No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 489 



There is probably no branch of the farming business where there 

 is so much contention and dissatisfaction existing between the pro- 

 ducer and purchaser, dealer or consumer of the finished product 

 as in the sale of dairy products, very largely because the producer is 

 not willing to put forth any special effort to make hs wares of better 

 quality and worthy of a better price and put himself in a position 

 of more independence with regard to the sale of his goods. Who ever 

 heard of a man asking |1 per bushel for 75c potatoes, because if 

 he could get it he would try to raise better ones next year. This is 

 too near the attitude of the average milk producer. He wants the 

 increased price before he improves the quality of the goods. Now 

 these are all rather discouraging and might almost seem to be pessi- 

 mistic statements, but they are conditions that confront the man 

 who produces for us what should be the most perfect and complete 

 food that God has entrusted to our care, the food that supports the 

 weaker members of our families and the infants. Is it right and as 

 it should be that this most important part of our daily food must 

 be produced at a loss and that so many of our farmers must sacri- 

 fice the comforts of their homes and their life work in producing it 

 because it will not yield him a profit? I hope not. 



We almost daily hear of some new preparation or product of milk 

 on the market. It is sold entire or in parts. The following are 

 some of the many names under which we find it in trade: Milk, 

 skim-milk, cream, butter, butter-milk, cheese, dried curd, condensed 

 milk, evaporated milk, modified milk, sugared milk, powdered milk, 

 kumyss, milk-sugar, malted milk, and many others. It cannot be 

 for want of a demand for milk and its products that the business 

 is unprofitable. There is no corner of this State so remote as to 

 exclude it from some of the markets offered for the many products 

 of the cow. 



Taking general views of the situation, we believe the greatest 

 drawback to profits, exists in the dairyman himself, because he so 

 generally ignores as useless the application of methods in his dairy 

 work and in the selection of his herd, and the feeding of it, that must 

 and will reduce the cost of production just to the extent of his per- 

 severance. But instead he looks to the purchaser to make up the 

 deficiency resulting from his own negligence. 



We are glad to notice that statistics show a small, per head, in- 

 crease in the annual production of the Pennsylvania cow. Just how 

 much of this is due to the extension of dairy education we are at a 

 loss to say. There are other influences that may be at work that 

 may not be noticed. But it does seem to us, I am sorry to say, that 

 to a considerable extent it may be the involuntary result of the high 

 cost of feed, scarcity of labor, coupled Avith the tempting prices paid 

 for beef cattle which has resulted in many of the more beefy in- 

 dividuals of the herd being sold out of the dairies to reduce work and 

 feed bills, and if this be true the result would be an unconscious 

 culling process, hence, the per head increase. Now, whether this 

 is the result of systematic culling or involuntary culling we do not 

 know ; probably both. But it does prove to us that if we apply the best 

 modern methods in the selection of dairy cows and raise and keep 

 only those individuals that will yield a profit over cost, the individual 

 product would very soon go well above the present figures. 



