The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1910-03-31

the TACT That, favored as is northern
Iowa with rich soil and good people |
living on it, the southern half is
even more favored from the stand
point of milk and butter-fat produc-
ton. But l sound a note of warning
at this point. When COWS are MIXED
| they should be good cows. Statistics
show that they are being MIXED in
Iowa about 100000 cows at this
time. One-third of them or nearly
half million are producing enough
butter annually to pay for the cost
of their feed, and this condition is
not right as is demonstrated by the
fact that we have thousands of cows
in Iowa producing over 800 pounds
of butter annually and others rang
| ing from that up to as high as 700
pounds. This illustrates that there
are great possibilities in milking good
COWS so that as the farmer of the
southern half of the state begins
milking COWS he should look to milk
ing good, well bred dairy cows rather
than inferior specimens upon which
he may spend his time without any
/ profit whatever as compared with
what he might possibly get from a
| better class of cows.
In order to build up herds of the
proper character good sires must be
selected, and for this reason dairy
sires are carried on the Special Dairy
Trains to demonstrate to the farmer
| the character of animals which, when
crossed with the cows that are al
ready upon the farms in this part of
the state, will produce daughters
that will be more productive than
%lDs,
conditions; and this, bear in mind,
means success, while, on the other
| hand, whenever a sire is used whose
resulting daughters are in the least
| degree poorer than their mothers
under the same conditions, the result
spells nothing more or less than fail
ure.
1t is noticeable fact to me as l
travel over the southern part of Iowa
at this time, that more cattle and
hogs are being fed than there were
some six or seven years ago. / re-
member at that time you people in
sections of southern Iowa were ship
ping in from Kansas and Nebraska
corn to feed to your cattle and hogs.
Today you are just beginning to ship
from your country corn that has been
!
bear in mind that every bushel of
| buShel of wheat or oats or other
grains raised removes from your
farm fertility If we look back in his
tory we find that the farmers of the
New England states has gradually
marketed his crops from off his farms
until today they are worthless and
| COLI ho
buildings upon them cost. The efforts
required in raising crop are not
paid for by the results. If Iowa is to
retain her standing as the most pro-
ductive section of the world, she
must continue with stock raising and
stock feeding. There will always be a
market for good beef and good pork,
and there will always be feeders in
this section of the state as well as
elsewhere who can make beef and
pork with profit. This, however, must
be accomplished with we'll bred beef
steers and by careful methods. There
are others that can make larger prof
it's out of milking good COWS and for
them it is much more advisable to
dairy than it is to raise and sell
grain. ] would not have you believe
that all of us should be dairy farm
ers, but | do believe that all of us
who milk COWS at all should milk
good COWS and in order to get good
cows we must have cows that are
bred for dair purposes, and in order
to have such COWS we must use dairy
bred bulls whose mothers grand
mothers, great grandmothers, cts,
have demonstrated that they are
capable of producing large amounts
of milk and butter-fat and doing it
profitably. The man who owns an
eighth or quarter section of this
southern Iowa land and work it
intelligently, guarding at all times
against the loss of fertility by re-
placing upon his farm the byproducts
of the dairy COW and raising for her
use clover, alfalfa, sweet clover, and
making portion of his corn into
corn silage, can retain for himself
and leave for his sons farm that is
even better and more productive than
it was the day he began farming it.
| There is nothing that ! could suggest
to you that means more to the up
building of our farms and conse-
Fquently, the prosperity of our COM
munities, than the milking of good
cows, the rotation of crops and the
raising of clover, alfalfa, sweet
clover and the production of silos on
the farms and the preservation of
large portion of the corn crop which
has for the past many years remain
ed in the field only to be broken up
and burned in the spring.
Terrible Group.