The Demands of Dairying Communities.—Since the dairy people sell their surplus at a good price, they can afford to satisfy their demands for many up-to-date articles which manufacturing communities wish to sell. For example, Wisconsin sends her food to the manufacturing cities and takes in return the textiles and shoes of New England and New York, and the automobiles and farm implements of Michigan, Indiana or Illinois. Denmark calls on the United States to supply her not only with dairy machinery but with wheat for the people and cottonseed cake for the cattle. She depends on Germany and Great Britain to furnish clothes, hardware and fuel.
Denmark: an Example of the Progressiveness of Dairying Communi lies.—Since typical dairying communities are located in regions where the people have a high degree of energy and ability, they are unusually progressive. Through the development of dairying as the industry best fitted to the climate and most competent to improve the sandy soil, Denmark produces so intensively that the Danish people are among the most prosperous in Europe. Though they number only three million, their yearly export of butter to the United Kingdom alone amounted to £4,000,000 in 1919. One reason for this is that the Danes have built up an uncommonly high reputation for sanitary dairy methods, and this is carefully upheld by the government. Tubercu losis, a disease dreaded by all cattlemen, not only for cows but because it may be passed on to people, is prevented by a monthly inspection of all cows. Another evidence of Danish thrift is the fact that nearly 90 per cent of the farms are worked by their owners.
The dairy industry, more than most kinds of farming, demands cooperation. This fact, together with Danish thrift, has led to some of the world's most remarkable cooperative societies. In 1895 a dozen dairymen with a joint stock of 300 cows formed an association and employed an expert cow tester. Today there are about 530 such asso ciations for milk production alone. They have raised the standards so much that the butter fat produced per cow was doubled in 24 years. But the efficient sale of products and purchase of supplies is quite as important as scientific production. Hence, the cooperative societies concern themselves not only with breeding good animals, testing milk, making butter, and slaughtering hogs, but with marketing butter, milk, and cheese, and with buying fodder, fertilizer, tools, and blooded stock. One remarkable feature of Danish cooperation is that it is based on a great number of small independent farms. These are growing in num ber, as the law forbids the uniting of small farms, and favors the parceling out of landed estates. It is much harder to get many small
owners to come together than to get a few large owners to cooperate, but such cooperation enables even the small farmer to have the advantage of modern machinery and expert knowledge.
The Dairy Industry in Wisconsin.—Wisconsin and New York are other regions where geographical conditions favor dairying. At present Wisconsin owns one-twelfth of the dairy cows of the United States; it has half, the cheese factories of the country, and produced dairy products worth over $180,000,000 in 1919. The abundant produc tion there and in northern New York arises partly from the fact that the climate, although too cool to make corn a main crop, is admirably suited to the growth of green corn for ensilage. Thus it is easily pos sible to fill the silos which are a necessity on American dairy farms because of the need of fresh fodder in winter. Like the Danish farmers, those of Wisconsin and New YoFk greatly increase the fertility of the soil with the manure from their stock.
Another factor in the American dairy industry is cooperation. The cooperation which grew up in Denmark has spread to the dairy industry in other regions including Germany, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, the United States, New Zealand, and even Siberia. In the United States Wisconsin in 1911 was among the first to pass a law providing for cooperative societies like those of Denmark. One reason for thirl is that one-fifth of the people of Wisconsin are European immigrants) and half of these are Scandinavians, Germans, or Swiss from lands wheii cooperative methods in dairying have net with success. For similarl reasons the experiment stations of the State University perform unusually] good service in teaching the dairymen how to build well lighted stablei and keep them clean, thus diminishing tuberculosis. The station have proved the value of highly bred animals so conclusively that dairymen have not only eliminated most of the ordinary cattle but ar now replacing their grade stock, as the half thoroughbred types a called, with real thoroughbreds. The change in the animals is typic: of the way in which the dairying industry, where highly developed, • rapidly causing the work of converting grass into milk and milk int other food products to become one of the most advanced industrie Far more than any other animal industry it helps in the developme . of education and good government because it demands so much thong and study.