INTRODUCTION 5 



of years has been materially increased. The Hosmer farm 

 at Marshfield, Mo., for the past five years has yielded an 

 average of 70 bushels of corn per acre on land that produced 

 15 bushels per acre 17 years ago, when the present owner es- 

 tablished it as a dairy farm. 



Adaptation of Dairying to High-Priced Land. As a rule a 

 thinly settled region is not a dairy country. When land 

 becomes high in price, and it is necessary to secure a cor- 

 respondingly larger income, the dairy cow usually comes into 

 use. Exceptions to this are level rich lands that may be 

 used for grain growing for long periods without exhausting 

 the available fertility. Dairy husbandry is intensive farming, 

 and a comparatively small area is sufficient to carry on 

 such a system of farming. An example of what is possible 

 along this line is a farm in Pennsylvania l of 17 acres from 

 which milk to the amount of $ 2400 per year was sold, and 

 young stock to the amount of $ 500. The purchased feed 

 amounted to $ 625 per year. 



Land on the Isle of Jersey, the annual rental of which is $50 

 to $ 60 per acre, is used for keeping the Jersey cow. Land in 

 Holland, worth from $ 1000 to $ 2000 per acre, is used almost 

 exclusively for dairy purposes. The same is true of most of 

 the high-priced land in other parts of Europe. 



The Cow a Cheap Producer of Human Food. Henry says: 2 

 " Not only is dairying the leading animal industry of our 

 country at the present time, but so it must continue indefi- 

 nitely, for the reason that the cow is a more economical pro- 

 ducer of human food than is the ox or pig." The following 

 table from data gathered by the Missouri Experiment Station 



1 Farmers' Bulletin No. 242, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture. 



2 Feeds and Feeding, p. 401. 



