248 AGRICUI^TURE OF MAINE. 



in the barn, and equal parts of cottonseed and gluten when 

 they were on pasture; six quarts a day to each cow, whether 

 she gave one pound of milk or 40, and there were not many 

 that gave 40. I thought no grain and any old kind of roughage 

 was good enough when they were dry. I always had plenty of 

 udder trouble ; took it as a matter of course. Well, the tester 

 figured out several different rations for me and I began trying 

 them; I soon saw that some of the oows began to respond. I 

 began to take more interest in 'them and watched the milk sheets 

 closely and I saw some things that begot more interest still. 



After several months the individual sheets began to tell some 

 stories and I found I had some cows tliat were not paying any 

 profit and others that were not paying enough, and that set me 

 to work to find a remedy. 



I used to keep the tester up nights, every time he came, 

 holding long talks with him, asking him how this one and 

 that one handled their cows, and getting hold of some of the 

 things he had learned at the College of Agriculture, and, in 

 short, considering each cow separately and trying to find out 

 what I must do with her. 



Now, what is the result? I have doubled the value of my 

 herd and increased the net profit per cow 50 per cent. How ? 1 

 sold all that were not paying a fair profit and made up my 

 mind not to keep a cow the second year that did not pay $50 a 

 year net. One cow whose best year was 8,000 pounds of 

 milk and 300 pounds of fat, I increased to 11,000 pounds of 

 milk and 453 pounds of fat. Several that had never given 

 over 35 pounds of milk in a day I sent up to 60, 65 and -J'l 

 pounds per day. Now I did it through the cow test association, 

 b> learning better ways of feeding and caring for my stock, and 

 in no other way. 



We have a little meeting over in our association once every 

 month when the members get together, and the Department 

 sees to it that we have one or two first-class men to talk to us 

 on dairy and other farm matters, and right there is where I 

 have gained help for a large part of the improvement I have 

 made. The College of Agriculture is brought to my door every 

 single month. 



We members talk over our problems and exchange our best 

 ideas with each other and get out of the old ruts. Through 



