DAIRY MEETING. 217 



HOW I INCREASED MY DAIRY PROFITS BY 



WEEDING. 



By RuTiELus Alden, Winthrop. 



When I commenced to have my cows tested in the Cow Test- 

 ing Association in 1908, I very soon became convinced that I 

 had been conducting my dairying in a very unbusiness-like way, 

 and had not been applying business principles to this branch of 

 my farming. 



I had never kept individual accounts with my cows to know 

 whether I was keeping them at a profit or loss. Now, it looks 

 to me as though I had been keeping some of them for the royal 

 blood they were supposed to have in their veins or for some 

 amiable disposition I thought they possessed which had been 

 handed down to them from some old ancestor. 



The Cow Testing Associations of this State are doing more 

 to educate our dairymen to put their dairies on to a paying basis 

 than any other thing that has happened to them in the last fifty 

 years. It has turned the searchlights on our dairy business, re- 

 vealing what each cow in every association in this State is do- 

 ing, and it has made it clear as noonday that we all have cows 

 that are making us handsome profits, and we all have cows that 

 we had better weed out and dispose of. It decides what I have 

 advocated for years, that our hay will pay more if fed to good 

 cows than it will if sold off the farm, thereby running out our 

 farms and reducing our income. 



I have great faith in Maine as a dairy State and I believe that 

 after my brother farmers have tried raising potatoes and every- 

 thing else to get rid of milking they will settle down to dairying 

 and orcharding, realizing that from these two branches of farm- 

 ing they can make a good living on a State of Alaine farm. 

 Now, let us consider what bookkeeping revealed in my herd of 

 cows. 



We found that one of my cows in one year ran me in debt- 

 ■$5.35, and one cow paid a profit of $2.17 above the cost of keep- 

 ing, and another one paid a profit of $2.76. These cows were 

 fed the same and had the same care as other cows that paid me 



