The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1915-08-10

and useful service 70 III.
nlanity.
h following modified quotation is
in point:
Strangely enough. farming, h first
Of all industries. has been the last to
break away from dull pioddlng and
hlind ~drudgery. and to share in the
benefits of intelligent understandings
Until the present generation. the
farmer has never known what ne was
doing. nor why he did it. How bitter
has been the tragedy Of this long
g1oping in the dark by the man who
has not only eaten his own bread. but
fed the world by the sweat Of his
over-urdened body. To the unthink-
ing, life is but endless toll and druid
gerry, while pleasure and Inspiration
come to the man who understands his
work.
What a picture is the following.
taken from a recent letter written by
a w~ell-known resident of Northern
Illinois: within a radius of ten miles
from my door there are at least 900,
100000 pounds of milk produced each
year ian average of ten S-gallon cans
per day for every quarter section of
land), yet | have lived with this peO-
pie for 80 years, and as a matter of
fact, easily verified, no other depart
ment of life of which I am %cognizant
can measure with it in its deplorable
ignorance. Here they are a great
colony of people with no literature
with which to inform themselves, and
still producing a food for human
beings to live upon.
"Anther feature is. not one dairy
man in twenty has anything like a
true conception of the production Of
his individual COWS. l think now of
no one who is making tests TO know
if each cow is profitable, or the re
verse. Again, where great ignorance
such as this prevails, also great filth
goes hand in hand.' Think of that
from one Of the best dairy regions Of
the state. Do not these conditions
show a waste of energy that calls for
a campaign of education?
Money does not MAKE the man. and
yet it has been found impossible to
administer to the better man until
his physical environment is comfort
able and respectable. The highest
success comes to the man from intel
ligent, conscientious effort. Strict
5 flaws govern our achievement. If a
man can double his earnings by simply
: developing and using his brain power,
, and conserving his energy SO that he
t can live respectfully and bring up his
children to their highest usefulness
l this is a conservation of natural re
sources of even greater consequence
i lLdH pI0SGINluS our IOToSlS ana OuI
] mines.
+ Why is the average annual produc-
ton of the cows in the United States
= 80 pounds of butter fat, causing {
loss Of $1.40 to the owner, instead O
o 325 pounds of butter fat, making {
profit of 5000 annually-the poinr
which some dairymen in Illinois have
Z increased their grade heards by sim
ply putting Intelligence into the bust
II naCC and this iC hv no a III.
maximum of what can be done. Their,
. is no reason why all of the herds IL
the United States should not be yield
. ing as large an annual production a
( these if they were as intelligent.
handled. Dairymen do not stop t
consider the tremendous trif1es il
e their business. While the differenc
in earning wv of these COWS is onl
: liz cents per day, his small in
crease for each of the $4,000, 900 10Y
- in the United States would mean a
y additional profit of 1851, 600, 600 ar
y nually for the ~daisymen.
-" We have been talking about thi
testing and keeping a record Of tn
-, individual cows so long that we wis
=, it were not necessary to say anythin
more about it, but so long as dairy
g men persist in being ignorant of The
cows production, we shall kee
70 pounding away until they become az
If quainted with each Individual co
ct and save themselves the folly of COZ
To verting high-priced grain into "dril
On bles of milk and loads of dung
Bookkeeping has shown that TT
s~hiftless hit-or-miss breeding of scrul
all does not pay expenses. The argume1
IN is plain enough. A dairy COW is a m;
chine for converting food into dail
to products, and the best ar
n surest profit consists in employing II
he best machlnes o~btalnable. Remarl
ut aple Improvement has come with tt
grading up of dairy herds.
The price Of dairy products has a,
ZEE vanced, but not in proportion to IL
advance in the prices of grain al
land, and under the present conditio1