460 CATTLE AND DAIRY FARMING. 



as on the whole community through the fact that working and caring 

 for a common enterprise draws men nearer to one another and teaches 

 them the better to agree together. The system and cleanliness indis- 

 pensable in the dairy business find their way by and by into the stalls of 

 the cattle and the dwellings of the families, bringing with them all their 

 blessed sanitary benefits. 



THE DAIRY ASSOCIATION AT HELDENFINGEN. 



Sooner than might have been expected the example of Aichstetten has 

 been followed and a second Wurteinberg Dairy Association has been 

 organized at Heldeufi,ngen. 



The village of Heldenfiugen is situated near the eastern frontier of 

 Wurtemberg, in the county of Heidenheim, belonging to the Jagst 

 district, on the elevated plateau of the Swabian Alps, about 650 meters 

 above the sea. Its climate is severe, belonging to the zone of winter- 

 corn, windy, rather dry, less favorable in general to the growth of com- 

 mercial products and fruits. The soil is a strong, calcareous, clayey one, 

 the product of the disintegration of the white Jura, partly flat, stony, 

 and frequently too dry, as the surface water is quickly absorbed. 



Heldenfingen has 830 inhabitants, owning in all an area of 950 hec- 

 tares, used for agricultural purposes ; there are 880 hectares arable land, 

 30 hectares meadows, and 40 hectares pasture laud. 



The stock of cattle amounted on the 1st of April, 1881, to 55 horses, 

 531 head of cattle, and 80 swine. 



The distribution of the property in areas is as follows : The greatest 

 proprietor has GO hectares ; seven great proprietors have each 30 to 50 

 hectares ; twenty middling proprietors have each 10 to 30 hectares, 

 and one hundred and fifty-seven small proprietors have each under 10 

 hectares. 



This shows that small proprietors are in a large majority in Helden- 

 fiugen, and that real estate is here still more divided up than it is in 

 Aichstetten. Under these circumstances greater results in point of 

 economy can only be obtained through the association plan. 



In Ileldenfingeu, as in the whole Wurtenibergish Alps region, the cul- 

 tivation of corn has occupied hitherto by far the greater area and con- 

 stituted the principal source of income of the farmer. Although the 

 stock of cattle has been considerably improved in the last decades by 

 the increased growth of clover, which is especially important on account 

 of the small area of meadow land, yet the farmer could not reap the full 

 benefit of it, as the direct sale Of milk was impossible, owing to the dis- 

 tance from larger towns and the railroad, and dairy management was 

 unknown or confined to the preparation of an inferior quality of butter, 

 which had to be sold at correspondingly low prices (1.50 marks per kilo- 

 gram). 



Whilst Aichstetten is situated in a locality where dairy management 

 has been in vogue for a long time and forms the most important branch 

 of agricultural industry, so that the question there consisted merely in 

 an essential improvement of an already existing branch of trade, the 

 improved dairy system as introduced in Heldenfingen was for that place 

 quite a new branch and one hitherto unknown there. 



The first impulse to it was given in Heldcufingen in the autumn of 

 1881 through a lecture delivered by the itinerant instructor iu agricult- 

 ure for the Jagst district concerning the recent progress made in dairy 

 matters and thehigher yield of milk consequently to be obtained through 

 the association plan. 



