412 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



article of cheese is another striking example of the effect of 

 competition upon a product that bears long transportation. 



His Excellency Governor Russell, in his recent inaugural 

 address, honors this Board by calling attention to its impor- 

 tance and usefulness ; he does it yet higher honor, by advising 

 that greater specific work and responsibilities be entrusted 

 to its guidance and care. In view of the importance of our 

 dairy interests, what better work can this Board undertake 

 than to suggest the means by which scientific results, with 

 the best practical methods upon all that pertains to the dairy, 

 shall be taught to the masses? The itinerant dairy school 

 is working the leaven of dairy skill and intelligence in many 

 of our sister States; shall less be done for our own? We 

 have, according to our last census, approximately 250,000 

 cows, heifers and bulls ; should not direct and practical steps 

 be taken to educate the breeding-up of these the dairyman's 

 living machines? Who has listened to the lectures of Pro- 

 fessor Roberts of Cornell upon the laws of breeding, but 

 realizes what a tield for effort is open upon this line? Could 

 we do better than to employ such an expert to go among our 

 farmers, and popularize and instill the laws that govern suc- 

 cessful breeding ? 



Then, too, a knowledge of the science of feeding, thanks 

 to Dr. Goessmann, to Professor Stewart, to Professor Henry 

 and many other patient investigators, is indispensable. 

 How to skillfully mix the materials at hand to make the 

 balanced ration is no longer held as a theory, but is 

 accepted as a truth by intelligent feeders. What propor- 

 tion of our milk producers can mix the materials that should 

 make the cow's daily ration, giving these factors each their 

 due value ? First, the commercial value of the mixture ; 

 second, its nutritive value for the product desired ; third 

 (but by no means least), its manurial value. To bring these 

 laws simply and plainly to our fanners, so that they will 

 act upon them, is a field for earnest effort. As bearing upon 

 this feeding question, does it speak for our intelligence 

 when statistics show that, of the six hundred thousand tons 

 of hay produced in our State, but two and one-half percent 

 is clover? It is not idle talk when I advocate that it would 

 pay large dividends to employ a preacher eloquent in speech, 

 untiring in effort, to proclaim the gospel of clover. 



