THIRD ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART IX. 499 



would not stop running until they jumped into the Atlantic and Pacific. I 

 have estimated by careful trigonometrical and rhetorical formulas that 

 the waters in these oceans would be raised six feet six and nine-eighths 

 inches. This cow movement would start a wave of prosperity or water 

 the like of which the world had never seen since the days of Eve'n Adam 

 or Noah. Any man who doth not agree with me thus far is not a fit subject 

 to enter the narrow gate that leadeth to a good cow. 



DECLINE IN DAIRYING 



Without doubt I think the interest throughout Iowa and the United 

 States is on the decline. I base this generalization on reasons gathered 

 from many sources. Butter makers in different and widely separated 

 localities concede this point. At the recent farmers' short course at Ames 

 there seemed to be unusual interest manifested in pork and beef, and a 

 lack of interest in the dairy cow. In a recent review of the prominent 

 agricultural papers I find a remarkable decrease in the amount of advertis- 

 ing of the dairy breeds as compared with that of ten and fifteen years 

 ago. In one paper there are but two advertisements of dairy cattle in 

 about twenty pages. In another, nine in fifty-three pages; in another 

 and special dairy paper but fifty ads, covering only four columns. In Iowa 

 there has been in the recent years of 1898, 1899 and 1900 a decrease of 

 five to six million pounds of butter sent out of Iowa. This decline is due to 

 not one but to a number of causes. The mismanagement of creameries 

 through neglect to improve the quality of our butter and hence increase 

 its consumption, the reckless and indifferent breeding of dairy cows; 

 the average inferiority of cows; the uniformly low prices for eight 

 years; inability and indifference in feeding the cow. The majority of 

 farmers perhaps at the leading live stock exhibitions are found admiring 

 the plump, well rounded, symmetrical beef animal. Less number are 

 showing interest in the dairy type of cattle. Of course, Jones likes to have 

 a car of steers that reach seven and one-half to eight cents. His neighbor 

 though may make just as much money by keeping a car of inferior looking 

 cows. You may get $100.00 for a two-year-old steer; you could get $100.00 

 for one year's milk from a good cow. 



"We consume butter in Iowa to the amount of about 138,000,000 pounds 

 annually. Much of the butter made and consumed on farms is made in a 

 very wasteful manner. It would be much better and more enconomical 

 for thousands to purchase their butter of the creamery and sell all the 

 milk produced than to undertake to make their own butter. In the United 

 States we have today probably 80,000,000 people. Basing my estimate 

 on the actual quantity we consume on the farm I conclude we must eat 

 on our tables in the United States and for cooking 5,018,000,000 pounds 

 annually. I have assigned only two and one-half ounces per person a 

 day for the urban population and thee ounces per person a day for the 

 rural population. This represents, at twenty cents per pound $1,003,600,- 

 000. Piled up in sixty pound tubs in a pyramid one rod square it would 

 reach upward seventy-seven miles. At 200 pounds butter per cow it would 

 require 25,090,000 cows. Load these cows twenty in a car and you have ten 

 parallel tracks covered for 995 miles. 



