Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 February 1894 — A Proposition. [ARTICLE]

A Proposition.

We have heard a proposition put in this way: That if it would pay to dairy where land is worth *IOO per acre, it will certainly pay where it is worth from $25 to SSO per acre. Now this may be a true statement, but we are inclined to think that dairying does not follow cheap lands. In fact there is more dairying on high priced land than on low. The time was when daii’ying could not have been introduced in this county under any circumstances. People could raise large crops of corn, cut wild hay. summer their cattle for 25 cents per month, winter them for $5 per head, making the total cost of keeping a steer $7 or $8 fo>- one year. They could be sojd at an advance over cost and keeping of $5 to $lO, all of which could be done without much care or attention. But now this is all being changed, land all fenced up, pasture high priced, crops poor, necessarily making high prices for feed. Two things will have to bedone: Ist, onr land will have to be enriched. 2nd, we will have to

turn ©ur attention to that kind of farming that will build up the land. There is nothing that we can do that will be better for this purpose than dairying. Especially when we take into account that the business is in its infancy and, not like other branches of farming already developed, we have before sis something to work for. A business that is not likely to be over done soon. Now, this is the golden opportunity which the enterprising farmer, who takes advantage of these opportunities, should emerge into this ever-growing branch of farming, and when spring opens up he has everything in “apple pie order” to reap a rich harvest from his milk crop. In what other way can a farmer convert his hay and grain into money to a better advantage? This is no experiment, but the testimonials of one hundred farmers in this county will verify it. The most prosperous farming communities in any section of the country are those engaged in dairying, in connection with the other lines of farming. Don’t wait then for your neighbor but act.