14^ AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



by the average animal production of the cows in the United 

 States which is only 150 lbs. of butter fat, resulting in a profit 

 of about $1.40 to the owner. 



The reader may ask, "How can it be true that the average 

 production is so low and at a loss?" The answer is, "Alost 

 dairy farmers do not weigh and test their milk so as to know, 

 in some degree, whether their cows are profitable or not." 



They are losing money and are not aware of the fact. Usu- 

 ally they continue in the business, getting an existence by hav- 

 ing the rest of the family do a large amount of work without 

 pay. Those men think they know what they are doing, but 

 such an existence and its influence on growing children is worse 

 than failure and a disgrace to the dairy industry. 



"There are over 2,000,000 people milking about 18,000,000 

 cows twice a day in the United States, yet about one-third of 

 this energy is wasted as there are 6,000,000 cows that never did 

 anything to help sustain the farm, and never can or will." 

 Such a waste of energy is appalling. Maine has a total of 

 138,000 cows averaging less than $26 apiece in valuation. 



Lack of intelligence is the only reason why these scrubs and 

 boarder cows are continually bred. Trained and intelligent 

 judgment, based on sound theory and practice, is the factor 

 needed in every dairy community. 



The food supply of any people and its cost, are of course one 

 of its most important questions. Since the dairy cow is the 

 most economical producer of human food, of all of our domes- 

 tic animals, and as she can live and produce milk on a ration 

 composed entirely of roughage, why is she not the animal we 

 will resort to in order to convert half of the energy of our 

 common crops, which are otherwise unavailable, into human 

 food. 



The following quotation from Dean Davenport is well worth 

 attention here : 



"The population is beginning to overtake production in this 

 country. We have doubled our population four times in a 

 century. By twenty-five years from now at this rate, there 

 will be as many people living at one time and asking for food 

 as have now lived up to this time since America was discovered. 

 In fifty years from now we shall have the population of China 



