The great West. [volume], November 01, 1889, Image 2

About The great West. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1889-18??

Image provided by: Minnesota Historical Society; Saint Paul, MN

                
pictures of the darlings will appear
In our next issue; with a life-size pic
ture of Tom himself, (for a tom-cat
was the father of the kittens), in the
amusing role of persuading a street
car driver that he lived too high and
was in danger of apoplexy.
We will call and see you again as
soon as we get another Kwill.
Once again let us call atten
tion to attacks made on the
character and motives of every
man who advocates the alliance
interest in earnest. It is impos
sible to advocate justice in this
era of the republic’s history with
out having mud thrown at you.
The politician cultivates the idea
that an honest motive cannot
exist. • And if a paper enters the
arena to defend the rights of the
oppressed, the world is informed
that there are a lot of money
making skalawags at the bot
tom of it! Is it not the truth
that men and papers often have
to get out of their honest convic
tions to make money by the aid
of the political whelps? Where
is the money? Is it in the thin
ranks fighting the thieves —or is
it in the pay and service of the
thoroughly organized robbers ?
You knpw where it is—so do
wre. And the check-books of
the gang were opned up before
us in Glenwood, w hen publishing
a country paper. Who by? Let
that be told when the proper
time comes.
Come boys, send in a report from
your Alliance—is it prospering, or is
it on the shelf—or has it forgotten
itself?
We publish notices of the press,
favorable or otherwise, as we see
them, in order to show that a great
majority of the papers of the state
are with the people in the fight ap
praching.
Dawson Sentinel:
In this issue will be found a supple
ment containing an address to the
farmers of Minnesota by Hon. Ig
natius Donnelly, the able and fearless
lecturer of the State Farmers’ Alli
ance. It is an able paper and will
repay the most careful perusal, and
every one who receives a copy should
not only read it carefully but pre
serve it for future reference. It will
make good reading for the next
and furnish arguments to
knock out the sophistry of the
palavering politician who will seek
your vote.
Last week we gave an expression
to an opinion that the working force
of a railroad system was composed
of strong, brave, self-made men, who,
if under a Christian and civilized
directorate, would be the best citizens
in the country. Some have taken ex
ception to this view, but the letters
show a misconception as to who the
“ working force ” are. Jim Hill, Tom
Lowry, Oakes Ames, W. D. Washburn,
et. til., are not of the “working
force.” They belong to the wrecking
force! They first wreck the farmer,
and then they wreck the railroads
and “consolidate.” Consolidation
means skinning the small fry, and
making 120,000,000 in ten years—
rising on the wings of Egyptian
darkness from a coal clerk to a Pluto
crat. Don’t fear, brethren— The
Great West is solid on its great big
anti-monopoly feet.
There seems to be an impression
prevailing that some of the “Rail
road Commissioners”|are Jim Hill’s
tools. What Railway Commission
ers? Of Minnesota? Bless our sen
timental gizzard—Why, we didn’t
know we had any Railway Commis
sion in this st^te!— And have been
advising the farmers to put in a bid
for some!
We have a rich letter from our
friend John Diamond, with in
closures. They will be expatiated on
next week. John is as solid as ever,
and knows a beet root from a mut
ton chop every day in the year.
In the Daily News of Oct. 26, Mr.
Chas. H. Kohlman publishes a letter
on the demands of the times which
we will publish next week. It is in
some parts, a scorcher. As the
Progressive Age says: “The Great
West has a gigantic task before it.”
Such letters aid us in the work.
‘ N v
Within a month from date the Fire
Insurance Department of the State
Alliance will be fully established in
Minnesota —in connection with the
strong Dakota organization. This
constitutes an epoch in the growth of
the alliance in this state. Hundreds
•of thousands of dollars are being
sent out of the state for insurance
when the farmers may just as well in
sure themselves. The Fire Depart
ment will be a part of the Hail and
Cyclone Insurance Co., and persons
wishing agencies will do well to write
to Sec’y Furlong at this
state. \
THE STATE INSTITUTE.
The Farmers’ Institutes will be opened again in December. So valuable do we
regard these gatherings of the farmers that this paper will keep our readers posted
in their work. Mr. Gregg, the efficient Supt., last year began the publication of an
“Annual”—a work of nearly 200 pp., which he distributed free. Fifteen thousand
copies were issued.
He is now preparing the second Annual, for this year. To show what valuable
material is contained in this volume, we have asked the privilege of publishing
articles from the advance sheets, and w r e now give some from the Department of
Dairying
EXTRACT FROM SPEECH BY PROF. JAB. W. ROBERTSON.
Let me say that the dairyman’s education should be not only practical, but
should also be theoretical. It should have for its end not merely the acquisition of
knowledge. The acquisition of knowledge should be pursued that it might be of use
for the benefit of the man who gets it. Let me give you an illustration from ordinary
school education. For what purpose does a boy learn the names of letters ? He does
not learn to write merely to know that certain lines of certain shapes on certain rules
are called by certain names. He learns to write that he may communicate with and
receive communication from others, and become better acquainted with the world.
Now, a man who studies dairying as a theoretical science should not study merely to
know a lot of things for the sake of being able to repeat them. He should study it,
not that he may know a lot of things, but that he may put them in practice as the
boy who learns to write. Too many cheese makers have learned to know things
about cheese, but have not learned to put them in practice in the making and curing
rooms. We want theory, but also practice. A dairyman should be a man not merely
knowing some things, with power to remember, but one who is possessed of power to
do things. This is the difference between education and the lack of it. Now, profes
sional men need special education in the particular subjects lying along their line of
life. I think dairymen should have as particular and thorough a training in subjects
lying along their line of life as doctors, lawyers and clergymen. Dairymen need it
equally with them and may profit as much by it. The primary purpose of education
is to enable a man tp make a living. I would not go as far as Mr. Derbyshire and
say that the primary purpose of living was to make money. Even as dairymen the
primary purpose of education is to make a living, and having made that to earn
leisure.
There is this tendency in our age which is doing our young men much harm: they
are so hungry for having money they have no appetite for being anybody. There is
a difference between having a lot of things around a man and having something in
one's self. Now, dairymen should educate their members that they may protect their
members against every kind of fraud. It is a fraud which leads a man to believe that
he can get half a cent a pound more for his cheese by palming them off on somebody
while uncured. That fraud should be eliminated by better and higher education. It
is a fraud to be eliminated which makes a man content with getting not enough from
his cow for her keep. It is doing our business serious harm and should be fought
against by higher and better education. Our common school system of education
has done a great deal for us. Let me just fix a point here for dairymen. Dairymen
say, “I commenced twenty years ago in this business and I had no special education
for it; therefore, young men beginning now don’t need it.” Some men who began
life on farms forty years ago had no special school education. They did not need it;
competition was not so keen; the necessities of business were not so great. But no
more can they succeed now on farms without common school education than dairy
men can. It is a matter of life to the farmer. He requires to know more of the prin
ciples of agriculture. Competition is keener. So the dairyman wili find his business
increasingly hard, as it unquestionably is. When I commenced some twelve years
ago, I hardly knew what a floating or gasey curd was, but the last year I made cheese
I had occasion to come in contact with them two or three times a day and had them
for months continuously. In this way you see there is urgent need for thorough
training, for a theoretical education, so that the cheese maker will know what he has
to contend against and then be able to cope with the difficulties. Now, the profes
sions manage the education of their members themselves, apart from the school sys
tem. They encourage and support institutions for this purpose. Why should not
dairymen do so among themselves ? Dairymen are apt to think a professional man
lives on a higher plane; that he requires greater ability, greater intellectual power
than they do. I dispute that. A dairyman must of necessity be a business man; he
must get a thorough, good business training. If he has not that as a progressive
dairyman and comes in contact with such a well trained business man as my friend
from Brockville he would recognize the need for a special business training in order to
cope with a man with so clear a head for business. Besides that a dairyman is a
tradesman. Still, I find that men who hardly know the names of the utensils in the
factories do not know how to use their own tools as efficient tradesmen. For in
stance, they do not know which knife to use first to the most advantage. It is the
same as though a joiner would be in doubt as to whether to use the long or small
plane first. I find dairymen just as deficient in a knowledge of their tools as lam of
the tools for carpentering. Dairymen should be good tradesmen. I should include
the apprenticeship to this business. But a man who is merely a tradesman in a
cheese factory is never a success, for although a carpenter can cut wood to a given
shape and size for a given purpose, he has always a similar kind of material and can
depend upon it to be in the same condition every da/. But the cheese maker deals
with a substance which is not so easily managed, and, therefore, when he has to deal
with chemical and vital forces, he becomes a professional man and he should fit him
self for his profession by special education. He may get that in many ways. He
may get it by apprenticeship and private study; he may get it by apprenticeship
and a course of instruction in a school especially established for this purpose; and a
man will be apt to learn more in one week’s schooling from a competent teacher than
in two years without that teacher. That is, he can get the first principles, and he
should know afterwards how to apply them. Then he needs to be specially educated
for another reason, because he occupies a most influential position in his own neigh
borhood. It used to be the understanding in my neighborhood that the cheesemaker
and young preacher were about equally influential in public affairs. The cheesemaker
should not only know the trade of cheese making, but should be a leader of agricul
tural thought in his neighborhood. He should make the cheese factory a school
house for agricultural education. He should be able to tell his patrons the most pro
gressive methods of all dairying occupations, from the raising of calves and the feed
ing of cows up to the putting of his product on the market in the best shape. Now if
he can tell his patrons how to raise calves well he will encourage them to raise them
in the spring before the factory opens, and so he will get more milk. He will get bet
ter stock in that neighborhood, and so he will be working for his own advantage and
will be helping his neighbors to do better in their business. His work demands skill
of the very highest order. And let me tell you that skill is always the product of edu
cation. Let me say a word to master cheese makers. Work in the factory is hard,
and I believe it is often drudgery to the learners. Drudgery, however, is only at
tached to work when intelligent purpose is absent. The master cheese maker should
carefully tell his apprentice the reason why and the purpose for which each bit of
work is done—and so remove the elements of drudgery. By such means the labor
would be lightened and sweetened as would be the temper of the man and the master
as well as the flavor of the cheese. We have had some good education of this sort in
the past. We have had the benefit of this Convention. But that is not enough. Get
any well edited sheet bearing on your business as dairymen. Read it regularly, and
you will wonder how you did so long without one. Those who have heard Mr.
Hoard have po doubt enjoyed his speeches. I have enjoyed the articles in his paper
just as much. However, be sure to get one good dairying agricultural paper. The
men who need this education most are those who appreciate it least, and while we
have had much help from the Convention, those who need help most are those who do
not come here. We should then take a step further in our educational methods. We
should make the information of these Conventions not merely available to every
dairyman but indispensible to every dairyman, carrying light to his neighborhood,
and by persistently taking hold of his judgment bring him into contact with
Dairy Department.
DAIRY EDUCATION.
knowledge. It is wonderful that the thing which a man should be reaching out for is
the one thing which we have to drum into him. If a man once gets an appetite for
dairying knowledge he will always go where he can get it. When a man thinks that
he knows all that can be known he stultifies himself and weakens his usefulness.
IMPORTANT FACTORS IN MAKING THE BUTTER INDUSTRY PROFITABLE.
It is generally conceded that no branch of our agriculture in Ontario is in so
backward a condition as the butter industry, and the object of this association is to
improve it.
It cannot for a moment be contended that Ontario is not, in its climate, in its
soil and pastures, its water, and in the character of its inhabitants, admirably adapted
to superior butter production. Sweden cannot compare with Ontario in these essen
tial adjuncts to butter making, and yet the former country is rapidly acquiring a first
rank for the quality and quantity of its butter. We must seek beyond the natural
causes for the true solution of this problem, and I shall endeavor to point out what
appear to me to be a few of the causes. First and foremost, to my mind, is a want of
knowledge in the art of butter making. I say the art, because the knowledge of how
to produce a good article of butter is not acquired save by application, care, study,
and experience. It is too commonly believed by the majority of our farmers that
when the cream is separated from the milk and made into butter the one to whom this
part of the farm work is relegated has performed his or her duty. No regard is had
to the cleanliness or health of the cow; to the food partaken of by the cow; to the
cleanliness of the utensils into which the milk is drawn and later on retained; to the
absolute necessity of keeping the cow stable free from objectionable odors; to the re
tention of the milk and cream in a pure and wholesome atmosphere; to the proper
mixing and thorough incorporation and equal ripening, by stirring of the cream of
various ages; to the proper ripening of the cream; to the proper temperature of the
cream at the time of churning; nor to the fact that butter should not be worked until
it is one mass of grease; to the beneficial and profitable result that always follows
from the packages being prepared in the most neat and tasteful manner for the mar
ket. All these points are absolutely necessary and must be carefully guarded if we
wish to produce an A 1 butter. That this knowledge is not possessed by the majority
of our butter makers is too painfully apparent when we go upon the open market to
purchase butter for our own tables, and it is so conceded by the general public.
Millions of dollars are annually lost to the province by this lack of knowledge,
and our farmers are poorer by millions of dollars every year. How can we best
remedy this ? Such meetings as we are holding to-day is one of the means to that end
and the objects that this association has in view, the establishment of creameries, is
one of the quickest and surest educators. Discussion in an intelligent audience will al
ways give us fresh light on any subject, and the establishment of creameries, when con
ducted in an intelligent and skillful manner, has in other countries been the means of
improving the butter making knowledge to a very appreciable extent.
Farmers’ wives and daughters, upon whom generally falls the duty of the dairy
work, have not the time or opportunity in this country to learn the art of butter
making in its highest conception. But when a creamery is established the quantity of
milk which is sent to any one creamery justifies the employment of one who has a
thorough knowledge of his calling; one who knows and can impress upon the patrons
the necessity for the proper care and feeding of the cows and the dealing with the milk
and cream. The enforced necessity of producing the cream or milk in a clean condi
tion is in itself an educator to every farmer supplying such, and the modes pursued at
the creamery in producing the butter, and the extra price obtained for the same act
as a stimulant not only to the patrons, but to every farmer in the neighborhood, to
emulate, and, if possible, equal the product produced at the creamery.
But are all our creameries requiring at the hands of their patrons a proper raw
material, and making the best article of butter possible to be produced? I fear
not. Then surely our first work is to set our own houses in order, by the visit of a
properly qualified inspector or instructor before we seek to establish other creameries,
and when this end has been reached let us one and all seek by all means in our power
to encourage the establishment of additional ones.
I do not hold to the opinion that an equally good article of butter cannot be pro
duced in a private dairy; on the contrary, I believe that with equally good surround
ings and with an equal knowledge, better butter can be made in private dairies; for
the reason that, on one farm, with the requisite care, a milk and cream more cleanly
and perfect can be produced than when the buttermaker is obliged to depend on the
cream of many farms. Yet from the very nature of other work on the farm the cream
eries must be, for years, at least, the source from which our best butter will be drawn,
and they will also act as the best and quickest educators in butter-making.
At the price at which beef .and wheat have been selling in the past two years, no
branch of farming will be found so profitable as the dairy cow, and yet the average
cow of Ontario does not produce one-half the annual return that she is capable.
The cow was intended by nature to produce but enough milk to raise a calf. She
is now, as a deep milker, the creature of man’s handiwork. From my own experience,
I know that the length of time a cow will keep in milk depends much upon her care, feed
and handling. The first year of milking is the proper time when to lay the foundation
for a persistent milker. Milk her with her first and second calves but four to six
months, and you will fix that “habitude” in her. On the contrary, feed her well, and
milk her up to within six weeks or two months of her calving and persist in this and
you equally as thoroughly fix the habitude to continue long on her flow. If this
course were persisted in by every farmer in the country we would have the annual
production of our milk per cow largely increased, and our cows would in the winter
time help to keep themselves, in place of being kept, as is too often the case, in a
wretched and impoverished condition, only to require an extra amount of feed or
grass in the spring to bring them to their flow of milk. “Like begets like or the like
ness of an ancestor,” and the “habitude” you have fixed in your stock for two or three
generations will be handed down to their offspring. If our cows will produce 5,000
lbs. of milk per year (equally as good as when they prodced but 3,000 lbs.) every
pound of butter made from such extra 2,000 lbs. means an additional profit to the
owner. To fix a habit of continuing milk, I claim, is a factor in making the butter
industry profitable. Such long continuous milking means, to the creamery men, win
ter dairying; but I know in the United States the best creameries are keeping open all
the year through, and I have no doubt our creameries would be only too glad to do
so were they assured of the milk. In the experience of others, as well as my own, I
know that cows calving in the fall, as a rule, with proper care and housing produce
more milk in a year than those calving in the spring. Cows calving in the fall and be
ginning to fail toward spring are picked up by the grass, and a fresh and additional
flow of milk given to them, whereas those calving in the spring are checked by our
droughts of August and September, and unless unusual care is taken they fall off when
going into the stables. Butter made fresh in the winter will always produce a better
price than packed butter. For these reasons, I claim that winter dairying is one of
the factors in profitable butter-making.
Dry fodder corn is not used for milk production to the extent that it should be..
When cut and steamed and fed with bran and shorts, it makes a most excellent and
cheap food, and the knowledge of its merits should be more thoroughly disseminated
throughout the country. When it cannot be steamed, if run through a cutting-box
and dampened it has almost equally beneficial results. After an experience of three
years in its use, I am convinced that one of the elements that will go far towards
solving the question of the production of a cheaper milk on our farm is properly
cured ensilage. It will allow, if properly stored, cured and fed, the keeping of three
cows to every one now kept on the farm. Ido not refer to ensilage when the water
has been allowed to flow into it. It requires to be kept free from water and air.
Mr. Hoard, of Fort Atkinson, Wis., in recent conversation upon the subject of what
was the cause of the great strides Wisconsin had made in the past two or three vears
in butter-making, attributed it to an increased knowledge in the production and cur
ing, and the merits and value of ensilage, as a fodder to dairy cows, as also the use
of cows especially adapted to butter-making. As a paper is to be read on the subject
of ensilage I shall not dwell on this any longer, but would merely say, after giving
it a most thorough test of three years, we would not be without it at Oaklands, and
I am convinced that it is one of the most important factors in making the butter in
dustry profitable.
It is with some diffidence that I approach the last requisite in profitable butter-
BY MR. VALANCEY E. FULLER, CANADA.
[Continued on Fifth Page.]