486 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



makes her work to pay her board. We could not even afford to raise hogs 

 in Iowa, if they reproduced themselves only in the ratio of one to one, 

 as cattle do. and yet. there are hundreds of farmers in this state who are 

 attempting the impossible task of getting rich from the profit arising from 

 keeping a cow a whole year for the single purpose of producing a calf. 

 The dairy business enables the farmer to raise just as good calves, and also 

 to get $25 to $50 worth of butter from the cow each year. 



Dairying is profitable because it brings the farmer the largest return 

 for his labor and the products of his farm. It enables him to get a larger 

 gross and net income from his farm than he can obtain without it. The feed 

 that will make two pounds of beef will make a pound of butter, and the 

 value of a pound of butter is always more than the value of two pounds of 

 beef, even during the last few years of relatively high prices of beef and 

 low prices of butter. All the arguments in support of diversified and inten- 

 sive farming may be used to prove that dairying is necessary to the 

 profitable operation of our farms. When our farmers raised wheat they 

 became bankrupt and their farms were worth but a few dollars per acre. 

 When they turned to stock raising and to dairying their farms advanced in 

 value to nearly a hundred dollars, their prosperity became almost un- 

 limited, and their bank accounts and their credit have increased accord- 

 ingly, because they contained a larger gross and net return from their 

 farms. 



Dairying is profitable because it is a cash business. The dairyman 

 gets his returns at the end of the month, is able to pay for his 

 groceries and dry goods and he keeps out of debt. When he does sell 

 a drove of hogs or a bunch of cattle, he applies the larger sum on his 

 indebtedness or his bank account. 



The sections of this state and of others where dairying is practiced, 

 have never known hard times in the same sense that other sections have, 

 for the reason that the dairymen always have a reasonable amount of 

 ready money from the sale of their dairy products and this money going 

 into the retail channels of trade, relieves the stringency m the periods of 

 hard times. 



Dairying is profitable because the butter that is produced is 

 a net profit. The farmer must have the cow in order to raise the calf. 

 The cost of keeping the cow must be charged against the value of the 

 calf, and if there is profit in that, as our beef growers assert, then any 

 other product that can be obtained from the cow must be nearly or quite a 

 net profit, against which may be charged the extra labor necessary to 

 obtain the other product. Suppose two farms of equal size and productive- 

 ness managed by two farmers of equal skill and ability and operated on 

 the same lines, except that one milks his cows and the other does 

 not. The dairyman will raise more pigs than his neighbor does because he 

 will have skimmed milk and his neighbor will have none. He will raise 

 just as many and just as good calves from the same number of cows. He 

 will have exactly the same products, and of the same value as his neighbor 

 who has not milked any cows and he will have from $25 to $50 worth of 

 butter from each cow. The butter fat is a net profit to that farmer. The 



