214 



DRY FARMING CONGRESS. 



telligence, and yet large enough that the income will meet all the needs 

 and many of the luxuries of life, which are certainly due the man on the 

 farm. This means intensive — i^ot extensive — farming. It means growing 

 the most per acre possible and turning it to the best possible account. 

 A hundred such farmers on a given area are worth a thousand times 

 more to the community, the state and the nation than if the same area 

 was owned 'by ten men engaged in farming on an extensive scale. (Ap- 

 plause.) It is to such farmers as are inclined, either through love for 

 the business or a desire for the advantages which it brings them, that 

 dairying is recommended. 



Now more to the point for the dry land farmer. Most of the crops 

 adapted to these conditions, as indeed to conditions existing everywhere, 

 bring in an income but once a year. Sometimes the work of a year may 

 be swept away in a moment by flood, or hail, or fire, and sometimes the 

 heavens fail to give forth the necessary rain for dry farming even, and 

 the crops are a failure. To the farmer in seasons like this comes the pinch 

 of hard times. Bills must go over; but the family must be clothed and 

 fed and the children sent to school. With an empty granary and no other 

 source of income this is sometimes impossible. Seldom, however, is there 

 a year when feed of some kind cannot be raised for a bunch of dairy cows. 

 Many times grain crops that may be utter failures from the stand- 

 point of the grain they yield may still be turned into hay or fodder or si- 

 lage — excellent food for the stock — and total loss avoided. The farmer 

 who keeps cows will plant forage crops which are reasonably sure and 

 plan to make silage and hay that will carry him over the season. Much 

 roughage that would otherwise be lost may thus be turned to good 

 account. 



The one great advantage of the dairy cow over other livestock is the 

 fact that she pays dividends every day in the year in a commodity that is 

 convertible into cash at the nearest railway station or at the nearby 

 factory for the making of butter and cheese. It may be said that one of 

 the greatest drawbacks to farming is the lack of ready cash every day in 

 the year. This condition never exists on a farm where there is a dairy herd. 



Speaking more particularly of the Great Plains country east of the 

 Rockies, there have been but one or two years in the last twenty or 

 twenty-five when there could not have been enough feed raised on the 

 average farm to support a herd of from fifteen to twenty cows in fair 

 shape. But' there have been many years when wheat, corn or other ce- 

 reals on which these people depend have been utter failures. That great 

 region has since the early eighties been twice populated and depopulated, 

 and now, for the third time, the people are again possessing themselves 

 of the land. If the third exodus does not sometime take place it will be 

 because the present generation is wiser than their predecessors and because 

 they practice improved methods of farming, which will include dairying 

 as a component part. 



The kind of crops that may be raised for the dairy herd will be left 

 to the agronomist making a special study of these conditions inythe semi- 



