Here are some things to think about. At one time there were more real dairy cattle in Lancaster county than there are at present. There were fairly large herds of grade Holsteins producing milk where now there are scarcely any cattle at all. Intensive dairying at one time had a fine start in Lancaster county, but now there is not a herd large enough to be called a dairy, except those owned by purebred breeders. The city milk supply comes from a large number of farmers who produce milk as a side issue. The methods of feeding and caring for cattle on these farms is in the main contrary to the instructions given by the dairy department at the State Farm. The men who made dairying a business here were learning and following agricultural college methods. They had good grade dairy cattle and produced fully twice as much per cow as do the farmers now in the business. They all quit because it did not pay. It so happens that I was one of the men thus engaged. I had a fine herd of fifty high-grade Holsteins that were producing as much milk as is now being produced by thirty of our average dairy farmers. My herd was sold after losing money for two years. We were in a cow-testing association at the time and the fine records made by these cows helped to sell them at a public sale. Right in sight of the agricultural college all that had been accomplished seemed to fade away, and the old red cow, which dairy science has tried for a generation to kill, came back to the very skirts of the city. Just now if every dairy cow in Nebraska would be slaughtered, their milk would hardly be missed but if the old red cow would go on a strike, not a wheel in any creamery of the state would be turning next week. Why this remarkable turn of events? Well, there are two theories. One of these lets the agricultural college and all of us out without disgrace and is something of a slam on the farmer. The other gives the farmer credit for having more sense than we had. Certain it is that the farmer milking his beef cow produced milk for less than we Holstein men could do it. The first theory is that the farmer did not know his costs and therefore kept right on while the deficiency came out of his hide. The second is that the farmer had us beat on the cost of production. Is one or the other of these theories correct? It must be. It would be like taking the hot end of a poker for me to argue that the farmer is a fool and to have one of his number remark that, even though he was, I went out of business against his competition. Some one else will have to argue that side. I have a different explanation.