THIRTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL CONVENTION. 31 



There was a child that was receiving a visit from its Grand- 

 mother; the day after the Grandmother came she had the child 

 in her lap, the child said : "You are my Grandmother." "Yes," 

 she said, "I am your Grandmother on your father's side." The 

 child hesitated a little and then she said: "If you stay around 

 here long you will find you are on the wrong side." And that 

 is what I think most of my hearers are, they are not dairymen 

 at all and there are subjects that interests them more than the 

 dairy question, and what brings this to my mind is the fact that 

 I have just read a statement that has just been issued which 

 gives the condition in New York, and before I sit down I am 

 going to read you a little. 



I feel it is presumptuous for me to stand before you and 

 undertake to instruct you. I could not do it if I should try and, 

 while I was introduced as a farmer, and am in a way a sort of 

 a farmer, no better nor no worse than many who are in this 

 audience tonight. There is this feature about dairying that I 

 understand, that when I am receiving my returns from the dairy 

 cow, I am getting only a small proportion of what that cow is 

 really giving me. I do not believe we appreciate the profit she 

 is giving us, outside of her milk product, that is in restoring 

 the fertility of our farms. 



What brings this to my mind at this time are these statis- 

 tics which I propose to read to you. I know I do not have to 

 emphasize the fact that at one time New York was equally as 

 fertile as this country, but the system they have practiced in their 

 farming methods, by which the land has been cropped continu- 

 ally for many years, it is almost entirely unproductive. The 

 value of it has gone down from a hundred dollars to forty or 

 forty-five or even less an acre. 



I believe a young man who is intelligent and wants to en- 

 gage in the farming business today can do better by going East 

 than he can by going West for a farm. These statistics I am 

 going to read are recent and I do not know of anything that 

 would be more interesting than to give them to you: 



