278 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



It has been my ambition, ever since I commenced this work, to ac- 

 cumulate enough money in the treasury to make us feel that we were 

 safe at any time from attack, having the money ready to take up the 

 defense and then drop the work and turn it over to somebody else. Acd 

 I have struggled for the last year, undertook the sale of this book iKi 

 order to do it, and have worked right along with that intention, but, as \ 

 told you befo're, we find our efforts are out in the country yet. 



The discouraging part of our work is the effort and expense neces- 

 sary to keep up interest In the cause. It is almost impossible to secure 

 financial support from co-operative creameries without a personal visit 

 from some representative of the National Dairy Union. An analysis of 

 this personal work shows that upon the basis of one cent per tub it costs 

 almost as much to get the money as it amounts to. The average cream- 

 ery is supposed to turn out hot far from 90,000 pounds, or 1.500 tubs of 

 butter per year. While our representatives have only visited the more 

 important co-operatives, those visited, when sending in their subscrip- 

 tions for the year, have shown an average of only about 1,000 tubs. We 

 have spent money visiting many where pledges have been received and 

 no attention paid to their fulfillment. We started in the work a year ago 

 with many promises from prominent concerns v/hich have been forgotten 

 by them, and repeated communications from the secretary's office fail to 

 bring a response. Had we received all we were led to believe would be 

 subscribed, we would have had in our treasury from four to five thousand 

 dollars instead of that many hundred. Which reminds me of a story, — 



I never think of our financial condition but what I think of an inci- 

 dent which occurred once when I was South in Florida, where I had the 

 pleasure or misfortune to live a few years in my early days. There was 

 a darky church $150 in debt and the minister was very anxious to pay 

 off the mortgage. He took the matter up one night when it happened 

 there were ten ministers from the North in the town and had gone to 

 church to see what a darky church was like. The old darky preacher 

 put the thing so pathetically and exhorted so earnestly for a large sub- 

 scription to pay the mortgage off the church that the ministers concluded 

 they .would give him a surprise, and thought the expression on his face 

 when he saw what they had done would be worth what it cost them. So 

 between them they subscribed one hundred dollars, ten dollars a piece. 

 The strange part of the stcry is that one minister happened to have a 

 one hundred dollar bill. They thought it would be very nice and the 

 surprise would be greater if they changed these ten dollar donations and 

 put the one hundred dollar bill in the hat. So they did it, and when the 

 deacon came around with the hat the minister who had the one hundred 

 dollar bill dropped it in. The old deacon went back as fast as he could, 

 up to the minister, called him to one side, beckoned him over, and they 

 got their headsi together and held a long and earnest consultation. 

 Finally the old darky preacher came to the front with a sort of dubious 

 look on his face and said: "Bredern and sistern, it seems as though dere 

 had been a kind of divine visitation here dis evening. As nearly as I can 

 make out from counting de money in de hat we have $147.49 and two col- 

 lar buttons, provided the hundred dollar bill wat the gentleman in de 



