158 AGRICULTURE* 01? MAINE. 



receives and the returns she is giving. This work directs the 

 man to the dairy value of the cow. 



I think there is a man in this audience who told me a week 

 ago that he offered to sell one of his cows a year ago for $35 

 and did not sell it, and in eleven months she gave 401 pounds 

 of butter fat. 



Book-keeping increases a man's knowledge of the value of 

 his feeds ; he has the figures to look at right along and see what 

 the cow thinks of it; the cow tells him in the pail what she 

 thinks of the feed. Feed is not the only thing with the cow. 

 Two or three years ago the New York Herald offered a pre- 

 mium to women for the best essay on "How to Keep the Love 

 of a Husband." The prize essay was short; it was simply 

 "Feed the Brute !" That alone will not work with the cow. 

 Let us give her just as comfortable quarters as we can ; let us 

 have them tight, clean and light, making them so comfortable 

 that the cow is happy and wants to go there. Let us feed her 

 by the clock, and just as far as possible, get around to feed and 

 water her regularly. Let us give her about the same amount 

 of food and water, regularly. 



And the man, from the records he keeps and the records kept 

 by his neighbors, soon realizes the value of care. The man, 

 looking over his record, soon begins to find out that he needs 

 better cows than some he is keeping. Of course he has always 

 believed there were poor cows in the county — buf that they 

 were in his neighbor's herds — until he kept a record and found 

 out just what he was doing; then he found the advantage of a 

 record pretty quick. 



When a man is studying his cows, and their feed and care, 

 and the breeding problems, he begins to realize that he has to 

 raise more of what he feeds them on his own farm ; and he 

 begins to think of crop rotation, and handling his manures for 

 the least loss, and the labor it requires to raise the crops. He 

 studies his dairy problems in order to produce the greatest pos- 

 sible amount with the least possible expense. All these things 

 mean more profits, and a greater desire for knowledge. 



Second, the Dairy Testing Associations can open the way 

 for all kinds of co-operative work. In some of the states it 

 might be that some other kind of co-operation was the opening 

 point, but in Maine it was the Dairy Testing Associations, and 



