The Warner sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1885-1???, 1886-10-22
Starting a Dairy.

Starting a Dairy.
The low price of beef and pork, the
great interests in the ranch and range
cattle business, and the uncertainty of
producing paying crops of all kinds of
grain have caused many stock-raisers
and farmers to consider the propriety
of engaging in dairying. The passage
by congess of the oleomargarine bill
has also had considerable effect in caus-
ing them to look favorably on dairying
as perhaps the most reliable, if not the
most profitable, department of hus-
bandry. A careful observer in almost
any portion of the northern states will
notice that dairy farmers are generally
prosperous, even when the price of
milk, butter, and cheese is compare
lively low. They ordinarily have we'll
managed places, excellent farm build
ings, good horses and carriages. and
mills for raising water. and other con-
v%eniences for saving labor and promot-
ing comfort. The conclusion drawn is
that all these things were obtained by
producing milk and manufacturing it in
to butter and cheese. As dairy farms
look better than stock and grain farms,
many come TO the conclusion that they
are generally much more profitable.
Cattle-raisers, grain-producers, and
general farmers who are likely to be
carried away by their fancied estimates
of the profits of any branch of dairying
would do well to remember that, as a
rule, farmers are not likely to engage
in milk production till they have ac-
CURED quite large means and have their
places well improved. Their wealth
and surroundings represent something
more than the profits derived from pro-
ducing milk for the city market or for
manufacture into butter and cheese.
Most Of the prosperous dairy farmers
in the country were very comfortably
'fixed'' before they abandoned the
raising of grain and the production of
wool and meat for keeping COWS for
their milk. Some of them had impov-
erished their soil by raising continuous
crops of grain to such an extent that a
change of management became neces-
sary. They found it needful to what
the English call resting crops as
clover and grass. Having done so they
found dairying the most proItable
branch of farming they could engage
in. They had abundant lean to stock
their farms with COWS and employ help
to tend them. In short, theywere well
prepared to succeed in the business of
dairying.
Commercial dairying in this country
started in central New York, where the
farmers had bacome quite wealthy by
raising grain and cattle, and where the
soil on most farms had been injured by
raising wheat for many years in sue
cession. From there 1t extended into
northern Ohio, Illinois, and Wisconsin,
and finally into Iowa. In very few
instances have farms been at first fitted
up and prepared for keeping COWS for
the milk. They were, during several
years, perhaps an average lifetime, de-
voted TO Rising gram and stock to be
sold for their meat. They cultivated
grasses, an abundant supply of pure
water, good roads, and an abundant
supply of persons who can be engaged
as mixers are essential to success In
dairying, and these can not ordinarily
be found in q portion. of the country
but recently settled. A farmer who
has not considerable capital can not
safely engage in the profession of
dairying, even though he has quite a
large body Of land. A good herd of
dairy cows costs a large sum, and they
require to be sheltered as well as work
horses are. They must be selected
with care and Judgment, or raised on
the place from stock having q good
milking record.
That as much money will ever be
made by keeping dairy lows as was
made during the late civil war and the
few years that succeeded it Is moi likely.
Cheese then retailed at % cents per
pound and very choice butter com-
manded twice that price. The belief
was then general that the so-called
dairy belt'' was very limited in its ex-
tent. 1t was represented as being less
than a hundred miles wide and as ex-
tending only from the Hudson to the
Mississippi river. 1t was admitted that
some butter and cheese for home con-
sumption and for supplying local mar
kets would be made in a few favorable
places outside OF this territory. but 1t