214 ANNUAL REPORT. OF THE Off. Doc. 



to come and see, and as a result some hundreds have availed them- 

 selves of the invitation, and up to this time, so far as I could learn, 

 not one accused me of having a model farm or a crooked story. The 

 story, put very briefly, is that I weighed and tested each individual 

 cow's milk, keeping a strict account and weeding out the unprofit- 

 able cows and later, the least profitable ones. When starting, I 

 invested borrowed money in a sire from the best producing stock 

 in the country. A continuation of this process for some years re- 

 sulted in a herd of quite profitable animals. Incidentally, I enumer- 

 ate some of the advantages of keeping a tabulated record of each 

 cow's work; it is in fact a pedigree of performance. I further urge 

 the frequent use of the Babcock test. There is no better diagnostic 

 agent at the dairy farmer's disposal than this little machine. I gen- 

 erally give some observed facts and telling illustrations of its prac- 

 tical value and insist that the milk-weighing scale and the Babcock 

 test become an indispensible part of the equipment of every farm 

 where dairying is to be part of the profit-making work. These two 

 implements used carefully and constantly teach more lessons in 

 successful and economical dairy management than any one, who has 

 never used them, dreams of. 



All this follows in the natural order and sequence of the building 

 up of the dairy herd and, concomitantly,, with it arises many ques- 

 tions about housing and caring for the cows, which topics follow this 

 one. Here it would be very easy to continue the method used in the 

 former division, viz., personal experience; but for fear of my talk be- 

 coming monotonous the discussion is now directed to the elucidation 

 of general principles; but to do this it is of course necessary to make 

 &ome general applications and define results. It will be found some- 

 what mollifying and hypnotic to blame the other fellows for being 

 guilty of slovenliness, filthiness and carelessness in the dairy. I 

 find that by casting insinuations at the company present I would be 

 stroking the fur the wrong way, get myself into trouble and do no 

 good. But if I tell them that some folks, too far off to be present, 

 do thus and consequently suffer serious losses, not only in low prices 

 of product, disease and death of animals, but in self-respect and man- 

 hood, they begin to think there is room for improvement at least in 

 their neighbors' stables. It is best not to be too dictatorial, but to 

 make an extra effort to get our audience to thinking, because we 

 must remember that in our school we are dealing with some pretty 

 big and ^'old" boys who, like ourselves, are set in their ways and 

 their habits are firmly fixed. 



In speaking on this division of the topic, I insist on a few essen- 

 tials or necessities, and to impress them thoroughly and show their 

 simplicity, naturalness and practicability I use familiar illustra- 

 tions. 



