The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1886-10-22
STARRING A DAIRY.
Some of the Conditions Necessary for
Su cess in Dairying.

Some of the Conditions Necessary for
Su cess in Dairying.
The low price of beef and pork, the |
great interest 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 Congress of the Oleomargarine bill
has also had considerable effect in
causing them to look fayorably on
dairying as perhaps the most reliable,
if not the most profitable, department
of husbandry. 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
comparatively low. They ordinarily
have well-managed places, excellent
farm buildings, good horses and car
riages, wind-mills for raising water
and other conveniences for saving la
Dor and promoting comfort. The con-
clusion drawn is that all these things
were obtained by producing milk and
manufacturing it into 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 car
ried 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 acquired
quite large means and have their places
well improved. Their wealth and sur
roundings represent something more
than the profits derived from produc-.
ing milk for the city market or for
manufacture into butter and cheese.
Mostof the prosperous dairy farmers
I In the country We're 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
change of management became nee
essary. They found it needful to de-
vote their land to what the English call
"resting crops" as clover and grass.
Having done so they found dairying
the most profitable branch of farming
they could engage in. They had album
dant means to stock their farms with
COWS and to employ help to tend them.
In short, they were well prepared to
succeed in the bus ness of dairying.
Commercial dairying in this country
started in Central New York, where
the farmers had become quite wealthy
by raising grain and cattle, and where
the soil on most farms had been in
jured by raising wheat for many years
in succession. From there it extended
into Northern Ohio, Illinois and Wis
consin, and finally into Iowa. In very
few instances have farms been at first
fitted up and prepared for keeping
COWS for their milk. They were, dur
ing several years, perhaps an average
lifetime, devoted to raising grain and
stock to be sold for their meat. They
cultivated grasses. An abundant sup
ply of purn 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 a 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
large body of land. A good herd of
dairy COWS costs 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 a good
milking record.
That as much money will ever be
made by keeping dairy COWS as was
made during the late civil war and the
few years that succeeded it is not un-
likely. Cheese then retailed at twenty
five cents per pound and very choice
butter commanded twice that price.
The belief was then general that the
so-called dairy belt'' was very limited
in its extent. 1t was represented as
being less than hundred miles wide
and as extending only from the Hud-
son to the Mississippi river. 1t was adj
mitted that some butter and cheese for
home consumption and for supplying
local markets would be made in few
favorable places outside of this terri
tory, but it was held that the ''dairy
belt proper must supply the great
markets of the country and furnish the
supplies for export. The old dairy
belt'' is extending in length and
breath every year and already en-
braces about half the country. Dis
tinct dairy breeds of cattle have been
introduced from Europe. Cheese fac
tories and creameries have been estab-
lished in nearly every county in the
Northern States, and the manufacture
of dairy goods is conducted on scien-.
tifc and business principles. That the
dairy industry will continue to be rea-
sonably prosperous is altogether likely.
That it will be vastly more profitable
than other branches of farming is i'm
probable. - ChlcndO Times