24 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



in pretty hard condition. You understand the woods there are 

 all gone, the forests are all gone in Denmark; the land is very 

 pigh priced, brings from $ioo to $500 per acre; taxes on that 

 land are from $2 to $5 an acre each year; they cannot grow 

 corn because the season is not long enough ; they cannot grow 

 wheat profitably, because you American farmers can raise wheat 

 cheaper than they can, and they can buy American wheat cheaper 

 than they can raise it themselves; the natural resources of the 

 country are entirely exhausted, have all been worked out and 

 taken advantage of, and about the only thing left for the Danish 

 farmer is live stock husbandry. 



Now, the government of Denmark had looked over the sit- 

 uation very carefully and decided that something had to be done 

 to reHeve the industry of the country. The farmers were suffer- 

 ing and, in consequence, all the other industries were suffering. 

 Money was scarce, taxes high, and the people began to go bank- 

 rupt. The government investigated the situation and found the 

 thing most adapted for the Danish farmer would be dairying 

 and consequently sent men out among the farmers and tried to 

 encourage dairying, and I assure you they did a good job at it, 

 because today, you all know, that Danish butter brings the high- 

 est market price in the world's market. The government took 

 a hand in it, and I believe has done a great deal of good for the 

 dairy industry of Denmark and has taught the government of 

 other states and countries a great lesson. The dairymen began 

 to open their eyes to the importance of keeping records of the 

 performances of their cows; they realized there was need of 

 something of that kind in order to get it down to a reliable basis. 

 As near as I know, we have not, in this country, any of those 

 kinds of records. We have monthly and weekly records, but no 

 yearly records, and while the weekly and monthly record may 

 be a good thing, a sort of indication of what a cow may do, the 

 yearly record is what tells, because we have to feed the cow 365 

 days in the year, and there is great need of reliable records. Just 

 to give you an idea of what they might teach us, the dairy com- 

 missioner of Iowa has gathered statistics on the profits of dairy 



