up nis judgment, he declared that any butter that looked as nice as that, had been good at one time, and when butter ceased to be good, it becomes poor very rapidly. He said this was neither good or bad. It is utter folly for dairymen to undertake to compete in this matter. The law in New York is, that this butter shall be branded oleomargarine butter. They have a little brand about the size of a twenty-five cent piece, with "oleomargarine around the edge. That is put upon a linen cloth, and the butter is done up in pound or half-pound packages, as the market calls for. It complies with the law, and the consumer never mistrusts but what he is eating butter all the while. It don't give satisfaction to the educated taste and there is no danger of deceiving anybody who is used to eating good creamery butter only a week old. But dairy butter is practically out of the race. You may not all know it, but you will feel the effects of it, if to make ordinary dairy butter.

you continue

Mr. Norton In this improved process do you ever use any coloring matter?

Mr. Smith Always, because the market demands it. Almost anybody would rather have colored butter than white butter. Ordinary cows make white butter in cold weather.

Mr. Norton My wife is the best butter maker in La Fayette county, and she is the best looking woman.

Mr. SmithShe didn't get the premium at the state fair, or the International fair.

Mr. Norton-I don't understand that that would decide the question. I was in hopes you would take my word for it. She never used any coloring matter. Her butter is always of a uniform color. She always used the common process of making butter. She never went through the process of hermetically sealing milk when she set it to raise cream. She said it wasn't good to cover milk up tight so that the steam that rose from it would fall back into the milk. I am thankful for the information that we can seal it up and keep it free from odors and dust or anything that may fall around. It is an old notion that it wasn't good to cover the milk closely.

A voice-I would like to inquire if you use the lactimeter? I have used it in buying cows to test the richness of the milk.

Mr. Smith - If you test the milk right from the cow, the lactimeter is honest, and will give a fair definition of the milk. Good milk will stand at a hundred, at ninety degrees temperature.

Sec. Bryant-The errors in farming dairying are many. I want to speak of two. The first great errors that the farmers make, is keeping such awful poor old cows! The remedy is, go to the auction to-morrow and buy some of the fine Short-horn cows to be sold, for they will not only give milk, but when they have done giving milk you can work them up into oleomargarine and more than get your money back. (Laughter.)

There is another great error in dairy farming. Farmers turn their cows out and let them stand and shiver in the cold, running around the haystacks and strawstacks. A cow never should be allowed to stand out in the barn yard, unless you could go and stand out there with your coat off and feel comfortable. They want to be warm as well as you do.

A gentleman asks, what would you do with a creamery if you had only one little Jersey cow. The answer is: she gives all Milk it and churn it at once. (Laughter.)

cream.

use.

A voice A lady wishes to know what kind of coloring you

Gen. Bryant-Annettoine.

QUESTION BOX.

Does sheep husbandry in Wisconsin require a tax on dogs?

Hiram Smith-In regard to that question, I will say that I am not a very great friend of sheep. I think the people of Wisconsin cannot afford to keep sheep on any good land such as they have in the eastern parts of the state. I don't know how it may be in some portions. The place to keep sheep is in Colorado where land costs nothing, and taxes are nothing. They can get rich at twenty cents a pound while we should grow poor at thirtyfive and forty cents. Therefore, I say let the dogs kill them off if people won't stop keeping them.

Mr. Babbitt - I hardly think that we ought to answer that question until the supreme body - the legislature-has decided; for it appears to be the great question that is now agitating their minds, whether they should encourage the dog or the sheep.

Senator Anderson-I think the sheep ought to have some friends in this house. I would like to have a bill introduced to encourage the raising of sheep and discourage the raising of dogs. I am one of those men who believe there is a great deal of land in Wisconsin well adapted to sheep raising and that it pays well to keep sheep. I have kept a good many sheep myself. As a general thing I have made it pay. Some years I do not. A good flock of sheep is as good as a good herd of cows, and in the game of farming, this year I call sheep trumps. Wool is worth fifty cents a pound. Sheep five and a half a hundred in Chicago. There is land in Wisconsin worthless for cultivation, that can be made to yield a good income by keeping sheep upon it. I have always advocated keeping a few sheep on every farm. A few sheep don't require as much care according to their numbers as a large flock does. I think you can make as much money raising first class sheep as any other stock I am acquainted with. Wisconsin is better adapted to raising sheep than is Colorado. I talked with one of our manufacturers who went to Colorado to buy his wool. Two to two and a half pounds is one of their fleeces. I have got some of the yarn made from them. My wife would not knit it at all. It is too coarse. Our fleece are eight to ten pounds. Colorado wool at that time could be bought at twelve to fourteen cents a pound, and our wool was worth thirty.

Of course it is very unpopular among politicians to say any thing against the dog. The owners of dogs are more numerous than the owners of sheep. Wherever they vote to tax dogs two dollars apiece they will be kept at home next year. I always thought that a man too poor to keep a few sheep or a cow should not keep over half a dozen dogs.

Mr. Webster-I have kept sheep since the war. Just before the war I had about four hundred. The dogs have almost ruined some flocks of sheep. They are kept by the kind of men that don't feed them. They are regular renegades. I have kept other stock and nothing has paid me so well as sheep. I have got as high as ninety cents for my wool. I have over four hundred sheep to-day, and I should not trade them for Short-horn cattle, Jerseys, or anything of the kind. In our neighborhood

they have a number of factories, and those who have agreed to furnish milk to these factories now want to get off and buy sheep. There is more money in sheep, they tell me, than cheese. I say to-day, kill the dogs and make each dog pay five dollars tax. (Applause.) It is ruinous to Wisconsin sheep men. And if the legislature passes laws to take off the tax on dogs I will work, against any man hereafter who helps do it. (Applause.)

Hiram Smith - My friend Mr. Anderson calls sheep trumps, and if he had made cheese he would call cows the joker. Now it is said that figures won't lie. I have kept both cows and sheep, and you cannot keep cows with any sort of safety or profit if you keep sheep at the same time. They will eat everything that grows, in a dry time. They gnaw close to the ground. They will spoil any farm they run over, for grass. They eat clear into the roots. Now I said figures won't lie. A few years ago when wool was a dollar a pound, a man that had the same sized farm that I then had one hundred and thirty acres-kept a little over two hundred sheep. He sold his wool for seven hundred dollars. He felt very proud over it, and he said, "Mr. Smith, how much better have you done than that with your dairy?" It was the latter part of June. Only one-half the dairy season had gone and I had already sold seven hundred and fifty dollars worth of cheese and sold nine hundred dollars worth after that.

Mr. Babbitt - Considering the price of gold, isn't wool to-day higher than has ever been known in the history of America? Mr. Smith I think it is. Still, you devote a farm of good land to sheep, and you see what the receipts will be. They will only be half that of cheese and butter well made.

Hon. H. Naber - I come from northern Wisconsin, where we have some seven or eight million acres of land that cannot possibly be converted into dairy farms right away, but nearly all of it will feed a flock of sheep. And the people who have settled in that country are all of them beginning to keep sheep. Not because they would not keep cows, but because they haven't the land for cows.

You will remember that Wausau is about the geographical center of the state of Wisconsin; and if you take a map and look,

you will find that nearly one-half the state of Wisconsin is north of Wausau. Now, settlers coming to that country will find the greatest variety of the various kinds of food that sheep feed upon; and it is generally supposed in the southern part of the state that we have snow six or eight months in the year. I am here to tell you to-night that sheep up there don't require feeding any longer than in the southern part, and may be not so long when your pastures are fed down closely; and you have to feed them down closely. Up in our section, when a flock has fed off one portion of the land we drive them on to another one where the feed is fresh, and they often grow fat in the fall of the year after the snow has begun to fall. Some winters, such as we have had for the last three or four years, the sheep have been outdoors all winter long, and kept in tolerably fair order.

Now I want to say a few words in regard to dogs. Up in our country we have all the animals you find in the woods. Every Indian hunts for his living, and every Indian has from one to half a dozen dogs, and these Indians, as a matter of course, cannot be kept on their reservations, although the government says we must not even cross the Indian reservations. They and their dogs roam the whole country over after deer, and their dogs would just as soon take mutton as deer. It is utterly impossible for any farmer up in our section where the Indian tribes are located, to keep a flock of sheep and protect them against the Indian dogs, unless he has a well trained dog to take care of and protect his farm. can't do it by any other means. You can also protect yourselves from wolves, lynxes and other animals. For that reason our farmers have unanimously petitioned the legislature to allow us to protect our flocks by our dogs. Right here it may be different, but circumstances alter cases. I was charged by the whole of my constituents to see to it that taxes should be made uniform, if possible; that it was not right to tax a poor settler in the wild woods of the north, who has a few sheep, for keeping a dog. The dog is as much a necessity for the protection of our flocks and families as it would be a danger to your flocks here.

You

But aside from this, I want to call the attention of the great multitude of farmers living in the southern part of the state of