i. “ha ~~ ae ——— oo =e Bess UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY Class CS loc meas Ja 69-290M UNIVERSITY LIBRARY | UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN The person charging this material is responsible for its renewal or return to the library on or before the due date. The minimum fee for a lost item is $125.00, $300.00 for bound journals. Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons for disciplinary action and may result in dismissal from the University. Please note: self-stick notes may result in torn pages and lift some inks. Renew via the Telephone Center at 217-333-8400, 846-262-1510 (toll-free) or circlib @ uiuc.edu. Renew online by choosing the My Account option at: http://www.library.uiuc.edu/catalog/ YON 7 52 a Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://archive.org/details/annualreportofi9925illi LIBRARY OF THE ERSITY oF WLINOIS =a f shay << HB: GURLER, De WAL B ink: A Leader Among Dairymen. Ex-President Illinois State Dairymen’s Association. entity finnual . Report ... of the Illinois Association IG IGS Convention Held at Galesburg, IHinois, January Tenth, Elev- ; enth and Twelfth. | Compiled by GEO. CAVEN, SECRETARY a 7 3 State Dairymen’s : : = 3 News-Advocate Printing & Binding House. Elgin. Illinois. 1899. ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSCCIATION. LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. Office of Secretary | Illinois State Dairymen's Association, Chicago, ill., 1899. “To His Excellency J. R. Tanner, Governor of the State of Illinois: I have the honor to submit the official report of the Illinois State Dairymen’s Association, containing the addresses, papers, and discus- sions at its twenty-fifth annual meeting, held at Galesburg, Illinois, Jan. 10, 11, and 12, 1899. Respectfully, GEO. CAVEN, Secretary. ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. LIST OF OFFICERS, 1899. President— GEO. H. GURLER, DeKalb. Vice President— S. G. SOVERHILL, Tiskilwa. Directors— GEO. H. GURLER, DeKalb. JOSEPH NEWMAN, Elgin. S. G. SOVERHILL, Tiskilwa. JOHN STEWART, Elburn. J. H. COOLIDGEH, Galesburg. R. R. MURPHY, Garden Plain. J. G. SPICER, Edelstein. Treasurer— JOS. NEWMAN, Elgin. Secretary— GEO. CAVEN, Chicago. 4 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. List of Members Who Have Paid Their Dues for 1899. A Alexander, C. B. (Star Union Trans- Anderson, Chas., Altona, III. portation Co.) Chicago. Ardrey, R. G., Oakdale, II]. B Breed, G., Galesburg, Ill. Bates, R. M., (Ashton Salt), Chicago. Biddulph, J. R., Providence, Ill. Blakeway, Mrs. Herbert, Ridolt, Ill. Bloomfield, R. A., Mt. Sterling, III. Bueler, Anton, Bemes, III. Bahlman, C. C., Goodenow, II1. Bloyer, Geo., Harper, II. Bailey, O. J., Peoria, I11. Baldwin, Geo. H., Mendon, Ill. Baltz, Leonard, Millstadt, I11. Bloyer, Otto, Elkhorn Grove, Ill, Baltz, F. L. Miilstock, Il. Beatty, Frank, Fairhaven, Ill. Burton, G. F., Mt. Carroll, Ill. Bates, A. M. (Worcester Salt Co.), Boyd, John, Round Grove, III. Chicago. C Cooley, J. H., Hillsdale, T11. Caincross, A. D. Amboy, III. Carpenter, K. B., Thomson, II!. Christ, John, Washington, IIi. Clapp, C. E. Quincy, Iil. Crosier, Eli, Utica, Ill. Crissey, N. O. Avon, III. Campbell, A. B., Morrison, Ill. Caven, Geo., Chicago. Coolidge, J. H., Galesburg, 211. Carr, G. S., Aurora, III]. ILLINOIS STATE DATRY¥MEN’S ASSOCIATION. Dunlap, Mrs. Theodore, Agingdon, Til. Deitz, E. J. W. (Milk Agt. C., B. &.Q. R. R.), Chicago. Ersher, Elmer, Galesburg, Ill. Fountain Creamery C9., Waterloo, Tl. Fisher, W. A., Shipman, Ill. Gurler, Geo. H., DeKalb, III. Gibbon, P. H. (Elgin Butter ‘Tub Co.), Elgin, Ill. Goldsworthy, Wm., Moline, I11. Hoppensteadt, Geo. W., Eagle Lake, Til. Harvey, W. R., Clare, Ill. Hardaker, F. H., (Merchants’ patch Transportation Co.), Dis- cago. Henderson, W. J., Glen Gardner, N. J. Judd, A. G., Warren, O. Johnson, Lovejoy, Stillman Valley, Till. Chi- D Davenport, Prof. E., Urbana, III. Dorsey, L. S., Moro, Ill. Duel, H. R., Franks, I11. F Fredericks, Andrew, Manhatten, III. Fraser, Prof. W. J., Urbana, III. iG Gonigan, J. P., Ottawa, II1. Griffin, E. J., Grant Park, II. Gurler, H. B., DeKalb, III. H Hostetter, W. R., Mt. Carroli, Ill. Hicks, J. E., Thomson, II. Harvey, H. L. Esmond, III. Henry, R. J., Millersbury, II. Hoard, H. L. (Hoard’s Dairyman), Ft. Atchinson, Wis. J Jennings, A. A., Chicago. Jones, Frank L., Utica, N. Y. for) ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. Kirkpatrick, J. R., Oakdale, III. King, Jas., Fancy Prairie, I11. Ludwig, Matt, Gooding Grove, Ill. Landis, W. L. (Creamery Package Mfg. Co.), Cnicago. Monrad, J. H., Winetka, Ill. Mosher, W. J., Ontario, III. Maag Co., August, Baltimore, Md. Mann, W. E., Kaneville, II!. Manhattan Co-op. Cry. Co., Manhat- tan, Ill. Metzger, F. L., Millstadt, fll. McDonough, Taylor Co., Davis Junc- tion, Il. Murphy, R. R., Garden Plain, Tl. Nolting, August, Elgin, III. Nowlen, Irwin, Toulton, [11]. Newman, John, Elgin, I11. Peak, S. W., Winchester, Ill. Phillips, Louis, Germantown, [1]. Powers, Miss J., Tiskelwa, I]. Putnam, C. W., Aurora, J1l. K Kendall, Geo., Forreston, I]. L Laird, R. A., Yorkville, Ill. Lioyd, W. B., Glen Ellyn, Il. M McNeill, Wm., Prophetstown, III. McDonald, A. S., Trivola, Ill. Merritt, S. S., Henry, fl. Moulton & Co., Francis D., Chicago. Mueller, Frank, Milledgeville, Ill. Moody, Geo. H., Richardson, II1. Miller, D. A., Kirkland, Tl. McKee., Chas, Albany, III. Mallory, Grant, Freeport, I. Musselman, S. L., Brookville, Il. N Nelson, Mrs. Ida, Saxon, [1]. Newman, Joseph, Elgin, Il. P Patton, R. A., Hanna City, Ill. Powell, L. A., Bowen, III. -Powell, J. W., Peoria, Ill. Peterson, J. W., Kewannee, III. / ILLINOIS STATH DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 1 R Rupp, John, Noblesville, Ind. Rotermund, H. F., Bemes, Il. Rice, H. B., Lewiston, Ill. Redpath, R. C., Baldwin, Ill. Reed, Geo., Herbert, 11. Ss Sudendorf, E. (Wells, Richardson & Shearer, A. J., Aurora, III. CO.), Hlgin, Ill. Stewart, John, Elburn, IIl. Seyfried, O. A., Dakota, III. Steidley, A. B., Carlinville, Il. Senn, Sam’l, Jamestown, Ill. Spoenemann, August, Oakdale, fil: Smith, W. H., Sandwich, Ill. Spicer, J. G., Edelstein, Ill. ; Segar, J. W., Pecatonica, IJ. Spencer, C. V. (Milk Agent Santa Fe Spicer, C. W., Edelstein, [1l. R. R.), Chicago. Soverhill, S. G., Tiskelwa, I]. iy Taylor, W. H., Stillmaa Valley, Ill. Townsley, S. B. F., Aledo, Iil. Thurston, H. F. (Farmers’ Review), Tripp, F. A. (Genesee Salt Co.), Chi~ Chicago. cago. V Van Patten, David, Tokio, III. W 1 White. Frank, Dana, II]. Winton, M. W., Chicago. Waterman, Geo. E., Garden Prairie, ‘Weihl, C. L., New Minden, II. Til. : Wilson, Geo. R., Monmouth, Ill. Welford, R. G., Red Bud, Ill. Woodard, Chas. H., Kaneville, Iz. Wood, Thos., Princeton, Ill. . Walden, W. E., Stillman Valley, Mk. Williams, E. B., Grand Ridge, Tl]. Wood, R. L., Woodhull, Iil. Wright, F. W., Joslin, 11. Wilderman, W. H., Freeburg, Is Winter, A. C., Waterman, I1l. Y Young, E. B., Forestburg, Jl. Young, F. L., Kaneville. 8 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. BY-LAWS OF THE ILLINOIS DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. OFFICERS. Section 1. The officers of this Association shall consist of a President, Wice President, Secretary, Treasurer, and Board of Directors, composed.of seven members, of whom tiie President and Vice President of the Associa- tion shall be members and the President ex-officio Chairman. DUTIES OF PRESIDENT. Sec. 2. The President shall preside at the meetings of the Association ‘and of the Board of Directors. It shall be his duty, together with the Secretary and Board of Directors, to arrange a program ani order of busi- ness for each regular annual meeting of the Association 2nd of the Board of Directors, and upon the written request of five members of the Asso- -ciation it shall be his duty to call such special meetings. It shall be his further duty to call cn the State Auditor of Public Accounts for his war- rant on the State Treasurer, for the annual sum appropriated by the Leg- islature for the use ci this Association, present the warraut to the Treas- urer for payment, and on receiving the money receipt for the same, which ‘he shall pay over to the Treasurer of ihe Association, taking his receipt ‘therefor. DUTIES OF THE VICE PRESIDENT. Sec. 3. In the absence of the President his duties shall devolve upon the Vice President. ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 9 DUTIES OF THE SECRETARY. See. 4. The Secretary shall record the proceedings of the Association and of the Board of Directors. ficshall keep a list of the members, collect all the moneys due the Association (other than the legislative appropria- tions), and shall record the amount with name and postoffice address of the person so paying, in a book to be kept for that purpose. He shall pay over all such moneys to the Treasurer, taking his receipt therefor. It shall also be his duty to assist in making the program for the annual meeting and at the close of the said meeting compile and prepare for publication ali papers, essays, discussions, and other matter worthy of publication, at the earliest day possible, and shall perform such other duties pertaining to his office as shall be necessary. DUTIES OF THE TREASURER. Sec. 5. The Treasurer chall, before entering on the duties of his office, give a good and sufficient bond totke Directors of the Association, with one or more sureties, to be approved by the Board of Directors, which bound shall be conditioned for a faithful performance of the duties of his office. He shall account to the Association for all moneys received by him by virtue of said office and pay over tke same as he shall be directed by the Board of Directors. No money shall be paid out by the Treasurer except upon an order from the Roard, signed by the President and countersigned by the Secretary. The books of account of the Treasurer shall at all times be open to the inspection of the members of the Board of Directors, and he shall, at the expiration of his term of office, make a report to the Asso- ciation of the condition of its finances, and deliver to his successor the books of account, together with all moneys and other property of the Asso- ciation in his possession or custody. DUTIES OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS. ° Sec. 6. The Board of Directors shall have the general management and control of the property and affairs of the Association, subject to the By-Laws. | 10 ILLINOIS STATE DATRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. Four members of the Board shall constitute a quorum to do business. The Board of Directors may adopt such rules and regulations as they shall deem advisable for their government, and may appoint such com- mittees as they shall consider desirable. They shall also make a biennial report to the Governor of the State of the expenditures of the money appropriated to the Association by the Legislature. It shall be their further duty to decide the location, fix the date, and procure the place for holding the annual meeting of the Association, and arrange the program and order of business for the same. ELECTION OF OFFICERS. Sec. 7. The President, Vice President, and Board of Directors shall be elected annually by ballot at the firsi annual meeting of the Association. The Treasurer and Secretary sliall be elected by the Board of Directors. The officers of the Association sk:all retain their offices until their successors are chosen and qualify. A plurality vote shall elect. Vacancies occurring shall be filled by the Board of Directors until the following annual election. MUMBERSHIP. Sec. 8. Any person may become a member ofthis Association by pay- ing the Treasurer such membership fee as shall from time to time be pre- scribed by the Board of Directors. QUORUM. Sec. 9. Seven members of the Association shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business, but a less number may adjourn. ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 1L ANNUAL ASSESSMENT. Sec. 10. One month prior to the annual meeting in each year the Board of Directors shall fix the amcunt, if any, which may be necessary to be paid by each member of the Association as an annual due. Notice of such action must be sent to each member within ten days thereafter, and no member in default in payment thereof shall be entitled to the privileges of the Association. AMENDMENT. OF BY-LAWS. See. 11. These by-laws may be amended at any annual meeting by 2 vote of not less than two-thirds of the members present.. Notice of the proposed amendment must be given in writing, and at a public meeting of the Association, at least one day before any action can be taken thereon. 12 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. PROCGGEDINGS OF THE Twenty Fifth Annual Meeting or tue... Tlinois State Dairymen’s Association Galesburg, Illinois, January 10-12, 1899. (STENOGRAPHIC REPORT BY MISS E. EMMA NEWMAN, ELGIN.) The Illinois State Dairymen’s Association met in annual session in the court house at Galesburg, January 10th, 1899, at 10 o’clock a. m. President George H. Gurler in the chair. PRAYER. REV. MR. VINCENT. Our Father, we thank Theefor that providence which has brought us together today; for the great interests which are represented here to have so vital to do with the progress of our country. We thank Thee for that providence which has raised up this nation, a nation whose strength rests in great principles, and in the financial and moral interests such as are rep- resented kere. ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 13 We thank Thee, our Father, that Thou hast blessed all that is honora- ble, and made them effective sothat our history is one of which we are proud and grateful. We thank Thee, as we look around at the national life of science that it has brought us to a brighter and better day, and we pray Thee that we may have mind to understand that day, courage enough to try and equal it, and by self denial to make this nation a greater nation than it has yet been, That the wishes of our fathers shall be realized here. That the past shall be only a prophecy of the future, and that all nations shall be glad that this nation has been born, and that the rights of men shall indeed be realized here, and through this country work and influence shall be realized through- out the world. Bless the great farming industries of our nation, for we re- alize that a nation’s strength restsin large measure upon that which we find in the country. We realize that its great men have come up often from the farm; in contact with the soil. We pray that the farmers of the country, and all the interests that have to do with them, ail those ereat and vital things that are so intimately as- sociated with farm life, shall indeed understand how. much rests upon them;,shall be equal to.all demands that the nation puts upon them, and so conduct even the business of the farm, and the business that is connected with farm life, that it shall have to do with the strengthening of this peo- ple; that it shall not be merely business of the soil, but shail have todo with the great moral and political interests of the national life. Bless this company of men gathered here today, coming from all over the state. We pray that they may come with all wisdom which is needed to conduct them:on, but in sucha way that it shall have to do not only with themselves personally, but with the national life, and not only with its financial interests, but with its moral and political interests; and sohelp us to live that we shall realize that this is not a kingdom of this earth, but a kingdom of God, a kingdom whose interests are heavenly; and so to live that when we are called home to the great future, our influence shall abfde in our nation, shall remain to strengthen everything that is good, and 14 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. weaken everything that is evil,so may Thy Kingdom come through our hearts and unite the world, we askin Christ’s name, Amen. ADDRESS OF WELCOME. ba} MAYOR F. COOK, GALESBURG. Members of the Illinois State Dairy men’s Association. _ ‘Your order of exercises include an address of welcome from me, the Mayor of this city. I cannot feel that an association of this character, representing the ag- riculturists, farmers and dairymen of this great state of Illinois, needs to be formally welcomed to this city. The gratitude is always present in the hearts and minds of those who have been the recipients of great good at the hands of others. You must then know the minds and hearts of Gaiesburg people toward agricultural communities and associations. There is probably no city with more rea- sons for kindly feelings toward farmers, or that has any deeper interest in the progress of all things agricultural, or that is so fortunately situated as to its agricultural environments, as is the city of Galesburg. LocateG in the bosom.of the finest farming lands of this great state; cultivated by enterprising, thrifty, progressive husbandmen, it needs but a ride ofatew milesin any direction from our city to present to the eye scenes of tarift and rural beauty that equal the rural scenes transferred to the canvas by the skilled artist Galesburg owes a great share of the prosperity it enjoysiand standing it has among the young and vigorous cities of the northwest, to the splendid character of its agricultural surroundings. The encouragement it has received in business and educational affairs from the farming communities surr ounding it is in no small degree the source from which it has derived its prosperity. It is a source of delight to the citizens of Galesburg that there exists between the city andi its aBricul- ILLINOIS STATE DAITRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 15 tural surroundings a sentiment of good fellowship, of reciprocity, of good feeling, anda perfect understanding of mutual dependence. The farmers of this county understand that Galesburg is important as a business center; its increase in popu tation, rapid as it has been in the few years past; its reputation as a desirable business and residence city; the in- telligence of its citizens; its colleges and schools, mean to them more valua- ble acreage and better prices forthe produce of the farm. I hardly know whether I dare, under your invitation, make any consid- erable departure from a purely welcoming address. Hoping at least that I am not expected to advance any prominent ideas on the subject of agricul- ture or dairying. J am conscious of knowing less about these subjects than any other that could possibly be named. I am not prepared to admit, how- ever, that Iam one whit behind my feliow townsmen, and I would like 19 say, if I dared, of quite a number of my friends from the country. I mean, of course, the science of agricuiture and the improvements in all branches thereof. Your association will, however, together with kindred associa- tions, remedy this defect in us all. 'The science of agriculture andthe science of all things incidental to agricultural pursuits has not in the past received that attention from its followers that its great prominence as a calling in life demands. The ten- dency to adopt and follow what is called the practical in life has had its strongest advocates and adherents among western farmers. The farmer with a collegiate education has been looked upon by his neighbors more as a dude is regarded in society. A man can plow, raise hogs, milk cows, make butter, and perform all the manual duties of the farm without education. If he understands writ- ing and arithmetic, that is all that is necessary, ?f we are wiling to admit that the entire mission of the farmer is to raise corn and hogs. But if the farmer is to take part in the developing of agriculture as a science, if he is to learn how to successfully remove all the cream from milk before the de- livery to city customers, if he is to learn something of the wonderful chem- istry by which God changes theclods into the daily bread of the millions, and take advantage of such processes for his own financial advantage, then Simply writing and arithmetic is not enough of education. 16 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. Daniel Webster, had he beenin his youth strong and vigorous as his brothers, and able to perform farm labor with profit to his father, would nét hold the foremost position in the history of this country’s jurists and states- men. Because he was d elicate, determined his father to send him to col- lege. His brothers jokingly said that Daniel was sent to college to make him the equal of his brothers. The education that Webster received made of him a devoted follower of agricultural pursuits, and when in the very ze- meh of his glory asa lawyer, jurist, and statesman, he vigorously followed agricultural pursiuts and' the science of agriculture, and never was grander than when speaking in public orin private on agricultural subjects. He lived to commune with nature. He lived to discover by the aid of his won- derful attainments God’s laws as applied to the vropagation of animal and vegetable life. He said, ‘““Whatever else may tend to enrich and enoble Society, that which feeds and clothes comfortably the masses of mankind should always be regarded as the great foundation of national prosperity.” He verified agriculture as a profession, and regarded that a farmer should be well equipped in every department of husbandry. The question of the soil, the art of enriching it, the succession of crops, and their compar- ative adaptation to our soil and climate, the varieties of animals, and their perfection for flesh or the dairy, with all t hese subjects, in all these branch- » es and details, he regarded that the one pursuing agricultural calling should be the most familiar. We live today on the brink of new improvements and discoveries equal to any yet made. Int heearth wetread, in the air we breathe, the water we drink, and in all substances vegetable, animal and mineral, which we daiiv come in contact with, are the possibilities of discovery more wonderful than those now developed for the use and comfort of man. Such an insti- stution as yours that stimulates activity in the procurement of knowledge, which is the result of all advancement in agricultural pursuits, must meet with the hearty support of every class of society, especially from t he grand army of consumers of all farm products. Your society can be, and is, of inestimable service in solving, not only questions relating to the farm and dairying, but also such questions of political economy as effects alike pro- ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 17 ducer and consumer. The support that your interests have received within the last few years from government and state; from the government in the growing favor in favor of the establishment of separate departments de- voted to scientific investigation of the subject about which you have such great concern; from the state through its offers of financial assistance, all point to the betterment of your industry the country over. Gentlemen, I join with youin the hope that your association in this state may result in great advancement in all agricultural interests, and bring a needed relief to all. Iextend to you, in bchalf of our city, a most hearty welcome, and assure you that we are not only proud of your visit, but that we also havea deepinterest in your success. RESPONSE. MR. W.S. MOORE OF CHICAGO. Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Illinois State Dairymen’s Asso- ciation. As delegates to this convention, the dairymen of the state of Illinois feel proud to be welcomed tothecity of Galesburg. Not infrequently the keys of the city are extended toa convention, but inasmuch ag they are not extended today, we assume that there are no keys, and that the gates stand open all the time. The attendance here this morning is not as large as we expect that it may be at later sessions, but perchance it is owing somewhat to the fact, at least a claimed fact, which was brought forth by Mayor Cook in talking with him, in which he said that when we were farmers we got up at 3 o’clock in the morning, and could cometoa meeting at 10 o’clock as easy as any other time, but when we became agriculturists we do not get up until noon, and a morning meeting is not quite so well attended. 18 ILLINOIS STATE DAINYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. Galesburg is one of the gems of Illinois. Illinois is famed for many things, but it is specially of interest to us for its being famed for its dairy products. The products ofthedairy of Illinois are known the world over, where every creamery man associates good butter. | We are unfortunate in having in Illinois the chief enemy of butter, but if the members of the legislature from this district will stands by us in the future, as in the past, we think we will yet defeat this enemy, and drive it to cover. The dairymen of the state feel: specially gratified to think that we are going to be permitted this evening to listen to an address by Colonel Tur- ner of Chicago. Colonel Turner was in the trenches before Santiago at the time that city capitulated to the Unied States forces. The Dairymen of the State of Illinois are glad to be welcomed by these citizens, these markets of trade, such as Gaiesburg, which is one of the growing representatives. Wefeel sure that we shall receive a hearty welcome from the citizens of Galesburg, as we have from its Mayor. We feel that we will be better for having come here, and we hope that the citi- zens may possibly gather some little knowledge from our meeting. We thank the Mayor, wethank the citizens for their kind invitation, and it is not only a pleasureto meet here, but an honor to be tendered an invitation from this growing and beautiful city. SECRETARY’S REPORT. MR. GEORGE CAVEN. It is impossible for the secretary to make avery complete report at this time. I took hold of the office of the secretary after the iast meeting had been completed by Mr. J.H.Monrad. The only part of the business falling upon me was to sign an order for the printed report of 1898’s convention. The account of that, and of other matters connected with the last conven- ILLINOIS STATE DATRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 19 tion will doubtless appearjin the treasurer’s report. My work has been in connection with this convention, the expense of printing, advertising, and other expenses incident to getting up a state convention. The money that has come to meforthisconvention has been derived from memberships, from the advertising in our programme, and from the contributions we a}- ways get from the city in which our convention meets. None of these mat- ters have been closed up yet. The memberships have come in quite freely, I think, and are samaerineixe in the neighborhood of 100 at the present time who have paid in. That, however, does not include all the old member- ships of the association. There should be from 200 to 250 paid in at this convention. When the business of this convention is over, and all its demands are cleared up, then I wili make a detailed report of all receipts and expendi- tures, as far as they are made by'me, and will submit it to the directors, and after their approval, it will be printed in the 1899 report. I expect to try also to get intothat report a complete list of he creamer- jes of Illinois. Thatisnotavery easy undertaking, but such a list will bea valuable part of the report ifitcan be secured. The former Secretary, Mr. Monrad, began an cffort to get together all the reports of this asociation fromits beginning. I expect to continue that effort, and hope to complete it, so far as the reports areinexistence. This is the twenty-fifth annual meeting of the association. Some of the reports were not printed at all, and on the part of some of the secretaries no ef- fort was made to preserve the reports, so that it will be impossible to get a complete file, but we shall getas nearly a compiete collection of those re- ports as it is possible to get. Weshould arrange to have them kept in some one place. The way itisnow they pass from secretary to secretary, and that is not a very safe way. The attention of the secretary has recently been called to an appropria- tion which the University of Illinois is asking of the present Legislature, the amount of appropriation being $150,000. Its purpose is for an agricul- tural building, part of which is to be devoted to dairy education. The im- portance of this matter should be recognized by every one connected with @ 20 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. — our association. TLilincisisthe third among the states of this country in the products of the dairy, but there are some twenty or more states that have better facilities for agraiculture and dairying education than the state of Tilinois. I think we stand about twenty-three in that particular. Then I have been asked alsoto mention a matter concerning a state dairy commissioner. The need in Illinois of a state dairy commissioner is great, and the matter will come before the present Legislature. There is no way in Ilinois now for one to get at the dairy statistics of this state. There is no one who can tell you how many cows are milked in this state, nor the extent of the dairy industry, nor the extent of the creamery industry in itself. There is absolutely no way of getting at those figures and those sta- tistics. You go to Iowa, or Wisconsin, or Minnesota, or even to Missouri, or some other of the western or northwestern states where dairying is a leading industry, and you céhn get complete reports from the dairy com- missioners of those states. Youcan find out all you want to find out about dairying, but it is not so in Illinois, and of course a part of the state dairy commissioner’s work would be to provide that information. We ought to favor a State Dairy Commissioner, and I think we should put ourselves on record in favor of pure food products of all kinds. The movement is avery important one now. The matter is coming up very soon in conventions at different points, and this association should take some action on the general subject of pure food products. There is just one more point, and that is in relation to the movement recently started to increase the tax on oleomargarine colored to resemble butter, and this matter will come before Congress, the idea being to makeit necessarily hard for oleomargarine to find a market except as oleomarga- rine, and not as butter. That isthe only complaint the dairy people have against oleomargarine. Get it so that it will be sold for what it is, and the dairymen of the State of Ilinois will be satisfied. . ‘We must also consider the general subject of how to increase the inter- est in our State meetings. % ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. Zi TREASURER’ S REPORT. Below piease find annual report of your Treasurer for the year ending January 7th, 1899, Receipts. AmMoumi Onvnand Janwany LOth, 1898 vnoh. ccc ee cs ew etels cece ov eee $ 334.18 July 10th, 1898, received voucher on State Auditor..............ce08. 1,000.00 i el SIRGvirell ENP Pee a NSCS HS Sia gc sca a ey Go itecls | uone eilale k o/s nia 4 8 98s" $1,334.18 Debits. January 24th to July 26th, 1898, to vouchers paid as per 38 vouch- ers No. 338 to No. 375, hereto attached, with itemized state- Mad MUM yare cree anche cock WO ik ree a a ree event bas Si alles $ 1,009.30 To exchange per Bank on State Auditor’s check on Springfield...... 50 January 6th, 1899, balance on handin First National Bank, Elgin, iiacsmer bank pDOOkK DeETe: Wits... 66%... b+ cee be eces cacises 324.38 CALS 666.6 ob ee ESS RIA CAO ee ae ean ee MS cn eal ee an OR ENS en $1,334.18 All of which is respectfully submitted. JOSEPH NEWMAN, Treasurer. Moved and seconded that the Treasurer’s report be received. Car- ried. The president appointed as a committee on resolutions: Joseph New- man, of Elgin; Professor N. McLain, of Chicago, and S. J. Soverhill, of Tis- kilwa. He announced that the question box was open for any questions dele- gates desired to ask, after which the convention adjourned until 1:30 o’clock. ee) ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCTATION. Tuesday Afternoon, January roth. PRESIDENT’S ANNUAL ADDRESS. G. H. GURLER. You wiil pardon me for reading my address. I am not especialy gifted with the power of oratory, andlam sorry to say that the little ability I may have had in that line, I have neglected. Again the rapid flight of time has brought around another year, and we have gathered herein the beautiful city of Galesburg, to hold the Twenty- fifth Annual Meeting of the Illinois State Dairymen’s Association. Iam proud to say that we have on our prograin many of the best dairy and creamery men of this state,and both ladies and gentlemen from neigh- boring states with national reputations. I wish to urge that, in the discussions of subjects and papers that come before this meeting, we be practical, and avoid long-spun theories that are of no value, and mislead those who read our reports. These reports are read by many who do not attend our meetings. Let us bear in mind that our work at this meeting is not for profes- sional farmers, dairymen, and creamerymen, exclusively, but for beginners, and young men and women, as well. I trust that all of you who have honored this society with your pres- ence will derive some benefit from your attendance at this meeting, and that not cne of you will have occasion to regret that you came. We come here to swap ideas with one another, to study each other’s methcds, and to learn of the new discoveries. ILLINOIS STATE DAITRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. ee By these annual necrtnee ar renew old acquaintances, and make new ones, and impart to each otherfresh enthusiasm in the art of dairying and farming, which fields are so large, yes, entirely too large for one man to ex- plore alone. If the price of our productsisreduced, we must produce them at less cost; try to curtail expenses, without diminishing production. Some things on the farm areextravagant that many farmers overlook, or neglect to remedy, such as keeping unprofitable cows, inferior stable ac- commodations, feeding food that isnot palatable, that stock will eat only enough of to sustain life. Such things are not necessary; it is from the lack of knowledge that they are done, or exist. There is a chance for great improvement along these lines on some Il]li- nois farms. If many farmers would work their brains more, read more, and keep up with the procession in their work, they would accomplish much more, in a financial way, than they now do. The work of this association should be to devise better methods for farming and dairying. Weshouldstrive as a society to stand on a broad plane of usefulness, and be progressive in everything pertaining to farming, dairying, 2nd marketing the product. We should endeavor to make our ideas practical, and not theoretical and impracticable. Until the farmer wakes toa fuller realization of the necessity of better dairy knowledge and education, there is no hope of his receiving his just share of the rewards and profits of the dairy industry. There is a great loss and waste at the farm end of the business, through ignorance of “True Dairy Work.” The Illinois State Dairymen’s Association has reasons for being proud of its birth and history. Twenty-five years ago when this association was organized, the dairy industry of the state wassmaii compared with its pres- ent proporticns. The dairy products of the state were made largely on the farms. The Eigin board of trade wasin its infancy. The sales at that time were 327,000 pounds of butter annually; for 1898, the sales were about 50,000,000 poun ds. 24 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. The dairy interests of thestate have increased in about the same ratio. The position which our state occupies in the diary world is clearly es- tablished by the fact that the Elgin board of trade, which makes the price of butter for the whole country, exists in our state, and this association is entitled to a large amount of thecredit for the rapid strides our state has maée in this work. Our sister states are following in our footsteps, and we must be diligent and persistent in our work, and devise new and better methods for produc- ing the best butter made in the world, in order to hold our reputation. One word in regard tothe delivering of milk tc the creameries. Many farmers seem to think thatany kind of milk is good enough for a creamery. This isentirely wrong. Themilkshould be delivered to the creameries in the best possible condition. The better condition the milk is in when re- ceived at ihe creamery, the better grade of butter can be made from it, and the higher price can be obtained for the butter. The market demands a better quality of butter each year, and unless a@ creamery can produce butter of the best quality, it cannot reasonably ex- pect to gsi the best price for it.and the consequence is the patrons will not get the best price for their milk. The better the quality of the milk received at the creamery, the better the skim milk will be when returned to th farm for feeding, and consequent- ly the greater its value. While the price of beef calves continues as high as it is at present, the value of this skim milk is high, forit has been demonstrated that calves can be grown cn good, clean, sweet skim milk with a grain food added, much cheaper than on new milk, ant, if properly handled, equally as good. The past season has been more prosperous for the farmer than the prev- ious year; better prices have been obtained for nearly all kinds of farm products; crops have been good in most localities: laborers are all at work, and are buying freely of provisions, which helps to make better prices for farm products, and in fact, helps every branch of business. The iong looked for prosperity is here. Let us wake up and take advantage of the good times, as the old saying is: ‘‘Make hay while the sun shines.”’ ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 25 There is one thing that the farmers of Illinois need above all others, and that is a dairy commissioner with sufficient funds to enforce the dairy laws, which are being violated openly without fear of prosecution. We are fortunate in having atthe head of the National Agricultural Department at Washington such a brainy man as the Hon. James Wilson. This department has taken steps to extend our markets in the old world, where our best butter finds ready sale, when the prices at home will permit shipping with a profit. As a result of the Pure Food, Drug and Seed Conference, heid at the University of Illinois, December 13th, 1898, steps bave been taken to bring before the present session of the state legislature a pure food and seed bill; it is the earnest wish of the conference that this association take an active interest in the subject. There is alsoasecona 2allfora National Pure Food and Seed Congress to be held in Washington, D.C., January 18th. This association is entitled to one representative; shallwesend him? There is aiso a move toward taxing colored butterine 10 cents per pound, instead of 2 cents, as the law now stands, which, in my judgment, would be the right thing to do. Illinois needs new dairy buildings badly at the State University. The trustees of the university are asking the legislature this year for an appro- priation for adairy and agricultural building. If all those who are in favor of the move toward getting the much-needed appropriation will write let- ters to their senators and representatives they will do the trustees of the university a favor. Think of it, Illinois ranks as one of the first dairy states in the Union, and there are twenty-one states with better equipments in dairying than Illinois. I think it is time that We wake up, put vur shoulders to the wheel, and help secure the appropriation. The secretary has secured some vaiuable premiums that are offered here for butter. It is to be hoped that the exhibit will be large. For the last two years our mem bership has exceeded by far the number that we ever had before, and hope this, year will be a record breaker, and 26 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSCCIATION. that the twenty-fifth annual meeting will be the best one the association ever held. In conciusion, I know that I voice the sentiments of all present when I say that the generous contributions, and kind and thoughiful attentions ex- tended to us by the City of Galesburg, and from other sources, are fully ap- preciated by the officers and members of this association, and we trust that good seed will be sown in this vicinity that will grow to such an extent that the contributors of this city will be doubly repaid for their generosity, and we assure the people of Galesburg that they will always occupy a warm spot in our hearts. THE DAIRY FOR THE AVERAGE FARM. W.R. HOSTETT ER, MT. CARROLL, TUL. There are three classes of speakers who attend meetings of this kind that ought to be wiped off the face of the earth. One is the fellow whoreads his paper so he can onlv be heardin the front row of seats. Another is the _ fellow who readsa paper on something he does not know anything about, and gives two or three pages of figures to prove his assertions, and another is the fellow who talks and tells the same thing over sixteen times, and doesn’t know when to quit. Now I nave taken the precaution to write down whatI intend totry and say, and have confined myself to say ing the same thing three times. I will tell you what Iam going to say. I will say it., and then tell you what I have said. IfIdon’ttalkloud enough to be heard let me know. Calling home the cows for the last twenty years has developed voice enough to fill this room. Dairy matters are in quitea different condition from what they were, say ten years ago. Thecry then was, ‘“‘Build creameries, and increase the dairy business.’ The building of creameries is checked, not that we do not need the creameries, but we stop to see if we have the cows to keep them ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. yay going before building. Another cause is the low price of butter, and les- sened profit, and the increased price of beef cattle, and the increased profit in breeding them. The man who follows dairying as a business, will make little if any change in the amount he produces. ‘He has culied his herd, and tries to make fewer cows, and less labor. It is the average farmer who supplies the bulk of the milk to the cream- eries, the one who changes with the times, the one who raised hogs last year, produced milk this year, and will raise beef cattle next year, that needs to be looked after at the present time. The number of cows he keeps, his manner of keeping them, and the profit he derives, is of importance to the state, and should properly have a share of the consideration of this meeting.. He is the mainstay of the creamery, the supporter of the supply dealer, the country store keeper, and is indispensable to many others. The time for making a profiton dairy producis from any cow, on any kind of feed, is past. The dairyman who ismaking money to whom we can point to as an ex- ample for the average farmer to falicw is not to oe found in my section. The question of profit can and will be solved. The intelligent dairymerxt are at work at it,and the experiment stations are helping him. The indus- try is going to be on a surer, safer, and more scientific basis than it has ever been. In my township we have 154 farms, averaging a little more than 145 acres each. On each farm is raised forty acres of corn, twenty-four acres of oats, and one and one-half acres of wheat. This leaves cighty acres for hay, pas- ture, timber, and waste land on each farm. There are twelve head of cattle to each farm, four of them being milk cows. I have given these figures so that you may have some idea of what the average farm is that lamtalking about. I have taken the number of farms and size from the county map, and the assessor in our township was unusually careful in taking statistics, so that the figures I give are practi- cally correct. 98 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. The average cow in my township produced for sale $11 worth of milk, and I live within three hours’ ride of Elgin, perhaps the greatest butter mar- ket in the United States. Wehave creameries all around us, but not one in my township. You may wonder why this is. It is very easily explained. The township is largely Pennsylvania Dutch, and the average Pennsylvania Dutchman won’t milk. When the average Pennsylvania Dutchman’s wife sees that there is enouga for her to do without milking she won't milk eith- er, so that the milking is left tothe boys and hired man, with the above re- sult. Now, I am Pennsylvania Dutch myself, and you may wonder how I came to be adairyman. Well, I marrieda Yankee girl from New York state from the dairy district, and when she saw me shoveling corn and oats, and sowing wheat, and getting five tosix bushels to the acre, and borrowing money on the prospect of next year’scrop, and heing obliged to live on pork, beans, and potatoes, and that I had notime to cut wood for her, and no money to pay any one else to cut it, she conciuded that there was something wrong. She told me the cows ought to be milked, instead of letting the calves suck. She said her father always had a wood house full of cut wood, and they had soda biscuit and mapie syrup three times a day. Well, I didn’t know of any- thing much better than biscuitand maple syrup, so I fixed up my'cow stable, and tied in thirteen cows, and sent the calves to the butcher. When milk- ing time came I told my wife that everything was ready for her to go and do the milking. She was dumbfounded, and said that she had never milked a cow, and had never even tried tomilk one, and what was more, she never intended to milk one; that the Yan kee man did the milking, and that milk- ing was a man’s work, anyway. “It was a case of ground hog.” I took the pail and went to work, and I have been milking those thirteen cows and their descendants ever since, and that was almost twenty years ago. We soon had a wood house, and there has never been a day but there has been cut wood enough init tolasta month, and we have biscuit and maple syrup whenever we want them. Now, the strange part of this matter was that I happened to start with just the average number of cows that my farm should have, thirteen ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 29 cows on 160 acres of land. Thenumber is not so small but that they are worth bothering with, norsomany that they were so much of a care that they interfered to any extent with ordinary farm operations. The average dairy should have ten or twelve cows. I venture to say that no farmer who takes that number of cows and gives them a fair chance for two years, will attempttofarm without them. There are a few things that must be borne strictly in mind to start with, or the cows soon become anuisance. First the milking must be considered part of the day’s work. The average farmer keeps a hired man, and no man should be asked to do more than a good day’s work. Plan your work so that you are done for the day at 6o0’clock, milkingincluded. You will get more during the season than you would to work a couple of hours later each night. I think most of my neighbors quit work at 6 o’clock, and those who do milking do it after that. No wonder the milking is a task, and the hired man won’t milk. The milking of ten or twelve cowsisan half hour’s work for two persons, and no hour’s work during the day will pay better. Ten or twelve cows are not so many but that one person can milk them in case of necessity. This is quite an item to be considered, as there are times when it is necessary for the proprietor or his help to be away. The average farmer must make up his mind to the fact thathecannot make anything by making up his butter. The creamery has come to stay. It has become a necessary part of our farming conditions. There are some abuses connected with the system, but these can be overcome ifthefarmers work together to correct them. A well equipped creamery, with an intelligent and honorable business man as manager, isa blessing toa community. The farmer’s wife has not the strength, time nor conveniences for making butter. There are very few farmer’s wives who can see the necessity of proper conveniences, and if they do, will get along with some makeshift instead of spending the money for things that a man would not hesitate to buy. A man with a dozen cows can better afford to spend the time studying the care and feed of them than to make the butter. The creamery can make the butter at one-third the cost for labor, and several cents per pound better in quality, to say nothing of the extra butter fat thatit will get out of the milk. 30 ILLINOIS STATE DALE YMEN’S ASSOCIATION. ‘When I started in the creamery business there was no creamery within ten miles. I had everything as unhandy as it could possibly be. The barn was almost eighty rods from the house, and the milk had to be hauled to the house. and the skim milk and buttermilk back again. We set the milk in pans in the pantry, and churned by hand, guessed at the temperature of the cream, and, in fact, did everything in the most idiotic manner. If I should see anyone making butter in the same manner now, I should put him down as an idiot at once. The only thing that helped me cut was that my cows were nearly all fresh in the fall, and the most of the dairying came when I had the least farm work to do. Another thing helped and encouraged me wonderfully, and that was that fresh winter butter was scarce, and brought from 35 cents to 45 cents per pound. For thelastfew years we have been glad to get from 20 cents ta 25 cents for winter butter. If we would count the actual downright hard work, there is as much profitin butter now at 25 cents as there was at 45 cents eighteen or twenty years aga. , The tendency of the ageis toward co-operation and consolidation, and the farmer must learn to co-operate with the creamery. The United States government has been making some investigations in regard to the use of machinery in saving labor and expense, and it is stated that machinery has reduced the cost of making 500 pounds of dairy butter from $10.66 to $1.78, and the time from 125 hours to 12 hours. When I speak of the average farmer having ten cows, I mean milk cows. I don’t care what breed they are,if they are only milkers. I don’t have much faith in what is called a general purpose cow. It is not practicable for a farmer to keep two different breeds of cattie. He will generally be obliged to pick his milk cows fromthe ordinary cattle, and the chances are about one-half of them will be profitable milkers. By careful selection for a se- ries of years, areasonably good herd of cows will be secured. A fair veal calf can be raised on skim milk at a very small cost, compared with the cost of letting it suck. A better calffor dairy purposes can be raised on skim milk, with a little flax added, than can be raised by letting the calf suck. The great trouble with the average farmer is he allows his calves to ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 31 suck the cows until they have consumed from one-half to three-fourths of the milk product. The cowandcalf are both spoiled. If a man has ten cows it will be much better to take five of them and treat them as milk cows, feeding and caring for them properly, than to take the ten and let the calves suck the milk until they are half dry. Where two or three farmers are so situated that they can keep and raise dairy cows of some established breed, and keep them pure, it would no doubt be the most profitable. There are very few, if any, cases where it will pay the ordinary farmer to cross breeds. Ifa farmer has a fairly good herd of milch cows it will often pay him to use a thoroughbred sire of some dairy breed, for the purpose of improving his herd, but when he has started ona certain line, let him keep right on that line. Don’t change and experiment in establishing a new breed. Foget a fixed type takes several hundred years, and the chances are that we will die before we get the type estab- lished. We can accomplish something by doing our duty in improving the types already established, or atleast in maintaining them. In the majority of instances there is no improvement mace in develop- ing cattle in the hands of the average farmer. This is partly from careless- ness, and partly because the average farmer has not had the education that will train his mind to comprehend conditions, and the reasoning powers necessary to apply the means at his disposal to the best advantage. Most of our successful farmers have gained this education and judgment by expe- rience, and we all know that experience is a hard and expensive teacher. What we need is more drill and discipline among uur farmer boys and girls. Not that I think theaveragefarmer boys have any less of it than the aver- age town boy, but that the country boy has less of the contact with other people, and contact with people is beneficial or detrimental, according ta the quality of the people, or ourown mental strength. The successful business menin our towns have generally grown from boyhood under the management of men experienced in the line in which he isengaged. Hiseducation hasnot gone beyond reading, writing, arith- metic, and some knowledge of bookkeeping. His knowledge of buying and selling comes fromiexperience,and his success depends almost entirely upon 32 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRSMEN’S ASSOCIATION. how well helearnsthesetwothings. With the average farmer the mere matter of buying and selling is of secondary importance. The average farm- er, to be successful, must have a mind trained to grasp conditions, and judgment to use them, or morethan ordinary physical strength. Under present conditions mere physical strength and endurance count for less each year. The private dairyman with a eood sized herd of cows can af- ford to work up. a private tradefor his butter, and get special prices. This cannot be done by the average farmer. His milk must goto the factory, and be sold at the average price. I think the timeis coming when the farm seperator will be more gen- erally used, and the cream hauled to the factory instead of the milk. This will leave the milk for the farmer to feed in the very best condition. The majority of farmers say they have all-the work they can do without milking cows. Iam not heretoadvocaie doing more work on the farm. The average farmer works toomany hours now. Iam here to advocate do- ing less work, having it more systematic, and paying more for the time spent. We must sell iess of the fertility of ourfarms. We have an organiza- tion in this state for the purpose of finding a market for our corn. We should have a market on our farmsfor the corn, and find a market for the butter and cheese, beef and pork. It costs no more to transport a pound of butter to England. than it does totransport a pound of corn. The butter is worth 20 cents, and the corn &% cent. The butter has taken practically nothing from our farm, but with the corn we ship fertility. We must think of something besides the mere dol- lars and cents we receive. A neighbor of mine builtanew house, and I remarked to him he would enjoy the large, comfortable rooms, after being in the old one for &o0 long. He said he thought his meals would taste no better than they did in the old one. He had lived to eat forsomany years, that it was about all he cared for. ‘Now, I do not keep cows for the fun I get in milking and taking care of them. I keep them because by so doing I can get more of the comforts and necessities of civilization than Ican by raising and selling grain. Dairying ° PORT Urban N DAVE é ty E tate Un PROF SOUL, b) a ity, l1vers Ss 1s ino Til ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 33 is confining work, and thereissome of it done on every farm. If you only have one cow, you must milk herevery morning and evening, and the fact of having several to milk, instead of one, cuts a very little figure. At one time I wasambitious to have 100 head of milch cows on my farm of 160 acres. Iactually wintered 100 head of cows and heifers one year, and sixty of them were giving milk. I found that I had too many. A large herd will not do as wellasasmallone. Another condition is that if you have the required number of milkers, and are obliged to pay them for a full day’s work, andcanonly givethem work at milking time, you are losing money. If you bave say fifteen cows for each milker, which is all anyone should milk, and one of your milkers failsto put in an appearance, it leaves too many for your other milkers, and the work is not properly done. I donot know how it may bein cther lines of business, but on a iarm two men will not do twice as much work as one, nor will four men do twice as much as two. If the average farmer keeps more cows than can be conveniently cared for by his ordinary help, they willbe so much of a care that they will be neglected. Ten average cows with good care should produce $400 or $450 worth of butter in a year after paying forthe making. When weadd to this the skim milk and ten calves, we willhaveas much as the corn and oats are worth. With all of our domestic animalsasmall herd will always produce a larger per cent of profit. A herd of ten hogs or sheep will do better than a herd of fifty or 100. The hired help is a serious question, especially on a dairy farm. If the clerks in a store, or hands ina factory quit work, the loss is practically lim- ited to the time the storeis closed or the factory stcpped. In a town thereis an opportunity to gethelp through an cmergency. But ona dairy farm the loss extends beyond the time really lost. If a cow is allowed to go over a milking or two, the probability is that she is injured during the entire milk- ing season, or perhaps for life. The neighbors are not near enough to be called in for an emergency of this kind, and the milking comes at an hour when all farmers are busy. Ithinkit is more difficult to employ men to milk 34 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. than to do any farm work, but itis the feeling of dependence you have. I have borrowed moretroubleinthis line than in anything else connected with the dairy business. Theactual loss from this cause is practically noth- = ing. To repeat what I havejust said, the average farmer should keep one miich cow to every fourteen acres ofland. The milking must be considered part of the day’s work. The milk or cream must besent to the factory. The cows should be dairy cows, and the farmer should try to perpetu- ate their milking qualities. Don’t try to make a first-class beef animal and a first-class milker out of the same animal. The average farmer should give his boys and girls better and more school discipline. We should find a market for our corn and oats on our own farms. We sell less fertility in butter and cheese than any other farm product. Now, I am not so egotisticalas to think that I have told all there is to be known about the dairy for the average farm. I would not say I had, even aif I thought so. There was a very smart dealer in dairy supplies who got some of the con- eeit taken cut of him at one of the Wisconsin institutes. He had an excel- lent display of dairy apparatus, and was asked to show them, and explain their use, before the audience. Hedid so, and said that there was not a sin- ele thing lacking in his display for making first-class butter. He even went so far as to say that if there was any one in the audience who could mention a single thing that was necessary for making first-class butter that he did not have on exhibition, he would give them the entire outfit. An old lady in the back ofthe room arose, and in a squeaky voice, she said, “T do not see the cow.” It is possible that Ihave left out something as important as the cow. DISC USSION. Mr. Jones: Isn’t the number of acres to the cow that Mr. Hostetter gives entirely too large? In my opinion, three or four acres to the cow ILLINOIS STATE DATRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 35 would do iust as well, and be more profitable, if they are dairy cows heis speaking of. Mr. Hostetter: The average dairyman would keep morecows. My idea is the average farmer will attend to his work on the farm, and if you have more cows than hecan attend tohe will lose more than he will profit by it. J aim to keep a cow for everyithree acres, for dairying is my business, and everything has gottocometothedairy point. Even if you forget the hogs, the cows heave got to be milked on time, but the average farmer won't do that. Mr. Powell: How much grain food would a man have to buy to keepa eow to every three acres on a farm? Mr. Hostetter: It takes a carload of bran a month on mv farm to keep fifty cows. I have 160 acres. Iraise the corn and oats. I feed the year around. Mr. Gray: Doyouhave that feed ground? Mr. Hostetter: Idon’tgrindany feed. if havea silo, and my corn feed goes through the silo. My cowsdon’t get any corn but what first goes through the silo. If I fed dry corn, I would grind it. I usually ground my eorn before I had my silo, and’ fed ensilage. Ifeed very little oats. Prof. McLain: You stated that the average earning for cows was $11? Mr. Hostetter: Yes, sir; I think so. Prof. McLain: You mean the average gross earnings of the milch cow? : ‘A. Yes, sir. Prof. McLain: And where do you attribute that low average’ A. The low average? Because the farmer doesn’t take care of the cow. The calves suck two-thirds of the milk, and when the calves get big they milk the cows. Prof. McLain: You think they are in the calf business instead of dairy- ing? A. Yes, sir. Q. You think calf-raising is the business, and dairying is a side issue? A. ‘Yes, sir; in my section. I mean the average farmer, you under- stand. | 36 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. Mr. Irwin: What breed wouldthey naturally have—the average farm- ete A. The average will have a mixed breed. The average farmer has al- most everything, in our section,on his farm. Hereford, Jerseys, Holstein, etc. Prof. McLain: Are you in a calf-raising section? A. Yes, sir; beef and hogs are the principal products of our county. We have a go0d many creameriesin our county. Mr. Patten: Isthiscalf-raising business profitable? A. I think itis. The men in our section are making money. Mr. Patten: IntheconditionI am in I am not keeping them, as lam satisfied that it would not be profitable to keep tne calves. A. Don’t you think it would pay to keep veai calves? Mr. Patten: No, better to knock them on the head. Mr. Poweil: How did you manage to send your calves to market, and get $6 or $8 out of them? A. The way I dowith mycalves is when a calf is dropped I leave it suck part of the milk from the cow. I take a calf away after twenty-four hours. Then I mix milk and half water, and feed that calf three or four days onthat. If I don’t treat a calf in that way, it gets all the milk it can suck, and nine chances out of ten I lose the calf, but by doing this, and feeding this milk and water until it getsalittle start, then I put it on skim milk, away from the cow, and put ground flax seed in, and give a quart; I measure it. I have more calves killed by giving them too much milk than by not giving them any. J keepoats beforethem all the time, and nine out of ten will be ready for the butcher in two or three months. They are not plump, but second-rate calves. Mr. Irvin: What is the object of adulterating the milk—giving the wa- ter? A. The calves will have the fever if you give Jersey milk from the cow. Mr. Patten: I have had some experience, and had to take the calves away from the mother, as the milk from the cow would have caused the ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. a ealf’s death, and put it on seperated milk tosavethecalf. Thecow had lost three calves before. Mr. Hostetter: You take theseparated milk that has no flax in it at all. I think the calves should have a little flax seed. Mirweavten: lmix it. Mr. Hostetter: That maydo. I use a little skim milk instead of water. Q. You speak about measuring the milk. The way to do is to weigh it. Put your wilkin and weighit; fora young calf, eight pounds of milk ata feed, and set your scales and put your milk right in, and you will find it the most accurate way. There is another thing you ought to make much plain- er, in the use of linseed meal, or ground oil cake. Mr. Hostetter: I don’t use either; I use ground flax. The ground flax is the flax ground up, anda very small quantity should be fed. A teaspoon- ful is enough at a feed. - AMERICAN MAIZE PROPAGANDA. COL. CLARK EH. CARR, OF GALESBURG. It has been thought that asthe subject of maize, or Indian corn, as I prefer to call it, is so closely connected with farm life, that it would be proper for me to express some thoughts in which the association known as the American Maize Propaganda is interested, and measures which this association is taking in the interests of Indian corn. I am limited to half an hourin the talk that I make, and hope, if I should pass the bound, asI amliable to do when I get going, talk seven or eight hours, that I will be notified and stopped. I will say in commencing, I think it was in 1585 that Walter Raleigh car- ried the first potatoes to England. For 200 years potatoes were scarcely eat- 38 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. en by anyone except by afew. Itis less than 100 years since potatoes have been used at all in Ireland. During the war of the rebellion, through the reading of medical jour- nals relating to the care of armies, our physicians observed in the journals that oatmeal mush, or oatmeal gruel was one of the best, and possibly the best article of diet to give to a patient when very sick, and the result was that through the doctors oatmeal was brought to this country. It was first sold in five-pound cans, and given out on prescriptions of the physician when he made his prescription for medicine, and from that beginning oat- meal, which was then only eatenin Scotland, and not in England, has bé- come what you know to beoneofthe most important articles of diet throughout the earth. Now, 69 per cent of the people of this earth know nothing of Indian corn as food for human beings. Only 31 per cent of the people of the earth know Indian corn as food for the brain. It seems to us, the representatives of the American Maize Propaganda, that it is the duty of the world, as well as to ourselves, to teach the world that Indian ccrn is a wholesome, nutri- tious, palatable diet for the brain. 2 | Eight milion of peoplestarveto death or die from famine and its ac- companyiug diseases. Think of it; twice the population of the state of Illi- nois, and at that time in many localities in the United States corn was be- ing burned asa fuel. Why did wenot send it to them? We had a million revolving wheels carrying grain to the other side with a capacity to carry more acrossthe ocean. We might just as well have sent them sawdust or sand, because they did no know how to use indian corn, or what to do withit, suppose. They did not know it was food. Those of the people on the earth who do not know of corn as food, or Indian corn at all, of the 60 per cent that Ihave mentioned, only know of it as food for beasts, or to be distilled into spirits. Now, this ignorance, this want of knowledge concerning Indian corn, is not confined to Asia, itisalmostas bad in Europe. | When I went to Copenhagen, after a month or six weeks I began to think that there was something I wanted that they did not have. It was some ILLINOIS STATE DATRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 39 Johnny cake, corn bread, hoe cake, cern griddle cake, and Isaid: Iam going to have them get me some.”’ Sol told the man to go and buy some corm meal, and he went out tothestoreto get some. He came back and said they had never heard of it. He went to all of the provision stores, and they dié not know of itby thatname. They cali it maize, and such a thing as musk for a person to eat made out of that they never heard of it. People whe ate the blackest rye bread and ate it with a relish, and ate horse meat every day if they had any meat at all knew nothing about corn meal asfood . for human beings. -Horse meat is as common as beansin America. Itis eaten by the common people andI have heard men gay they would rather have horse steak than any poor beefsteak. I saw men who ate horse meat. look with amazement at me when [ went to get some corn meal to eat. They had it and fed it to the hogs, and fed it to all their cattle. I went to every provision store in Copenhagen that I could think of and one man said he had it and brought out a package of corn starch. He wanted to charge me 75 cents for it. Ifound there was not an ounce in Denmark. I sent to Mr. Thomas, who was the minister at Stolkholm and he sent word back there was nota pound there. There was not a pound in al} Scandinavia and they did not know what it was. They had no concep- tion that it was food. To make the story short, | wasdetermined to have it. I sent io New York and they sent me over a bushel in a tin box done up in tissue paper, kept dry from the moisture. It iad a cover on and I never tasted nicer. They called it golden meal. After that we had corn cake and Johnny cake and hoe cake and flap- jacks. That was our experience and that was a fact. The first thing §F knew I heard there was a man coming to tell about Indian corn, that man, whose name should always be spoken with reverence by every farmer on this continent, Jeremiah M. Rusk, then Secretary of Agriculture. He sent over a man to introduce Indian corn as human food in Europe. He came to Copenhagen from Germany andstarted in. There was an appropriatiam of $10,000.00 for the purpose of introducing it and none since. C. J. Murphy came right to me, of course, and introduced himself. He 40 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. was to go to every provision store in Copenhagen and get them to take some corn meal and sell it and recommend it. We got them to put it in the market and got the folks interested in it. Got the hospitals interested in it too. Went to the army and navy head- quarters and to the different people there who kept these provision stores, in the public institute, and then he gave a corn dinner and invited fifty people. They called on me to preside. We made speeches and we had several representatives of the press, so the whole thing was put in the papers, and in that way we got it |)efore the country. Now it was not what we expected, not what we had hoped. There was not enough pro- vided for, but I shall say for fear I forget it, that we got it introduced to some considerable extent, corn meal was eaten, and you can get half a pound now, and that since that time, 1891, the exports of Indian corn to Scandanavia has doubled. It pays the farmers 1000 times over for the COWS. We ought to have established ina good place, a corn kitchen or a corm restaurant, and had some one there who knew how to workit. They did not know kow to cook corn. Murphy would go every day, over there in Denmark, and show them how to cook it, and then we would go and lave it served to us at dinner. By the time we got ready to have our corn dinner the man Mr. Murphy had been showing how to cook carn meal could do it very nicely and cooked it. Tf we had had some one right there in a corn kitchen or restaurant, and every day sold cheap dishes of different kinds made from corn meal and sold them cheap and got people in that way, in the habit of eating, and at the same time giving away leafletson how to cock it, it would have been introduced mere extensively than it was. We want 4 number of places at the Paris Exposition, but Mr. Peck can only let us have a small space for a corn kitchen and restaurant. We wisn to bring this subject of Indian corn before the public. We have the Opportunity, the people are coming there from all parts of the world. We have the opportunity and now we want to establish this restaurant in Paris by all the means possible, but in order to do so it will be necessary ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. Al that there should be an appropriation. It will be necessary that there should be help. We don’t ask it for ourselves. We want it under the ‘direction of the government of the United States. Of all that appropria- tion of $658,000 for the Paris Exposition only $75,000 of the $658,000 is for agricultural products—everything—-dairy, Indian corn, everything. it will be comparatively little the Secretary of Agriculture will set apart for Indian corn, but we want to get what we can of it, but we expect to have more in this line. An addition to the price of Indian corn of one cent a bushel adds to the property of this country $20,000,000.00. An increase of 5 cents adds one hundred millions. An increase of Gne cent on a bushel in the price of corn adds to the property of the State of Illinois $2,500,000.00. One cent a bushel, think of it. An increase cf five cents adds over twelve millions to the value of the crop of illinois. It is more in Iowa, for they raise more corn. Over a million in Missouri, the same in Indiana. One and a haif millions in Kansas and Nebraska. Add one cent a bushel to the value and that is what you get. Now, gentlemen, with this increase, isn’t it worth the while of these Six great grain producing states, the corn belt, as we say, Iowa, Illinois, In- diana, Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska, to take up this matter, and push it? Now, I won’t go on talking, because I am accustomed to confining my- self to time, when I am limited, but will say this one thing in closing: That when you increase the priceof Indian corn, the demand for Indian corn, the consumption of Indian corn, you yourselves have it all. You in- crease the value of wheat, the price of oats and barley, every other cereal, and you divide it between yourselfand Russia, and India and Argentina, and all the different countries of the -earth; but there is no corn belt on the face of the earth except ours, and when you increase the price of Indian corn you get it all yourselves. We get it all, it comes to us, and so, gentle- men, I think that you would be interested in having this subject brought be- fore you. We are not confined to food only, there are hundreds of other things, or twelve other things the American Maize Propaganda is interest- ed in for the uses of Indian corn, corn stalks, all the uses of the glucose ILLINOIS STATE DAIR YMEN’S ASSOCIATION. works, ete.. etc. It is propertotax it when it is used as a beverage, but In- dian corn for food purposes should not be taxed. Now, why should the farmer pay 90 cents on something tkat is consumed in India, where a great deal of this Indian corn in alcohol goes to? In Germany and England it is all right. They look at the question, they study it over there technically, theoreticaliy, and practically. Germany and England don’t make a one- thousandth part of a tax on alcohol. They make what is called wood alco- hol. All these questions I might bring up, but cannot do so now. We want you to take hold of it, we want the Dairymen’s association to take hold of it, if they think it worth your attention. | DISC USSION. Prof. McLain: Q. Mr. Hostetter brought out the fact that it cost a grain dealer more to transport $100 worh of corn than it did to transport $100 worth of our wheat. Is that true? Mr. Hostetter: I stated thatit did not cost any more toship a pound of butter than corn, and in shipping corn we shipped fertility, and in shipping butter we cid not. Prof. McLain: A car of corn is worth $100, and a car of butter is worth about $4,000 or $5,000. One hundred doliars worth of corn robs the farm of about fifteen times as much as a like value in butter; would it not be much better to have a propaganda for the introduction of American Dairy Prod- ucts than a propaganda for the introduction of corn? Col. Carr: Iagree with you. It is better to feed all the corn you can, not only in dairying, but to the cattle, and feed it as much as possible. By more consumption of Indian corn we will bring more land under cultivation. We can cultivate with better facilities. The State Agriculturist says 160 bushels of Indian corn to an acre; we can raise more. Now, it is said that we will use it in dairying, and market all we can, and feed it to the stock and use all we can, but with this enormous product we can also add to the export. You say, and itissaid,that it is better to feed it to stock. You migh say the same thing of oats, or any other grain. It is said—I am com- ing toit. Butit has been said that what farmers want is cheap corn—what I ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 43 mean is those who raise cattle want cheap corn. I have talked recently with @ very prominent farmer in Morgan county, and I talked with one the other day from Franklin county. Bothof those gentlemen said to me: “I have made more in raising stock with corn at 50 cents a bushel than I ever made iat 20 cents a bushel. The greater the price of the corn, the more you have of the cattle, the better prices you get for cattle. Mr. John Stewart: Iwouldlike to ask if you have looked at corn shipped over from this country? Mr. Carr: Idid,sir. Isawaload of corn on the dock. I went to our grocer there and got him to go down and get some and grind it, and you could not eat it. It had been wet and was musty from the voyage. If in sending it you take as much care of corn, as in sending flour, keep it dry, there would be no trouble. Flour would be kept in a dry place, and wheat would, too. This corn meal was musty, for the corn was in a ship with no cover over it, shelled corn onaship, and that is the way most of it is shipped abroad, no care being taken of it. The gentleman is perefctly right, but it is just as easy to ship corn to Liverpool and Copenhagen dry, and care for it so as to have it wholesome, as itis to ship wheat. Mr. Hostetter: Is it afact that the corn shipred to these foreign coun- tries will have to be consumed asa luxury? Getting it there will add to the expense so much, it is claimed, that it will be a luxury, and the quanti- ties consumed will be small. I think if that were true, it will be hard to convince a convention that they should ship corn. I would like to ask if that is a fact? : A. I don’t think itis at all. Idon’t see why Indian corn cannot be placed on the market as cheaply as other things. The question is to get them to eatit. The exportation has doubled since 1891. We don’t expect to get the people to live on Indian corn, but we do expect, and we do believe, that we can get it on the tables as an article of diet, the same as other arti- cles, and from experience there I heard nothing in all the talks that I had that seemed to indicate that we could not put Indian corn on the market in all those countries with as littie expense as any other cereal. The corn is certainly cheaper than wheat per bushel, and there is no reason why it should cost any more for Indian corn than flour. 44 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. POULTRY ON THE FARM. F. M. MUNGER OF DE KALB, ILL, There are a few simple rules, which, if carefully followed, will invaria-~ bly add to the farmer’s income with very little outlay or expense. For rearing and selling pouit:ry i do not intent to lay down any strict rules and regulations to be followed, but would urge you to make poultry a study, and form rules and regulations of your own that will be simple, plain and practicable. Have a good permanent home for your poultry, apart from all other buildings. Keep the poultry home so clean and sweet that you can visit it any time, and stay, if necessary, half an hour without wishing you could get out to get a breath of pure air. To be profitabie, hens must have good shelter at all times, both summer and winter, a building with a tight roof to keep out water, and tight sides to keep out wind and cold. A wetor cold hen will not lay many eggs. Washing hens to prepare theia for exhibition, even in prize birds, causes them to omit laying for two, three or more days. Cold, open sheds, in winter, will stop the average business hen and besides lessen the egg supply, will favor colds and the development of roup. ‘The ficor should be raised six incnes or a foot with sand or coal ashes if necessary to keep it always dry. On this ground floor straw, hay or leaves should be scattered to the depth of four to six inches. All fowls need exercise, but this is especially true of the laying hen. For giving hens exercise in all kinds of weather, a scratching shed should be provided. A building ten by twelve will accommodate twenty- five hens. A flock of this size is not profitable. The scratching shed should have a good shed roof and three closed sides. If more than one house is needed these scratching sheds can be built between each house. These should be bedded with straw or hay and the hen kept at work. ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 45 Feed the fowls regularly good scund food, and be sure they have a bal- anced ration, as the egg is a complete food and can not be made unless the fowl has the right ingredients. I make a business of raising thcrougibred stock for exhibition and breeding purposes. My system of feeding differs somewhat from what it would if I were producing eggs and stock for the market alone. I aim to feed my breeding stock only such focd as will keep them in a good, healthy, virogous condition. This insures fertile eggs in good numbers, and strong, healthy chicks, and when chicks are produced of this kind you are a long way on the road to success. You will see I place a great deal of faith in feeding the breeding stock in such a way as to keep them strong and healthy. It is impossible to get strong, vigorous chicks from weak par- ents. Were I feeding to produce eggs for market in large numbers I should then force the production of eggs hy feeding green cut bone every day. With proper care and feed, one can increase the number of eggs to a great extent. Hens cannot lay or preduce eggs unless their food contains the elements of which the egg is composed, that is, a large share of albuminous or egg- producing elements. In addition to the quantity of albumen required in the organism cf a fowl, the laving hen requires an extra amount for the white of the egg, it being about 12 per cent albumen, and this must be fur- nished in her feed. ; Another important item: When the fowls do not have a large field to range in, is to give them once a day, if possible, a feed of chopped clover hay. They need this, not aione fcr the bulk, but it is rich in nitrogen, which enters largely into the formation of the egg. Some green food is needed every day. Chickens are like the human family in that they likea change of food. While wheat is one of the best feeds for producing eggs, it is one of little value for fattening purposes compared with curn, as corn contains a great deal of carbonacecus or fatty matter, which puts on flesh in a very short time. Pure water is also essential to laying fowls. There is nearly as much water in a pound of eggs as in a pint of milk. 46 ILLINOIS STATE DAIf YMEN’S ASSOCIATION. Let us tear an egg apart with the chemist’s weapons. Here we have about 1000 grains of matter, 67 percent cf which is water, 10 per cent or 100 grains lime—and where are you going to get this lime when you feed only corn?—12 per cent albumen, 9 per cent fat, and 1 per cent ash. There is also a small quantity of sulphur, phosphorus, magnesia and several other bases which are found in various eombinations. We can not make something from nothing, neither can the hen. She can not elaborate an egg out of starchy grain and patent egg food, nor can she put a shell on it unless she has given hor the lime from which to make it. The progressive breeders of poultry long ago found this out, and are feeding such foods as contain not only carbohydrates of starch, sugar and fat, but also the albuminoid foods, such as meat, bone, clover hay, linseed meal and wheat bran. Don’t fool your time away with scrubs, but secure good thoroughbreds of whatever breed suits you best. Don’t mix tne breeds, a mixed flock for a farmer is a delusion and a snare. We believe the farmer’s flock ought to be of one kind—one _ breed. They look much betier at all tines, and will always seJl better. They should be kept pure by the addition cof new blocd each year, and if they are to be kept healthy and vigorous, little or no inbreeding should be practiced. : There are several good ways to obtain thoroughbred poultry. I con- sider it the best plan to buy one male and about four to six females as you feel able. You should get them from good true stock, for from $10.06 to $15.00. Yard them by themselves, and set the eggs under your common hens, and you should raise from one to two hundred thoroughbreds the first year. Then dispose of your common stock and you will have a good start of thoroughbred stock with little cutlay. , A still cheaper way can be taken by buying a setting or two of eggs; you can get eggs from the best stock for $8.00 to $4.00 per sitting. Sell off ycur common stock and use pure bred males each year. Give this branch of your farm stock a little more thought and attention and the prcfits will be forthcoming at cnee. ILLINOIS STATE DATIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 47 DAIRYING AND STOCK RAISING. J. G. SPIC ER, EDELSTEIN. Dairying and stock raising, or dairying as compared with stock raising minus dairying, I take to be the subject on which our honored secretary wishes this paper totreat. An exhaustive discussion of the greatest indus- try in the United States, ifnotinthe world, must not be expected of one of my ability, time and data at handfrem which to draw such figures and in- formation as the magnitude of the subject would seem tc demand. But I am reminded right here that this great*industry is still in the hands of the common people. There are but a few dairy kings, princes or magnates, comparatively speaking, ir our ranks, but our country is dotted here and there, and in some parts thickly so, with heroes; noble men and women, who for a life time have put their best thought, energies and muscle into the development of an industry which is of first magnitude in importance, either financially or beneficially to the human race. And the fact that the business is in the hands of the common people should stimulate every individual, great or small, learned or unlearned, connected with this business, to add his or her mite to the uplifting and rightly developing of those principles, and that work which, in his God-given sphere, we may find for our hands and heads to do. Success or failure in our lives depends largely upon the faithfulness and painstaking with which we dothe common duties of every day life. In reading a sketch of the lifeof John Newman (whose brother I may term as one of the main spokes of the wheel on which this association moves), who, as the Times-Herald of January 1, is pleased to style “The But- ter King,’ whose aggregate cow is seventy miles long, and his butter ship- ments for a year would build a fence around the great Pyramid. I was im- pressed with the fact, so easily read between the lines, that as the founda- 48 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRXYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. tion of his great success lay his faithfulness and painstaking in the every- day duties of life from his youth to the present time, he now being presi- dent of the Elgin Board of Trade, whose business practically fixes the price of the best butter in all the leading markets of this great nation, and other nations io a great extent. Successful dairying or stock raising depends then largely upon the manner and skill with which the details in either business are executed. By stock raising J suppose is meant the practice of those who allow the calves to run with their dams and take all the milk until they are six to eight months old, and then wean the calves, and let the cows go dry; or perhaps make some show of milking them (I think it usually matters but little which). I must confess to ignorance as far as personal experience is concerned, but Ivery much doubt tHe successful practicability of such a course, unless in the far west, or localities where grazing land is very cheap and winters aremild. Butforthemen occupying land worth from $25 to $100 or more per acre, who, in order to make an honest living and have a competence for old age, is willing to forego the pleasure of going and com- ing when he pleases, because he isnot tied up to milking the cows twice a day, I believe there are several chances for such a man to succeed in dairy- ing where there are one in stock raising. I wish to mention a few of the advantages that the dairyman has that the stockman does not have, under five propositious. First—He can raise as many or more calves from the number of cows kept as he could when in raising steck only. Second—He can raise nearly as good calves by substituting other foods in place of the butter fat, taken from the milk, and at a very much less cash value. — Third—Value of skim milk as human food. Fourth—The by-products of the dairy furnish a healthy, cheap, and profitable food for swine, chickens, and other live stock. Fifth—Where the market isavailable the skim milk and buttermilk may ke sold to some extent to good advantage, as such, or the former made into cottage cheese or skim cheese. ILLINOIS STATEH DAIRSIMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 49 As to the first proposition, I think it is a generally admitted fact that the cows regularly and thoroughly milked will miake a greater yield dur- ing the year than one whose udder is only partially emptied acording to the wants of the youngster, who only draws the amount required to meet the present demands, probably enough nrore to pay for the extra work and care: of handling the milk, extracting the butter fat, and returning the skim milk to the calves. In proof of the assertion in proposition two, I wish to use some of the evidence found in the Buleltin entitled “Utilization of By-Products of the Dairy,” by Henry A. Alvord, Chief cf Dairy Division Bureau of Animal In= dustry, reprint from Year Book of 1897; see pages 517 and 518. Skim milk for calves. Calves appear to be next in favor as profitable - consumers cf skim milk, and some authorities conclude, after reviewing the records, that calves make greater gains than pige, from a given quantity of skim milk daily. There hasbeen much prejudice on the part of some against using well skimmed milk, such as comes from farm seperators, and seperator creameries, especially for veal calves. But there is abundant evidence that good results follow proper care and judicious feeding. The use of whole milk for calves, except for a week or so, is simply wasteful. One cent’s worth of oil meal will do calves as much good as a pound of but= ter (or bucter fat in milk). Besides this, skim milk from aseperator, whem run through immediately after milking, and fed while warm and sweet, is: better for calves than milk whichis old and partly sour, even though the latter contains a quarter of the fat originally in it.” (Geadrich.) The Ontario experiment station of Canada reports that after twenty years of careful work, it is evident that whole miik calves Seoat too much, adding: “Skim milk and linseed méal are a good substitute for whole milk in feeding calves.” The Iowa experiment station, which has given particular attention tm calf breeding, considers oil meal as too nitrogenous, making the rations too: narrow, except for very young calves. Oatmeal and corn meal are found better to “balance” the skim milk afier the first four weeks. The mixture producing, the greatest, gain at the lowest cost was found to be nine parts; &y dye 50 ILLINOIS STATE DATIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. of corn meal to one part of flax meal, and one pound of this mixture was ured to eighteen ortwenty pounds of skim milk for each calf per day, the wmmeai being later increased to two pounds a day. Grade short horn calves thus fed made gains of a cost of from one to two cents a pound, the skim mnilk being rated at 15 cents per cwt. Started on such aration, the milk was gradually withdrawn after the irst 100 days, and these calves reached an average weight of 760 pounds when one year old, a gain of 660 pounds in 365 days. The Minnesota station, inatrial with younger calves, found that a *whole milk ration cost nearly 10 ceuts per day, and produced no more gain than in some of the calves on skim milk. The latter made an average gain f one and one-fourth pounds per day ata daily cost of 3% cents per day; the feeding period wastwenty-four weeks. At the Massachusetts station, with veal seling at .045, live weight, the #xim milk on which it was raised was made to yield .387 per 100 pounds. aives for veal may be started on whole milk, gradually shifted to skim aniik, and finally finished off with whole milk for a week or ten days, to give them a smooth appearance, and improve their sale. Ina number of careful “trials reported, calves gained one pound in weight from ten to sixteen Pounds of skim milk. Veal calves at .05 would make this skim milk worth 39 cents to 50 cents per cwt. Calves for beef stock can be protably raised on a diet largely of skim mniik, but should be taught to eat hay and grain as soon as possible. Heifers ¢or dairy purposes should growina thrifty way, but should not getfat. For ese skim milk is the best food of all until they are a year old, wheat bran and middlings being added as soon as they wil eat them. In feeding milk to calves, especially young ones, over-feeding must be #@uarded against, and the milk can be used to the best advantage when fresh rom the separatorand warm. Ifskim milk from a creamery is used, great @are must be exercised to prevent injury from old or tainted milk. Calves are much sooner made sick with bad milk than pigs. If the milk is pureand lean, acidity does not hurt, but dirty and putrid milk is death to calves. I wish to add that none but pure, clean, sweet aus sheuld ee Boe sor returned to the patrons of creameries: ‘ing meats. ILLINOIS STATE DALE YMEN’S ASSOCIATION. ey)! nee ee te eee re ene ea HG ee a In support of proposition three, I quote from pages 511, 512, and 513 as follows: “The best use to which skim milk can be applied is human food in its natural uncooked state. The value of the article as a desirable and use- ful portion of an every day dietfor most people is not at all appreciated. The use of skim milk ought to be largely increased. In the course of dietary studies made at the Maine state colllege, during the year 1895, special atten- tion was given to milk, for the reasons stated in the following, from the re- port of Director W.H.Jordan: First, milk has a widespread use as an article of diet, and in all civilized countries is an important food supply; second, milk isa very valuablefood. Itcontains a mixture of the three classes of nutrients in forms that are readily digested and assimilated; third, milk is a low cost animai food in proportion to its value as based upon chemical analysis. Itis shownthatwhen milk is purchased at $2 per 100 pounds {about 4 cents per quart), the cost of a pound of edible solids is $11.57, while the cost of a pound of edible solids in beef at $10.50 per 100 pounds is .343. This is a comparison of the retailcost of milk (fresh and not skimmed), with the cost of hind quarter beef when purchased by the carcass. Beef bought as steak at the retail price would have a much higher comparative cost. Fourth, notwithstanding the high quality and general distribution of milk as a food, it seems by many to be regarded as a luxury in the purchase of which economy must be exercised. This attitude toward this particular food may in part be explained by the somewhat prevalent notion that a free supply of milk in the dietary is not economical because it is supposed that as much of other foodsiseaten as would be the case if the milk were not taken. This belief runs contrary to certain generally accepted farcts which relate to the physiological use of foods, and it only remains for ex- perimental data to prove or disprove its correctness. Again, milk is not given full credit by people at large for its true nutritive value. Surprise is generally occasioned by thestatement that a quart of milk has approxi- mately the food value of a pound of steak. It is important to demonstrate, for reasons of economy, whether as is the custom with many, it is wise to purchase the least possible quantity of milk, and exercise little care in buy- erate FO 5 oof? ' ee ees 5? ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. Trials were accordingly made by which a large number of men students at college, were furnished milk as part of their daily diet, the quantity be- ing varied during successive trial periods. The milk was much relished by a large majority of the students, una at the time the quantity was the grea*- est there was no indication of any efiects injurious to health. When after a fixed although liberal allowance in one period, milk was supplied to be used ad libitum in the next, the quantity thus voluntarily consumed in- creased 55 per cent, the increase amounting to about one pound of milk per day to each person. It was conclusively shown that such free use of milk diminished the consumption of other foods. | The daily cost of food per man was eight cents less during the period when milk was furnished in unlimited quantity than when the supply was limited. Following are the main results of these trials, as summarized in the report mentioned: 1. The cost of the animal foois bought for the commons of the Maine State College during 209 days was 69 per cent of the total food cost, varying in the different periods from 63.7 to 73.1 per cent. This shows very clearly the direction in which economy ean most effectively be exercised in pur- chasing a food supply. 2. The freer use of milk did not, as is supposed by some io be the case, increase the gross weight of food eaten. The extra amount of focd consumed replaced other animal focds to a nearly corresponding test in the first trial, and caused a proportionate diminuition in the consumption of vegetable food in the second study. 4. In both trials the increased consumption of milk had the effect co? materially narrowing the nutritive 1ation of the dietary, a result which, in view of the recognized tendency of Americans to consume an undue proportion of fats and carboyhdrates, appears to be generally desirable. 5. The dietaries in which milk was more abundantly supplied were somewhat less costly than the others and at the same time were fully as acceptable. 6. These results indicate that milk should not be regarded as a lux- dry, but as an economical article of diet which families of moderate income ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. USER EySS may freely purchase as a probable means of improving the character of the Gietary and cheapening the cost of their supply of animal foods. In the Maine experiments referred to above fresh whole milk was used, having a fat content of 3.6 per cent. It can not be doubted, however, that the same general results would have been obtained had skim milk been used instead. To some this would Fave been less acceptable, but while the whole quantity consumed mignt have been less, the daily cost would also have been still further decreased, and the “balance” of the daily ration would have been still more improved. The use of skim milk instead of whole milk as food, in itsnatural state, is simply a matter of taste and habit. It must not be forgotten that a quart of skim milk contains more protein than a quart of whole milk, and the former is cheaper and better than the latter as a substitute for meats and other animal foods. A report upon dietary studies made at the Universary of Tennessee in 1897, contains the following: “What is needed is to use focds better adapted to the needs of the body; in other words, food which contains more protein. Such is milk, which is of itself an cconomical ana well-balanced food, and skim milk, which has all the protein and half the fuel value of whole milk, and is, in most localities, the most economical source of animal protein. The n1- trients in milk are equally in physiological value to those of meats, and are far less expensive.” As to proposition fourth, I will still quote you from the same un- doubted authority, 99, 515, 516, 517, 524, and 525. “Bakers have long known the vajue of skim milk in bread making, and ‘yet it is not as generally used in this way as it should be. This is partiy owing to the unfortunate restrictions in some large cities, which makes it difficult for bakers to get the skim milk wanted. One baker gives these reasons for using skim milk largely instead of water: First, it makes a loaf which is more moist and will remain moist longer; second, it makes a closer loaf; third, it improves the eating quality of the bread; fourth, the sugar in the milk caramels in bakinz and browns the crust.” He advises adding the milk when making thc dough and not in the sponge. 54 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. - ny Next to human food, the most prcfitable use to which skim milk can be applied is in feeding domestic animals of various kinds. Reports and bulletins of the agricultural experimental stations of Europe as well as American contain numerous results comparing skim milk with other articles for stock feeding and showing its successful use, especially with young and growing animals. The important fact which seems to be proved by these experiments are as fellows: First, skim milk gives the best results when fed to very young animals, constituting the greater part of their food; second, it is next best for animals making rapid growth, but which need food other than milk and mainly of a carbonaceous character; third, except for the very young, skim milk gives much better results when used in combination with other ma- terials, generally grain, than when fed alone; fourth, no class of live stock gives a better return for skim milk fed to it than poultry of various kinds. The New York Experiment staticn reports growing chickens success- fully upon a diet which was mainlv skim milk, although they had the run of the fields. It was estimated that while allowing 25 cents per 100 pounds for the milk and some other food in proportion, the cost of producing a pound of live weight was less than eight cents up to the time the brids weighed three pounds. The milk was fed sweet in this case, but it was found equally satisfactory to use it when loppered and quite thick, and in the latter form there seems to be less waste. Several careful feeders be- lieve skim milk to be worth fully 50 cents per hundred pounds when judi- ciously fed to turkeys and poultry. Skim milk for hogs.—The greatest number of experiments recorded are in connection with feeding skim milk to swine. Director Henry of Wiscou- sin has written as follows on this subject: ‘Skim milk has a higher value with stockmen than merely serving as a substitute for grain. All the constituents of milk are digestible and this by-product of the creamery is rich in muscle and bone-building consti- tuents. The writer conducted experiments in which milk and other foods were fed to pigs for the purpose of ascertaining the effect of these foods ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 5a | on the mustle and bone of the hog. It was found by actual testing the: strength of the bones that milk made the strongest bones of any food that was fed. When we consider the use of this food for bone and muscle building, also remembering its easy digesting and and how by adding va-- riety it makes other foods more palatable ana probably assists in their digestion, we must hold skim miik as occupying a high place in the list of feed stuifs available on most farms.” From the numerous results reported in pig feeding these items may be taken: ‘Ten pounds of skim milk produce as much gain with young pigs: as fifteen pounds with maturing swine. With young pigs, one or twee ounces of corn meal (or its grain equivalent) to one quart of milk seems. enough. The proportion of the grain must be gradually increased until im: finishing off pork, with animals weighing 200 pounds or more, the meak may become two-thirds the weight of the milk. Authorities differ as to the reletive merits of having the skim milk sweet or sour, but the weight of evidence seems to favor sour milk for swine. Yet the milk must not be too sour; the sugar of milk certainly has food value, and in very sour milk this has largely been replaced by lactie acid. Two much lactic acid is believed to be injurious. In different trials. 100 pcunds of skim milk has shown a feeding value equivalent to twenty to twenty-eight pounds of corn meal; its money value may be thus easily computed, with the market price cf corn meal as a base. But several ex— perimenters, upon a basis of ‘‘four cent pork” report returns of 20 ta 3% cents per huxdred pounds of skim milk. Whey itself a watery, semi-transparent liquid in appearanee is eom~ posed of about 93 per cent of water and 7 per cent of solids. The: latter include the greater part of the albumen of milk, which has not been ca- adgulated by the rennet, nearly all the sugar of milk, some of the ash, and small fractions of casein and fat. Stated in figures, average wher contains 0.35 of 1 per cent fat, 1 per cent of albumen and casein, 5 per een& of sugar, and 0.65 of 1 per cent of ash. The fat may be increased by eare— lessness on the part of the cheesemaker, but if the latter be an expert. there will be no serious escape of fat in the whey, however rich the milk. 56 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. Under the most approved processes of cheese. making the whey is sweet when drawn off from thecurd, or only very slightly acid. Having such a large content of sugar and ainple lactic ferment for an active 99 “starter,” whey sours very rapidly. Therefore, if sugar is to be utilized, whether for feeding or manufacture, the whey should be used as soon as Joossible after coming from the cheese vat or draining sink. Numerous recorded trials show whey to have considerable value as a food for swine, when judiciously mixved with other material. And several trials at home and abroad indicate that whey has just about the same feed- ang value for hogs as half the same weight of skim milk. Some foreign trials with calves show whey to have had half the value of skim milk, which is rather more than the general estimate. There are also other uses to which the by-product as well as the butter and cheese can be turned into ready cash or nearly so, but it can ve easily seen from the experiments quoted above that a good cow can be made to pay much better in the dairy thanmerely as stock raiser. She not only fur- nished the principal support in raising her young, or preparing the same for the butcher’s biock as veal, but a remunerative income to her owner rarely equaled by any other branch of the farm industry when for com- joarison many successive years are taken. The importance of carefully locking after, and properly utilizing the %y-products of the dairy may seer of more importance when we further «quote from the bulletin referred to, the annual product of skim milk, juttermilk and whey in the United States, pages 509and519. Experience shows that in most lines of manufacture there are waste products, and upon the careful management of these often depends the difference be- ‘tween profit and loss in the business. The manufacture of butter and eheese may be inciuded in this statement. All cow owners, therefore, who amake milk into butter and cheese. as well as owners and managers ©.. creameries and factories, are concerned in studying economy of produc- tion, and should be interested in the important subject of the proper utili- vation of the waste products of the dairy. | Butter and cheese making result in three well-known residues, which Mr. E. H. Goldsmith: Please tell the number of lost in the First Regi- ment. . Answer:: At last reports we had lost 88 men. We have a great many more who are still very sick. Few know what is going on right in our midst. One of our boys ¢ameto- me and said: “This is the first time I have beer up since we got home. They had to lance fifty bed sores on my back. Have got a doctor’s bill of $143.00 and no money. What am I going todo?” Mr. Bates: The papers reported that at one time you threatened the railway to seize a train toembark your sick soldiers. What is the truth of it? fe : | Answer: I hed avery trying experience. I had 250 very sick men and had tried in every way to get what was my right, that is a sleeping berth for every sick man. I then got my people in Chicago to telegraph that r might draw on them for any amount of money to get the sleeping cars. Finally I arranged to get what we called a hospital train. One evening I received orders from Gen. Shafter to have my regiment ready to embark on the train the next morning early, aud at 5 o’clock everything was packed and our baggage sent to the trainsand most of our sick sent down, and J was just moving my regiment when word came that thoce trains were not for us, that I must get my baggage back. I sent down after the baggage and iv was brought back, and the sick men were just about to be moved back, ’ when orders came again that trains were ready, and a second ce I sent our baggage down, and that means a tremendous job, thirty army wagons loaded six feet high. I sent it down a second time and they put it on the cars, and at 4 o’clock the regiment was formed ready to move out to take the trains. Then another crder came saying, “You cannot go today, tnose trains are for a Gifferent reziment.’ There were all my sick men lying down around the station, on the platforms 250 of them and some of them deadly sie¢k. It began io rain very hard. I had seen the quarter- master and the trainmaster and they both told me that I certainly should have a train by seven, put finally they met me with a telegram, ‘“‘Can’c send Kirst Regiment today.” Then old Adam broke loose ana I told them I intended to take my men out of there that night and that if they did not 76 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. get me a train I would seizeone. General Bates approved of everything I did, but I had to fight all the red tape in Christendom to get us away. I was asked this afternoon ~vhat I thought of the Cubans? I will say frankly that we were greatly disappointed. We did not come away with a bright idea of them. Cubaisalovely spot and the time will come when it will be healthy, but we shall have to put up the little red school houses just as thick as you plant corn here. The time will come when the Cubans will grow into a great deal stronger and better race than they are today. I was asked today. (I am speaking in reference to Gen. Shafter.) Iwas asked by one, to what extent I credit to him the victory? I think Gen. Shafter was a wonderfully lucky man. I think that we would have won that campaign just as surely if Gen. Shafter had been commanding his department in California. I was asked what I thought of the Secretary of War? I will say that putting the present Secretary of War alongside of Secretary Stanton of the old war, seems to me 2, good deal like sctting up beside a cast iron patriot a bag of mush. I was asked today what I thsught of the abilities, and merits of the regular army and the volunteers? I don’t want to say a word, foritisa matter on which I feel very strongly and get excited about, because I think there has been made a very tinjust attempt to cast on the volunteer soldiers all the odium of the sickness and everything else that went ‘wrong. and it is absolutely unjust. I saw and know of justi as fine regiments in the vol- unteers, just as brave, just as well disciplined, just as patient as any regular regiment that ever lived since the creation of the world. When they tell yo u that your boys have not been good soldiers, they tell you what is abso- lutely false. Illinois has at least no cause to hide her heed. Its volunteer soldiers have simply been superb. They are my boys just as much as they are your boys. And Isay thatasregards the First Regiment of Illinois, it went through Purgatory, sent there by Gen. Shafter himself, unjustly; and they went without a whimper. He could not force a cry from us, try his best. We never asked a favor of any one. We were obliged to remain after all the others had gone. We were sent, after the surrender, in those cruci- ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 76 fying days into the hardest kind of hard work. There were 325 First Regi- ment men guarding yellow fever hospitals; nursing yellow fever patients; burying yellow fever dead. There were 300 of my men handling the heavi- est kinds of stuffs; there were 300 more guarding prisoners in a _ deadly camp, leaving less than 300 out of 1329 with the colors. If that is not a demonstration that some one was trying to punish my regiment I know not what could prove it. But they did not get a cry from my men, and Gen. Shafter himself had to come and iell m ein the end that that wasa splendid regiment. I say 10 you that the volunteer soldiers are today, as they have been since the foundation of this government, the hope of America. We do need an increase in the regular army, but we don’t need 100,000 men, 50,00: is all that is necessary. We de not want to wipe out the National Guard, as the chairman of the military committee says we ought to do. We do not wish to abolish it, for I say to you that in the volunteer soldier there is superb grit. He fights for love of country and nothing else, and he is the salvation of this nation. You take the porfessional soldier, and while they did superbly in Cuba, their tendency is all away from democracy. What sympathy have men in a fort, kept away from contact with people, their daily life, their struggles and sorrows. It is the tendency of their trade to separate them from the simplicity of thehome life from everything that makes America what itis. Solsay to you while we do need and must always have a cer- tain body of men who shall be ready to hold things level while the volun- teers are getting ready, we do not need a great standing army. It will be a menace to the country. It is the government itself that is responsible for most of the trouble that happens in transferring National Guard regiments into the United States service. My regiment was ready in 24 hours and it took the govern- ment, by reason of its miserable red tape, 20 days to muster us in. That was not the fault of the National Guard; that’s the fault of the Govern- ment, of the war department. We went out 1458 strong, understanding that we were to have the fuil number. The government cut us down to 1029. “We can’t take any 78 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. more,” they said. “‘But that is not a full regiment.” ‘Can’t help that,” and we had to send them back. Two months after we were required to fill up these very vacancies with men who had had no drill and were not ready. The day before I left for Cuba there came to me 300 men just out of Chicago, unacclimated, without any preparation whatever, and they were put onto the transport and sent to the Cuban campaign, both soft and unreacy; that was the fault of the government. Recitation by Miss Neltnor. Responded to an. encore. Meeting adjourned until 9 o’clock Wednesday morning, January 11, 1899. ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 719 Wednesday Morning, January ith. What Dairying Has Done for Southern Illinois. MR. R:G. WELFORD, RED BUD, ILL. The subject assigned to me is one to which I cannot do justice without encroaching largely on what has been read at a fcrmer meeting of this Association. Does Dairying pay in Southern Illinois? And What Dairy- ing has done for Southern Illinois are subjects that cover almost the same ground. I will try and keep to the latter as much as possible. In my experience of thirty years in the dairy business in Canada, Ohio, Indiana, Jowa, Missouri, aud Illinois, it has taught me that where the mileh cow is, there is increased prosperity, whether that particular locality is in the so-called dairy belt or not. Here in Southern Illinois, we have a climate that is good for the dairy cow, and a good aemindl in the turther south for butter and a good market in the east, St. Louis, for all kinds of stock, and the cow with an intelligent milker and feeder, the southern I!linois cow will doas much in a jinancial was as the northein cow. When the creameries first started in Southern Illinois fresh milch cows were worth from $15 to $25, and now they are worth double and very few. for sale. And why is the value increased? Because selling milk has taught the farmers that it pays to keep better cows, better cows means bet- ter calves, better calves means vetter prices, and petter prices mean more of them, and the increase of cows means more fertile farms. And what 80 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. does more fertile farms mean? It means a better education of farmer boys and girls... What-branch ot farming does more? Dairying has improved the sociability of our farmers, and why? Be- cause they meet almost daily at the creameries and while waiting their turn to unload or receive skiin milk. they talk about what their cows are doing; what they reed; how to take care of milk; how long it pays to feed a calf before it is fit for the market; discuss the making of good butter and of good dairying. | I know of towns that, in an open winter, on account of bad roads, at times it was almost impossible to get to them ,and those towns that have no creameries are in the same cundition yet. Nearly all towns that have creameries have good rockroads. ‘This has been done largely or encouraged by the merchants, and why? Because good roads bring more people to town to trade. When a farmer drives over a poor road daily to the cream- ery he becomes disgusted «nd makes up his mind for better roads and gener- ally gets them. When dairying makes good roads, it at the same time increases the value of farms. Dairying enables farmers to raise more poultry and eggs. Milk, poultry and eggs arecash. With cash better bargains can be made with home merchants. It has been read before this Association that skim milk is worth 25 cents per hundred pounds for raising poultry. Now what is it worth for raising pigs. ‘hey mature better on skim milk than on any other feed, and at a less cost Dairying in Southern Illinois has enabled a great many of our farmers to get their worn out lands in such a state of fertility that today taey are prosperous, when, with constant raising of wheat they were making no progress whatever. In conversation with one of our money loaners, I asked him if he loaned much money to our dairy sarmers. His reply was a rather curt “No.” I ventured the remark, ‘‘\ould you not trust them?” His reply was, ‘Don’t have to, they usually have ready cash.” And if one thousand extra fresh milch cows were in Southern Illinois now there would not be one-half as many renewals of old obligations. But if we still wish to centinue this dairy industry that is doing for us ILLINOIS STATE DAIRIMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 81 a great deal more than this article contains, we must secure national Legis- lation to tax heavily all imitations and frauds of dairy products. POULTRY ON THE FARM. ~W. W. NOYES, PROPHETSTOWN, ILL. This organization is strictly a dairyman’s organization, the para- mount interest of which is the dairying interest, and the object of the association is to so perfect its system and promote its interest as to ob- tain to its greatest possibilities. But however perfect and profitable it may be in itself, could it not be mace still more profitable without detracting from its perfection, by link- ing to it congenial interests which in themselves are sources of revenue on the farm? One of these subordinate interests is swine feeding. Now why does the dairyman always feed more or less hogs, when his agricultural pro- fession is dairying? Simply becuse the hog adds to the dairy pro- ceeds by utilizing the refuse of the dairy and converts it into money, which, added to the dairy proceeds, makes more income from the same outlay. Now if hog feeding can go Nand in hand with the dairy and make that industry pay better, why could not poultry culture also be added and pay proportionately twice as well, since no one branch of farm industry is so well suited to poultry culture as is the dairy, and one pound of poultry is worth two pounds of hog, and it takes less feed value to make © it, for the hen would economize much that would not be utilized, either by the cow or the hog. But, since you cannot count your chickens till they are hatched, nor sell them until they are grown, the question is now to hatch, and how to raise them after they are hatched. 82 ILLINOIS STATE DATIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. Now in this, as in any and all other branches of farm industry, you should know but one way, and that the right and the best way, and knowing it should practice it. And I can give you no better plan and advise to no better method than to use the same care and diligence in the selec- tion of your breeding pen of hens as you do in the selection of your dairy cows and brood sows. You select these from the cream of your flock and mate them with the best. And why do you do this? Because expe- rience has taught you that this method pays the best. Do the same thing with your hens, for that pays you best which you make pay the best. The days of slipshod hap-hazard farming, like that of every other industry, are past. The strife for supremacy, or even for existence is too intense to admit of such methods, and none know better than the farmer and the farmer’s wife that “‘The dust of labor wins the prize.” Select your breeding pen in February from your one and two year old hens. Never use pullets if it can be avoided, for your old hens lay Jarger eggs and the chicks are stronger. Put six or eight of these hens in a pen and mate them with well ma- tured, well developed cockerel. Ifa larger pen is needed put in twice that number and have two cockerels, putting one in one day and the other the next. These hens are to furnisheggs for hatching. Use other hens to do the hatching. Do not attempt to breed from a male bird that has been frosted, or allowed to fight, or has run with a !arge flock of hens during the winter, for if you do your early hatch will be a great disappointment. Get your male birds from someone who makes a business of raising virds for breeding purposes. This gives you new blood in a fresh bird. Do not count too much on a “‘sccre card,” for a good, strong, healthy bird is worth more to breed from than a “‘score card.” Gather the eggs every day and date them, and be sure they do not get chilled before nor after gathering. By this method you will insure a good hatch of strong, healthy chicks, and in general more pullets than roost- ers. ILLINOIS STATE DAIi YMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 83 Separate your cockerels from your pullets as soon as they begin to crow, and sell them just as soon as you can, for a two pound chicken at 10c per pound comes to just as much as a four pound oneat 5c per pound. Never keep a male bird of any kind with your general flock of iene hens, especially in the winter. Your hens will lay more eggs, will be stronger and less liable to disease, and an infertile egg will keep five times as long as a fertile one. 7 Be sure and get rid of all ycur young roosters by or before Christ- mas, for if they are not large enough to sell or make chicken pie of, kill them for they will freeze to death or the hogs will have them. And right here is where the hog first acquires the chicken eating habit. It makes no difference what breed or variety you prefer, the methods of culture are the same. But remember this, you must cater to the market, for the market will not cater to you. If the market demands a yellow-legged, yellow-skinned chicken, that is the chicke nyou must raise. In the fall and early winter culi down your flock hard and always keep less than you think you ought to, rather than more, for a large flock will not pay in the same ratio asasmaller one. This is the reason why you should get rid of all half grown, half dead scallawags, for they take up the room and breed lice and distemper, and just before spring they die, which is just what you ought to have helped them to do in the fall. Eggs pay better than chickens, but your laying hen must have some shell-making material, of which ground oyster shells is the best. But if eggs is your staple object you must breed and feed for eggs, for the all- purpose hen, like the all-purpose ccw or horse, if they ever existed, are now among the lost arts. The best feed I ever gave young chickens was cheese curd made from sour milk mixed with alittle corn meal. The best feed for growing chicks is sour milk and wheat, and the best feed for laying hens is wheat and sour milk. More than one-half of the chickens hatched on the farm are stunted before they are four weeks old for want of good, wholesome drink, and a stunted chicken is a haif dead chicken, and an easy prey to lice and diseases. 84 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. Don’t attempt to keep turkeys if you have near neighbors, for your turkeys and your neighbor’s garden will not assimilate. Do not attempt to keep geese or ducks, unless you Lave a suitable place for them. Go slow and don’t attempt to keep but cne variety. Success in any business, and especially the >oultry business, is like going upstairs. Begin at the bottom end go up one step at a time, for if you attempt to make it «et two jumps, you will invariably lack wind for the last jump. Is there danger of over-production? The United States last year im- ported 13,000,000 dozen eggs atacost of $2,000,000. The poultry and egg produce of the United States last year was $560,000,000; cotton, $410,000,000; hay, $436,000,000; dairy, $254,000,000; excess of poultry over dairy, $306,- 000,000. While the poultry industry is laiger than any other, it is the only agri- cultural product we do not export, as cur entire yield is far short of home demand, and with our rapid inercase in city population, and our cold storage facilities, it will remain so indefinitely. Besides more eggs are used now in manufacturing purposes than was the entire consumption forty years ago. New York alone absorbed $45.000,000 in this prodact last year. The western farmer knows how to handle horses and cattle, but system and economy in the culinre of hugs und poultry he has yet to learn. DISCUSSION. Mr. Johnson: May I ask where you got your statistics in regard to the dairy. A.: Fram the Chicago Poultry Journal. Mr. Johnson: You believe what you have read that $254,000,00¢ was the dairy product in the United States last year. You believe that? A.: I don’t know. I suppese it is. Q.: Do you know what the dairy product of this state amounts to? A.: Iamona poultry paper. ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 85 Q.: I think the man that gave those statistics was way off. I can’t give the exact figures, but I noticed that only a few years ago there was an estimate of $75,000,000 for this state only. A.: Well if I had a paper I could draw and give the amount of White- side county on poultry. Mr. Johnson: I believe he tigured on poultry, but I think the nian who gave the figures on dairy was off his base. A.: I hope he is, because that means. prosperity everywhere. Mr. BE. H. Goldsmith. Is it « fact that the egg production of the farmers everywhere in general is iess than formerly, and if so to what Jo you attribute it? A.: I have heard that remark made several times, and I wiil have to attribute it to two leading forces. in the first place, years ago, before the poultry business got to the extent it now is, the farmer carried only the business hen; now you can’t go by a farm kouse without seeing from 100 to 150 different varieties; nor can you have gained a good fowl if you kee) only the business hen. Another cauise is also the poultry of the present day are over bred in size. The American is not satisfied with stock; if he eould, he would have them as large as mastodons. Thereis injury in over breeding. Some are over Dred for feathers, and that is just as injurious If the farmer wouid go right back to first principles and breed a good strony flock of business hens and keep them on the farm and no others he would have better returns than he did tweney-five years ago. Mr. Ikert: Did you ever find the cost of a pound of ponitry with different feeds? A. That has been figured so many times and published so many times that I made it no point inthis paper. It depends entirely where vou are. Q. Wave you ever figured the price of a dozen eggs? A. I answer as before it has been mentioned so many times that I did. not make an account of it. I have done so but have no paper here. I ain living in town now, but have been on the farm and I might know it if. it was not for one thing, I keep cows and nothing else and take the milk, but the hens have all they want. 86 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. Mr. Gurler: Now what were the figures you gave in regard to the dairy production? A. $254,000,000. Q. 1 dont wish to say you are wrong. You are all right, but the facts in this case are, we have got in the United States seventeen million cows, that is practically correct. The last paper shows this, ihat 150 pounds of butter te a cow, and that is little enough isn’t it- Q. Yes sir. i Re Q We put it at 16 cents a pound, that is $20.09 for a cow, and seveti- teen million cows, $340,000,000 fcr butter, and there is nothing teken into aceount there for the calves raised on skim milk, just butter. Nowasf say, I am talking to show the unreasonableness of those figures. That cannot be irue, it seems to me improbable. Mr. Johnson: Is it a fact that the profit in keeping poultry is largeiy due to jthe fact that chickens eat what nothing else will, and picks up? If you charge the expense of the feed wouldn’t you run the chicken to death? A. No, I think not. I hada fiock of White Leghorns hens. I used ten bushels of wheat at 70 cents a bushel, and I sold $22.00 worth of eggs before that wheat was gone. They had nothing besides that. Q. You did not sell your eggs in the regular market? A. No sir. : A Member: In regard to that matter of statistics, it is the hardest thing to get at the value of the dairy product of the State of Illinois; in fact, ae have to depend largely on the assessor, and there is. no way of getting at it. If you ask an assessor how many cows he has? how much ' putter he has, he says he cannat tell you, and he cannot within two rows of apple trees, but he will tax you. ° Mr. H. B. Gurler: In regard to the amount of skill that is necessary to make a success of the poultry business on the farm. [am thinking con- _ siderable of making something of the line of work in connection with my dairy in’ place of hogs, and with the milk I cannot have hogs near my dairy work, for fear of hog cholera. Well now, what do you think a man of ordinary intelligence can I get there to handle the, poultry business. Does it take skill? Is there danger of disease? ILLINOIS STATE DAJRYMEN’S ASSCCIATION. : 8T A. I will answer the questions right straight along. The pouitry business, like every other business, must be started right, for it does re= quire care and attention. ‘The way I arrange is this: [separate my breed- ing hens and put them by themselves. I sent eggs asa present into another county to a man by the name of scott, and I sent him sixteen eggs and he had sixteen chickens, and raised ther: all with the exception of one that got hurt. I use my hens as I1donot think an incubator is any good’on the farm. There is no difficulty in ratching them, butinraisingthen:. After they are hatched let the hen do it. When the hen is set and in too dry 2 place sprinkle the eggs once ina while, and when she comes off the eggs then fix a box that she van go int» along side of a fence or building and take a strong string and tie around the hen’s leg and give her, say, six feec, and tie the end of it where you can get at it. She will get twisted up at first, but after a while will not mind it. Q. About diseases. Do you have any trouble? A. Nosir. It is a good deal like stirring up things. I don’t know how milkers are, but down my way our farmers breed and feed cholera into their hogs, and then doctor it up. If you have the cholera in your hen, it is for this reason, it is because they have not got sharp grit to use. You must furnish that for them. I keep oyster shells for them all the time. If vou have a hen that has cholera, you doctor it. if a person can be cured of consumption wien their lungs are gone, then you can cure 2 hen after her gall has bursted, but 1 don’t believe it ean be done. Mr. Dietz: I happened to visit Mr. Gurler’s a couple of times and from his question I anticipate him keeping from 500 to 1000 hens. Now ) the situation about this hen business is this: I know a gentleman in Chicago who has in the last three or four years sunk about $10,000 in the hen business. He had great Cifficulty in getting a competent mar to look after his poultry, and I agree with Mr. Noyes that it is quite an’ easy matter.to-raise.chickens when you do it in asmall way. It requires a man of very keen sight that wiil spend all his time among his chickens. _Q. Would Mrs. Gurler take care of the chickens? A. No sir. ey oe 88 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. Mr. Gurler:. My idea is this gentlemen: Js to select a man and give him the poultry, that to be his work, with the exception of helping with the milking. If I could take the poultry business in with the milk I would like it. That is my line of thouzht. Mr. Dietz: I noticed this morning at the breakfast table that they. did not have any eggs. Isthereany way of getting fresh eggs in the winter time? : Mr. Noyes: Keep nothing but the business hens and take care of them as you do of your cows. Wothe same with your hens. @. Do you believe in artificial heat? A. Nosir. Bluff Jersey: I have knowledge from several years’ experience of. carrying poultry with my Jers¢y herd. I have not tried to Keep 1000, but some with the pig pen and some with the creamery. I have made a spec- jalty of fine eggs. In distributing butter to our customers we also had our eggs and we guaranteed every egg to be under a week of age in the winter, and three days in the summer. We have an incubator and wouid not do without it. I have two incubators at the present time. We han- dle our poultry in exactly the same way this gentleman says, and expect to have eggs for our customers all: the time. . We realize over the market, and it requires only ordinary skill to carry on a small plant of that kind. A man has to be pretty careful. If Mr. Gurler has a man’ whom he can trust he can do for the powltry. He can do much better in the business, that with his dairy. I wwould not advise Mr. Gurler to cary chickens lixe sheep, but carry just a happy medium and it will be a nice source of revenue. The buttermilk and sour milk are very essential in such a business. I breed Jerseys and have bred them for eighteen years. Mr. Monrad: Do you think it would be practical to ask a man to attend to milking and have the cure of the poultry? Don’t you think a man’s work would be interfered with, with milking morning and eveu- ing? Don’t you think it would b2 better to give him the care of the hers and nothing else, or the milking and.nothing else? | Bluff Jersey: There is one of my family at the head of every de- partment. The one at the head of this department is 13 years old. He ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 89 attends to -200.chickens..and we natch a little over 600.chickens.- This poy helps with the milking and helps to deliver the butter and works in the garden and hauling, and he is: on hand for that. Mr. Ikert. When does the vv have any time for play or go to Sun- day school? . A. Every Sunday morning re goes to Sunday school at 9:30. The old man stays at home and looks after things about the farm. The boy does two-thirds of the work of the poultry and considers that play. Q. Is it your own boy or a hired man? A. I worked on a dairy farm tor fifteen years and did my share anil now I am preparing for old age. My boys are at the head of all departments and when they began to work in the creamery they worked for a salary. Mr. Spicer: How many hens do you keep at the present time for egg purposes? Bluff Jersey: I have 200. Inthe fall and winter we cull down lots that we really think we ought to keep. Ordinarily 100 pullets and 100 hens. That’s 200. Mr. Spicer: How many eggs are you getting this cold weather? A. At the present time Iam not doing anything in that line. I scld out the plant a short time ago and am-just waiting to take hold again. . We are building iow. Q@. Were you running a pliant at the present time, how many eges yould you naturally expect to get from 200 hens? A. I should expect twelve dozen a day, at least. Q. One hundred and fourty-four eggs from 200 hens. What kind are A. Brown Leghorns. Q. What price did you get for your eggs? A. Three cents above the market. Mr. Ikert: I would like to zive you an experience my wife had with poultry. She has sole control of it. I have nothing to do with it. Our hen house is very simple, being nothing but posts set in the ground ana boarded_up,and windows.in_the south side. In the winter. time I banix 90 ) ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. corn fodder around and it makes it warm. She keeps about 50 to 60 hens, and every morning in the winter time she would have a warm breakfast for the chickens, before we had o.11 breakfast. She has been feedinz sugar beets to the cows, and slie takes some down to the chickens in the morning and puts some in their food and it makes the hens feel good. We have 40 to 45 hens. She gets from one to two dozen eggs every day. The hens get out a lot every day in the barn. She carries wheat to the chickens now and lets her hens work for it, scratch for it. The eggs are delivered with the milk. We get 25 cents a dozen for them and cannot supply the trade. My wife always wants her money from the sale of the eggs aS soon as we get home Some Mistakes and Trials in Creamery Management H. R. DUEL, FRANKS, ILL. In this life we are irritated by mistakes, and perplexed with trials. ‘We wish to notice for a few minutes a few mistakes and trials as we find them in the creamery business. First, the farmer makes a mistake when, either through carelessness or heedlessness, he fails to provide good, wholesome milk for the cream- ery. One of, the chief sources, if not the chief one, comes from lack of cleanliness on the part of the patron, or whoever has the care of the milk on the farm. Much has been written and much has been said upon this subject of cleanliness, but in view of the fact that a vast amount of inferior putter is placed upon our markets today, leads us to believe there is yet a broad field in which to-continue this fight between . filthiness and cleanliness—between care and carelessness. Yes, this warfare with filth on the one side and cleanliness on the other, must go on, and on, and on, until this arch enemy of butter is completely annihilated through the combined efforts of patron and butter- ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. Of maker. And even then the conflict must continue to the end, that it may not return with renewed vigor and determination. The farmer exercises great care in selecting the seeds for his fields. How careful he is when the seeds have come forth that they are carefully cultivated! Why? He expects’ a harvest later on, and he so plans and labors that if a failure should come it would be no fault of his. But the same farmer may fall far short of the standard when it comes to furnish- ing the creamery with pure milk. If a milk can which has made many trips to the ereamery couid speak, it would tell a story something like this. is * «Twas purchased by a farmer who said he was patronizing a cream- ery. ‘Was taken home by him and ‘the members of the house- hold commented upon my clean, polished appearance. Milking time came. I was carried to the barn with others of my class, and placed with them in front ot the cows. Being close to my broth- ers, I noticed they: bore marks of rouzh usage. Their coats were soiled ‘with dirt and from their mouths their issued 3 peculiarly offensive odor. I said nothing, however, for fear of injuring their feelings. Well, the milk- ing was finished; the milk was poured within us. It was a bitter cold ‘night in-midwinter, and to prevent the milk from freezing we were left with the cows and the farmer covered us with horse blankets and straw, taking care, however, that the covers were not down tight in order (as - the farmer explained) that the animal heat might escape. “Well, the winter wore away and summer came. With the return of warm-weather the farmer, of course, adopted different tactics. After on milking was over, instead of being covered, we were placed upon the cook side of the cow stable to be in readiness for the creamery in the morn- ing. ' Upon our return ‘to the creamery the farmer was in too much of a hurry to empty our contents, se-we were left in the sweltering sun ‘- until noon. By this time the milk had become so sour and thick it was with a great deal of coaxing that the hogs could be induced to drink it. “ “The housewife being away, the servant took charge of us and went through ‘he motions of creansing us. I coulé feel something around 9? ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. the seams of my interior.» One of my companions: looked and said there was a yeilowish scum in which there were millions upon millions of tiny animals that were increasing with almost incredible rapidity. ’“Twas in August, a splendid month for the growth of false bacteria. “The individual having me in charge became more and more careless and indifferent. One sultry night I was filied with milk, the purity of which couid not be questionéd. But soon the microbes began their la- bors of destruction. They began to multiply at an alarming rate. The morning came and I was taken to the factory with my unclean contents. I was certain the milk would be rejected by the buttermaker, but in an jnguarded moment it was emptied into the weigh can and from there went on through the different recepticles until the cream from waich reached the cream vat. “The next morning as the buttermaker entered the creamery a for- eign odor greeted him. It became stronger as he came nearer the cream vat. He commenced stirring and smelling and tasting, until he was con- vinced that the butter made from that cream would receive condemnation from some quarter of the globe. But he went on with his work. The butter was made and packed—some in tubs, some in jars:--It.so happened that this heedless patron received’ a jar of this ‘butter. Dinner time comes; the family gathers around the board to partake of that-set before them. The farmer is first to use the butter. An expression of surprise and disgust o’ershadows his face. ‘What’s the matter with this butter? I never tasted such stuff! Why, itis strongenoughtowalk! Ifthat but- termaker is going to make such butter as this, i’ll speak to the manager and use my influence to have him removed.’ ’”’ One of the buitermaker’s trials. Patrons of the creamery, if you are here today and are getting poor butter from that creamery, instead of heaping anathemas upon the head of the buttermaker, get after those cans with water and soap and lye and elbow grease. Give them a bath of scalding .water which will forever exterminate those filthy germs. Provide a clean place for your milk, away from the obnoxious odors of. the-cow-stable, away from.the contam- ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 93 inating influences of horse blankets. Be sure that everything with which the milk comes in contact is scrupulously clean. Then if your but- ter still continues ‘“‘off’ get after. the buttermaker, but not until then. So much for the mistakes of the patron in this particular. Again, the farmer makes a mistake when he accuses the buttermaker of cutting his test when he has no stronger proof than supposition to bear out his accusations. We as buttermakers often have this question pro- pounded: “Why is it my test varies so much? Last month it was so and so, bui this month there & a falling off of three-quarters of a pound per cwt.” Fellow buttermakers, what answer co you submit? We have ventured to say perhaps he was milking a greater number of fresh cows. No. Same cows as last month. Or probably he was feeding different rations. No. Same feed. And so we might go on enumerating several agents that might have had a hand in lowering his test. But no, none of these. He desires us to know that he believes the man who did the testing and he alone is responsible for nis low test. Let your thoughts revert to the past for a moment. Go back a few years when you, or rather your wife, was making butter in the good old way, making butter by the milk-pan process. Do you remember that for some unaccountable reason you could not get the same amount of butter at every churning? Did you stop to consider what might be the difficulty? Did you accuse your wife of practising dishonesty? Did you come to the conclusion you were careless about the care of your cows, or in the milking of them? No? Yet you were aware the yield of butter varied from time to time. What was true of the cow in this particular, then, is equally true now. Her peculiarity in this respect remains about the same. The creamery operator may have the milk just the right temper- ature. The separayor may. be running up toits standard both in motion and capacity. The tester may show but a trace of fat on the skim milk. Yet when he comes to weigh the butter and compare it with the amount of milk, there is a shortage in the yield for which he cannot account. So, my farmer friend, if you are patronizing a creamery and your test is not just what you think it ought to be, unless you know it should be D4 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. higher, do not accuse the buttermaker of taking from you what is right- fully your own. If you have in your possession conclusive evidence that he is a defrauder, a swindler, a type of dishonesty, it will not be a very hard matter to have him removed. Such a man has no business in a ereamery or anywhere else, save fn the penetentiary.But the buttermaker makes a mistake wnen he neglects to set a cleanly example before his patrons. e : | Here is a buttermaker who is very particular about the quality of miik he receives. If milk comes in slightly tainted he tells the farmer he cannot make good butter from such milk as that. Or if any ‘foreign substance appears, such as leaves, straw, or dirt, he calls the farmer’s attention to it. Or if the outside of the cans has a midnight appearance he comments upon the fact. All well and good. We all agree, I think, that this is the duty of the man at the way can But let us look at the other side of the question. Perhaps the farm er would be justified in saying to this buttermaker: ‘No doubt it would improve the appearance of your room if you would sweep down those coopweb festoons that adorn the ceiling. Or allow me to say that a little water and gold dust would improve the looks of the outside of your receiy- ing vat. Ferhaps if you would take some afternoon and clean that sour | milk tank it would aid in keepin my cans sweet. Or, it might add to the keeping qualities of your butter if you would perfume your breath with something milder than tobacco, and’ throw away that pipe I see in your pocket. And it seems tome a man in your business should appear with cleaner hands and face than those which you possess.’ Yes, it ‘seems to me that we ought nottoask the patron to perform a duty we do not perform ourselves. If we expect cleanliness, we must give cleanli- mss in return. If we desire neatness we must be neat. For ‘““Whatsoever @ man soeth, that shall he also reap.” Again the manager and board of directors make a mistake when they permit the creamery to be operated upon the Sabbath day. But we are told it is a necessity. I cannot believe it. It is no more of a necessity than it is for the farmer to till his land upon that day. Why do you say ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. i 95 itis a necessity? Is it becausethe farmer has not enough cans to hold two days’ milk? Cans are not so very expensive. Is it because he cannot keep his milk so long? Clean cans and cold water will result in the loss-of but little milk. Is it because you are getting 20,000 or 25,000 Ibs. of milk a day and by remaining idle upon the Sabbath would result in your being flooded on Monday? If you are so fortunate as to have such a heavy run as that you can well afford to procure more separator capacity. It is not a necessity. ; I have in mind a company who is operating a number of creameries in this state, and not one of them is run upon the Sabbath day. Whenthe president of this company first embarked in the business he resolved that his creamery should remain idle upon this day of rest. He kept his resolution. He gradually acquired more creameries, and the same rule applied to ail he acquired. This man has gone to his long home. Buthe has left to his children a legacy far more sacred than silver and gold, and he has left to the creamerymen of this state ample proof that six days shalt thou have for labor, but the seventh shall be for rest, can be carried out successfully in the creamery business. As time goes on there seems to be new recruits joining the ranks of those who observe this day of rest. As we travel through the country we see in some of the postoffices, barbershops, meat markets, etc., this notice: “Closed Hereafter on Sunday.” Shall the creamerymen of this country be not found in this procession? Fall in! Fall in! If you are running your creamery seven days per week would it not be well for you to go home to that creamery and put upthisnotice: ‘This creamery will be closed on Sunday from this day and date.” In conclusion we wish to speak of a trial which comes to a butter- maker, especially one just starting in business. He is confused by ciffer- ent agents soliciting his order for their wares. A buitermaker retired one night. The moon was shedding her mellow light, The stars came twinkling one by one, Showing that the light of day was done. 96 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. The poor man, weary with cares of the day, His head on his pillow of down he lay, His weary eyes closed for their needed repose And visions of dreamland pefore him arose. -In a room very cosy and spacious he sat, Surrounded by men from this state and that, All seemingly ready their tongues to wag And all filled full of the word we call brag. ! Tripp was there with that smile serene, That smile at conventions most always seen. “If you want to make butter without a fauit Do as I tell you—use Genesee salt.’’ Then Bates loomed up in his bland way, Which is almost certain to win the day. “If you want to make butter like your grandmother uster Put nothing in it but the wcrld-renouned Worcester.” Then Riley M. Bates arose from his seat. “The salt which I sell can hardly be beat. You may pound, you may crush till your face is aflame, Those beautiful crystals remain just the same.” Then another salt man appeared on the field. “The use of my salt will increase your yield. If you want to make butter that will score 98, Use the sait that was made in Michigan state.” el “Sudy” was there, but had no competition, For his color alone receives recognition. As well you might stop the turbulent flood t As to stop him frcm selling the kind without mud. gat SIOUL ‘Ill ‘eueqiy ‘Aqistoarug 04e49 ‘GQadHH AYIVG AGNV NAVA Se f \ Me ILLINOIS STATE DAIRSMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 97 Over in the corner where the lamp shone bright Arose a person whom we all know as Knight. “If you want to know all that is to be known Take the Dairy Produce and you will be shown.” “Hold on, Brother Knight; pray, listen to me! This man is just starting—start right it must be. The paper which I now hold in my hand Should be in evry buttermaker’s home in the land. “Just come to our office in New York, if you please, And Ill prove this assertion with the greatest of ease. Our books fairly groan with subscriptions sent in.” And then from the corner came a terrible din. The din woke him up—‘“O! to be ever alone peal) land from which all agents have flown. Angel of Mercy! take me there now, Where the wind from thy wings will cool my faint brow. O! peaceful emotion, ecstatic bliss, To be ever free from a scene like this.” DISCUSSION. Mr. Jonnson: How do you get aiong withoul!l breaking the Sabbath? Mr. Duell: -Take in milk Saturday night through the hot weather. Q: How hard do you work Saturday evenings? A; Get through about 9 or 10 o’clock at the outside. Q: I remember having had a conversation with a gentleman that you know and he told me that they closed up promptly at 12 o’clock Saturday night. I would as soon my boys would work a little Sunday morning as to have to work until 12 o’clock Saturday night. 98 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. Mr. Carr: As one of the sons of the gentleman you speak of I woultl say that we never worked until 12 c’clock Saturday night. We never had to. If the farmers brought the milk at any time at all, all we had to do was to separate the cream and watch the separator, and I presume 10 o’clock would invariably see them ready to goin. Idon’t think we have a man who would rather work any other way than to do it Saturday night. They don’t have to skim it or churn it on the Sabbath day. AsI said before, they have to take care of it. Mr. Johnson: If they have to skim it and take it to the milk house that is as much work as to put it in the cans and take it to the factory. A. Is it any more to put it in the cans to cool than to go to the factory, probably it needs more care than it does to go to the factory. Q@. Yes sir, 1t is more care, you have got td. have beside water, you have got to have ice. -A. You might have to have a windmill. I don’t believe Mr. Johnson believes what he is taiking about. Mr. Johnson: J avoid Sunday work. I have taken my milk in and allowed my churning to wait. Mr. Carr: Why not take it in Saturday night? A. Because the men have to work too hard Monday morning. Mr. President: Isn’t it a fact that Monday you get a lot of poor, bad milk? Mr. Duell: Not very cften, not where they have taken care of it. At first there is some trouble; but we have none now at our own creamery. We get miik Saturday night and Mcnday morning. Mr. President: We have two factories. We don’t run Sunday for the reason the people won’t bring the milk Sunday. Mr. Carr: I remember one place where we just simply said we woul.l not run on the Sabbath day. Wesaid the factory would not run if we never got a pound of milk, and the facts in the case are that we never lost a pound of milk. The patrons woud rather take in fourteen extra cans of milk Monday morning than go cn Sunday. ILLINOIS STATE DAIF YMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 99 ADDRESSES. 5. H. MONRAD, REPRESENTATIVE OF THE UNITED STATES DL- PARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. It is true I am here from the Dairy Division, but I am also here to express the regrets of my chief, Maj. Henry E. Alvord, that he could not be present himself. It is also true that I feel very incompetent to repre- sent the Dairy Division, as I have not been connected with its dairy wor: for the past summer, and really am not posted on what the Division has done, at least not more, or may benect as much as those of you who have been reading the dairy papers. This much I do know: The Division has proved that we can take ou: best creamery butter and ship it in refrigerator cars from Iowa or other Western States; and if the steamers are provided with refrigerators then we can land it and sell it even with the best butter sold in the London markets, possibly not with unsalted butter from France, but with the average Danish creamery. But it has also been shown that it must be the very best creamery butter. Now this is very satisfactory in so far that we have found that there is a minimum price below which we need not sell. But, after all, the home maiket is the best. It does not, as yet, pay to export our best creamery butter. Wecan Sell it at a higher price here. I said the best creamery butter. How much of the best creamery butter is made? That, ladies and gentlemen, is the trouble of our dairy industry. There is a lack of uniformity even in the production of our creameries. : It was not long ago, I happened to be on South Water street in the city of Chicago, and asked some of the men there how the quality of the but- ter was? They told me it was noi good. I asked: ‘‘What percentage of extra creamery do you receive, nct what you return as extra to the cream- ery, but what is really extra?” JIasked if the percentage would be 25 per 100 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. cent, and they said that was too high. Thus, in spite of all our improve- meuts in the dairy business; in spite of modern conveniences in our creameries, we still have a grea: deal left to do, and that is to work along the line indicated in the paper read by Mr. Duell, starting at the producticn of better milk. How are we going to get better milk? Not until we can induce the farmers to understand that it is in their own interest to deliver good milk at the creamery; not until we can make them understand that it will not do to be satisfied just to get rid of the milk; not until ther will the creamery be able to make first-class butter. I am still more pleased to see Mi. Duell show the necessity of our creaza- eries setting a good example in cleanliness. There is great room for im- provement, even among our best creameries. There will be found among them some that art not at all up ic the standard of cleanliness, which is an absolute necessity, if first-class butter is to be produced. The Dairy Division has, besides making these experimental ship- ments, also published a great maiy publications, and bulletins, and if there is a farmer who don’t know it, he must know now that he can get these bulletins as long as they last, by sending a postal card requesting to have them sent to his or her address. It will not cost anything. Send to the Agricultural Department at Washington, stating what subject you are interested. In this way you see, the National Department is trying to help the farmers, and if you pause a minute and think of the difference between now and several years ago when but a few so-called scientific men thought it worth their while to waste their time in such insignificant sub- jects as butter, milk, and cheese Now we have some of the best intelli- gence there is, using all their time in studying these matters. I remember when I first learued to make butter, how absurd I thought it was to have to be scrupulously clean. Finally, after six weeks of doing nothing but scrubbing and cleaniug I found out how necessary it was to ~ carry out the cleanliness, and now scientists have explained it, by show- ing how the least speck in our milk of dirt will carry bacteria that wiil affect our milk. The least speck in our milk will breed, if you please, into millions of bacteria by the time the butter is made. So you see, knowing this makes it easier to keep things clean. ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 101 I don’t know that there really is anything further to say from Wash- ington as to the Division work fcr the past six months. I will say this: That any matter you wish to ask alout you can write to Maj. Henry E. Alvord, Chief of the Dairy Division.and if he can in anyway assist you, he will answer any question you have to puttohim. Muchas we may appre-— ciate this help, unless the farmers help themselves, it is all thrown away. I am disgusted to see at the State Dairymen’s meeting that we have no larger meeting than this. We ought to have at least 1,000 people here. Now I don’t mean to say arything harsh to those who do come to these meetings. This meeting is fairly well attended, but we don’t reach | the men whom we want io reach, and I want to say one thing to you present here. If you would go home and organize small farmers’ clubs and hold meetings (even if but ten or twenty attended) in a school house, once a month, and get up discussions about how to handle milk, and how to take care of cows, eic., then you would be on the right road to salvation. You could send delegates to these State meetings, and you can get all the help you want from the Government if ycu show them that you want tc help yourselves first. I am generally called a crank because I always have some hobby. One of the hobbies | started in 1890 was, 1 happened to see a little paper on how the Smiss cheese-makers watch the farmers and insures zood milix. Most of your creamery men pay according to the percentage of the fat. The question comes up, is the fat :lways a measure of value. Is 5 percent milk that is full of deleterious bacteria worth as much as 4 per cent milk that is sweet and wholesome? Ta Switzerland they do not pay accordilg to the quality of the milk, but they use hE they call fermentation tests. It is simply to take a sample of vour farmer’s milk in a bottle and set it in warm water, (90 to 110 degrees) and keep it warm and cover the glass for some nine or ten hours. If then you will examine your sample of milk: you will see the difference. You will get an ocular demonstration. In my native country I notice ihat this discussion of paying according to other quality, than the fat, according to the condition of the milk, has- been discussed very much by creamery men. I see that most of them 102 ILLINOIS STATH DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. agree that it is hardly practicable to carry on that system. But we can offer premiums to the farmers wh:o deliver the best milk during the month or year. Let the creamery men give a premium for the best milk during the month, taking a test and explaining it. Take the tests carefully. It is some work because you have got to have those glasses all sterilized and go at it properly, but it is work that pays. Take your test, and after twelve hours it will be coagulated in one solid column. You smell it and it has a clean, pleasant acid smell. in another, fermentation bubbles of various sizes show, and the smell is horrible. Let me tell you of a personal experience I have had in a creamery aft bita the last year, where I made this fermentation test. Out of sixtv samples there were only ten samples that were perfectly zood, and there were ten samples that simply stunk—there is no other word for it. I want the creamery men io stir up this matter and let them offer premiumis to those farmers who eine the best milk, and one | hundred dcllars spent every year on some such system, I am confident, will help you to get good milk. I give this hint in order that something may be in the report on this subject. I don’t know that I have anything new to offer, I have been out of the business for the last six months, end have not followed the dairy interests as much asl used to. If there areany other questions I would rather see the meeting get up a discussion: DISCUSSION. Mr. Humphrey: Were the sixty samples sent from the same cows? A. Just alike, from the same patrons. Let me tell you more of this test. Get some glasses as long as that (shows size) and all alike. This is set in a heater, or hot water, the steam connected with the heater gives a uniform heat. You want just the right temperature. They were set in the same condition and each vessei was covered. It is a simple thing, but it requires great care, and mind vou, if you are going to do it, don’t teli your buttermaker to do it for extra chores. Get one of your farmer’s daughter and show her how to do it. That will give more satisfaction ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 103 and ne suspicions of manipulations. You don’t need to let her know the numbers. After you have numbered them, keep that yourself, and let her give the test. It is no use talking I want to see one woman or girl around the creamery. Take the average girl and she is more conscientious iu such a test. I do want to say one word onthis Sunday question. WhileI ama lazy man on Sunday, I must say that I don’t see, in a large creamery, how it is possible for the farmers to get the best financial results unless you work on Sunday. If you close up the creamery all together on Sunday, but I want to ask a question of Mr. Carr: What about the cream. Is that left to take care of itself from Saturday until Monday morning? Mr. Carr: Nosir. ILamnopuitermaker myself. Perhaps Mr. Dueli ’ could tell better. Mr. Monrad: It has got to be taken care of? Mr. Carr: Cool down Saturday night. Mr. Monrad: You leave it unstirred from Saturday night until Mon- day morning? . Mr. Duell: No sir, have to stir it several times on Sunday. It is not much work to take care of the cream. Mr. Monrad: I just want to show that you have to do a little some- thing. Mr. Carr: That butter that is made Monday morning. I don’t think we have ever had any bad results from it. It is just as good butter as made any other time in the week; the cream as good to be cooled and held back. Mr. Monrad: Would you, if you made butter for the National Con- vention, as soon take it from Monday’s cream, or take it from another day. Mr. Carr: As I said before, Ian. not a butter maker; but that buttcr always goes on with the rest, and I think facts will prove me right. I think our putter keeps up with the common run. It has got a reputation of its own. It is not to be overlooked. Mr. Monrad: That’s just why you don’t think you can prove quality 104 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. by saying that it goes. Because creameries that have the reputation that the Palace Car Co. has, there is no kicks made. Mr. Carr: I have thought that our butter has more flavor sometimes. Mr. Monrad: You have to ripen it more? Mr. Carr: That is no detriment to the butter. Mr. Monrad: Idosay that it does require quite a lot of work, more care, and a terrible lot of work cn Monday morning for the buttermaker. I think that question should be left to the individual farmer. I would say though that I would rather werk Sunday forenoon than to be so: crowded Monday morning, but that is a personal question. A. I have two or three men in the factory taking turns running Sat- urday nights and the rest of them are off, and the same with taking care of the cream Sundays. Mr. Monrad. In speaking of this I will say that in Germany a law has been passed that creameries should give their men rest one day of the week, and I think the boys here would be pleased to have it arranged that way. : Mr. Carr: We always arrange it that the men take turns workirg Saturday nights. One man left a position who was getting $125.00 and came to us for $75.00 a month an account of the Sunday work. It broke his health and he’says he had to get out of it, and he came to us, and he would not go back for $125.00 a month ner anything like it and work so hard. Mr. Powell: There is an underlying principle in’all these things that is like what Mr. Monrad reminded us of in his remarks when he said something about the cream being better primed and therefore having bet- ter flavor. There is no question, that in a financial sense it is profitable to keep the Sabbath day asa day of rest. Now it is a difficult thing to adjust. I have had experience. Being a broken down minister moving on: a farm, beginning the sale of milk inasmalltown. I tried Sunday work. I could not doit. The only thing I could do was to reduce the work to a: minimum, which i did, but there was some Sunday work, and that question: of Sunday work perplexes me yet. I think we must still, in this direction, persistently study and plan to reduce the work:to a minimum and be- ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 105 lieve it will be profitable financially. A pastor said one day in’ his ser- mon: “My milk, my meat and my bread will keep good from Saturday to Monday morning.” ‘Oh,’ said another. ‘So will anybody else’s.” “I am glad to hear it,’’ he said. But most important, where there are more mistakes made, or where the greatest opportunity to help ourselves is in testing the individual cows of our farnis. I predict and I believe that there is no line of manufacture in this country that could compare today with the lack of system and intelligence that the dairyman is conducting his busi- ness with hisindividual cows. You take it in iron and steel industry and our manufacturers have got where they command the markets of the world, and how is it? By being master of all the details. They have re- duced the cost until they have accomplished just what they have been after, and obtained results that we cannot comprehend. Well now, why cannot the dairyman command the markets of the world, for our dairy products are the best. If we get down to business we can do it, but not while the ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 109 average cow yields but 130 pounds of butter. I: is almost beyond belief that that is a fact, yet it has beer shown to beaiact. In my own expe- rience I find a very small margin of profit in the cows that will make only 200 pounds of butter per year. Now just stop and consider what is possible along this line. There ‘are many dairies throughout this country that can produce 300 pounds average to a cow. There are dairies that have gotten beyond this and up to 400 pounds, and even beyond that. Now if we put 200 pounds as the margin between profit and loss and make a few comparisons. Take the cow that will produce 300 pounds a year, and the cow that will pro- duce 225’to 250 pounds per year; the cow that produces 300 pounds is making six times the profit to the owner that the cow which produces 225 pounds per cow is making. It seems to me a wonderful thing to think about. Now, the possibilities and practicability of securing dairies of this kind: I will give you alittle of my own expesience. Some one asked me -if I lived on the farm. I do not do the work now; I have done it and have been all through it, commencing in a small way. The last that I run my dairy, producing milk for the creamery, my mature cows—tlie cows that were four years and past—madean average of 329 pounds per cow. ‘I did not think it fair to count the youngsters in, but there was over 300 pounds counting in the heifers. I have done this without living on the farm, and certainly the man who lives on his farm can do better. I know I could do better if I lived atthefarm. There is no reason in the world why any farmer can’t do justas well. It is not simply a high intelligence, but more of application and determination to know what you are about. I don’t need to go on and tell how to do it. You want the scale and you want the Babcock test. You want to weigh your cow’s milk and test it and in the year know how much the cow has produced’ and the aver- age test, and how much by adding 15 per cent to the butter fat, you will have sufficiently accurate basis for the amount of butter you produce. Just to show you that it is practicable, I will tell you of a little expe- rience we had at Champaign with the University of Illinois dairy. Prof. v 110 : ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. Davenport here went out with the scale and the Babcock test and selected out through that vicinity a small dairy that made an average of 300 pounds of butter per cow. (If I have given that wrong call me down). I men- tion this to show that it is practicable.- There are more cows that will make that record of butter, and we want to become acquainted with them. 3 We want to get rid of the unprofitable cow; let them go to the butcker. A poor cow is like the separator we had in one of our creameries. There was very nearly $1,009 invested in it, but it took so much power torun it that we had to get rid of it. Cows will bring something for beef ‘at any time. The feeding question with our dairymen is where a great many of us stumble, stumbie terribly, too. The cows must have all they will consume of some palatable, digestible food, and if palatable it is usually digestible. A great many make the mistake of rot letting the cows have all they will consume, that is a fact with us. In the dairy section of the north part of this state the farmers are not feeding as wellas usual. That is one of the great causes of a falling off in many sections in the milk product. In Chicago this week one of the offi- cers from a railway company there asked me what the cause was of the dropping off in the milk supply. He said they had to hunt and hunt to get dairies to supply their shippers. The parties who get milk over their road have to keep up the supply for the demand for milk and are having a hard time doing it. “‘The management of the road are getting after me quite sharp; what is the trouble,” he said. i told him the foundation lies right here. The farmers will not milk cows unlesS there is more profit in it than making beef. It is so much more confining. They have to be there morning, noon and night, not excepting Sundays. They want, to make more money or they will not be tied up. That is the effect now of the advance in the price of beef, and the present price is inducing many farmers not to feed as well. I was talking with one of my large patrons a short time ago and he said to me: ‘Mr. Gurler, I have got a lot of cows; I might make a lot more milk, but I have not the courage, the faith, to put my grain through my cows. The price of grain is weakening me and I am keeping grain to sell in place of manufacturing milk.’’ This shows the drift in some parts ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 111i of the dairy section. That doesnot hold good in all sections though. There is a great deal of that feeling just now along that line, but it is ail wrong; a man cannot make any profit without feeding the cow. THe better he feeds her, the more of the properly weli-balanced food he puts through the cow, the more profit he will get out of it. Along this line of foods question let me say that a great many mistakes are in not securing a paiatable food. fH'or instance, take our hav crop—our clover hay. A large majority let it become too ripe before cut- ting it. It becomes woody and is not palatable nor digestible. The cow doesn’t consume so much of it and the profit is reduced to a marked degree. There are many mistakes made in feeding unsound food. I havehad trouble through feeding mouldy hay. I have nad trouble with feeding mouldy corn fodder that was putinto the barn and into the mow wit sufficient moisture as to mould. I have known of some serious losses in the dairy section of Northern I]linois coming trom that source. Mouldy sileage, which comes from being tco long exposed, exposing too much surface at a time for the number of cows being fed, is one of the greatest. and I think the greatest stumbling block in the whole field of ensilage feeding. {In many cases the silos are made too large for the numberof cattle to be fed from them. A safe rule is 6 square feet per animal; 8 square feet should be the limit. By commencing on top and skimming over the top with a thin layer, and go over frequently, you wili obviate that trouble entirely. A mistake that is frequently made with cows is permitting them to drink impure water. Cows should never be allowed to drink from anv stagnant water, and especially they should not be allowed ever to drink where they can wade into the water and stand. There is sure to be drop- pings that will contaminate the water. In many cases this happens sim- ply from thoughtlessness, but it is a great damage. We frequently see pictures ot a herd of cattle standing in the water, may be within four, five or six rods from the house. It is nice to look at, till you realize what it means; damage for the cow and various other things. We are not going to make good milk from that kind of acow. Wewill not have cheese or butter that will keep. It will go off-flavor to say the least. Now we will take up the stable question for a few minutes. Cow sta- bles should be made so that the cows are lined up on the guter. Most 112 _ ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. stables are constructed so that the cows are at the manger. Ifa cow is longer than another, it is impossible in that condition to have the cows all clean. Some will have droppings on the platform and it requires a great deal of labor to cleanse them and in a majority of cases they are not cleansed. They are milked in a filthy condition and no matter what the milk is used for, it is contaminated. I have met men of good intelli- gence that thought that flavor—woodeny flavor—was in all butter. Right in this line I will tell you of the report made by a German phy- sician. He closed his report with this statement: “The people of the City of Berlin consume in their milk daily something like 300 cwt. of cow- dirt.””’ There is no question that that is approximately true, and the city is growing at a rate that they cunsuime more than that now. Now this matter of the cow stables—I don’t wish to advertise any- body’s stables—but there are two stalls in the field that the cows can be lined up on the gutter, the girdle and the ground stalls. A mistake is made by a greatmany dairy men in the time of feeding. The cow will not do as well when there is a lack of thought along this line. The cows know when feeding time comes, and if not fed they are uneasy, and they will not do as well as they will when fed and cared for regularly. One point I will mention in the feeding of ensilage. Don’t feed ensilage until you are through milking. There is an odor from it that there is danger of the milk absorbing when milking. Milk will absorb odors in a remarkable degree. It is a great big mistake to have men about the cows of whom cows are afraid. I can think of nothing that annoys me more than to go toa farm and see any of the men out among the cows, and the cows getting away from him because they have a fear of the man. They do not feel safe to let the man get within reach of them. Now, that class of men I pay off just as fast as I can find some on2to put in their places, and they under- stand it too. They know that that sort of work does not fill the bill. It is a mistake to whip a cow when she kicks. I will guarantee there is not a case in a thousand where a cow kicks because she is naturally ugly. I will tell you a little incident uf twenty-five years ago. I lived on the farm and was all done up in enthusiasm for the work. One day a man in our town, who kept a couple of cows, came to me and said one of his cows was getting ugly and he thought he would have to get rid of her. I told ILLINOIS STATE DAIRXMEN’S ASSOCIATION. ; 113 \ him I thought there must be some cause for that, but he didn’t think so. I told him to get a little linseed oil and after milking apply a little of? that to the cow’s teats. The next time I saw him he was smiling and he. said: “Mr. Gurler, that remedy just fixed everything all right. I found that the cow’s teats were chapped. She had been going in the water and got water enough on the udder to cause the teats to chap, but it was not detected in the milking, and when he applied the linseed oil it got better and his ugly cow was cured. This question of the treatmeut of the cows is something that should be carefully studied. It makes ine ugly to have a man abuse a cow. {% will tell you how I feel when I have seen a man abuse a cow. I have feit as though I would like to dress thetellow out in a red suit and put him ia with a bull with an eight-foot fence around them and lei the man fight it out with his own sex. There is no use for it. If I was a girl and saw my fellow ill-treating an animal that wculd be all I would want to know oi him. Here is a mistake that is made occasionally—quite often, I fear. That is fattening a cow after she is dry. I don’t believe a man can do that with any profit. The work done at the experiment station shows there isa great big loss in trying to fatten a dry cow. As soon as you makeup your mind that you want to be rid of her, increase her grain food and keep on milk- ing her, and have her fat within a ccuple of weeks after you quit milking her. That is the only way to get rid of dry cows without making quite a marked loss. There are many mistakes made in feeding cows during the time they are not giving milk, previous to parturition. I believe cows should have no grain food during that period fortwo months. Maybe something like wheat bran would be all right, but better to have no eirainn food for that time. A cow that is made fat on grain food at that time is much more in danger of milk fever than if she is free from grain food at that period. This is not my idea alone, but some of the best veterinary authorities make that declaration. I remember hearing Dr. Pearson of the veterinary college talk to the students one time along that line. I know of people in my little town whe Li4 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. .. wf they keep only two cows would locse more cows from milk fever than I vwould with forty or fifty'cows. My cows fresh in the fall dry up on grass “and when through July and August on grass entirely and no grain food, and while you might not call them fat, they had fattened on grass and fhere was not trouble at all at the time of parturition. The dairymen make a mistake in not getting the heifer calves from ‘their best cows. They make a great big mistake. The question of heredity enters in here. You can raise these calves to be more profitable ows than it is possible for you to doif you use any breed. Many mistakes are made from a failure to ventilate the cow stabies. “ihe old idea is to have area enough so as to have sufficient air to supply the animals. Now we are drifting away from that. The modern, up to @aie stable has a system of ventilation, and an in-take of pure air and an aput-take of impure air going on constantly. This is economy of space, economy of expense, and it is of great advantage to the animals. The details of this I cannot enter into. I have not the time. You can secure Hnformation on that point without any trouble. Now, the temperature of the stables: I will quote from an English authority on this line: He says, ‘‘Cows will produce fifty cents each per ~week more in stables that are kept at a temperature of 63 F. than when at 52 F.” I don’t know of any work done in this country to demonstrate this. This is a feature I wish some of our experiment stations would take up with the intent to demonstrate that in ventilation there is no reason why a temperature cannot be controlled artificially. In the future @ think we shall see a great deal of that, for it could be utilized. I am doing a little along that line myself. Mr. Alexander Potter, the English ‘authority, says, and I will repeatit: ‘Cows wili produce fifty cents each wer week more im stables kept ata temperature of 63 F. than when at 52 1.’ That is in his country. It might not be quite fair for us to take that -without any authority here. Idon’t know what use he was making of that milk, but it is sufficient to set us tc thinking and investigating. Many mistakes are made in our calf raising by feeding the calves mew milk longer than necessary. I would rather have calves raised to ILLINOIS STATE DAI£ YMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 115 dairy cows on skim milk than new milk. Such a calf is less inclined to drift to fat and it will have a larger stomach, for it will require more feed; and it will make a better cow and will cost considerably less money to raise it. There are many mistakes made along this line. I see so many of them in my own experience, or in my creamery work with my patrons. I want to tell you how I cure the horns on my young calves. Just blister them: with caustic potash before that little button adheres to the head. The calves will not suffer at all. Do it when they are a week old. Just aS soon as they get straightened up they will hardly notice it. Put the caustic potash on a stick and don’t get on so much that it will run down and make the blister too large. You want to wet the horns all over and be careful that you get the potash all over the horn, but don’t get on so much that it will run down on tothe head and make the blister too large, because you make unnecessary suffering by doing that. My foreman treated 27 calves im the winter of 1897 and 1898 in that way and there was only one horn out of that 27, or rather 54 horns, that he did not have a perfect job on. It was his first experience. He did it under my instruc- tions. It does not require a great deal of experience to doit. Itisa humane act to remove the horns. I lost a cow recently, she having been horned by one of the other cows. I have lost two cows in the last few years in trat way. This question of raising calves on skim milk. There are a few points to which if they are adhered to you are sure of success. One is, the milk must be sweet, and it must be at the temperature of the mother’s milk, or 100 degrees, and don’t feed too much of it. There are 10 calves injured by feeding too much skim milk, where there is one that aon’t get enough. Take a young calf, not more than four quarts to a feed twice a day,16lbsaday. This answers the question asked by Mr. Patten about the amount of skim milk. We always measure the milk before feeding it. ressbt 116 ILLINOIS STATE DATRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. DISCUSSION. I am asked if I have any trouble? No sir, I tell you if you feed the calves whole milk you can have any amount of trouble with young calves. If you feed them too much you will get them to scouring, and if you don’t decrease the feed the calves will be ruined. Now I see so many mistakes. One of my patrons who bought 10 calves from me came into my office and told me he had lost five or six. I said: ‘Man, what is the matter?” He told me he thought they got chilled going from my place to his, ten miles. I told him I thought there must be some other cause. Then he said his son told him that they fed them too much milk. I made inquiry and found that the calves soon got to scouring. I said to him: ‘The boy is all right.” The boy was all right and the man was at fault. The boy was on the wagon and I called to him and asked him about it. The amount of feed the calves had been getting was way be- yond what they should have had. “That is just what I told father all the time,’ the boy remarked. This is true not only with calves, but with young pigs. Pigs are ruined many times by feeding them too much skim milk. I have seen young pigs that were sucking their mother affected that way when it did not affect their mother at all. I ruined 25 on buttermilk and/’spoiled all of them. I physiced them to death. Men will go home from the creamery and dump all of the skim milk in a trough and let the pigs have all they want of it. Over-feeding warm milk will soon cause them to scour. Another point I want you to consider is the cost of giving the calf new milk and skim milk. Our experiment stations have done a great deal of work along the line of showing the comparative cost of the milk diet for calves, between skim milk and new or whole milk. Now, I think, putting several’ of these experiment stations’ work together, it is per- fectly safe to say that it costs twice as much for the whole milk to give it to calves as it does for the skim milk, and you can have just as good, or better, calves for dairy purposes on skim milk. Indiana and Penn- ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 117 sylvania Experiment Stations have shown that it costs three times as much for whole milk as skim for a good strong calf. It is a mistake to suppose the chemists show the good value of skim milk with the grain food. I don’t want to antagonize the chemist, but a combination of skim milk with the grain food gives results way beyond what can be secured by either one alone, and especially far beyond what can be secured by the graim by itseif. The supply of grain food is un- limited. You can buy any amount of it. The supply of skim milk is Jimited to your own herd, or to ycur own immediate neighbors. In esti- mating the advantage that comes from that combination of feed I claim the skim milk should have half the credit. I don’t think it unfair to put it in that way. Bie The question of milking. There is a remarkable difference in milkers. ‘I find that there are milkers who I cannot afford to have milk my cows, even if they would do it for nothing. I have found such a difference between two milkers that in case they would milk 15 cows each per year the difference would pay one man’s salary. This is no guess work, I foi- - lowed that two years. Every man has his regular cow to milk and I keep the record of the milk. When I had the proof some of those milkers got permission to go, and then they wondered what was the matter. Mr. Soverhill: | Will you explain that, Mr. Gurler? A. There are some men who cannot do a good job of milking if they try, but there area great many who don’t try. They are not interested in the work and they prefer to have’the cow shrink and lose lots of milk. As a rule it is a lack of faithfulness in their work. Two seasons I tried offering prizes to my milkers. It was when my cows all came in fresh in the fall. I can’t do it now but then I did this. But when I did offer prizes it was surprising the quality of work I would get done in the milk- ing. Everyone striving how to outdo the other milkers. Mr. Soverhill: You would hold that the quicker they got the milk the better?. A. A man might be a quick milker, but the cow would not do better. 118 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. Mr. Monrad: It is a question of sympathy between the cow and the milker. 7 ING AD ae ye IS) i Mr. Monrad: And I claim that the offering was not for milking quickly, but milking clean, and thereby keeping up the flow of the miik. | If the man comes home tired, heisapt to skip a little and nct milk clean and then the cows dry up. Mr. Gurler: And that is the reason that the woman is a better milker than a man. I mean they are kinder naturally than men. Itisa mistake not to have the men milk regular cows. Every cow in her regular stall and milked every morning in that stall. It is a mistake to allow the milk to stand around in the pails, for it will absorb ordors to a remarkable de- gree. I will tell you a few incidents. The most marked one I remember was one at the Vermont Dairy Schcol when I was there. We were test- ing: I was training a class in testing milk to detect any odors in tne miik. One morning we detected the hog pen in the milk. We found this: The night’s milk was put in an oven vat near the hog pen and the window was lowered and the milk absorbed the odor. I don’t need to recite more instances on that line. I know of a case where a butter convention mci in Boston and they detected a skunk odor in a tub of butter. A skunix had been near the creamery where the butter w:s made and the oder had been absorbed. Milk will convey odors. I remember years ago when I was in the grocery and butter business of detecting a certain weed flavor in butter just as plainly as though I had the weed in my mouth, and when reid clover was growing rank we woul!ld detect that in the butter. That 1s something hard to guard against, but I mention it to show the need of care along this line and the susceptibility of butter to absorbing odors. Mr. Monrad: I have known Mr. H. B. Gurler a long time and never heard him make a mistatement until today. He said that he did not work on the farm now, and I know that Mr. Gurler works harder than any other man on the farm. His brain is doing harder work than his labor- ers. ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSCCIATION. 11 Mr. Coolidge: What would be the effect.on dairy cattle and cows; giving milk, if in the heat of the day they would go to a pool and stand im the water? Would it have any effect on the quality of the milk“and the quantity they would give? A. That would depend on tite volume of water, and whether the water was flowing so that the impurities of the droppings were carried: away. If the water was running it might take the impurities away, but if the water was stagnant water and the cows drank it, you would have trouble. Mr. Coolidge: This was quite a large creek on a farm where wer taken several cows I sold at onetime. Some time after the sale the farmer complained of the quality of the milk the cows were giving and & went out to look at the cows at 11 c’clock in the morning one day in July. The cows were out in the water, with just their heads out of water. The farmer said they would stand until 2 or 3 o’clock in the afternoon ar&é then come out and feed. I examined the cows that night and I was sur- prised, their hides felt like sole leather. They did not appear like the same cattle I had sold, and I could not believe they were the ones, and E did not know what to make of it. [ thought the man was ruining his cattle by allowing them to stand in that lake. A. I think you areright. They ought to have been feeding. Mr. Coolidge: They were entirely under water except their heads? A. They ought to have been out getting feed. They were starvine themselves by remaining in the water when they should have been feed- ing. 120 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. CHEAP PRODUCTION OF MILK. PROF. E. FARRINGTON, MADISON, WIS. My memory of the discussion we had at a farmer.s meeting in this city some six years ago isa very pleasant one ,and as I have attended a greater number of the annual meetings of the Illinois State Dairymen’s Association than any other similar organization, I was pleased to receive an invitation to come this year, especially so, when informed that the meet- ing was to be held at Galesburg. The subject which has been assigned to me to speak upon today will hot probably excite so lively a discussion as one remark I happened. to make at the meeting during myformer visit here. Very few if any of those present at that time seemed willing to accept the statement that rich feed does not increase the richness of a cow’s milk. This assertion, although it is not of so much importance to the dairyman as is the question of producing milk cheaply aroused considerable opposition and a lively discussion. No argument is necessary to convince a dairyman that he ought to {hink and ac on the question of reducing to its Jowest terms the cost of producing a quart of milk, but nearly every one who has milked cows for @ living will take exception to the statement that he cannot “feed fat into the milk.” This and some questions like the cause of low prices are talked about a great deal without much effect. Economical milk produc- tion is however the supreme question for a dairyman to consider, and Lis time is much more profitably spent in studying this problem than in making’ continual complaint about market prices. Like almost everything else that is bought and sold, the price of but- ser is influenced by supply and demand. If eacn one of us should stop io consider that this is a large country, and that the annual butter crop is estimated to be one billion four hundred’ million pounds, he would soon ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. TAT realize what a contract he is undertaking in attempting, singlehanded, tc change the market price of butter. As milk producers or cow owners our time is about the same as wasted if it is spent in wrangling over financial problems. The milk or butter which every dairyman offers for sale ought to be of a quality to bring the topmarket prices or he should know the rea- son why. It does not cost any more to produce pure milk than dirty milk, in so far as the cow is concerned, but as the question now under discussion is, how to reduce the cost of milk, rather than how to improve its quality, we will not digress at this point. Numberless illustrations can be cited to show how wealth has been accumulated by saving the fraction of a cent per pound in many manu- facturing processes.. In creameries the amount charged patrons per pound for making the butter has been considerably reduced since they began operations about fifteen years ago; but what has the cow owner done during this time to reduce the cost of producing a pound of milk? Many have given the question a great deal of thought, and: if they have been successful in increasing the profit from their cows by reduc- ing the cost of production, you will find that one important factor in their success has been liberal feeding. ‘When we come to realize that 60 per cent of all thata cow can eat is required to keep her alive, and thata holding. back of any part of the remaining 40 per cent is increasing the cost oF iat she does produce, then the cows will be fed all they can safely eat. This is well understood by men who feed cows profitably. One way they reduce the cost of. production to a minimum is by giving the cows plenty of feed. If a certain amount of feed will just about keep two cows alive and nothing more for a year, the same amount given to one cow during the same time will not only support her but cause her to produce enough more milk than the two cows gave to pay for the feed and help towards sup- porting the milker. Scant feeding increases the cost of the milk a cow produces, just as a small fire under a boiler may make the water warm, but unless it is sufficiently hot to generate steam the wheels will not go round and the fuel is wastéd. 122 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. After each cow owner has demonstrated to his own satisfaction and in his own way that liberal feeding is profitable, and scant feeding ex- pensive, he should begin to consider what feed pays him best. As the corn crop is preeminent in this Jocality the dairyman should devote a good share of his thought to considering the most economical method of converting it into milk. It has been shown by experiments (Feeds and Feeding, p. 251) “That corn fodder yields about twice the dry matter that can be secured from a crop of roots on the same land.” The cost of cne acre of corn placed in the silo is estimated at $25.12, while to grow and house an acre of beets costs $56.70, and again that a cubic foot of corn silage contains nearly twice as much dry matter as the same volume of hay stored in a mow. ‘Also that the cost of putting one ton of green corn in the silo is 58.6 cents. These observations indicate that roots and hay supply only about one- half as much food per acre as corn, and demonstrate the superior feed- ing value of corn. There has always been a difference of opinion how- ever asi to the best way of feeding the corn crep to dairy cows. Some advocate cutting, shocking and curing the corn in the field, while others preserve it in silos. The construction and continuous use of silos by so many prosperous dairymen, it seems to me. is convircing evidence of the economical value of ensilage as a milk producing food. This fact in itself should at least lead cow owners to seriously consider the advisability of trying this feed on their own farms. In addition to the fact that many prosperous dairy- men continue to use their silos,a great many experiments have been” made with ensilage at our Agricultural Colleges. These show:(Feeds and Feed- ing, p. 249) that the losses of material are about the same when corn fodder is cured in the field in shocks as when it is preserved in a good silo, “that the digestibility of corn silage and of dry fodderis practically the same,’ and that in actual feeding contests with dairy cows, ensilage “‘sives better results than a corresponding amount of dry fodder.” In one experiment the silage ration produced 11 per cent more milk than was produced from the dry fodder ration, and in another the difference in favor ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 123 of silage was 5 per cent in milk and 6 per cent in butter fat. Many similar illustrations of the economical value of ensilage can probably be given by those who have fed it to dairy cows, but the repeti- tion of such data will not necessarily strengthen the fact. Ensilage can be counted on as an economical’ feed nearly every year, but the selection of the cheapest grain food for milk production is quite another question. The fluctuation in prices from year to year is such that each season and locality must be considered by itself when it comes to selecting the kind of grain that should be fed to cows in order to make the most milk at the least cost. I will only mention one illustration re- garding grain feeding that has come under my personal observation. In a certain town there are two farms, one on the north side of the road and the other on the south. loth farms have daily supplied a cream- ery with the milk: from twelve cows during the past three years. Now the pastures on each farm, in July and August, attain about the same degree of barrenness; the sun shines with equal intensity on botiz lots, the rain fails to beat upon either of the pastures or on the cows, and the latter were grieviously tormented with flies. While both herds are exposed to the same unpleasant conditions dur- ing the day, there is one important difference in their treatment after they are gathered into the barns at night. Those on the north side of the road enter a gate on the west and go thence across a dry barn yard to the neatly whitewashed stable, where they find green feed and grain set before them. ‘This feed consists of green corn and 35 cents’ worth of corn meal per day. In return for this feed these cows gave, August lst, 1897, 234 pounds of milk, which tested 4.5 per cent fat, making a total of 10% pounds of butter fat. This was worth at that time 14 cents per pound and amounts to $1.47. When ihe cows on the south side farm return at night they are given no green feed or grain; the mud from tine pond hole in which they have been standing all day is only partially cleaned from their udders and flanks at milking time, and the dirty switching tail of the cow makes a cloud of dust, a portion of which is sure to get into the milk. 124 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. The lack of whitewash in this cow stable, together with the pond hole and other failures to comply with printed regulations supplied both farms, makes at thiscreamery a difference of 4 cents per hundred pounds between the grade of milk supplied by this south side farm and that from the north side of the road. But if the same price of 14 cents per pound of butter fat is paid both lots of cows for their milk, their re- ward is not the same per cow. On this particular day the twelve south side cows gave 171 pounds of milk, which tested 4.3 per cent of fat, making a total of 7.4 pounds of butter fat, and this at 14 cents per pound amounts to $1.03. The south side cows were not fed anything when brought to the barn, but milked and left. by the barn side to wander or ito wonder why their milk had failen off 42 pounds in a week and their neighbor’s only 24 pounds. Now the 12 cows on the north farm were given green feed and grain each day and their milk amounts to enough to pay their owner $1.47, which _is 44 cents more per day than the other man received from the same num- ber of cows Kept on dry pasture only, in dry weather and fly time. DISCUSSION. A Member: Was this 35 cents’ worth of meal per day per cow or for — them all. A. ‘That was for the whole herd. Mr. J. A. Willaims: I would like to ask you what is the difference in value between a ton of ensilage and a ton of clover hay? A. I cannot answer. I don’t think any one can answer that question. It depends on different seasons of the year and the circumstances that surround the farmer. I think Mr. Gurler knows more about that. Q. How much ensilage does it take to make a ton? A. It depends on how well it is packed, whether packed down close cr not. Mr. Patten: How large a silo would you advise a man to build to support twenty-five to thirty cows. ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 125 A. If you are going to drift onto the subject of ensilage, I will have to. _ask to be excused. That subject has been placed to Prof. Plumb, and I see he is here in the auditorium and I know he can tell you more about that than I can. Mr. Ikert: Do you think the cows on the north side of the road gave enough more milk than the south side cow to pay for the extra feed and time? A. I think they did. By keeping the cows in their best condition you can get the best profit from them. It takes 60 per cent of all a cow can eat to keep her alive. If you only give her 70 per cent of what she can eat, you only make 10 per cent. The amount you feed her regulates the amount of profit you get from her. It takes at least 60 per cent to keep her alive and your profit comes frum what you feed above that. Mr. Spicer: If these cows have plenty of grass, would it pay to feed them any grain in the summer time? A. I don’t hardly think it would. Of course, there are other things than the production of the cows that you mustconsider. You haveto keep them in good health, and I suppcse you can feed a cow too much pasture, You might ruin her health, but it is the health of the cow you have to con- sider in feeding her. Mr. Patten: I think grain off-sets the danger of bloat to a large ex- tent on good pasture. A little grain twice a day and that off-sets the dan- ger of cattle suffering from indigestion. Mr. Powell: Would it be profitable to stable the cows and feed ensi- lage and turn them out at night? A. I think that would be agood plan. Yes sir. There are dairies, and Prof. Plumb can tell youabout them, where the cows are kept in barus all the time. There is one in New Jersey that has a regular milk factory. They buy cows when fresh and drive them into the barn and feed them and never take them out until taken to the butcher—just feed off their heads and in that way they produce milk cheaper than in any other way. How about that, Prof. Plumb? Prof. Plumb: I did not see any such thing. 126 ILLINOIS STATE DATRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. Mr. Monrad: I know a farm in Denmark that has a contract with the local butcher and as soon as the cow dvesn’t give at least twenty pounds uf milk the butcher has to take her out. Prof. Farrington: That is the most economical way of producing milk in cows. Put her in astali and feed her as much as you can, feed her through one period of lactation and then sell her. Mr. Coolidge: I followed that line of work and in four years my books showed larger profits. Q. Did you find it profitable io do that way? A. Yes sir; very. I averaged about $5.00 per head more for the cows than. I paid for them. Prof. Farrington: About these two farms. They send the milk to the ereamery the year around. At the end of the year, cf course, the man knows huw much money he has paid each one of these farmers for the year. You divide the total aniount received by the number of cows of each farm and you find out how much that man received per cow, and if we compare the amount received per cow on the south side farm with that of the north side farm, we will find that the man on the south side of the road has received about $28.00 per cow from the creamery, and tke other man about $45.00 per cow. Of covise, the man who received $45.00 paid out something for feed, but he made more out of the cows than the other man. I think creamery patrons, if they will calculate business in that way, add their checks for the year and find out how much they receive per cow, they will want to get better cows. PREVENTING CONTAMINATION OF MILK. PROF. W. J. FRASER, URBANA. There is consumed daily in the city of Chicago about 1,224,000 pounds of milk, each 100 pounds of which, according to the average amount. of filth found in milk contains 35 grains, which is mostly cow dung. -Thus Pe nee a ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. UD the people of Chicago alone consume daily 61 pounds of filth in their milk supply, or 11 tons per year; enough to fertilize a small farm. With these facts before us we certainly have a subject worthy of attention. In reply to the question sent out by the Division of Dairying of the United States Department of Agriculture, “What part of dairying is in greatest need of improvement?’ most of the answers referred to the care of the milk from the time it leaves the cow until it reaches the creamery, cheese factory, or milk train. After spending some time investigating the needs of dairying, includ- ing city milk supply, I became fairly convinced that the production of clean milk is the most important economical question as regards dairying to- day, aS weil as important to the health of the consumer. Milk as ordinarily produced sells in Chicago for 6 cenis per quart, while a large amount which is secured by cleanly methods, yet possess- ing no higher nutritive value, sells by the side of it for from 8 ta12 cents per quart. This is surely a significant fact. The value of milk when it reaches the creamery or cheese factory depends very largely upon the care it has received since leaving the cow, and if intended for direct consumption its value depends almost entirely upon this fact. If dirty and tainted milk is received at a creamery cr cheese factory it makes an inferior product that wiil not bring the highest price, thus entailing a great loss. Milk should be paid for not only in respect to its butter content, but also according to purity, or freedom from filth, and badly contaminated and tainted milk rejected altogether. Successful dairying is closely associated with science, especially bacteriology. This teaches us that most of the changes that take place in milk are caused by the action of extremely minute organisms, so small as to require several hundred of them placed side by side to equal the thickness of ordinary writing paper. They are found in dirt of nearly every description and are floating on the dust in the air. So far as milk production is concerned dirt and bacteria are practically synonomous. Since bacteria are everywhere present it is impossible to keep them out of 128 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. the milk during the milking process. ‘They are all objectionable in milk intended for direct consumption. Milk in the udder of a healthy cow is both pure and sterile and would remain sweet indefinitely if these organ- isms could be excluded; but since this is impossible the only thing to be done is to reduce their number to a minimum by cleanly methods, and by. cold to prevent their increase. Milk is an excellent medium for the growth of bacteria. If special cafe has not been exercised in milking, many bacteria will have gained access to the milk and unless properly cooled will cause its rapid deterioration. The most noticeable of these organisms in milk are those that change the milk sugar into lactic acid, thus “‘souring’’ the milk. Milk spoils rapidly when warm because the rate of increase of the organisms present depends upon the temperature, most species developing more rapidly at the temperature at which milk is drawn; but by cooling their development is arrested. It has been shown that at 93 Fahr., some germs increase two-hundred fold in four hours; at 55 Fahr. they will increase only eight-fold in the same length of time, and their activity is almost entirely stopped by still lower temperature. Thus every minute during which milk is left at a warm temperature greatly shortens its keeping quality. Many other species of bacteria are found in milk, causing such changes as blue milk, ropy milk, bitter milk, etc. Investigation shows that disease germs, such as those of tuberculosis and typhoid fever, thrive in milk, and may be carried by that medium from place to place. Milk sometimes contains the germs of tuberculosis, com- ing from the cow herself, when she is affected with this disease. Since this is one of the most common Ciscases in man, and since young children are more susceptible to it than are adults it is very important that the milk supply should be free from these germs. This disease may be de- tected by having the cowsitested with tuberculin test. Persons having germ diseases of any kind should not be allowed to care for the cows, or have anything to do about the dairy. The aim of the good milk producer is to protect the milk as much as possible from contamination. Not all contamination is sediment and milk may be far from pure even though there is no foreign matter visible to re ee ee ii YC a a ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 129) the naked eye. The number oi bacteria in milk that has been carelessly’ produced and eared for is something enormous, there often being many- millions in a single drop. Xxxperiments have shown that the contamina tion of milk-as-usually produced. may. be reduced over 100 per cent by extreme cleanliness. Many peopie think all bacteria are our enemies, associating them only with disease. Yet the fact is the great majority are harmless and many are our friends; indeed we could not live without. them. They play a very important part in agriculture and are absolutely7 essential in’ the manufacture of fine flavored butter. Bacteria, like many” other things, are all right in their place, but their place is not in the milk- pail. Therefore let us produce pure milk as free from contamination ags- possible, allowing the buttermaker to add his friends at the proper time:- and in the proper amount he desires without troubling him with hig= enemies. Milk to be clean and pure must be taken from healthy cows kept under- sanitary conditions. .Clean milk will not only remain sweet longer, but.as. every one knows is 2 more wholesome food. If it were more fully real- ized that milk is a food and not simply a commercial commodity it would seem that dairymen would not allew filth to get into it. There are four principal ways that milk becomes contaminated and it is subjected to them all before it leaves the stable. FIRST, THE COW.—This is the greatest source of contamination. When cows are kept in a filthy stable as is too frequently the case, they are often covered with dust at milking time, and their sides, flanks, bellies, and udders plastered with manure. Cows cannot be milked in this condi= tion without seriously contaminating the product. There is a constant sprinkling of fine particles of dirt and dust into the milk, the greater part. of which is so fine that itis never seen. Sometimes there is so much of this filth that it is plainly visible on top of the foam after the milking is; | completed. Often the filthy habit milking with wet hands is practiced and the dirty milk is constantly dropping into the pail. These are such common occurrences in milk production that they dm not shock us. Who would think of eating any other article of food covercd with a sprinkling of cow dung, and yet this is the way most milk is pro- duced. If any new article of food was produced as milk is no one woulc& think of touching it. 130 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. SS The cows should be kept clean at all times, and this is not difficult to do, if the mangers and ties are properly arranged, the stall of the right length and a fair amount of bedding used. All loose dirt should be brushed from the cows and the udders washed and wiped before milking, whether they seem dirty or not. The dairy department of the University of Illinois has been investigat- ing the source of milk contamination, and how it may be avoided in actual practice. Several hundred plates have been exposed in the University and other dairy barns and a few of the results are given below, each of which is an average of ten exposures. These plates are glass dishes 314 inches in diameter and having a glass cover fitting closely over the sides. The empty dishes are sterlized by baking in a hot oven over twenty minutes, then sterlized beef-broth containing a little gelatin is poured over the bot- tom, and when this cools it solidiies. These closed sterilized dishes hav- ing twelve square inches of surface are then taken to the dairy barn, and exposed by removing the cover one-half minute. The bacteria floating on the dust in the air settles into the dishes. The covers are again replaced and the dishes held at a warm temperature for two or three days. Wher- ever a bacterium has fallen it will commence to multiply until a colony forms which can be seen with the naked eye. Placed Exposed. No. Bacteria Caught. Under apparently clean unwashed udder ...... ...... ......-- 2023 Undersame, uddersatteriwashimeg. (25 esc eciorciatie eucteter raiment 90 It will be seen from this that the contamination the miik received from an apparently clean udder is very great and that it may be reduced by washing over 95 per cent. SECOND, THE STABLE.—Orien the sides of the stable and stalls are plastered with dung, and not cleaned for years at atime. Frequently the old bedding in the stalls and refuse in the mangers are not thoroughly removed from one year’s end to another, leaving a quantity of dust to be frequently stirred up. Bedding and dry fodder sheuld not be moved just previous to milking as it makes a dust which settles into the milk, carrying with it many bacteria. The air outside is usually comparatively free from germs, and the better ventilation the barn has the fewer germs will the stable air contain. If the cows are in the stabvle the greater part of the time the stable should be cleaned twice a day. The ceiling should ILLINOIS. STATE DAIRYMEN’S. ASSOCIATION. 131 be tight and no cobwebs allowed to collect. The floors and mangers should be cleaned frequently and the walls and stalls scrubbed and whitewashed as often as they.become dirty. | . _. Number of bacteria caught on-12 square inches during one-half min- ute— . 7 a a te Places Exposed. _ paaie BF sia No. Bacteria Caught CM ce Dire ATM TOMEI erica le elas ele a Vemielas 6 sis pe e'e.e' a «2 40 NCH Dt Catny, DATO, ClOSCO oo. ic. 6 6 ote eae 0116 losis fale eo ons ae Nee 68 Badiyecepe Gary DAM, OPS ssi. eee ecard oe a asi eiereale we, love's cela 76 Badly kept dairy barn, closed ............... Yebogooceo wes oogoee dees Near door, wind entering ........ Mec cie ees eet alere oe sur stele saree so ae Meatdooroppocitelside Of Darn 22... ones occ sect ee occ eee os 127 inp iy, DANN) Varig. 5c. 5. kee eles eu Vepaneualterofereeites neal aie! srenclnictal once 6 Yayets Zz AS SRIN PGA US UUIGC) eiayee leila ces 4) so oik s leela sia else silage’ Polelenslers ce ien ccs is beans 1-3 Pe HU Eay ae OO We OOM acer i) 40a a1 oi o. cyeice, 2, o.8 be wheter vlavele, abl cialeleie,e'e Uisecd's wieia ae 1-6 From the above we see that tie air in a well kept barn contains fewer germs than in one badly Kept, also that when the barn is open th¢re are fewer germs in the air than when closed. Since the air outside is nearly germ free they will be blown cut as is shown by there being nearly six times as many bacteria caught near where the air was leaving the barn as where entering. In the pasture there were very few, only ong was caught in three exposures, and in the dairy cool room only one in every six ex- posures. Flaces Exposed. No. Bacteria Caught. "Barn empty, closed three hours...... Pane Pslat aah tata gs gas CR a aie (SEER ace rise 2-3 Thirty minutes later, cows brought. in and fed fodder............ 156 One hour later, cows eating in mean time ....6..0..6 weerecsens 83 From these results we see that when the barn has been closed the dust and the bacteria settle out ofthe air, there being only two caught in ‘every three exposures, while after the cows were brought in and fed dry corn fodder many bacteria were found'‘in the air. Places Exposed. No. Bacteria Caught. Must trommecut corm fodder |... 01.2 diifer- ences could easily be found, and indeed more than twenty-five per cent has been noted between good cows, but even ten per cent is far more than any rate of profit the dairyman can reasonably expect; that is te say here are differences wider than the margin of profit, and these differences, must be noted, and cows must be bred with regard to performance. Anoth- 178 | ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. er cow for weeks produced a pourd of fat on six and one-half pounds of grain, with an equal amount of hay and of ensilage. This is a differ. ence in efficiency of over 40 per cent as measured on the one basis, or 70 per cent as measured upon the other. Dairying cannot stand these dif- ferences, and the higher efficiency must be fixed by selection and breed- ing. In the scales and the Babeock test we have a reliable and a ready means of judging cows, and it is the only one that is commercially safe, because it is the only one that will unerringly discriminate within the margin of a reasonable profit. If we are to have cows of the highest efficiency in converting feed intr dairy products somebody must give attention to their systematic breed- ing. Who shall it be? Let up suppose that a man sets himself up in the business of raising cows to sell to dairymen. What will be his outfit and conditions? He will need a number of excellent milkers for dams, and a well-bred dairy bull for sire. He wil find speedily that he has a surplus of milk, because any good dairy cow will do more than raise her calf. In dispos- ing of this surplus milk he will bea producer of dairy products and the man who started out as a breeder of cows becomes alsoa dairyman from necessity. As it looks to me the business of dairying and that of producing cows are indissclubly united, and that if they are to be carried on separately it will be at financial loss upon the one hand and at great sacrifice of cows upon the other. , The professional dairyman has at hand all the material needed in the production of cows save a sire and the inclination to engage in the bus- iness. He must possess himself of both. The shrewdest dairymen are commencing the systematic breeding of cows and others must follow or go out of the business. The question is not which cow gives the richest milk, nor which gives the greatest quantity, nor is it which one yields the greatest amount of solids in a year. It is which ore yields the most marketabie milk or butter or cheese as the case may be from a given amount of food. The question is not hcw much, but how cheaply can I .produce, and oniy ILLINOIS STATE DAITRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 179 the scales and the Babcock test can answer the question. As long as these differences of 25 per cent or even 10 per cent exist between cows that are accounted acceptable, just so long will some be eating the heads off others and just so long will the question of profit depend upon the ma- chine that is effecting the transformation of feed into milk and butter. I know I will be met with the statement that the cow will yieil more milk if she be not bred. Soshe will. But while that is true of an individual it yet remains true that the only way to get milk is for some- body to breed cows and the only way to get good cows is for the man most interested to produce them himseif, particularly when he has all the out- fit except the sire. The dairyman, of all feeders, must not forget that the bulk of his food goes to support the animal body and that it is a good one that returns to him more than one-eighth or one-tenth of what she consumes. It is therefore to his advantage to put his food through the fewest possibie number of animals in order that tha expense of simple support should be reduced to a minimum. Again, the dairyman must remember that feed is never so profitable as when put into young animals and that the raising of a calf until it becomes a cow is not so serious a matter as it seems, and that it costs vastly less than to buy as good a cow as can be raised. But the dairyman says that he does not like to keep a bull nor to raise calves. Now we are getting at the truth. The whole thing is principally a matter of preference, but we pay too dearly and cows suffer teo seriously for the luxury of not being troubled with the job of raising them. I do not like the method that nature has settled upon for getting milk from the cow. It answers well enough for a calf, but I would rather turn a faucet and let it run out. 4 cannot consult my tastes in this mat- ter, however, and if I keep cows iI must milk them. So in the matter of breeding cows; it is not a question of preference, but of necessity. If the dairyman does not breed them nobody else will breed them. Yet some dairymen are shrewd enough to see the point and 180 ILLINOIS STATE DATRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. are producing their own cows and others must do the same or be crowded to the wall by the competition, for we shall see butter produced at a sur- prisingly cheap rate ere many years. | The Chicago Sugar Refining Company is professedly engaged in the manufacture of glucose, yet they have found so many possibilities in the residues that in place of one product from corn according to the original design they now manufacture over sixty. The day has passed when a man can afford to produce one commedity only. He must also utilize all the residues, and besides engage in whatever lines of industry are by na- ture more intimately connected with his busines than with that of others. So here in dairying. The efficiency of cows remains practically un- developed and conditions are such’that to systematically produce good cows leads a man necessarily into the dairy business. If that be true then is the. dairyman the natural producer of the dairy cow. DISCUSSION. Mr. Monrad: I have no question to ask, but I want to emphasize what the Professor has said about the waste of heifer calves. In the Elgin district, and other creamery men can so testify, it is customary to lay hands on the heifer calves and kill them. It is hard enough to raise the average standard of dairy cows and we are certainly wrong in the killing of calves. Prof. Plumb: I want to bring out a point on this subject and to me it has been an important point for a good many years. We hear a great deal about feeds, and at conventions, a combination of feed stuffs is talked about as very important, and yet tke great subject of breeding is compar- itively neglected, both through the agricultural papers and elsewhere. You will see ten columns on the use of feeds to one column that you will see on the importance of certain phases of breeding. The low stand- ard of cows that we have in the United States comes from this indiscrim- inate breeding. It is the real cause of the inferior stock we have here. I have been selling stuff from a public institution and it has been my in- ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 181 variable observation as a rough estimate that I believe that 80 or 85 per cent, if not more, of the people who want to buy males for breeding stock will always procure the cheapest individual. They do not stop to think of the animal, it is always the cheeapness, as they do not realize its extrav- aganee. I hold that a person who has a herd of dairy cattle cannot ba too discriminating on the progeny of the sire, and it is one of the weak- nesses of our breeding methods in America. They sell almost anything for breeding stock instead of putting a knife in them as they ought tw. They are not breeding in the wav of creating a reputation for any com- munity. The average stock is what gives us reputation, and you will not have this unless there is some sacrifice somewhere. It is unfortunate; but true—I don’t know about Illiznois—but Indiana has been greatly dam- aged by having brought into that State culled Jerseys and they have fairly damned the Jersey in Indiana. There is nothing the matter with the Jersey cow, the trouble is with the breeders. They bring Jerseys there that have udders no bigger than a pint jug. They know nothing of parentage, it seems to be simply buying and selling cattle, and I was very much surprised at the prices paid tor them. If you could go to Scandi- navia or England and could see the cattle they have, you could see tha poinz I try to make. Prof. Davenport: The point that the Professor has so nicely brought out is exactly the part of this discussion I wanted to provoke. We are erazy on feeding and daft on breeding. We ought to pay more attention to breeding. Those who know me, know 1 ama crank on breeding, as it seems to me that is the important part. There is a manifest difference between eattle breeding and raising. Wehave scattered over the country large breeding herds, . The business of them is to produce sires and it oughi to be so recognized. ‘We ought to buy more fall sires out of these breeding herds, and we should improve our herds by these sires. The Professor has said the sire is half the herd and I believe he istrue. Heishalf ofthe first generation, three-fourths of the next, and the next he is almost the whole herd. We can agitate ourselves until we are gray and we will be feeding animals that are more and more inefficient; what we ought to at- tend to is the breeding. 182 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. A Member: I don’t wish to crit.cize but I don’t believe that we should. be blamed. The blame shouid come on the recording association of cur fine breeds of cattle. You are compelled to do it when the animal is young and you cannot tell then'what it will develop to. Then the animals are cast on the market and the owners try to get something out of them be- fore they are fuliy developed. Mr. Hostetter: Ithink the great secret of this whole thing, and it is something we will have toremedy, is the fact the farmers have got it into their heads that there is a general purpose cow, a cow that he is going to breed for everything. When our country becomes more settled in certain sections our cows will improve in the hands of the average farmer. We will have to teach the average farmer on this subject. It takes ages for cows to reach this standard. Prof. Plumb: ‘They have been breeding cows for centuries at my native town in Massachusetts. It was settled in 1669, and the Pilgrims © landed in Plymouth Rock in 1620 and Dutch cattle was brought over up: to 1700. Now the Ayreshire bree’, as uniform a breed of cattle in the world, has only been known about 100 years. When we think of it the improvement on live stock dates from after the revolutionary war. It is not much more than 100 years old. I was driving along in Eastern Indiana and was talking about these mixed breeds and I looked on one side of the road and there was four different breeds of cattle in that field. They had Holstein, Jerseys, Short Horns, and something else all mixed up. While I have not traveled all over the States, I have travelled con- siderably and I am not satisfied with this breeding question. Mr. Dietz: It always does damage when the breed of pure blood cattle are obliged to be mixed, for they will always be breed of scrubs, and the progeny carries the name under which the females were sold, but have been bred down and down and instead of being fifteen-sixteenths of scmething, they are one- sixteenth of something. The breeder of pure blood cattle ought to be a seller of males and not of females. His sales of males ought to be so well supported that he could sell his culled females to his butcher. I hold that the owners of the great breeding herds ought ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’'S ASSOCIATION. 183 not to sell their breeding females in discriminately. There is no sale for well bred males, very little sale, and th2 breeders of cur great breeding herds are compelled to breed for their males. Iwas notina barn yet where I could not recommend the destructicn of a few of those males, but the breeder cannot afford to do this as he cannot sell his females. Mr. Latimer: In reference to selling our maies the trouble is to find the buyer. They want to buy too cheap. Have sold some cattle within the last few days, and the gentlemen bought the highest price female that was sold all January; ai least, he bought the highest priced one I had, but be bought the cheapest bull that Y priced him. THE SILO AND SILAGE OF TODAY. PROF. C.S. PLUMB, LAFAYETTE, IND. é Before taking up this subject, I want to state it is with a good deal of pleasure I find myself here. As one who has been intimately identified. with the past history of the Indiana Dairy Association, it is a pleasure to me to come in contact with members of your own association. Mr. Monard has been with us several times, also Prof. Farrington and Prof. Fraser. I have kept in touch with your association, although having never been here before. I am interested in your association; it is one of the oldest in the United States. I think the oldest dairy association in America was in Northern Illinois, “The Northwestern Dairymen’s Asso- ciation,” and naturally, on coming from a state that has much to learn about dairying, will be interested in coming to an association like this. I feel very much pleased to be here with you today. I shall talk on the “Silo and Silage of Today,” which is a little differ- ent from “recent ideas” in the way I have construed it. Since the appearance of Goffart’s and Bailey’s books on “ensilage”’ in 1879 and 1850, now 20 years ago, thousands of farmers have built silos, 184 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. a large amount of practical and experimental work has been conducted, and onr knowledge of the subject of silos and silage has been greatly in- ereased. The early advocates made eaxggerated claims of the value of this mew food, the fallacy of which was easily shown in the subsequent exper- iemce of impartial observers. Im 1884 the writer had his first p'ractical experience with a silo, and from that time to this, during 15 years, has had a silo of some type under his direct charge. These represent years of progress and light. The first silo bad vrick walls, about 12 inches thick, was about 10 feet deep, and per- haps 8x10 feet otherwise. After being filled two inch planks were care- fully iaid over the leveled silage, and on these planks were closely packed Square boxes, filled with broken stone and cement, that weighed several hundred pounds each. These weighted the silage. Four years later I took charge of two more silos, with brick walls, perhaps 10 feet high, and here agzein plank was laid on the silage and on these was heaped several inches of dirt, to keep out the air and furnish weight. Three years later, af another place, I took charge of a hollow walled, modern silo, 18 feet deep, where for a time the leveled sine after filling was covered perhaps with a foot of cut straw. This, however, was changed, by leaving out the boards, and placing the straw directly on the silage. In eight years was a change from solid masonary walls and heavily weighted silage, to modern walls and no weight at all, excepting of the silage itself. The old form of silo was either square or rectangular, but experience showed too much loss of food in the corners, through decay, while the walls also were often-times of variable strength. it was simply a matter ©f sound reasoning then, that prompted the building of round silos such as would have no corners for spoiled silage, and the walls of which-would re- ceive an equal pressure from the center on all sides, with an equal amount @f resisiance. fhe circular silo is therefore the most recent form used in our Ameri- ean farming, though of this there 1s more than one styleortype. The first ferm. of round silo was built with studs and siding on a stone or brick foundation, while a more recent form is the stave silo, which has been in a ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 185 een e ; use within the writer’s knowledge nearly ten years. In his book on silage, in 1895, Woll states that “stave silos have found some enthusiastic friends, and their merits and demerits have been thoroughly discussed of late years in the agricultural press; they cannot be recommended poth on ac- count of the danger of the staves shrinking in summer, making the silo leaky, anc on account of the danger of frost in such silos, and, finally, be- cause a substantial stave silo will cost greatly more than a ffirst class modern silo of the came capacity.” 7 The stave silo, however, within the past year or two, has increased in popularity, and the criticisms of Prof. Woll do not seem to justify discard- ing this type, if one may judge from the experience of many. The need for a new silo at the Indiana Exepriment Station, prompted us to erect one of the stave forms as iilustrating the most recent type meeting with popular favor. To this I wish to direct your attention, as relates to the mode of construction and cost. In laying out the site for the silo, a stake was driven in the ground and sawed off at three inches above the surface. A board was then taken, in one end of whick was made a hole just large enough to easily slip a goog sized nail through without binding. Five feet ten inches from this was bored an inch hole, and 14 inches beyond this was bored a similar hole. A nail was then passed through the first hole, and driven into the end of the stake. A sharpened stick (broom handle is good) was then placed through the next hole towards the other end, and the board was turned, and a circle scratched on the ground with thesharpened stick. This was then moved into the last hole and another circle made. These two lines of course represented perfect circles, and between them was the outline for the foundation, which was dug 2 feet deep. : The foundation was formed as follows: Small stones were used for the grouting belowthesurface. First a layer of stone was placed in the bottom of the ditch, then cement made of one part lime, two parts Louis- ville cement and nine parts of fine gravel-sand was poured in and distri- buted with a hoe. Then a second layer of stone was put in place, and more cement added. This process continued till the foundation reached the 186 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. surface. For the top of wall fora few inches below the surface level, Portland cement and no lime was used. Owing to the slope of the ground the top of the foundation on one side was three inches above the surface, ana on the other 18 inches. Large stones, laid by a mason in Portland cement and sand, one to three, completed the foundation. On top of this was placed a circle of oak inch thick boards, two thick lapped to break joints, and sawed so as to lay to form a circle a scant 12 feet in diameter on the inside. ‘These one by six pisces were nailed together and laid in cement to form a smooth base for resting the staves on. White pine staves were used, dressed on four sides and: with each edge bevelled 1-16 inch. The staves were of two lengths—12 and 16 feet and five inches wide on the outsid® and dressed down to about 1%, inch thick. When _the staves were in place, the 12 and 16 foot-lengtus alternated, one of each length butting together to form a silo 28 feet deep. The ends were held together by a strip of galvanized iron 2x5 inches, which was placed‘in a notch for the purpose sawed in the ends of the butting staves. Ten hoops made of 54 round iron, with % inch ends threaded eight inches, were used, the ends being welded on the rods, being of course made from large size rod. These hoops cost $1.00 each, complete, and were in two parts, to faciliate tightening. As a support for the hoops, at two points on opposite sides of the silo and joining the staves, and thus forming a part of the circle, was placed a 4x6 piece, with the narrow and beveied side against the silo circle. Through the projeciing four inches of this 4x6, at proper int¢rvals, were bored holes through which the ends of the hoops were passed. ‘The hoops were bent to the curve of the sill, by placing the rod ona curved piece of oak, following the curve of foundation, and bending to line of curve by striking with back of a heavy maul. The erection of the stave silo will depend somewhat on local condi- tions—whether in a barn, closely adjacent to it on the outside, as in our case, or some distance from it, say 25 feet or more. We first placed the two 12 ft. 4x6 pieces in position, toe-nailing lightly the end resting on the wooden sill, and bracing the upper end with a : < ] ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 187 board nailed to a stake in the ground. Hoops were then put in place, being supported by the 4x6 pieces, and by a stave piaced half way between them, which was held to tne hoops by a staple. The holes in the 4x6 varied in distance apart, according to point in silo depth. The bottom one Was six inches from foundation, and the next 6 were 2¥/, feet apart, with the two upper spaces under the top hoop, three feet apart, the top hoop being 6 inches from top. 'Thestaves were then placed in position on the first half of silo, 16 feet length joining the 4x6 pieces, and alternating all round with a 12 ft. length. One half of the lower part was first put to- gether, and the hoops tightened, arter which the opposite side was com- pleted. Eech stave was held in place by a wire rail driven in over the hoop and bent overasahook. A good wire staple however is better. In putting up the second tier of staves, pieces resting on the 12 ft. staves, between the 16, made a scaffolding on which to work. The 16 ft. 4x6 was then placed on end against the silo, with the upper end resting between the same staves asthel12 feet length 4x6. A hoop was put in next to the top hole, then two men at each timber raised them, hoop and all, up to their places. A brace with one large nail at each end, allowed the pieces to be raised without tipping over. The bottom hoop for the top half was then put in place, but not tightened. The staves were then put up as in the first half; a ladder being le aned. against the hoop, upon which a man worked at the top line of the silo. As a matter of convenience, the strip of iron was placed in the base of the upper stave, and then dropped to the top of the lower stave and fitted in place. The staves could have been put in place more rapidly if we had hada plaiform erected inside the silo to work on, instead of extending across the ends of the staves. In putting in the upper staves, the hoops nearest to the points where the staves join should be fairly loose, otherwise the upper staves cannot be readily crowded in place. After all the staves were in prace, and the four hoops were drawn tight enough to hold securely, the remaining hoops were put on. One man stayed on a ladder inside, to drive back any stave which was too far in, while another tightened up the hoops. 188 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. Four doors were cut by sawing four staves at an angle of 45 degrees, the long side of the door being inside the silo. In constructing Tie silo, when the place was reached where the row of doors should come one stave was sawed nearly through in the right place for each door, and then the work of putting in staves continued. A narrow board was vacked on to prevent breaking this gtave in handling. When ready to saw out the doors, this board may be removed,and as many staves out as desired for width of door. Late in the season, after the silo was filled, : roof was put on which is rather unique in itself. This consists of three parts. First, two 2x6 pieces were laid on edge across the top an#@ center of silo, extending north and south, and about 21, feet apart, tne north end proiecting about eight inches, the south two feet beyowid the staves. These were nailed to the staves. The reason for th two foot of projection is to hold the end of the carrier while filling. Next two more 2x6’s were placed on edge on the top of silo, one on each side and outside of the previous 2x6’s, the ends projecting 8 inches be- yond staves. To these two pieces were butted and spiked 2x4 pieces, which served as rafters, extend'ng witha slight slope from the upper edge of 2x6 to the top of staves, and equally distributed over the section of silo covered, ihe ‘spaces ovetween being about 214 feet apart. Where each 2x4 rested on a stave, a notch about one inch deep was cut. Tnese two frames of one 2x6 and four 2x4 were then covered with ordinary roof boarding, and each 2x6 hinged to the nailed piece along side of it, and hooked to circumference of silooninside .A board cover was then laid over the central space, the boards being naiied to 2x2 pieces which dropped down on each side of the outside 2x6 like a trap door arrangement. The section was also hooked to the central 2x6’s. A tinner then covered each section with tin roofing, which was efterwards painted, and the work was done. This roof, which is almost flat, can be easily removed at any time, is of the most convenient type when filling, and is a sate place for any fairly clear headed person to stand on. In connection with the construction of this silo, some points should be brought out that have not been thus far referred to. ——— ILLINOIS STATE DAIRY MEN’S ASSOCIATION. 189 The edges and ends of all staves were painted with thin gas tar, which is a good preservative of wood as is known. It was my original intention to paint the wood work on the outside, but a friend of mine who has had a stave silo for several years, has stated that where he painted his silo, it decayed more rapidly than where he did not, and that in future he should never paint a silo. We have at Purdue a large water supply tank, which has been painted for many years, and the staves have apparently not be- come seriously decayed during this time. The acrid gas of silage, how- ever, might have a different effect upon the wood and promote decay more rapidly than it would be otherwise. Next spring I think I shall paint part ~ of the silo, and leave the other part unpainted, and keep a note of the re- sults. Before putting on the hoops, careful consideration was given~to the relative merits of flat and round hoops, and the flat was decidedon. Ifone wishes to tighten up a hoop, there is a smaller space of resistance, with round iron hoops clasping the staves, than with two inch flat bands, so that the work can be more easily done. Further, the bands are more ex- posed to rust, and are not so easily handled, and require more labor in fitting the ends for thread. Theattention of the writer has been called to the fact tha some individual, in his desire to reduce expenses aS much as possible, used bands of woven wire fencing. This is a unique proposi- tion, but whether such stave holders would be 2s satisfactory as rods, is questionable. The question of the cost of this stave silo is the leading one inet will be asked my many. This may summarized as follows: Cost of Silo. Lime and cement in foundation............... Beate Petiitansle onto tacete watome $ 5.00 Mason labor...... erent gral wosiratepsr imienrictns MANN gd Seas a neha Bere stot OO iG UNS SMR ry areca Soca tete el) hors dolar eral Pareletteleke: alei's 'echalearellerg alae wag len@ie di’ 70.70 HOME Axois VOLE: LOM MOOD SUPPOTUS i aed) bic levels cles tichccecsecess 5.20 DICKC MO OLOREOT! SIU is serstcs ie die he es clereetereleislelg eles ais\sleigisiele esse owgies 3.10 AN HEN) ONO Sate y eee tots cote Al rare) © Gulls lel ecai's enw vallazey Cob etme sins weer 0c, ln Col'sie oie elarglaidalere eis 10.00 Sera mca MGM MCA Spe atete ctasy eves otters ei letlote lay och odes elie’ co ei eile isi #8 Stalee siacelese waite 0) ECOG PUM Tem UL SAO) ccc cc eo tik etoile eee ae 0 ale cle eo cles ten geele 11.00 HE AMO Te MA GOME TO EOUT GAY Sie yc tia e ccc ss ac cereal cle) bed alel ib lida ele 6 abela ule alwistd Gc ehatel’s 10.00 $118.90 190 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. Capacity of silo 62 tons. Cost of make, per ton capacity, $1.88. The cost of this silo was much greater than it would have been in many places. The ground on which the foundation rested was sloping, and the subsoil was a porous gravel, so that more masonry work was required than would be necessary on level or hard ground, so that the foun- dations were unusually expensive; furthermore, the wooden sill might have been dispensed with. Further, the cost for staves was $25.00 per 1,000 feet, which is much more than they would have cost in many parts of Indiana or elsewhere. In fact, the cost of material represented high mar- ket prices, but such as we had to payinour vicinity. In northern Indiana, I have reason to believe that an equally goed silo could be built for less than $100.00. In the construction of this silo, we gave some consideration to the point as to whether it is necessary or not to bevel the edges of the staves. Mr. L. A. Clinton of Corneil University Station has recommended during the past year that the staves be not beveled at all, that they will join to- gether tight enough without making bevelling necessary. A writer in Hoard’s Dairyman of Dec. 16, also states that the staves iu; his silo are simply 2x4 pine scantling, just as they come from the mill, sawed square, with no bevelling or dressing, and that these edge to edge and drawn together in a 10 to 12 feel circle, make a tight well fitting tub. We, however, decided to bevel 1-16 inch on each edge, for we felt that in case any edges were somewhat untrue in matching, that unbeveiled, cracks might occur that would be prevented by the wide touch secured by the bevel. The process of silo building, however, has from year to year invited ihe adoption of many new plans, such as a dozen years ago would have been considered sheer madness, so that today silos are erected with an abandon entirely in defiance with preconceived notions. Mr. George T. Van Norman, manager of Wauwiniit Farms at West Newton, Mass., has illustrated this spirit of independent breaking away from old ideas in a manner that would fairly take away the breath of some of the pioneer silo men. This method he has described in a late Hoard’s Dairyman (Dec. 25, ILLINOIS STATE DAILRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 191 °98). Writing of the silos on Wauwinet Farms he says: “The ones about which I wish more particularly tuo speak are round ones, put upon leased farms, with the expectation of remcving them on the termination of our leases. They are alike in having the sky for a roof, the ground for a bot- tom, and no foundation but a 2x6 spruce to secure a level base for the walls, while protecting them from roitirg on the ground. The first is 20x30, built of staves, and put up in ’97 at a cost of about $330.00. Last August a second stave silo 24x30 was erected at a cost of, in round numbers, $340.00. Early in September we realized that we had not yet storage enough for our corn, and gave an order to a builder to construct one 24 it. in diameter, and as high as he could find 2x4 scantling to build without splicing. These 2x4 spruce scanzling were to be set 18 inches apart from center to center, upon a 2x6 sill, directly upon the ground, as for the stave silos previously erected, and to Le sheathed on the inside with two thick- nesses of 14x6 spruce or pine, with tarred paper between. On the out- side at the bottom, half way up and at the top, were to be two, three ani two bands of 1x6 common fencing respectively, and no other boarding. This order resulted in a silo 24xi% at a cost of $174.21, and having a capac- ity of 250 tons. “The stave silos cost us per ton of capacity $1.76 and $1.41 respec-. tively, and the one built on the “Wisconsin idea,’ modified, cost us 69 cents per ton. “We ask, why have a roof ina silo, except for appearance?. Our first stave silo is empty today for the second time, and neither last year nor this have we been able to detect any injury to quality of silage from ex- posure to the weather on top. Asa matter of fact, we never had better silage than we are feeding now out of this roofless, hottomless and foun- dationless silo, though we did have to shovel nearly a foot of snow oif of ita few days ago.”’ Mr. Van Norman’s method may commend itself to our attention as an admirable temporary plan, but for permanent use it will be wise, I believe, to have such a foundation as will insure a level sill for the staves to rest on, as long as may be desired. The character of the soil, as i Mines yt a, 192 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. ool have already indicated, will have something to do with the foundation re- quired. The need for a floor or a roof is a pertinent matter to also con- sider. Where snow falls frequently in winter, then a roof of some sort commends itself, while in the southern parts of the country, where snow is only incidental, the roof is mvre unnecessary. left and side of the paper, and every boy and every one that milks weighs the milk every day in the year. ‘There isa placea the right side of the sheet for general : remarks. If a cow is off her feed or shrinks her milk or any thing else is the matter, then we will record that against her, and it goes on the re- marks column. These sheets are for fifteen days. Then I tulie them down and putup clean ones i: taketheold sheets and put them in the ledger; put down the amount, of mili each ccw gives during the fifteen days. It is recorded in the general remarks column. Bach cow in the barn is subjected every thirty days to the Babcock test. All of this work is done by the boys. I have 21 son :5 years oid who carried on a test of the cows when he was 13, according to the rules of the Jersey Cattle Club. f As I said before I am conducting a dairy school twelve months in the year with my boys and giris. My girls don’t do the milking, but the girl that works in the creamery is probably as well versed in farm butter ILLINOIS STATE DAIRIMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 221 | making as the average buitermaker, although she does not do the machine part of the work; and I think with the district school education I am giving my children, I am doing al! for these boys and girls I ought to do. In fact I feel as. though I wouid rather not have them subjected to the influence of a town school or a coilege. The farm is getting tnem ready for life. If they are ever compelled to leave home, they can command salaries. QUESTION BOX. A Member: Is it a general practice among creamery men to return the skim milk sweet to the patrons? Mr. Gurler: I can answer that. It is. We do every thing in our power to return that milk as sweet as we possibly can. The milk cans that this skim milk runsinto areall washed thoroughly. Every thing connected with that skim milk is kept as sweet and clean as possible, and so is the tank into which we run the new milk. With the price of beef ani stock and calves now, skim milk is valuable and we must take the best possible care we can of it. There may be cases where that. is not a fact. I know of some creameries to this day who run that skim milk into a tank in the ground. .The patrons ought to rebel and not allow that. Mr. Hostetter: I would like the opinion as to whether it was going to be practicable to have the hand separator on the farm, and deliver the cream instead of the milk. Wouid the skim milk be in better conditioa if we have the milk separated fresh from the cow, than they can possibly have it by hauling the milk to the factory and bringing back the skim milk. Mr. Newman: You will get that in next year’s report. , Q. Mr. Gurler, I would like to ask how best to establish a milk route? i A. I am not prepared to say, but I can say this much, itis a pretty hard thing to control. I think Mr. Hopkins can, perhaps, answer that question. Mr. Hopkins: The best way to control and lay them out is to get the farmers to haul their milk themselves. If the patrons have any kick coming at the factory you can tell them direct and not depend on milk- route men. ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. A) cx) CaS) Mr. Hostetter: I don’t believe it is best for one man to aiways haul the milk to the factory. Mr. Monrad: Mr. Hostetter’s objection is good, and I don’t think it is best either. It is easier for the farmers to take turns hauling. Cne farmer hauling a certain number of neighbors’ milk for a time and then another, in that way the butter maker will see the different farmers during the season. Mr. Ikert: Can any system or arrangement be made whereby teams and men delivering milk to a creamery would not have to wait more than ten minutes for other patrons, aml get their own new skim milk?. Mr. Carr: That is almost impossible tc overcome. If the patrons of a creamery all brought their own milk, and the man would skim it as fast as he could empty it, they would have to waita little anyway. Tenminutes is too short. In some creameries where we have got five or six loads that come a long distance, they will allhustle and try to get in ahead and will not wait, consequently they are all there in a bunch. They must take their turn and some will have to wait a while, for we have got to separate the milk. Mr. Hopkins: There is only one way, and that would be to have the patrons come in as you would have a railroad train, come in on schedule time; have a certain time for each hauler, and I have no idea it can be done, but that is the only way. Mr. Monrad: ‘Wouldn’t it be practicable to have a skim milk tank that was very nice and clean and pasteurize the skim milk and deliver the previous day’s milk. Mr. Hopkins: You could not de it without some one having to wait. Mr. Monrad: That’s right. A Member: What effect does the corn cob meal have on the quality of milk—that is, where they grind the cob and meal together. Prof. Fraser: I am afraid I cannot answer that question very well. The coarse corn meal is nota very goad feed for milk production. If you are going to feed corn or corn cob meal, I prefer the latter. Mr. Gurler: What did you feed before you fed this corn cob meal? A. Corn and oats and such things. Fed corn cob meal and oats together in bran. They argued to me that I could feed butter fat out and not in. That was news to me. ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 993 Mr. Gurler: Where you fed this butter fat out was by feeding a food that caused the cows to give more milk. A less percentage of fat in that milk than if you got a smailer amount. Q. In other words in Elgin they would not allow them to feed corn cob meal. A. Ineverheardofsuchathing. I guess they are a little off. Mr. Cobb: I would like to ask the farmers in this convention if it will pay me to pay a man $20.00 amonth end provide wagons to haul ma- nure over rock roads, and then what kind of land to put it on. The ma- nure costs enly the hauling. Will it pay me to do that, and what land shall I put it on? M. Jones: If he is making fancy butter, don’t put his manure on pasture land. Mr. Soverhill: I am thinking it is prettv good practice to preach What you practice. I live one an‘ one-half miles from town and I don’t think it pays to haul manure'that far. I get it from the farm. H. B. Breed: I bought twenty acres of pasture land in Knox county and by drawing manure out to the ground from Galesburg on that land I have been offered since $10.00 an acre rent for that same land. It paid me at that time to draw manure. The convention then adjourned. ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. ! ci) che) qe Secretary's Financial Report Secretary's report on money received and paid out by him in con- nection with Galesburg convention. RECEIVED. From: City: of Galesburg... fio... tlc ia ee ee eee $150.00 TOMS CAG VeERLISTIS ii ee a nia Utica etre ai cues Na rage ec TALS - 145.00 From Membership ................0¢ Tr Rn IE in REN sy Ss) adn 137.00 Irom) Drafts On: Treasurers. tics oe voce awe o) ets alone Cee eee ees 14.25 $446.25 EXPENDITURES. For stamps (Nov. 2.to0 April 27°99. 32... eck p S/aies foe ate ore Oe eee $ 31.50 For three trips to Galesburg............ EO err fics Aas 10.50 For postal cards and printing same........ a alate ala at ete te tetnue ee terete 5.00 Mor telegrams eae. Ge arcels wictaiste's ore SMES RR SIAN) Si5..6) 8 BAAR Ce ELis Kor cartage (Dee: 21 wo Jams aye ose case Gels 6 laces ce aes ee eee 4.50 Folding posters, stamping, mailing, and addressing programs, and typewriting........ A eae ree TAM TM MCN A Ao a "9.75 MOn OXChan See ci See ear is soar emia RA nA ONE TGISS NAS .60 Wor express charges........... ..- GOO ogo edo boom Tadd 6700 Go0K% 2.75 FOOr DAD SOS sie ee ree cee elie sel eae B ereNoue Uae Ne ae Nore cues ae ee - 17.65 Ten tickets’ (Chicago-Galesburg) . cn sea eresanelaieamimetoen hele ie cele acs Biases 6.8 6 ea Os Bw e 141 Agricultural Buildings of Neighboring States........ .... ..00 ceccves . 143 The Needs of the Hour—Mrs. Mayo...... ietellee stele cies othe wna wlaslar'onsei (oeipat . 149 Woman’s Buttermakers’ Association—Mrs. E.' A. Sterling............ 159 268 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. Creamery Buttermaking—O. A. Sey fried. sx. 220.5 sacle. sale ee oe sees Does It Pay to Make Full Cream Cheese—S. G. Soverhill.............. LOY Who Shall Breed the Dairy Cow?— Prof. EH. Davenport.......... ..... ALT es: The Silo and Silage of Today—Prof. C.S. Plumb...... .... .... ....5:- 183 The Farmer Boy and the District School—W. W. Noyes.......... e+e. 10% The Profitable Dairy Cow—Prof. N. W. McLain...... 0... .20. wees eee 200 Unfinished Batties—Mrs. MayOnee cc sccc ec are ec «esc oriecsbece spareeeale tie eee 208 Need of a Dairy Commission and Pure Food Legislation—C. Y. Knight. 2138 Resolutions Adopted........ AAEM eee oer came Entre PEON E a Sc GC 4'b.0 oc 216 Officers HWlectedie ey 5 5 Maw ars Stele eke cre aia ate Jot ueloee wie eke. Tones vce et eee 218 The Boys On: the Farm— "Bull Jersey’) ss sc. sc 6 vce wis cto cies ole cite) shee etc anaes 220 QUeCStiON BOX sisi ee alas yo eee a ohare ew eae eho gla orate ea a Spee coe eel oie ene eee 221 Secretary. cg MinameralavepOntercs ns rece oiomeceeoes se os ve ate wiCeh Shel eee 224 secretary s General Report..cs vse tee. oe ares lee octocie ier a erraenereeien 225 Scores at-Galesbure ‘Conventions: gcc cicii ec eee eae "aia eee 226 Premium: Lists sc 3.25 6 Sieiectoce soo ce tatlctielle ct stately oa a, eevee nin stern hee) Serene ee enen 228 Participants in Pro Rata Purses ss sc sce re iu an cet eietine ciate emer ert meron 230 Lllimos yw DWairy Laws seis toys Ge alle cieiet ol olase ores ou cnares et helena ettetenc neta: etait 232 Pure Food Commissioners: sills. ses sects | selece peter ee © area rete een 242 Board 0f- inspection sills asses cree cele | lene oe ee ete atevolers necaelcenen . 250 University of Illinois and Its Agricultural Department.............. 254 A Model Dairy Marm—Geo: Cavem’.).ificn se. clei < of toe cic fe eels oe ltrs sneer nate 257 NOVC emt) Pax Movement. wis a rete tcc ee coc teeel tocsrete (over ake ious ioyeee eet stm ete 262 Our: Next=Con vention eee eS ici Neti a rennet ee ate ai omeirene meee 265 wn 0112 069491881