THIRTY-SIXTH ANNUAL CONVENTION. 107 



to take issue that that is the best system? I do not believe there 

 is. 



What Hne of livestock are you going to adopt, you want to 

 adopt that line that will pay you the best profit and that can build 

 up the fertility of your farms. Let me make a comparison, take 

 for instance the feed that you put in part of your time in grow- 

 ing, then you go feed it to a steer, sell that steer for dressed beef 

 which is worth from 5 to lo cents per pound. (It has been as 

 low as 5 cents.) That steer will take that feed and convert it 

 into beef that is worth 5 cents. The dairy cow will convert it 

 into a pound of butter worth 35 cents. Dressed beef will sell 

 for 10 cents; that means that the steer will convert it into one 

 pound at 10 cents, but the cow will make you 35 cents. There 

 is more work, it is true, but the difference in the cost of produc- 

 tion is not commensurate. 



I was doing Farmers' Institute work last winter. I had been 

 talking along this line for I believe in dairying. I have been talk- 

 ing it for ten years. I did not know that the Secretary of that 

 Institution was a beef man, but it made no difference. He came 

 to me after the close of the meeting and said : ''You are giving 

 it to us steer feeders in the neck. I get $60.00 a head for my 

 steers, do you mean to say there is no profit in it ? You say there 

 is more profit in dairying." I said : How much less do you feed 

 those steers than I do my cows ?" He said : ''I feed them about 

 as much, if I hadn't I could not have sold them for $60.00." I 

 said : "You are willing to agree that the feed costs the same ; in 

 the spring you sold them for $60.00, all you have to show for it 

 is the $60.00." I said: "Let me tell you, with the same amount 

 of feed I sold from each one of my cows $100.00 of dairy pro- 

 ducts, and I have my cows yet." He said: "You had to milk 

 your cows and I did not have to milk my steers." I said : "That 

 is right but you had to keep those steers." I do not say that every 

 man can go into the dairy business and make a success of it, but 

 he can if he goes at it in the right way and loves his business. I 

 want to convince you that dairying is profitable. 



Now here is another illustration : When I was in debt, and 

 I have been in debt up to my ears. My father died when I was 



