568 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



stitiients that would list the farmer these amounts if he were obliged 

 to buy commercial fertilizers to maintain the fertility of his soil. Buf 

 we can convert one thousand dollars worth of corn into beef, pork or 

 mutton and sell it in that form and we reserve our two hundred and 

 fifty dollars worth of fertility, or we can convert one thousand dollars 

 worth of feed into butter and will not remove a single dollar's worth 

 of fertility with it." This is something that we must not ignore, as 

 we are not only robbing our farm of its fertility but ourselves as well. 



I suppose tile intention of the committee on the program was that 

 the writer of this paper should tell you how to properly conduct a dairy, 

 and we would cheerfully do so if we knew, but, to confess, we do not, as 

 we are not dairymen, and our operations in that line are only secondary 

 or perhaps v>oise than that, and even that is not conducted with the 

 system it hhoiild be. Yet, there are a few things about it that we do 

 know\ and first i;- the importance of securing good cows, that is, ones 

 that will give a fair quantity of milk, that will test well up to the 

 standard. This is quite a diffiicult matter in a country where the tend- 

 ency has teen to produce a beef animal, as all we can do is to start in 

 with the best we can get and breed up and weed out. 



As the cow is only a machine and can not make milk, but simply 

 has the power to convert the raw material which she eats and drinks 

 into a finished product, it is apparent that to get the best results we 

 must supply her with a ration containing the materials for the best pro- 

 duct. For this purpose, outside of the grass season, by using clover 

 hay and sorghum fodder, with a grain ration consisting of corn and oil 

 meal, with half as much by measure of wheat bran added, and fed dry 

 tv/ic-e a day, has given good results. While this may not be as valuable 

 as silo feed, or some of the commercial food stuffs, they are among the 

 cheapest, and in our limited experience are most satisfactory. And if 

 you will add to them good comfortable quarters, plenty of pure water 

 and humane treatment, with a goodly amount of system in milking arid 

 caring for them, they will respond generously. 



After we get the milk, what then? It has been often demonstrate-! 

 that one person centrally located can care for fifty or one hundred 

 dairie* cheaper, and as a rule better, than can the fifty or one hundred 

 people owning them. In solving this question nothing has played so 

 important a part as the hand-power separator. In sending the whole 

 milk to the creamery to be separated, no matter how close you live to 

 the creamery, I believe it safe to say that the skim milk loses at least 

 fifty per cent of its feeding value, and when it has far to be hauled in 

 hot weather it will be much more. By this method of doing your own 

 separating your cream is taken at your door, and paid for in cash twice 

 each month, at so much per pound for the butterfat it contains, dete^-- 

 niined by test. 



We do not believe, however, that there are many farmers who are 

 capable of making a success of farming by confining themselves ex- 

 clusively to any one branch, and so in dairying it becomes necessary to 

 diversify to a certain extent. You are obliged to keep either pigs or 

 calves, or both, to use up the skimmed milk and other by-products. 



