so much poor butter goes into market, or that imitation butter can be substituted for the neutral kind? DISCUSSION. Mr. W. D. Hoard-What shall we do to reduce buttermaking to a determinate position? Mr. T. D. Curtis-I will tell you what we are thinking of doing in our state. We have got an experimental station and we calculate on having these experiments gone through to determine these questions-determined as much as we can. Until we have some kind of scientific basis for what we do-scientific directions by which to make our butter-I don't see how we are going to come to any conclusion. Mr. Hoard-Under these circumstances would you not take this body of butter-makers, represented by this convention, and use it as a sledge-hammer to pound into the consciences of the people that something should be done with the intelligence and money of these people of Wisconsin. Ole Bull relates a story about going through a fair at Donnybrook and seeing an Irishman sitting on a barrel, fiddling for dear life. He was working desperately hard. He says: "Do you play by ear?" "Divil an ear." "Do you play by note?" "Divil a note." "Well, how do you play?" "By main strength, be jabers." Now, that seems to be the general state of butter making in Wisconsin. There is wide and diversified judgment, and no butter man has cornered all the facts, but he has cornered all the conceit. He believes his theory is the best, and the other one believes his is best, and the result is you can not say he has had no experience. The farmers of Wisconsin pay seven-tenths of all the taxes in the state, representing the great bulk of property in the state, and on these matters they ask and expect so little from their money and the organized forces of the state. I believe before we are through with this convention that we ought to pass a resolution asking the legislature of Wisconsin, at its present session, to devote some intelligence to the discovery of the system or systems whereby the agricul tural interests of this state shall be better served; whereby the dairy interests of the state shall receive some of the money of this state, that something practical shall be done for the farmers of Wisconsin. Why is it that in our legislature the railroads and lumber interests are always listened to? Why, because they are organized; because they know something of what they want. I believe we ought to do something towards establishing in Wisconsin an experimental station, and I hope that this convention will do something to forward it. Mr. Hiram Smith-Although the questions put to us by Mr. Curtis are very pertinent, yet are we very far behind other industries? Do machinists know precisely how to apply power? We see the cog gear recommended, we see friction recommended, and there is the same uncertainty, if you look at it closely, through all human activities, and though we make many failures, yet we make as many successes. What shall we do? Shall we sit down and wait for science before we do anything? We all know that you may pursue two different plans and get good results from both. You may set the milk in shallow pans, in a temperature of sixty degrees, and get butter almost perfection. You may set it away from the air, at a temperature of forty-five degrees, and get butter almost perfection. Now, I am as much in favor of an experimental station in this state as any man, and I hope Mr. Hoard's suggestion will be carried out. Prof. Henry-I want to tell you of something we did on the experimental farm towards answering some of these questions. There is a man in this state selling what he calls a vacuum cream extractor, for which he will charge you $40. He claims he can take cream off in about forty minutes, and that he can deodorize the milk, and so on. The company brought their pump down to our experimental farm, and there, before witnesses, they went through with their tests, and the tests came out against them. We got more cream in the Cooley deep-setting pans. They fell behind the Cooley twenty per cent. in the amount of butter. They had a second trial, and they still got less. They are advertising all over the state of Wisconsin, and when our report came out they claimed we hurt their business, and they threatened to bring the legislature to bear against us. I told the gentlemen to go ahead if they thought they could hurt us. I say to the farmers that that system, so far as the raising of any more cream is concerned, is worthless. That we learned by this experiment. The President-Science is crystallized practice, nothing more, and I suppose if we live long enough and do the best we know, we shall probably crystallize into some sort of science up here in Wisconsin; but this I would say to every dairyman, if you have a method which is paying you well and you are satisfied, you had best stick to it until you find a better one. Make close observation and know what you are doing; compare your results with other methods, and in that way we shall reach some kind of common sense wisdom if it is not scientific wisdom. We have got to work out our own salvation. I cannot tell just the best method. My friend, Hiram Smith, says deep settings, and I use shallow settings. I compare my results with his, and they are not so wide apart. Therefore, I say it is better for him to continue his deep settings and I my shallow. HOW TO MAKE GOOD DAIRY FARMS WORTH ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS PER ACRE. By HON. HIRAM SMITH, Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin. The early efforts of the Dairymen of Wisconsin were mainly directed to make a salable article. We had strong prejudices existing all over the country against western butter and western cheese. This prejudice was very discouraging to new beginners. But there was still another, and more formidable obstacle to contend with, and that was the fact that western dairy products were extremely poor, and to change this fact was the all important thing to do. It took long years of patient labor, much investigation and at times great losses before the fact was changed so as to be known and recognized. This great and desirable change in the character and commercial value of dairy products in Wisconsin has been greatly accelerated and promoted by the Wisconsin State Dairy Association, in bringing the widely scattered dairymen together, to tell each other of their failures and successes. "The one idea" prevailing was how to improve the product, all other questions were subordinate to this. The advantages of better dairy stock, a better system of feeding, the profit of winter over summer dairying, all had to wait until dairymen could first learn how to make good butter and cheese. The first ambition was to make as good cheese as that made in Ohio- that supplied most of the western markets - this point gained, the next ambition was to make as good butter and cheese as was made in Herkermer county, New York. Our New York friends undoubtedly thought us presumptive, but sharp competition at the Centennial Exhibition, in Philadelphia, and at the International Dairy Fair in New York, has put the question at rest, and Wisconsin dairy products to-day, stand as high as from any other locality in the markets of the world. Now that this important point has been gained of making as good butter and cheese as any we have to compete with, we may safely consider how we can increase the product without increasing the number of acres we cultivate. This is the great problem of to-day among dairymen, east and west, and upon its proper solution depends the profit or loss of dairy farming. Five years ago about 18 to 20 cows were kept on 100 acres, that annually yielded about 3,500 pounds of milk per cow. This you will perceive would be at the rate of ten cows for eighty acres, in other words, one cow to eight acres of land. This is about the situation of a large majority of dairymen to-day, east and west, one cow to eight acres. It is easy to estimate the value of land from the productions obtained. If on 160 acres 20 cows are kept, that produce 3,500 lbs of milk each, or a total of 70.000 lbs, at $1 per 100 lbs.. 20 calves at $2 each.... 10 pigs to sell at $12 each. Grain, fruit and vegetables. Total receipts..... $700 00 40 00 120 00 300 00 $1.160 00 To interest on 160 acres at $50 per acre at 5 per cent.. $400 00 45 00 45.00 320 00 100 00 150 00 100 00 $1,160 00 It will be readily perceived that a dairy farm, conducted as stated above, and as nine-tenths of the dairy farms in this country are conducted, the land cannot be made to pay more than five per cent. interest on a valuation of $50 per acre. But little or no concentrated food, such as bran, oil meal and corn meal is used, except a few days in the spring. The farm will produce much more coarse food than 20 cows can possibly digest, therefore there is a waste. Little or no system prevails. Cows are neglected to secure grain crops; there being plenty of pasture no fodder corn is raised. Cows are only milked in summer, and but little corn is raised. Manure that should go upon the corn land from day to day, as it accumulates, is usually thrown out of the stable window under the eaves of the barn to leach and waste until the following autumn, usually to be plowed under beyond the reach of plant life. This kind of dairy farming is largely practiced at the present day, and was almost universal fifteen or twenty years ago, and wherever practiced keeps dairy farms at a value of $50 per acre, or below. But happily there is another kind of dairy farming, "modern dairy farming," which is conducted on an entirely different plan- on the principle of high feeding and warm stables, and avoids all waste of coarse food, by the purchase of bran, midlings and oil meal, to mix in and make all valuable. Modern Dairy Farming starts out with keeping one cow on four acres, and this should be the " pass word" to every Dairy Lodge, "one cow to four acres," and this should be rapidly reduced, until the undoubted possibility was reached, of keeping one cow to every acre. One of the principles of Modern Dairy Farming is to have their cows give the most milk, when the dairy products are in highest price, which is invariably in winter. It has been repeatedly demonstrated |