DAIRY AND SEED IMPROVEMENT MEETINGS. 255 



them more so. We are thus enabled to look back for genera- 

 tions, keeping and breeding only our best cows that have tlie 

 power to transmit their good qualities. 



Still another advantage is in the buying and selling of our 

 dairy stock. Any of us would be willing to pay more for a 

 cow with a good record or for a calf whose dam and grandam 

 had good records. And so it is with the selling. If we h-ive 

 stock to sell from cows that have made good, and we can look 

 back to generations back of them that have made good, we 

 can ask more for them, and get it too. 



To illustrate the mistaken idea that some people have about 

 this work I should like to tell you a little story of something 

 that happened near me. One of our members had a cow which 

 he sold after he had had her a year or two as he found she was 

 not worth keeping. After this cow passed through several dif- 

 ferent hands, each person thinking that was all that testing 

 amounted to, the man who first sold her heard of her through 

 a neighbor of his who is something of a cow doctor and had 

 called to see this cow. The cow was sick and could not get on 

 her feet. The man who then owned the cow said, "I want 

 to get her up if I possibly can; she never has done very well 

 but she is a great cow because she has been tested " 



Now I firmly believe that the dair^Tnan who belongs to a cow 

 testing association, who studies his records, his feed rations, 

 the results of breeding, and keeps only his best cows, breeding 

 them to still better sires, will keep steadily improving his herd 

 all the time. Good cows pay and pay well if we use them well, 

 and why not have all good cows? The dairyman who cannot 

 get any benefit from a cow testing association will never make 

 cows pay and had better go out of the business. 



