The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1906-07-28
FARMER AND PLANTER
COOPERATIVE DAIRYING.
Money To BE Made In Southern
Dairying-Some Obstacles 10
he Overo9ue.

III many SecllOub w luO ooueA -
some distance from our large markets
we find almost ideal conditions for
dairying and especially for cooperative
or associated dairying. Gurgling
springs of clear, cool water, the dairy
mans boast, On many farms run to
waste, or but seldom utilized. Lux
uriant pastuage is to be had almost
for the taking. Cowpeas, clover and
corn, the crops best suited for soil
ing and supplementing pasturage are
being planted only to limited extent
for the lack of profitable manner OF
disposing OF them. Dairy products, al
most unstable, hence produced only
for domestic purposes. Some few make
a hard cheese; if successful In its
manufacture and curing, it brings
fancy price; but, alas, only about one
in three prove to be of fine quality.
1t is in many sections like the
above, where to-day there seems to
be SO little in dairying, that we ind
conditions favorable for building up
successful dairy industry. Nearly ev-
erything is favorable for cheap produc-
ton of all kinds Of dairy products. To
us there seems to be but three obsta-
cles to overcome in order that these
sections may become producers OF as
fine grades of dairy product as any Sec
lions in the United States.
In the first place, our cows, gen.
orally speaking, have not received the
care in selecting and breeding that
characterizes the cows of the older and
specialized dairy districts. Therefore,
the average production would of neces-
| sity be lower at first. These defects,
however, when we go about 1t In
thorough and systematic manner, can
be improved quite rapidly.
Second, logger periods of warm
weather require that more attention
and expense be given to the handling
of dairy products at this season of the
year.
Third, the same attention has not
been paid to this branch of agricul-
ture as to the production of some Of
our so-called money crops. Conse-
quently the production and handling
of dairy products is not so well under
stood. But fortunately this can be-,
and is being. rapidly changed through
the influence of the agricultural press,
courses of instruction in our colleges,
dairy associations, fairs, and realiza-
ton of some of the possibilities con-
nected with a successful dairy hus-
bandry.
In other parts of the south, and
principally represented by our centers
of population, all dairy products bring
a high price, and real good product,
when it is to be had, brings fancy
prices. But if inquiry be made Of
wholesale grocers and large retail mer-
chants it will be found that they get
their supplies from distant states, no
better, if as well, adapted by natural
endowments and environments as our
state. BY an actual canvass of the
conditions at Raleigh, N. c., and we
believe it represents quite accurately
the conditions in nearly all of the
cities and large towns of the south,
1t was found that between seventeen
and eighteen thousand pounds of but
ter from outside of the state was an.
nually handled by it's merchants.
Business men have seen the folly
of shipping raw cotton to New Eng
land, and then buying the clothes
made from it. Why should the farm
err, in spite of such strong reasons
against it, continue to ship cotton
seed meal north, and buy butter that
could be and should be produced al
home?
We would advise the starting of an
associated dairying in the south on q
small scale at first, in very much the
same way that the first cheese fac
tory was started Tin New York, 1851
by Jesse Williams). Mr.. Williams
sons owned adjoined farms, and in
stead of each one having separate
building and equipment one sufficed
One man could make up the tota
milk from the three farms into cheese
at practically the same expense ant
labor that each would otherwise have
been put to. 1t requires as much tim'
and practically as much labor to make
up COO pounds as 5000 pounds of mill
into cheese.
We have mentioned the long spell
Of warm weather as being serious
drawback to iairying in the south
This difficulty can be overcome nue.
easier under the factory system thai
, by the small Iairyman.
, We do not wish to be understood
rs being in any way unfavorable t
J the small dairy, which is the YER
backbone and foundation of the dair
7 business. But to those sections les
, favorably situated associated dairyin
presents fine possibilities. C. Ker
dali, Secretary-Treasurer North Care
lima Dairynen's Association.