72 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



along; she could not keep up with her classes. Her mother com- 

 plained, and the teacher said, "Your daughter has not the capac- 

 ity," and the mother said, "I will have her father go right down 

 town and buy it." The same is true with regard to cows. 



Now this stable of cows, where there were fifty cows in 1900, 

 made an average of 298 pounds of butter. There is nothing im- 

 possible about that. You have dairies here in Missouri that do 

 that. I am told that there is a German in your state who gets his 

 butter average up to four hundred pounds. You do not need to 

 g':o into Illinois, Iowa, Kansas or anywhere else for examples of 

 this. You have them right here. I would like to emphasize this 

 point and put it up before you in a way that you will see it. If a 

 man has fifty cows that will make four hundred pounds of butter 

 in a year, he can sit down and hire all the work done, merely super- 

 vising it himself, and he can have an income of two thousand 

 dollars a year and be a gentleman. Where is the average college 

 professor in comparison with tha't? Of course, somebody like 

 Dean Waters here will do better than that, but where is the average 

 professor beside it. Especially do I want to impress this upon 

 these young men who are getting their education here. Just stop 

 and think about this, and if you do not get any other idea out of this 

 whole convention except that one idea, the possibility of what you 

 can do by studying your individual cows, and weeding out, and 

 getting a good male of some of the special dairy breeds, your time 

 has been well spent. Do not let any of this all-purpose stuff get in 

 your way, and you will find not only that you are going to get your- 

 self into the way of a good income, but you will think intelligently 

 and win the respect of everybody that knows what you are doing. 

 You are laying the foundation to make yourself and your family 

 comfortable and happy and have the respect of everybody that is 

 worth having the respect of. 



Adopt a standard — When you start in this line of work, you 

 should have a standard and make that standard yourself. In 

 different localities there is a difference in the cost of labor and food 

 and what you can get for the product, though not very much, but 

 get at it and make your own standard. Draw your own dead line 

 and then live up to it. 



The Bull — Do not forget that the bull is one half of the herd. 

 Some may ask, how is that. It is just here. The heifer calves 

 are most likely to take after the sire and back on the sire's side 

 than on the dam's side. That is where the male is more than oner- 

 half of the herd. That is true not only of the boyine family. Jt Is 



