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Show FARM AND RANGE Items of Interest to Rural Readers What's Goinjj on in the Agricultural, Cattle and Dairy Business to Date A writer in Hoard's Dairyman has this interesting information on the subject of the growth of the dairy business;. For a number of years past, the dairy industry has been growing and prospering. Dairy products are bringing profitable prices because of foreign and domestic demand. A bulletin recently issued shows the exports of a few dairy products for the nine months ending April 1, 1916. compared with the same period peri-od in 1914. The table follows: ' 1914 1316 Pounds Pounds Cheese 1,934,000 25,119,000 i Gutter 2.661,000 12,074,000 Con. Milk 12,050,000 89.S6S.000 The increase is astounding. The business of dairying is such a good one that bankers are buying cows for the farmers to pay for on time. The increase of domestic call is due largely to the era of prosperity in ! this country. Wages are at top lev- i els and purchasing power is far ; above normal. Working people can now afford butter, cheese, pastry, ice cream, and numerous other delecta-bles delecta-bles that call for milk. Foreign demand arises from the losses sustained by dairy herds, the same as other branches of the live i stock industry. . Whether or not we ' can expect a continuance of such de- I mand is difficult to predict. Previ- S ous to the beginning of the European war the people in this country con- sumed more butter than was pro- I xduced here. During the year 1914 : our imports of butter were double j the exports, but this condition was reversed during 1915, when our ex- ports of butter were more than double our imports. There is nothing on the horizon that should hinder the growth of our business at least, until Europe has had time to recover from the effects Of the war. |