For years Missouri has been known as a beef producing state. In the early 1900s, however, farmers, bankers, and other businessmen began to notice the money being made by dairy farmers in other states. This produced a significant change in the kind of farming done here. The dairy cow wasn’t unknown in Missouri. Many people kept a milk cow in the back yard. Others kept a few cows and sold the milk. But it wasn’t until a change in farming attitude that the state passed a law regulating the quality and purity of milk.

AUDIO: AOWM April 8, 2005 (mp3)