LECTURES AND ESSAYS EEAD AT INSTITUTES. 379 



picked up at random does but little good. The award should be given for 

 those that make the greatest weight of the best quality in the least time and 

 with the least food. 



Premiums for dairy cows as now made encourage nothing. Accurate tests 

 should be required, and quantity and quality of product rule the award. 

 These will come. The fat-stock show has in a measure made the change in 

 reference to fat stock, yet there is room for improvement with them. 



It may, however, be taken as a rule that the animal producing the most 

 is the most profitable, at least to a certain limit, accurate and verified 

 tests as to quantity and quality, either of beef or dairy products -will be nearly 

 as accurate as could be made with a careful account of cost of feed. That 

 animal that produces the greatest weight of the best meat at the earliest age, 

 is most likely to do it at the least possible cost, and it is nearly as accurate for 

 the dairy class. The premiums offered for these classes at the fairs should 

 provide for these tests, and the premium should be sufficient to induce people 

 to make them. We have long regarded the pure-bred classes as the principal 

 classes to be encouraged, but the time has now come when we should encourage 

 a class of cattle for the purpose of bringing out the utility that is in them, 

 and it is time we let go the old method of guessing at the value of cattle for 

 certain purposes and adopted tests in -which the figures will show for them- 

 selves. This will require some time and trouble, but the gathering of actual 

 facts in all matters takes time and patience, but after you get them they show 

 something, that continual theorizing will never do. A great many points as 

 to the comparative merits of the different breeds of cattle could be settled by 

 a careful series of experiments, but not all of them, owing to the varying cir- 

 cumstances of location, quality of feed, management, etc. 



We now come to the point, *' What will be gained by improvement? " There 

 will be no use in making an effort to improve unless there is something to be 

 gained by it. There must be the incentive of profit, in order to make the 

 attempt general. Yearlings at $10 each and two-year olds at $15 to 120, cer- 

 tainly do not pay on any lands in Michigan, and it is doubtful if what are 

 called very good butchers' cattle that are found in the markets and raised on 

 good farms do. We must have better weight at an earlier age. We must have 

 larger yields of milk and butter from our cows. The yield of over 18,000 

 pounds of milk given within one year by a Holstein cow belonging to Smith & 

 liowell, of Syracuse, New York, and nearly reached by many others of that 

 breed, and the record of 778 pounds of butter also within a year by the Jersey 

 cow, '^Eurotas," show the possibilities in this line. 



The number of cattle in the State of Michigan in May last that were over 

 six months old was, of milch cows 311,300, and of other cattle 322,231. If 

 these cows produce 150 pounds each on the average, and that is more than the 

 returns will show, of butter per annum, it would, at 20 cents per pound, net 

 $30 for each cow, or $9,339,000 for the whole product, and if the cost of keep- 

 ing these cows is $25 each the profit is $5 each. 



Now if the product of these cows can be increased to 200 pounds even at an 

 increased expense of $5 each for feed, at the same price, the profit per cow 

 will be $10 instead of $5, and the total value increased to over $12,000,000. 

 If by improving these cows still more and feeding still better the annual aver- 

 age can be raised to 250 pounds at an additional average of $5 each, the aver- 

 age profit will be trebled from the first and the total value nearly doubled. If 

 we could raise it still higher and reach 300 pounds, and who will say that we 

 cannot, even at a cost of $40 for keeping, we shall have an average profit of 



