Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1883-07-14
The Dairy Belt.

This is an old-time phrase. It came
into use when the impression was III
rent that there was but a narrow limit
to the territory in which dairying could
be successfully carried on. 1t has no
significance now, and is fast becoming
| obsolete. 1t is now known that not only
good milk, but good butter and cheese,
can be successfully produced anywhere
that COWS can be kept in a fairly health
full condition, and supplied with nutri-
tious and %succulent food. It is not
necessary that the food should be grown
in any particular climate, or on any
particular soil, though vegetation is to
some extent modified by both climate
and soil. Milk and its products may
vary in different localities, and yet. be
equally good. There is no place in the
United States so hot or 80 cold, so wet
or SO dry, that COWS will not prosper by
a little protection from heat and drought
in one extreme, and from cold and
storms in the other; and wherever cat
tie can flourish milk and its products
I easily attainable of good quality and
at reasonable cost. 1t has been taken
for granted that d~airying could not go
South beyond certain lines, but wher-
ever such lines have been fixed, they
have quickly been exceeded. Year by
year the dairy crept further South, till
Mississippi even is becoming q dairying
State. Cotton seed, mill feed and soil
ing with cereals and maize, furnish an
abundance of cheap milk-producing
food in the face # neat and drouth.
Some pains may be necessary to supply
water in certain localities, and to pro-
tect COWS against heat and flies, but such
difficulties are generally easily. sur
do SO.
In crowding the dairy into high lati-
tudes, it has been supposed that the
long, cold winters would consume the
products of the shorter summers, and
make the production of milk an ex-
pensive undertaking, but the experience
Of dairymen in the FarNorth has proved
quite as favorable as that of their fell
lows in more lenient skies. The expense
of long winters is greatly alleviated by
warm barns, and the shorter summers
are more frequently interspersed with
showers, and spring and fall seasons
are too neal together to leave room for
a summer drouth between them, and
pastures remain fresh and green and
growing the whole season through
favor which dairymen farther South are
seldom permitted to enjoy. Where
land is not very expensive, there is
nothing which an supply food for cows
SO cheaply and easily as grass, and
nothing can surpass a fresh and green
pasture for promoting large yields and
high quality Of milk. There is in green
pastures no '.let up to the fullest flow
no drying down from a midsummer
drouth to a diminutive mess, to dwindle
through all the remainder of the season,
with an unpaying return, making the
total Of a long season less than the fuller
flow of a shorter term. 1t has proved
with dairying in the highest ATTITUDES it
has reached, that it is quite as cheap to
protect a herd against the long winters
cold as against the long summers
drouth, thus leaving open the limits of
successful dairying, and making the
American dairy belt an unmeaning
| phrase.-Nationdl LtUe Stock Journal.