FIFTY-SECOND ANNUAL CONVENTION 23 



surplus was found in a cow testing association in Virginia, 

 near Richmond. The farmers were selling their whole milk 

 to Richmond, and they were complaining of the prices that 

 they were getting for it. They said they were not fair, that 

 in comparison with the cost of production they ought to 

 have more. They were right, but how to get more was 

 quite another question when they were putting more fluid 

 milk into that market than it would absorb. 



A cow testing association came in among them and at 

 the end of the year it was found that the man who was 

 complaining so much about the price of milk had thirty- 

 six cows, eighteen of those cows didn't pay for feed con- 

 sumed, and the eighteen good cows that paid for feed con- 

 sumed had to take some of the money received by them to 

 pay the board of the other eighteen cows, producing sev- 

 enty-one thousand pounds of milk, when he wasn't getting 

 the price he should for his product. 



What was that dairyman's problem? Was it to go and 

 ask the government to build an export corporation or to 

 buy the milk and dump it into the ocean as some have sug- 

 gested, or was it to let the eighteen cows that didn't pay 

 for the feed consumed march to the butcher? There is 

 only one answer if you think about it; let the eighteen cows 

 march to the butcher. Place seventy-one thousand pounds 

 of milk less on the market so the price will be kept up to 

 a reasonable profit. The farmers of this country must have 

 that or agriculture will go bankrupt, and when agriculture 

 goes bankrupt, I tremble for the welfare of this nation. 

 The people that live on the farm must have an income in 

 proportion to what they contribute to society, in proportion 

 to the man that lives in the city. We must not be carried 

 away by all the things we read about. We read about this 

 fixing of prices and the government entering into our busi- 

 ness, but we want to direct ourselves to our own institu- 

 tions; because if we don't save ourselves nobody else is 

 going to save us. 



I have lived long enough to know this: that I have 

 never found any political party giving direct help to the 

 development of agriculture. What we want to look to the 



