DAIRYING. 15 



3. The amount of food, roughly estimated, the cow uses to 

 make that milk. 



This does not mean weighing the milk every day in the year, 

 frequently testing the milk and weighing the food ; but it means 

 occasionally weighing the milk, making two tests a year, and 

 keeping an observant eye on the eating habits of each cow. If 

 the milk is weighed two or three days in a month (say the 14th, 

 15th and 16th, any three days will do) and the necessary calcu- 

 lations made, adding a zero to the result, one will get a close 

 idea, close enough for farmers' purposes, as to the amount of 

 milk each cow has given during the year. If two composite 

 samples are taken during the year, one about six or eight weeks 

 after calving, and another five to seven months after calving, 

 and the results averaged, the quality of the milk will be ascer- 

 tained closely enough to serve farmers' purposes. Multiplying 

 the pounds of milk by the per cent of fat and adding one-sixth 

 to the result, gives within reasonable limits the pounds of butter 

 which could be made from the milk. An intelligent farmer, 

 milking twenty cows, can in this way tell closely the amount of 

 butter each cow makes each year and he need not spend more 

 than one and one-half days total time in gaining this information. 



We have some 60 or more animals in our Station herd. One 

 cow made 533 pounds of butter last year, and another 116 

 pounds. The first cow, Eva, we bought three years ago from 

 a man who allowed us to go into his herd and take our 

 pick for $45. Her records in successive years are 462, 441 

 and 533 pounds. Sadie made 116 pounds. Even without 

 weights and tests we could have told that Eva was a better cow 

 than Sadie, but how poor the latter was would perhaps not have 

 been detected had it not been for these safeguards. I do not 

 mean to imply that every dairyman should own or use a Babcock 

 test, but I believe most emphatically that every grange, farmers' 

 club, dairy community, etc., ought to own or have access to a 

 Babcock tester. In our state it is not infrequent for some young 

 man or woman to own a Babcock machine and to use it for the 

 farmers of the community. Some three summers ago the very 

 charming daughter of Mr. Dana H. Morse — who accompanies 

 me at these meetings — spent three or four days at our University 

 in order to learn to operate the Babcock test. Our chemist found 

 his task of teaching a most pleasant one ; and I have no doubt 



