484 
American Agriculturist, June 9,1923 
Editorial Page of the American 
Agriculturist 
American 
Agriculturist 
Founded 1842 
Henry Morgenthau, Jr. 
E. R. Eastman . . 
Fred W. Ohm 
Gabrielle Elliot 
Birge Kinne . 
H. L. VONDERLIETH . 
. . . Publisher 
. . . . Editor 
. Associate Editor 
. Household Editor 
Advertising Manager 
Circulation Manager 
CONTRIBUTING STAFF 
H. E. Cook, Jared Van Wagenen, Jr., H. H. Jones, 
Paul Work, G. T. Hughes, H. E. Babcock 
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by college specialists, demonstration meet¬ 
ings, conferences, farm visits, farmers’ field 
days. Farmer’s Week, and poultry and fruit 
judging schools. In the home economics work, 
including conferences, demonstration meet¬ 
ings, lectures, institutes and extension 
schools, there were 48,000 personal contacts. 
The county agricultural agents made over 
500,000 contacts, the home demonstration 
agents over 381,000, and the junior extension 
system 203,000. 
When we realize that this is the record in 
one year in only one State, that similar work 
is going forward in nearly all of the States, 
and especially that farm people themselves 
take the initiative in asking for this service, 
we can get some realization of what our Col¬ 
leges of Agriculture are doing for the farm 
business. The above mentioned service does 
not include the resident teaching work which 
gives thousands of our young men and women 
not only the scientific training needed in the 
management of the modern farm and the 
farm home but, moreover, instills in them 
the thought that working a farm and manag¬ 
ing a farm home are two of the greatest 
jobs in the world. 
Published Weekly by 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, INC. 
Address all correspondence for editorial, advertising, or 
subscription departments to 
461 Fourth Ave., New York, N. Y. 
Entered as Second-Class Matter, December 15, 1922, at the 
Post Office at New York, N. Y., under the Act of March 3,1879. 
Subscription price, payable in advance, $1 a year. 
Canadian and foreign, $2 a year. 
VOL. Ill June 9, 1923 No. 23 
A Word for the Holstein 
N this issue we are calling attention to 
that wonderful breed of dairy cattle, the 
Holstein. In the May 5 issue, we told you 
about the Guernsey, and in early numbers 
we shall have something to say about the 
Ayrshire and Jersey. 
The other day we p,aid a visit to what 
is probably the most wonderful dairy cow in 
the world, Glista Ernestine, the Holstein 
record breaker owned by the New York State 
College of Agriculture. Her picture is in¬ 
serted on the front cover of this issue. Her 
udder is so large that a dishpan, set on the 
floor, has to be used when she is milked. 
Glista is nearly fifteen years old. She 
has produced regularly since calving the 
first time. This in itself is a wonderful 
record when we realize that the average 
number of lactations per cow is not over five. 
In seven different lactations, Glista Ernestine 
has produced over 30 pounds of butter in a 
week. In addition to this, she has two 
records of producing over 100 pounds a day 
for 100 consecutive days. 
Of course, individuals like this are rare, 
but they serve as inspirations and ideals to¬ 
ward which all dairymen can strive; and it is 
rapidly becoming more and more necessary 
for farmers who wish to make a living from 
cows to get high standards in line and con¬ 
stantly work to attain them. 
Service Institutions 
RECENT report issued by Dean A. R. 
Mann, of the New York State College 
of Agriculture, shows that in the year 1922 
the college made chiefly through its extension 
forces 1,374,349 face-to-face contacts, with 
farm people. Not all of these were different 
persons, as in some cases the same person 
asked for and received help more than once. 
Through its extension service proper, not 
counting the county agent service, the col¬ 
lege came in contact with over 200,000 
people. This particular service includes ex¬ 
tension schools, farmer’s institutes, lectures 
“There Is No Precedent” 
W E sometimes get a little impatient with 
the legal profession and with other of 
our over conservative friends when they con¬ 
stantly hold up action on some needed meas¬ 
ure or reform because it has never been done 
before. “There is no precedent” is one of 
the greatest curses of advancing civiliza¬ 
tion. Even the inventor of the first horse¬ 
less wagon was a slave to precedent, for he 
put a dash-board and whip-socket on the first 
automobile. If Gutenberg had stopped be¬ 
cause he could find no precedent the print¬ 
ing press might not have been invented. If 
Columbus had searched for a precedent be¬ 
fore crossing the “Sea of Darkness,” he 
never would have started. 
If all those millions of brave souls of past 
and present who have opened up a new world 
for us in literature, invention, science and 
religious thought had stopped to look for 
precedents for their action, they would have 
taken none. If all had agreed that “it can’t 
be done,” and acted on that principle, then 
the human race would still be monkeys, for 
there could have been no evolution. 
Custer’s Last Man 
HE death on May 22, on a reservation 
in Montana, of Curley, a Crow Indian, 
will recall to the minds of older people the 
excitement caused by the massacre of Custer 
and his soldiers on the Little Big Horn in 
1876. Curley was one of Custer’s Indian 
scouts, and was the sole survivor of the 
massacre. He escaped by mingling with the 
Sioux after the battle. Custer’s entire com¬ 
mand was wiped out in the fight with the 
Sioux who greatly outnumbered the white 
soldiers. 
Curley, the scout, was sent back to bring 
up reinforcements, but on his way back his 
horse was shot from under him and he re¬ 
turned on foot to Custer where he took his 
part in the fight. He said that General Custer 
was the last man to fall after the Sioux 
tried to take him alive. 
Nothing in the known history of mankind 
is more wonderful or romantic than the con¬ 
quering and the settlement of the great West. 
Within the memory of living men thousands 
and thousands of square miles of the most 
fertile farm land in the world were over¬ 
run with wild game of almost every kind 
and description. Buffalo by the millions 
roamed the great plains. All of this great 
country was practically unknown, except 
to the Indians. 
After tho soldiers began to get the Indians 
in check, there came the great cattle ranges 
and the cowboys, and later the border ruf¬ 
fians and gunmen. 
To-day, only a comparatively few years 
later,-the buffalo are gone, the Indians are 
peaceful farmers on the reservations, the 
cowboys are plow-boys, and there are more 
gunmen in New York City than in the whole 
wild West. 
The Square Pegs 
R ecently we had the pleasure of visit¬ 
ing two farms, one specializing in dairy¬ 
ing and the other given up almost entirely 
to fruit. Each of these farms had been made 
to pay right through the hard times. As we 
were being shown about each farm by the 
owners, and saw the results from the knowl¬ 
edge and interest that they w^ere putting 
into their jobs, we were thinking that the 
chief reason why these men were success¬ 
ful, was their love and enthusiasm for their 
work. 
The dairyman had a better knowledge of 
cows than probably any man in our ac¬ 
quaintance, and the-same might be said of the 
other farmer and his fruit trees. The dairy¬ 
man knew and had at his tongue’s end all 
of the pedigree and record of every individual 
in his large herd. He could tell almost by 
instinct just the minute any cow began to 
get a little off. He came by this knowledge 
because he loved cows and knew cows, and 
would rather work around cows than do any¬ 
thing else. He probably would not have 
made a great success with fruit; The other 
had watched the trees in his great orchards 
grow until he knew what each one’s peculiari¬ 
ties were, when it was doing well, and what 
its limitations were. He knew all of this by 
spending hours of his life in the orchard at 
times when other men not so enthusiastic or 
with less love for their job, would have been 
resting. 
With both of these men their vocation was 
also their avocation and their greatest pleas¬ 
ure. In thinking about them and their suc¬ 
cess, we thought that it was unfortunate that 
most farmers are farmers by chance rather 
than by choice. Many of us stay on the farm 
because we were born into the job, when as a 
matter of fact, we might have made a good 
deal better school-teacher, lawyer or me¬ 
chanic. 
As our agriculture grows older, it grows 
much more complicated, requiring more and 
more skill to make a go of it, and requiring 
especially a liking for the job. Therefore, 
we think that when a boy shows a distaste 
for farming, he ought not to be encouraged 
too much to make it his life business, for 
very likely he will be a square peg in a 
round hole. 
But, if on the other hand, a boy shows a 
decided liking for farming, for dairying, 
fruit growing or poultry, then he should be 
encouraged to get all of the education and 
practical training possible, with the thought 
that if he has knowledge and love for it, he 
can obtain as much success and happiness 
out of farming as from any other business. 
A Bill That Ought to Have Passed 
» 
O NE of the bills which we were sorry to 
see fail of passage during the last days of 
the New York State legislative session was 
the resolution providing for a legislative com¬ 
mittee to study cooperative marketing and 
to report back to the next legislature. Every 
farm organization in the State and nearly 
every farmer who understood the purpose 
of this resolution, endorsed it because they 
thought there was some opportunity for such 
a committee to be of service in finding and 
helping to correct some of the present 
marketing evils with which farmers and con¬ 
sumers are constantly contending. 
