery, have got together in a test association; have hired a man, who 

 has had three years experience in Denmarli test associations to go to 

 their farms, visit them every month, make a test of their herds and 

 weigh the milk to see whether they are keeping profitable animals or 

 not. I said in the beginning of my remarks that in the pure bred 

 herds at least 50 per cent were poor producers, other herds have about 

 75 per cent poor producers, because in ordinary conditions we find 

 that 75 per cent of the animals are eating up the profits that the 

 others produce. In many instances the farmer had better destroy three 

 fourths of his herd and would make more money by doing so than he 

 does today. The test association would show which cow was doing 

 this and help him eliminate the poor ones. This is a subject which 

 ought to take an hour's speech, but I have spent enough on that at 

 present. 



There must be closer co-operation between producers and manu- 

 facturers. The centralizing system is getting them further and fur- 

 ther apart and I believe something must be done to check this ten- 

 dency if we are going to have the best methods of dairying in our 

 Gou ntry. 



One of the factors that is neglected, I believe, in dairy communities 

 i.T the use of the local papers. Here and there we find a bright dairy- 

 man who will get the dairy items from his neighborhood into the local 

 papers and keep before his people the progress in dairying in other 

 communities, yet we find that most of the editors of this class of 

 papers pay too little attention to matters of that kind, and I believe 

 that every dairyman connected with a creamery or some reliable man 

 in the neighborhood should see that the country papers that go into 

 their homes carry with it the dairy gospel. It would be a potent fac- 

 tor in advancing the interests of dairying. 



Another question, another phase of the work that I want to bring 

 to your attention is to show the relation of the federal government 

 to this line of work. You know the relation of your own state from your 

 state experiment station, but perhaps you do not know what the federal 

 government can do if it has the support of the dairy people through- 

 out the country. There are many ways we help to carry on this work 

 as a department of agriculture. We co-operate in a great many states 



