FORTY-FIRST ANNUAL CONVENTION 95 



care of the milk and cream on the farm, and while these facts 

 exist we cannot expect to improve the quality of our dairy 

 products. 



Within the last few years there has been a great real of 

 agitation relative to better dairy conditions. This has been 

 greater in some sections than in others, but it has reached over 

 the entire country. We know that this agitation is especially 

 noticeable in our larger cities where boards of health and milk 

 commissioners have laid down strict sanitary rules or require- 

 ments in an endeavor to get a safe product, thus protecting the 

 health of their communities. To the old-fashioned farmer these 

 new rules that require new methods to be introduced seem un- 

 necessary, are termed fads, and are for the most part ignored 

 until he finds that his market is destroyed unless he complies 

 with the requirements. When he has to make a few changes 

 sometimes expensive to him, he naturally becomes discouraged, 

 especially when he receives no more for his milk. It must not 

 be expected that milk producers of this type will readily accede 

 to the demands of health authorities and inspectors and change 

 their customary way of doing things, all at once and without 

 apparent reason. It is the small producers of the country that 

 determine to a large degree the total supply and while there may 

 be many faults and criticisms for this class, it is not always best 

 to ignore their demands for a fair trial and a just compensation. 



We like to think of a dairying community as being com- 

 posed of up-to-date barns with sanitary equipment arrangements 

 and methods in vogue. It is a lovely picture in the mind, but we 

 must deal with the facts and endeavor to help the ordinary 

 farmer with this milk-producing problem. Thorough under- 

 standing of the problems of the ordinary milk producer must 

 be had if we are to attempt to reach him and receive from him 

 improvements. Let us go a little into the history of this present 

 condition and understand why we find him as he is. 



Born and brought up, no doubt, on the farm he now lives 

 on, he has been subject to the conditions and practices that have 

 been in vogue there for so long. When he was a boy cows 

 could be bought for from $35 to $65, and good ones, too. They 

 never thought of keeping a bull or raising calves; there were 



