The River Falls times. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1894-1933, 1897-01-19

IY ,dSk1nS CQom WHAT
milk from month to month, and per
pound for butter fat, or per hundred
weight for milk, and was usually an
swered that they had forgotten, or
they believed it was SO and so, or the
other, leaving the impression that it
was their business to see that their
COWS were doing all that it was posi-
bic in the quantity and quality of milk,
and the prices or returns would be all
right when the time came to draw
their pay; in other words, it was not
question of price so much as what they
could make the cows do per month or
year in weight of milk or butter sold.
Kansas has some superior advantages
for dairying. We can manufacture as
fine a butter, or at least it sells for as
much per pound, as any sister state
can boast; we have ready market tor
all and more than we can supply of fine
goods; there have been large quaint
ties of poor butter made in creameries
as well as on farms-tOo much entirely.
1t costs more to make poor article
than good one, and it brings less
than half as much money, and have
not seen the day, in the nine years that
| have been engaged in the manufac-
ture of butter by the separator process,
that l had not sale for more than had
to offer. This cannot be said of farm
made butter; it is, on the other hand,
a continual drug on the markets of the
world, selling at less than cost. Why
not take the same raw material, sell it
to a good and well-regulated creamery,
and get twice the money for it, and
have ready sale? Now, why all this
difference? We say there are numer-
Gus causes, the principal one being lack
Of facilities for the making OF butter
on the average Kansas farm, and the
large percentage of foreign matter that
is in milk that cannot be strained out,
all of which is removed by the separat-
or. The creamery makes uniform
grade; raises the standard of quality
very materially; has an output that
will enable it to establish trade that
will stay by it If the goods are kept up
in grade, and at price very much
above farm or ladle butter. There is
not farmer in Kansas, or elsewhere,
if he knows what could be done with
good COW, but what would be a dairy
man. There is not more honorable
way of making a comfortable living.
Show me farmer who has insisted on
raising grain for the past six or seven
years exclusively, keeping very little
dairy stock, if any, who has made any
money, and kept his grocery bills and
incidental expenses paid up without
going in debt, and I will show you two
who, with ten Of fifteen cows, have,
aside from raising wheat crop, raised
enough of corn, oats and other feed
crops and FED them to COWS that paid
off mortgages on their homes, paid liv-
Ing expenses on half the acreage, were
happy, and had money in the bank.
We have here in central Kansas, with
in a radius of seventy-five miles, some
thirty creameries, paying to the farm
ers monthly from $780, 900 to $4,000;
the number of red barns, painted
houses, smiling faces and happy fami-
lies is growing monthly in proportion
to the increase in amount paid out
Ten years ago the same community re-
ceived less than $4,000 per month from
the same source. Other branches of
farming have lost pace; we need to
remedy this by different system; we
have come to the place and stage where
we must do it if we would keep abreast
with our neighbors; the dairy and the
COW must figure conspicuously at this
stage. She will do it if we give her
half chance, and it is for those to say
who are striving to own pleasant homes
and have comfortable surroundings
whether or not she can have recogni-
ton in our midst.