138 THIRTY-FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



get home and he comes to you and tries to buy stock call him in and 

 sell him those calves before he leaves the barn, while you keep the best. 

 He would buy the same thing anyway; that is his nature. This is a good 

 business proposition: Sell off the poor stock, keep the best and breed 

 up. You have heard of Mr. Cook, who milks 125 cows, in the State of 

 New York. He has thribbled the milk flow of the 125, getting 8,488 

 pounds per cow on an average. Ten years ago the average was only 3,000 

 pounds per cow. He has assisted nature. 



Be careful in selecting, weed out the inferior ones, and have a 

 thoroughbred sire. 



My grandfather was born and raised in the land of Holland, and he 

 moved to Schenectady, N. Y. My grandfather told me of the beauties 

 of Holland, its wonderful dykes and windmills, and he also told me of the 

 pretty girls of Holland. After that I wanted to see something from 

 Holland besides my grandfather, and I did, and among them was the 

 Holstein cow. Brother farmers, I said "open organization for the milk 

 cow, close organization for the beef cow; one pulled apart, the other 

 driven together." Take the Ayershire cow, the Herford and the Hol- 

 stein; let them drop their calves this morning, and you take them and 

 put them into winter quarters and give them a grain ration. What will 

 the Herford do? She will apply the grain ration to building up her own 

 system and will starve her calf. She was bred that way. What will 

 the Ayershire cow do? She will go to work the other way; she will 

 give you ten to twelve thousand pounds of milk at the expense of her 

 system, give up her all to the life of the calf, and you are the richer 

 by it. 



Speaking of Holstein cows. A few years ago my brother and I at- 

 tended a fair at Albany, in the State of New York, and there we saw 

 a herd of Holsteins, the first I ever saw, and from impulse I rushed up 

 and put my arm up and hugged her. My brother and I were in trouble. 

 We had worked on the farm from the time I was twelve years old; 

 hired out in one place and then another, turned right out in the cold 

 world. My brother worked too, and we saved our money and finally 

 we purchased a farm, the one I own now, two miles out of Cobleskill, 

 for $14,250, and we were in debt $6,500. We took our milk to the 

 cheese factory. When the year came round, with all our economy, we 

 could not pay our interest. That meant something. Then we talked 

 it over and the girl wife said: "We will try and help you through har- 

 vest and see if we cannot get along next year better, and when the 

 spring opened and the grass was ready to cut my wife put herself into 

 the mowing machine and mowed day in and day out; my brother's wife 

 looked after the domestic cares and between meals used to help us un- 

 load. And there we were, with the mortgage looking us in the face, 

 and when the year came around and we could not pay our interest my 

 brother and I sat down and cried together. We had to change our 

 tactics. We went down to Albany to see the cattle; we had no money to 

 buy cattle, and I said we will make an auction and we will sell every 



