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

AGRICULTURE AND DAIRYING 533
capacity of increasing returns upon the feed she eats.
Let us look at that a moment; we don't want to talk
any nonsense here; we want to take the last view about
this thing. What do your dairy papers tell you? What do
your agricultural schools tell you? Of course lots of things,
friends, but once in a while they will tell you this: If you
can feed corn and alfalfa you have a balanced ration, and
they imply that is all you have to do to run a dair^'-, yet
you have only to turn over the page and you are advised to
feed so and so much concentrates, according to the supply
of m.ilk. What they really mean finally to say is that good
producing cattle will pay you a profit on the grain that you
buy and feed them, to say nothing of that which you
raise; so that this question becomes in the large the
question of every man who has any surplus grain, more
than is necessary for human consumption, who is interested
in the quality of the dairy cow he possesses,
because the only place where grain that is not necessary
for human consumption can profitably go is to feed
stock of some kind. The purpose to which we would
put this feed naturally is the one upon which we are
speaking, and which is of preponderating importance in
this respect to us.
This, of course, ramifies and ties us to
another important matter, and that is the question of the
fertility of the land — a thing that we have adopted as the
A B C of agricultural schools. The conviction that the
future of the soil of this country, as to fertility, is dependent
upon animal manure, is well established in us. We have
accepted it. And I come here to-day preaching upon that
old ground that you know just as well as I do, because I
know that however well you may be conviced of the fact,
the country at large is not convinced of it. We have paid
the price in a thousand different spots in this country for
not having convictions on the subject. It has been known
in New England, New York, North Carolina, Georgia,
Louisiana, and Texas from time immemorial that without