l80 AGRICUI.TURE OF MAINE. 



I think I am treating everybody fairly when I am willing to 

 compare him to myself, and I know that if there was a cow 

 testing association in my neighborhood, where I could reach it, 

 I should be the first one to go into it, and if I should trust it to 

 my men, as I am away from home very much, I should feel 

 all the time that I was not sure of the success of the work. But 

 when it is conducted as ours are in the State of Maine today, 

 the results are worth something. We do not have to leave the 

 work to the individual farmer. I once held a dairy institute 

 and every man brought his milk to be tested. Now we are 

 rather apt to be a little proud, and we want our cows to test a 

 little higher than our neighbors' and when we got through test- 

 ing there some of the cows tested as high as nine per cent, and 

 it was in the minds of some that the farmers took the last milk 

 that the cow gave for a sample. We cannot lose any faith in 

 this cow testing association as it is managed now. The 

 farmer does not test his own cow ; some one comes there and 

 weighs the milk and tests it, and that is worth more than his 

 own test. And when this man comes in and sits down with the 

 owner of the cow and helps figure out the cost of his ration, 

 and shows him how much he is getting for it, that information 

 is of much value to him. The idea that struck me with the 

 most force in what the distinguished dairyman from New 

 Hampshire said yesterday was this : He said his grain bill was 

 about $350 a month, and he had his system of feeding so thor- 

 oughly organized that he is feeding each individual cow up to 

 the limit of profit. And he came away from home and left 

 those 150 cows which were being fed between three and four 

 hundred dollars worth of grain a month, and said he felt per- 

 fectly comfortable about this great expenditure with his dair>-. 

 because the cows would pay the bill. Now I have a small dairy 

 at my home, and I am feeding, I have no doubt, as liberal grain 

 rations as the gentleman from New Hampshire; and I have an 

 intelligent man to care for my herd and we believe that they are 

 paying their bills. But my cows do not have the individual, 

 intelligent care that some are getting. HI were in a locality 

 where I could join a cow testing association my dairy would be 

 worth much more to me than it is now. We hope to extend 

 this work as fast as possible. 



