MILK PRODUCTION IN CANADA. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



Farming operations in Canada may be varied to an almost 

 unlimited extent. Here, as elsewhere, however, early agricultural 

 effort has usually been along grain-farming lines, invariably a most 

 exhausting system so far as the soil is concerned. With improved 

 shipping facilities and increased population, however, different com- 

 binations of live stock and grain farming come into being until 

 finally d>airy farming makes its appearance. 



Dairy farming is undoubtedly the system making for 

 the greatest returns from the land in any particular year while 

 at the same time not only maintaining but even increasing the fertil- 

 ity of the farm occupied. The possibilities of profits are therefore 

 twofold: (1) increased crop returns and (2) most profitable and 

 most convenient marketing of these crops and of every part thereof. 

 The measure of the profits reaped will be the quality or economic 

 value of the herd maintained, the methods of handling the same, 

 and, to a certain extent, the business ability of the operator. 



Men competent to express an opinion because conversant with 

 conditions which obtain and results which "have been secured in 

 different parts of Canada, are of the opinion that a very large pro- 

 portion of our Canadian dairy herds do not produce enough milk 

 to pay their keep. From time to time, statistics seem to confirm this 

 view. The fact that these cattle consume a certain amount of 

 otherwise unmerchantable roughage and convert it into valuable 

 fertilizing material would therefore appear to be about the only 

 justification of this industry, an industry that for possibilities of 

 money making to the thoughtful Canadian farmer is without a peer 

 but which, as too commonly conducted, entails a loss or gives but 

 poor returns for muidi hard labour performed and much good feed 

 consumed. 



The aim of this bulletin is, if possible, to help the dairying 

 industry in Canada by placing in the hands of those interested a 



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