522 ANNUAL RErORT OF THE Ofif. Doc. 



ME. RAVEN: I expected lliat question. In every association 

 group there is one man centrally located as to his particular group 

 who keeps the bull for hire. There is a service fee for each member, 

 that goes to paying for the kee]) of this sire. For instance, it costs 

 $40 to keep the bull a year, each of the forty members in the group 

 pays one dollar service fee towards the keep of the sire and he pays 

 that to the caretaker of the sire when the service is had. The care- 

 taker furnishes the secretary with the name and the date and the 

 number of the cow bred. That is part of the record. 



MR. WELD: Do you succeed in getting the members of the asso- 

 ciation to take hold of the work of record keeping or weighing and 

 testing of the individual cows in their several herds or is that done 

 by the association? 



MR. RAVEN : That is done by the cow testing associations. 



MR. WELD: All together? 



MR. RAVEN : Yes. We have two associations ; one the cow test- 

 ing association and the other the community breeding association. 

 In all cases it takes more cows to form a cow testing association than 

 a community breeding association, and in all cases where there is a 

 cow testing association in a district in which a breeders association 

 is located the larger part of the members of the breeders association 

 will become members of the cow testing association. They keep their 

 records more easily. It takes twenty-six herds of cows, no matter 

 what number, to organize a cow testing association, so that the tester 

 can visit each herd once a month. In some associations, our 

 breeders' association and the cow testing association is one and the 

 same thing; every member of one is a member of the other; but in 

 other places it is not so. 



A Member: Do you have to be a member of this association to 

 have the good of service in that bull? 



MR. RAVEN: No, sir; you do not; but if you are not you have lo 

 pay two or three times the fee for service above the others. 



A Member: Wouldn't that be a good way to get these outside 

 people interested in these breeding associations? 



MR. RAVEN: Yes, it would. The difficulty we find in Michigan- 

 it may not be in Pennsylvania — but in Wisconsin, Minnesota and 

 Michigan and Northern Ohio — that is, whenever a man is progres- 

 sive in introducing a pure bred sire his neighbors will not use it; if 

 they do use him they refuse to pay a service fee equivalent to his 

 cost and he gets tired of using it. Just as sure as fate the next pure 

 bred sire brought into that neighborhood is one of a different breed 

 If I introduce a Shorthorn my neighbors will introduce a Holstein or 

 some other breed. In these associations wherever they do not have 

 cows sufficient for the bull they will allow outside persons to buy his 

 services, although they have to pay two or three times the cost to the 

 members of the association ; but it is a good way to get the improve- 

 ment of stock. And I find this in our oldest association at Blissville, 

 that was organized four years ago in March, I find in that com- 

 munity that nearly all of the people, with two or three exceptions, 



