178 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



(c) Dairy sanitation. 



(a) Dairy Education. — With dairy papers, dairy in- 

 stitutes, dairymen's associations, dairy schools, dairy bul- 

 letins, State and national, with dairy information and 

 education on tap for the asking, and all free and most of it 

 reliable and worth having, — it does seem as if there was 

 little need for ignorance touching the better methods of 

 dairy husbandry. Yet, if one may judge by conditions as 

 found, there is still lamentable lack of information on every 

 hand regarding the essentials of modern dairy practice. 

 Many dairymen have made great advance along this line, 

 but hosts still stand aloof, and, by their actions, proclaim 

 that "ignorance is bliss." There is still need of missionary 

 work. The great difficulty, however, is how to get at those 

 who will not help themselves, who refuse to read, who will 

 not grade up herd or product, who decline to inquire, who 

 are wedded to their idols, whose sluggishness and indiffer- 

 ence affect primarily their own welfare and secondarily 

 injure that of their neighbors and associates in business. 

 Narrow-minded, prejudiced, carping, dissatisfied, suspicious, 

 behind the times, they will not see the light, even though it 

 be flashed in their very faces. It is this class of men who 

 growl at the tariff; who complain that dairying doesn't pay ; 

 who think the creamery proprietor a thief, the Babcock test 

 a fraud ; to whom it never occurs that the fault lies in their 

 own inability or unwillingness to study their calling, to 

 apply business principles in their work. No sense of their 

 personal responsibility for their ill success appears to op- 

 press them. Instead of seeking to imitate their prosperous 

 neighbor, successful because of the application of modern 

 ideas in dairying, they too often are angry with and jealous 

 of him. They will not see that, just as success in other 

 lines of business demands study and application of new 

 economic ideas, dairying, to be profitable, must be studied. 



I was amused at the correspondence published some 

 months ago in a prominent dairy paper. The writer urged 

 the editor to " let up on those shiftless farmers, who haven't 

 intelligence enough to read such a paper, nor energy enough 

 to profit by it if they did read it. Publish a paper for in- 

 telligent men, and let the stupids go." In response to the 



