DAIRY MEETING. 6l 



ents and produced 348 pounds of butter. Rose produced nearly 

 twice as much butter as Nora from practically the same amount 

 of food. The difference, therefore, was not in digestive capac- 

 ity but in the ability of Rose to convert the food more easily 

 into milk, milk solids or butter fat. 



Here on the charts are illustrations which are taken from the 

 Storrs College herd. I have grouped the five best cows in the 

 herd and the five poorest together. The five best cows in the 

 year 1899 ate $56.54 worth of food per cow and the five poorest 

 cows ate $52.02 worth of food. The difference in the value of 

 the amount of food eaten by the best and the poorest cows was 

 $4.52 each, and the difference in the net profit was $31. The 

 five best cows made a profit of $26.91 each, and the five poorest 

 a loss of $4.09 each. Now the difference is in the way the cow 

 converts the food into milk. This difference in assimilation is 

 illustrated in the human family. Here is a man who perhaps 

 could go out and cut two cords of wood in a day. I do not 

 suppose I could cut two cords of wood in a week. I haven't the 

 skill ; I do not know how to handle an axe. The horse that 

 can trot a mile in two minutes does not eat any different food, 

 or any more of it, perhaps, than the horse that trots in three 

 minutes. It is the ease, or skill, or cleverness — whatever you 

 may call it — with which the food is utilized for the different 

 purposes. That principle holds with the cow. This same 

 record runs through five years. Of course the five poorest 

 cows were eliminated at the end of the first year. The next 

 year the five best cows ate $60 worth of food and the five 

 poorest $45 worth, a difference of fifteen dollars in the food 

 eaten, and there was a difference of $49 in the net profit. There 

 were five cows which had got into the herd in different ways, 

 which were kept at a loss of $575 each. That is the thought 

 I wish to bring to you, and Prof. Hills will emphasize that point 

 tomorrow in his talk upon the need of cow test associations. I 

 simply wish to point out that there are great differences in the 

 productive capacity of cows, even in a college herd or an Experi- 

 ment Station herd. And there is no reason to think that there 

 are not as great differences in the ordinary working herd. The 

 problem is to find out which are the least profitable, and we can 

 only do that by keeping a record. Then we can eliminate the 



