Henry Baird Favill, AB, MD, LL.D., 1860-1916, a ... - University Library

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AGRICULTURE AND DAIRYING 517
it.
There would be to-day a number of run-down herds,
but for the purebred sires that have kept up the level all
the time.
Now, what about the dairy business? Has the dairy
industry done more than that? Take this" question and
think about it. Has the dairy industry done as well? Go
back, those of you who are old enough, to the old herds of
cows, which were nondescript cows, a mixture of red cows,
short-horns, and all those old-fashioned kinds of cows in the
milk herds, and we see them now more or less. They were
good cows to a large extent. There were many of those
herds that were good herds of milking cows. As you look
over the country, take it at large now, not the select places,
not the experiment stations,
dairy industry has been developed strong,
at the matter at large in all
not the few places where the
but as you look
the parts of this State and of
every other State, has the type of dairy cattle improved to
coirespond with the improvement in the type of beef cattle
I think you will answer in the negative. I think that
you will say that the dairy cows in general have not shown
the improvement that the beef animal has shown. And
then the next question to answer is, "Why?"
Certainly we have just as much interest in the dairy
cows, certainly it is as close a proposition to the farmer,
certainly it is a more manageable proposition, because it
works in smaller units and is closer at the hand of the owner.
And yet, the dairy cow, generally speaking, has not kept
pace with the beef cattle in development.
There is only one answer to that. There may be various
causes for it, but there is just one answer, and that is, that
there has not been the conception on the part of the dairy
farmer as to what he wanted or what he ought to have,
that there has been in the mind of the beef man.
In the second place, the dairy farmer running a small
business on a small margin of profit, and really financially
hard up all the time, has not had the spirit or the courage,