308 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



How did it affect their profits? They returned 24 cents more for each 

 $1.00 spent in feed and their reading reduced the food cost of the butter 

 fat over 2^^ cents a pound. The average cost of keeping both dairy bred 

 and dual purpose was $25.23. I told you that the mere act of reading on 

 dairy subjects added 24 cents more for each $1.00 spent in feed, multiply 

 $28.23 by 24 and you have $6.77. Did it pay these men to spend a dollar 

 on the enlightment of their minds? Does it pay to buy $6.77 for one 

 dollar? Yet nearly one-half of these 100 farmers do not believe it pays 

 to buy $6.77 for one dollar. Of the forty-six farmers who did not read 

 dairy literature nineteen did not get enough from their cows to pay for 

 the keeping. Of the fifty-four who did read only six did not receive 

 enough from their cows to pay for their keeping. 



Now here is the actual condition of things in one of the most prosper- 

 ous dairy sections of Iowa. Does it afford any food for thought and ac- 

 tion? It should. Never again ought we to hear an Iowa patron of a 

 creamery say, "It don't pay to breed in dairy blood," or "It don't pay to 

 read a good dairy paper." 



Understand that this cow census work has been done in twelve states, 

 from Connecticut and New Hampshire to Iowa and Minnesota. 



Everywhere is it shown beyond a shadow of objection that the farmer 

 who reads on this dairy question, who thereby is made to think, is en- 

 dowed with a greater profit-making judgment. 



The question for you in Iowa is just the same as it is in Wisconsin. 

 Don't think for a moment it is not. When once you become a patron of 

 a creamery you are subject to all the items of dairy expense. What 

 are these items? 



(1) The feed of the cow. 



(2) The labor of preparing her food, of milking and caring for her. 



(3) The expense of proper stabling, for if you do not keep her com- 

 fortable you are losing money in milk. 



(4) The expense of taking her milk or cream to the creamery. 



In none of these items are you a whit different than are the special 

 purpose dairymen of Wisconsin. When it costs you as much to be a 

 patron of a creamery as it does the Wisconsin patron is it not time 3^ou 

 looked at the question in the light of a larger profit? To secure that 

 profit you must use the best cow you can get, and you must make your- 

 self as intelligent on dairy principles as you can. When you are faced 

 that way you will see clearly the truth of what I am saying to you. 



Let me give you an illustration of what it means to one county in 

 Wisconsin to be filled with a lot of farmers who breed and milk dairy 

 cows and who read more dairy literature than the farmers of any other 

 county, I believe, in the United States. 



The county of Jefferson is 24 miles square. The cows in this county, 

 largely Holstein, Guernsey and Jersey grades, earn over $2,000,000 cash 

 annually. The butter production is 250 pounds per cow. In addition to 

 this is the pork and veal crop from the use of the skim milk. This 

 makes the average cash value of product over $60 per cow a year. But 

 this is not all. Over $500,000 worth of dairy cows and heifers are sold 

 from that county annually. Buyers come there from all over the United 

 States and as far away as Mexico because they can buy cattle bred from 



