Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 May 1917 — IVAR AND THE DAIRY COW [ARTICLE]

IVAR AND THE DAIRY COW

, <h No program of preparedness for the impending food supply in the present national crisis is Wise or cbmplete without sharp emphasis or conserving and increasing our national stock of’ dairy cows. We must, of course, bend all of oqr efforts to the prevention of a war shortage in foodstuffs of all kinds, but, when prices for beef begin to rise, dairy cattle must not. be - slaughtered nor dairy feeds ’diverted to other uses. The dairy cow is mankind’s greatest friend. She produces mans best, most serviceable food, and one of the cheapest, * _ . '' x \ ''; ■ A 1,2 00-pound steer, ready for market, contains only about 360 poll fids oh actual food. A dairy cow at two years of age begins to produce and yields thereafter about 900 pounds of edible nutrients in the year and will continue to produce the same amount for' seven year's. That is, she produces, during her actual life, 6,300 pounds of human food. It takes seventeen steers to produce the same amount of human food as a dairy cow duces during her lifetime. I am indebted for these figures to Prof. R. M. Washburn of the University of Minnesota, and he adds the very pertinent statement of the greatest import in the present situation, viz: “The steer, before he pays for any of the food he has consumed, is in debt to his owner for two gears’ feed and, upon payment, ceases to live, while the cow pays for her food daily as she goes.” It seems to me,- therefore, that in any program of preparedness in national food supply, the first and foremost consideration should be given to this remarkable natural food-making machine, the dairy cow. On behalf of the consumer, the widest publicity should be given to the bulletin issued by the United States department of agriculture, dealing with the great food value and economy of milk and milk products, and showing milk to be an economical food even at a price of 15c per quart. “In energy-giv-ing power, one quart of milk is equal to eleven ounces of sirloin steak, or three-fourths pounds of round steak, and one-half eggs, or 10.7 ounces fowl,’’ says the bulletin.

Our people should bear in' mind, also, the significance of the insist- ( ent appeal made to the German | reichstag by Fjieid Marshal von Hindenburg. He called for fat—; fat — : fa€-—fat for his soldiers, and fat for the weakened people. The' fate of Germany may hang upon the..j question of fat. At no time in history figs the value of fat assumed . so ominous a meaning. ’ j A plentiful stock of dairy cows; means not only the quickest, richest and most continuous transformation of feed into human food;-but, above all, it niearis a daily depend-! able supply of butterfat —-the best of all fats —and forestalls the possibility of such deep distress as is experienced in the shortage of fat in Germany. .

A three-year-old steer,, ready for market, contains only about 200 pounds of total fat, while a fair dairy cow will produce, in her 6,000 pounds of milk, 800 pounds of fat -yearly or 2,100 pounds during her lifetime; a steer s 200 pounds of fat in’his life. A continuance of the shortsighted and erroneous attitude of our people on the price of milk and milk products will discourage dairying, and can only result ultimately in a serious . shortage of one of our most essential food products. The tendency of. our farmers is to quit dairying and send. their cows to the butcher, rather than perform irksome service without profit and often at a loss. In consequence, our stock of dairy cattle is lower today, per 1,000 population, than it has been in forty, years. As a nation, we may well be alarmed over the certainty of further depletion, when further rises in the cost of feed and shortage of farm 1 labor make the production of milk wholly unprofitable or a losing venture at the very time when milk, butterfat, and the products derived therefrom should be the country’s greatest safeguard and reliance.

Moreover, further retrogression in dairying means a shortage in animal manure, lowered soil fertility, a lower yield per acre of cereal products, an excessive rise in the price of all foodstuffs coming from the soil and a serious derangement of- our economic life. It spells distress in its keenest form. It appears to me, then, to be the immediate duty of the government to keep stable; to stimulate dairy production by intensive education of the farmer, to the dnd that he may increase rather than decrease his stock of dairy cattle, "and by equally intensive education of the consumer as to the food value and relative

economy of milk. If it becomes necessary to take governmental action safeguard our food supplies, the first decree of be issued, in my judgment, should be most vigorous and ceaseless efforts to prevent the slaughter of productive dairy cows; and. our next concern should be an upward revision of the price of milk based upon the cost of production, and a fair profit to both producer and distributor. Assured a rich supply of milk, plenty of butter and cheese, a nation Can laugh at starvation blockades.—R. M. Dunn, president National Dairy Council.