ELEVENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART XII 789 



We have counted at previous Iowa state fairs more entries in this sec- 

 tion than were assembled last week, but the quality of the exhibit was 

 up to a very high standard. Moreover, the popular interest manifested 

 in the competitions, and in the cattle while in the barns, to say nothing 

 of many other forms in which it finds expression, is ample evidence that 

 thousands of cornbelt farmers are thinking seriously of engaging in 

 milk production either as a side-line or as a specialty. 



As population increases dairying flourishes. Dairy cattle, in the hands 

 of competent owners, are liberally profitable in the manufacture of staple 

 products for which a strong and growing demand greedily waits. We are 

 on the verge of a wide-spread development of practical dairying in the 

 Middle West. Populous cities, throbbing with industrial life, have grown 

 up in this region, and their food requirements, already extensive and in- 

 sistent, are absolutely insatiable as to the table necessities supplied by 

 dairy cows. ^Economies become more minute as hungry mouths multiply. 

 We are now facing conditions which make it necessary to produce food 

 in the greatest possible abundance where its consumption is largest. 

 Dairying is taking permanent root in the cornbelt in response to the call 

 of our enormous urban population. However important this vital in- 

 dustry may be at present, and however marked its development, no stu- 

 dent of our food problems believes that it is out of infancy. Indeed, in 

 a country so large as ours, with a future too complex and populous to 

 imagine, our dairy industry now is less than an infant; it is not yet born. 



The Gazette, recognizing the intimate economic relation which must 

 exist between practical dairying and the broad systems of agriculture ad- 

 vocated in its columns for years, urges with a new emphasis serious con- 

 sideration of the opportunities which this comparatively raw field offers. 

 Bread, meat and milk are indispensable to the human race. Our national 

 welfare and higher civilization depend essentially upon the availability 

 of these products to the masses of the people. Their availability depends 

 upon the abundance of their production. No one who produces them ac- 

 cording to modern methods and markets them with corresponding intel- 

 ligence, can fail of substantial financial reward. The Gazette believes 

 that the surest and quickest way to increase the quantity and improve 

 the quality of our meats and dairy products is to use the best available 

 breeding stock, which should be housed and fed with greater intelli- 

 gence than is now common, last but by no means least the resultant by- 

 product (manure) being applied, without any loss of its plant food, to 

 fields and pastures. 



Prof. W. H. Pew, of the Iowa Agricultural College, Ames, judged all 

 the cattle in this division, and his work was well received. 



GUERNSEYS. 



Guernseys of outstanding quality and in fine finish made probably the 

 best exhibit which this breed ever has contributed to a western fair. 

 Lord Mar is one of the most sensational bulls from the island. Lalla 



