316 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



GENERAL DAIRYING. 



PEOFESSOE G. L. M'KAY, AMES, IOWA. 



Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I am pleased to be with you 

 again at an Iowa convention, although I told your secretary when he 

 asked me to address you that I would prefer to have the time taken up 

 by some of our new men that we have not had the opportunity of meeting 

 often. 



It is the interchange of ideas that stimulates any industry and brings 

 out the real pith. Very few people, I believe, outside of those directly 

 interested, realize the magnitude of the dairy industry of this country. 

 If by some chance a gold or silver mine were discovered in any part of 

 this state the news would be flashed across the continent almost in- 

 stantaneously and yet we might truly say that the man who owns an 

 Iowa farm has a gold mine at his back door. The value of the dairy 

 industry of this state alone is greater than all the gold and silver pro- 

 duced in the United States and Alaska annually, and the value of our 

 dairy products, as a country, is one and a half times greater than all the 

 gold and silver produced in the world and the bulk of the dairy products 

 is made in seven states. "Wealth may be defined as anything that ad- 

 ministers to the wants or happiness of man and the ownership and pos- 

 session of which may be transferred from one person to another. Its 

 original sources are the sun, soil, air, water, plants, animals and labor. 

 It is the task of the agriculturist to so manage these agents and agencies 

 as to obtain the largest and best services for himself and fellows from 

 them. The outcome of true culture is the exercise of intelligent pur- 

 pose in the activities of life; and that in his occupation should stamp the 

 farmer as the man of real culture. 



When we look over the lists of the world's surplus products we find 

 that farmers are nearly all doing the same thing. They are putting their 

 surplus products in the same granaries of the world, and those granaries, 

 or markets, are setting' the prices for all. Prices in London, Denmark, 

 Australia and New York are practically the same, less the difference in 

 freights, quality and tariff, unless some shortage occurs. Cheap trans- 

 portation has brought all civilized countries into close competition, par- 

 ticularly is this true in dairying. Butter, being a condensed product, can 

 be transported to the leading markets of the world at very little cost. 



While dairying is one of the most profitable agricultural pursuits, for 

 some unknown reason it is not keeping pace, in this country, with the 

 increase of population. Unless some radical changes take place we may 

 be compelled in the near future to import butter and cheese to supply the 

 home markets and this would be an unfortunate state of affairs, as there 

 is no market equal to our own. 



There is not a nation on the face of the globe where the laboring man 

 is more able and willing to buy the best that the country affords than in 



