THIRD ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART IX. 485 



This is primarily a corn state. We must raise corn on our farms 

 because nature has especially adapted the soil and climate of this state 

 for the product of the king of cereals. And having raised corn we must 

 feed it to hogs and cattle and other stock in order to get the greatest 

 value from the grain. We ought not then to adopt any addition to corn and 

 hog and cattle growing in Iowa that will render less profitable these lines 

 of effort. But dairying does not so interfere because the by-product of the 

 dairy, skimmed milk, is the ideal feed on which to raise pigs, and the 

 farmer who milks his cows and raises his calves on skimmed milk and 

 corn may have just as good calves as does the man who allows the calves 

 to run with the cow. Dairying is eminently suitable as an addition to 

 our growing of hogs and cattle, and indeed, is almost a necessary part 

 of stock growing in Iowa. The fact that for a quarter of a 

 century Iowa has made more butter than any other state, or any equal 

 area in the United States, seems to prove that dairying is not only a suitable 

 addition to our system of agriculture, but that it is also a profitable 

 addition. 



Dairying is a profitable business because it takes nothing from the 

 soil. Dairying tends to the maintenance of the fertility of the land upon 

 which it is carried on. All the products of the farm come primarily 

 from the soil, or the air. If a man sells those products the substance of 

 which comes from the soil, he is selling his farm piece-meal. This is 

 exactly what the grain seller does. The stockman and stock feeder do the 

 same thing to a much less degree. A dairyman sells absolutely nothing 

 from his farm which would be of any value if left in the soil. The carbon 

 hydrogen and oxygen which make up butter come altogether from the 

 atmosphere, and the man who carries on dairying sells from his farm a 

 manufactured product and he has left in his soil all the fertility that it 

 originally contained. 



Dairying is profitable because the dairyman has little or nothing in- 

 vested. This is a hog and cattle state. We must raise cattle, whether 

 we wish to do so or not, and so we may say that the farmer keeps the 

 cow for the purpose of producing the calf; and hence the cow, in a sense, 

 is not a part of his investment in the dairy business. All that is invested 

 is the small amount of feed which she eats in a month or six weeks 

 at the end of which time, he gets his return from the creamery. On the 

 other hand, the man who raises and fats a carload of steers, or who raises 

 a drove of hogs invests more and more in them every day for a year, or 

 two years, or longer. His investment is subject to the change of prices, 

 the disease peculiar to the animals, and other disasters. The dairyman has 

 little invested ; he has an almost immediate return from his feeds and there 

 is little or no probability of loss in the business. 



Dairying is profitable because it enables the farmer to get two returns 

 from his cows instead of one. The farmer expects two returns every year 

 from every kind of live stock usually kept on Iowa farms, except cows. 

 A man could not afford to keep sheep in Iowa, if he did not get a crop 

 of wool and a crop of lambs each year. A farmer could not afford to 

 keep a mare a whole year for the single purpose of raising a colt; he 



