pays better to make cheese and butter. The management maintains that it is necessary to make cheese the year around in order to hold the cheese patronage and it is difficult to establish good connections for distributing milk in the cities, especially if only for the winter months.

Another reason why the farmers' association did not ship its milk instead of making cheese and butter is that the dairymen with different breeds of cattle could not agree upon a proper basis of figuring returns. Although the milk is sold per gallon or quart when retailed, the state law requires a minimum test of three and five-tenths per cent butter-fat. It was held that it would be an injustice to the farmer who had herds of Durhams, Jerseys, or Guernsey cattle, to be obliged to sell milk for the same price per quart as the Holstein people, inasmuch as the richer milk of the former was necessary to bring the whole up to grade. Although the Holstein people get much more milk per cow than the farmers of the other breeds, they would not consent to sell on the butter-fat test basis. It was thus that the milk companies got the big dairies to leave the farmers' creamery.

The shareholders in the creamery were pledged to patronize it, and to pay a certain percentage of each month's milk check into the treasury of the farmers' organization if they took their milk elsewhere. This was thought to be only fair to those who continued to patronize the farmers' creamery, for the general supplementary costs or over-head operating expenses are pretty much the same whether the volume of business done be big or small. If the few who "kept by" the creamery were to have these expenses taken from their milk alone, it would cut down net prices very materially. Furthermore it was not thought to be unfair to those who sold to the milk companies because they admitted that it was only because the farmers' creamery was doing business in town that they themselves were able to get such favorable prices for their milk. Only a few of the farmers paid in their quota of "expense money" after leaving the creamery and, therefore, their shares were forfeited to the association.

A glance at the map showing the area covered by the different breeds of cattle will throw light on this diversity of interests of the farmers of this township. About fifty-three per cent of the farmers have entered into the idea of community breeding. That is, fifty-three per cent of the farmers have used Holstein sires to such an extent that their herds have taken on the Holstein markings. Only a few of these have pure-bred herds. As a result of this idea the community around about the city of N., as already mentioned, has won "a world-wide fame." Farmers who got in line and coöperated with the original pushers of this movement have in the last few years been "reaping a golden harvest." As we have seen, however, almost fifty per cent of the farmers have not taken up with the idea even by this time. Their views used to be expressed as follows: "The whole

thing is a snare and a delusion." Many of them now admit that the thing has been "a big graft for those who got in on it at the start"; but they add, "this thing will soon have to stop, won't it?" They believe that the demand for these pure-bred Holstein cattle will soon be no stronger than it is for any other well-bred animal; and therefore, "wouldn't it be a waste of money to invest in such high-priced stock at this time?"

Map showing distribution of breeds of cattle.

There is also another explanation as to why a large number of the farmers keep the Shorthorns, the old dual-purpose breed. Those who live four miles or farther from town usually prefer to skim their milk and haul the cream down to town once or twice a week. There is thus a saving of time. When skimming their milk, they naturally have a dislike for "breeds whose milk is comparatively thin." So, for their purpose, especially if

they have pretty good corn land and a large farm, it is an economy of time and labor to produce beef and cream, with hogs as a by-product. This policy of time and labor conservation is, as can be seen, another reason for the limitation of the extent of community breeding.

On the Organization Map all membership in breeders' associations is indicated by the same character. Among the various live-stock associations the greatest membership is found in the Holstein Friesian Association and the Minnesota Dairymen's Association. Practically every man who is a member of the Holstein Friesian Association of America is also a member of the Minnesota Dairymen's Association. This shows that as full-blooded stock is being raised, the breeders begin to identify themselves with organizations promoting common interests.

What are we to conclude from the situation as it stands? The farmers have been coöperating successfully and yet they themselves do not have confidence in the movement. They feel that "farmers won't stick." It seems that with the advent of a more and more commercial type of farming there has grown up a modified code of business ethics. The older men lament that "there has been a breaking away from the old proud, rigorous honesty" that used to hold sway among the rural population. The old instincts of honesty are, of course, still there. Tell a farmer that he is "a cheat or a liar" and a blow will be his answer. In verbal agreements which he fully understands, he is still fully honest. But in the fulfillment of contracts of some complexity the exact meanings and implications of which are not understood, there are those who are not always honest. In simple agreements to exchange work with neighbors, or other cases of neighborhood coöperation, they all remain true to their obligations, but in business relations of a wide scope, they stoop to dishonesty. To illustrate, "we have those farmers who refuse to pay their share of the operating expenses of the creamery. Yet they were members of this farmers' creamery and had pledged to pay their share," but "the milk company held a dollar before their eyes and they couldn't see anything else."

Thus although all admitted that continued operation of the farmers' creamery was necessary to maintain the level of prices which they were receiving from the competing company, not one of them had analyzed the situation clearly enough to see that they were not "playing fair with their neighbors." To them it seemed "simply a matter of business." The old neighborly spirit of "I'll help you if you'll help me" was changed into "everybody dig for himself."

Then, too, "farmers are too distrustful of one another." When community breeding was first being agitated, the leaders of the movement immediately fell under the suspicion of many that they were only "trying to promote some scheme for their own benefit, trying to see how many fool

farmers they could rope in." Now that the scheme is "a big go" and "those who got in on it at the start are getting rich by it," the erstwhile suspicious ones on the outside try to defend their conduct by saying, "How are we to know whom to trust when people so many times show they can not be trusted?”

CIVIC RELATIONS

It is said by those whose memory goes back to the beginnings of this township that the farmers of to-day no longer show the interest in the affairs of government that they did of old. "Political issues used to be discussed more and understood better by farmers years ago than they are to-day." Many still have vivid pictures in mind of the interesting campaign between Horace Greeley and General Grant. Even up to as recent a time as 1896 great popular interest was shown in the discussions of political rivals concerning issues on protective tariff or tariff for revenue only, and proposed monetary reforms. In those early days many town halls were built to be used not only as places for transacting township business, but also as places where a crowd might gather evenings to hear an exposition of the planks of the rival political platforms. Sometimes joint debates between non-office-seeking men would be held before a packed house of farmers who in some cases had quit threshing an hour or two earlier in the evening in order to be on hand.

To-day many farmers wonder "what town-halls ever were built for any way." "Why couldn't all townships have their town meetings and elections in some school building the way they do it in many places?" It is true that for most occasions the schools are "large enough for the turnouts we have at elections, or town meetings, too." Although the township has about one hundred and sixty eligible voters on the poll lists, "generally only about fifty men show up for town meetings." Less than that number come out for the primary elections. The general elections bring out a hundred voters, less than two-thirds of the total. "The more Americanized we are getting to be, the poorer citizens we become." "A farmer of to-day won't even read or talk about politics, to say nothing of going to political meetings." What is the cause of it? The answers of the farmers themselves are various. We will consider some of the reasons given and thus perhaps may glean some of the important causes for this decline of interest in political affairs.

The early settlers of the county saw the functions of a government and the needs for it in a peculiar way, such as men of to-day are not likely to do. When they came to the community where they wished to establish their home, they at once realized the need of protection against those who

might wrong them or do them injury. In order to get to and from markets, and from place to place, the need for roads became felt. Everybody readily saw how necessary it was for the members of the community to band together into a civic unit in order to acquire for themselves the things they could not secure individually. After thus being forced to organize themselves into a civil township, and to establish a relationship with the county and the state government, it was only natural that these early men, many of whom were of foreign birth, should comprehend the exact nature of the government, and should clearly understand their own individual relation to it.

The citizen of to-day, on the other hand, "is born to it" and takes it all as a matter of course. The functions of government are not comprehended. About the only relation to the government that many feel is that they must pay taxes for its support. There was general complaint against the great increase of taxes. Some remembered the time when thirty-three hundred dollars was the total tax of the farmers of this township. "Today we have three times that amount." Indeed, the total tax of the township in 1910 was eleven thousand, one hundred and seventy-three dollars and seventy-five cents. Although this increase was caused almost entirely by local taxation, notable increases being made in the Town Road and Bridge Fund, the local District School Tax, and County Jail Fund, many different explanations were given by various farmers. Some felt that it was due to arbitrary "raises of salary by officials," all of whom "now also want assistants, although the business used to be done without them." There were others who "had no idea of where the money went to," but who charged that "the raise was made arbitrarily by the government, ever since they've been going around getting the census.” "That's where they've caught the fool farmers by making them believe that thing had nothing to do with taxes." Thus, while a farmer knows that taxes have been greatly increased, he often does not know why; and, while he complains that "sixty dollars taxes is too much for a poor farmer with only eighty acres of land," he does not see the services rendered him by the government for this amount. "He does not think of the fact that those sixty dollars are but paying his share for the schooling of five of his children for eight months of the year, the building of permanent roads and bridges; the care of unfortunate, poor, and defectives in the various institutions and asylums throughout the State; as well as the protection of his home. and property against evil doers." Somehow, they do not connect themselves up with all this government activity. They know that at town meetings money is voted for bridges and township expenses, but many feel that "that is done only because the government makes them do it." "They are born Americans, brought up in American schools and have lived here all their