70 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



the other side. We may succeed in smashing the milk trusts, 

 if we have them established contrary to law, and in mak- 

 ing them change their methods and let us understand some- 

 thing of their work; but so far as organizing the country 

 people to control the price of milk shipped to the cities is con- 

 cerned, we shall not be able to do it until we get our own busi- 

 ness in our own stables under our control. And that takes 

 us right down to the individual cow. 



A great many of us do not like to think that we must study 

 the individuality of each cow as thoroughly as the head of a 

 large department store studies the individuality of each de- 

 partment. A friend of mine, who has charge of one of those 

 large department stores, once said to me: " Each department 

 in this business has to stand on its own feet; the grocery de- 

 partment has to pay its own expenses, and the dry goods de- 

 partment the same, and so on." " Well," said I, "^ you ought 

 to go into the dairy business; we do not have that trouble; 

 we put the brindle cow, the white cow, the black cow, the 

 Jersey, the Holstein, and the Shorthorn, into a stable, and we 

 say, ' Here you are ; God bless you, give milk ! ' " This 

 friend said : " That is so ; I do not understand it, but the 

 dairy business will stand what no other business will stand." 



We have been able to carry on business in that way because 

 we took no account of our labor. The husband, wife and 

 children all put in their time, and no charge was made for it. 

 In lookir.g for students for our school at Canton I have 

 had young men tell me that they could not afford the neces- 

 sary $150 or $200 a year for expenses. I have told them 

 that they could earn enough in the same length of time on 

 any farm to pay their expenses at the school, and they have 

 said that they worked for their fathers, and got no money 

 for it. Here was a business organized so that it was depend- 

 ent on the family working for nothing to support it, for most 

 of these young men were on dairy farms. x\ny remedy for 

 this condition must come by slow, steady stages. 



If we are to study the individuality of the dairy cow, we 

 must have in every stable a weighing sheet, and know just 

 what each cow does. I found that method had more to 

 do with developing good hired men than anything I have ever 



