212 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



have changed in the dairy business. Conditions are altogether different 

 than they were fifteen or twenty years ago, the Iowa State Dairy Association 

 is not like it was a few years ago. The fact is that with the rural telephone 

 and the free rural delivery, bringing agricultural papers right to the farmer's 

 doors every day, it is impossible to get hold of the dairyman unless we go to 

 him. The man who a few years ago would cross the State of Iowa to attend 

 a meeting of this kind we can not get here today, and the man who does 

 come to a meeting of this kind clear across the State does not need instruct- 

 ing. 



What we need in this State, and in this we are no different than other 

 states, is to take the doctrine of good dairying to the people; we have to go 

 into the farming sections of this country and preach this doctrine of good 

 dairying. It has been my privilege to stand before thirty-two audiences of 

 farmers in the State of Iowa during the last few months. It would be 

 impossible for the officers of the Iowa State dairy department and the State 

 Dairy Association to begin to fill dates we are asked to; in fact, half the 

 demands made on the dairy department for speakers have had to be refused. 

 We have realized, gradually, that the art of butter-making is a scientific 

 one, and the buttermakers have gone so far in the work that any future 

 work that is to be done must be done with the milk producers. We must 

 get the farmers to raise the value, the quality, the grade of our butter, and 

 this can only be done by calling meetings at schoolhouses, creameries and 

 places of that kind, where we can get the farmers together. Two weeks 

 ago it was the privilege of brother Kieffer and myself to hold a meeting in 

 the depot in the western part of the State, nothing but a depot, and there 

 was not a square inch left in the room after the people got in. This shows 

 that there is an awakening in the interest of the dairymen; they are begin- 

 ning to understand the necessity of improving their product, and that if 

 they stay in the business they must do better than they have done heretofore. • 



A year ago when I stood before you at Waterloo, I made a statement 

 that the dairy output of Iowa could be doubled without adding a single cow, 

 and I have come to the conclusion, on investigation of the matter, that we 

 can thribble it . From what I have learned during the past year and the 

 different tests that have been made, I am confirmed in the opinion that if 

 the dairymen of the State would go into the dairy business, go at it intelli- 

 gently, we can thribble the amount of the output in Iowa without the addi- 

 tion of a single cow. It may be you will regard this as a rank statement, 

 and possibly it is one, but in view of the tests that have been held I think it 

 is possible. I will give one illustration at this time. Take the test at St. 

 Louis, where in one hundred and twenty days the profit of a herd was thirty- 

 nine dollars per cow above their feed. I would like to know if that could be 

 done in one hundred and twenty days in Iowa? In Iowa the average 

 amount from a cow today is only about twenty-two dollars, which is the best 

 we can do unless we adopt better means of feeding than we have at the present 

 time, so that it costs nearly that much to keep a cow. Now I am not going 

 to branch out into the feeding business for we have an audience of butter- 

 makers here, the dairymen being lacking, and I want to say a few more 

 words to the buttermakers and then I will give away to Brother Wright. 



A few years ago we established buttermakers' organizations. I do not 

 believe that any move that has ever been made in Iowa has ever resulted in 



