230 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



stations, but it is expected that such cooperative work will not be 

 found necessary or advisable to the same extent in the future. 



With educational work the case is entirely different. It would 

 seem that the ideal system of conducting such work in dairying would 

 be to have it done by the States and not by the Dairy Division; but 

 since many States are doing nothing in this direction, and others are 

 doing but little, the division should use its efforts in helping the 

 States to get the work started. Our experience convinces us that this 

 is the only way that Ave should take up educational work, and this is 

 the idea Avith which all such work now being done by the division has 

 been undertaken and is being carried on. 



DAIRY FARMING INVESTIGATIONS. 



The work relating to dairy farming investigations is in charge of 

 Mr. Helmer Rabild. 



HERD KICCORDS. 



The low average production of the dairy cows of the United States 

 is a condition that does more than any other one thing to prevent 

 development. The dairyman whose herd is averaging 400 pounds of 

 butter fat is not the man who opposes the tuberculin test or who has 

 unimproved equipment and filthy surroundings. On the contrary, he 

 seeks the tuberculin test, and seeks information of all kinds that will 

 enable him to protect his herd and his business and to conduct his 

 business in the best possible manner. The man who is fighting the 

 tuberculin test, milk ordinances, and the inspectors, and who is con- 

 tinually making the greatest complaints about unremunerative prices, 

 is usually the owner of the average cow, which produces not over 

 150 to 175 pounds of butter fat per annum. 



Work that tends toward the improvement of the latter type of 

 dairyman, therefore, has a direct effect upon most of the vital prob- 

 lems confronting the dairy industry. At present he recognizes that 

 he derives but little profit from his business, and he naturally con- 

 cludes that sanitary requirements, the tuberculin test, etc., are going 

 to reduce his profits further, which his business can not stand. But 

 when the productiveness of his cows has been improved and they 

 have become profitable, he is naturally inclined, for the sake of his 

 own business interests, to house and care for them better and to pro- 

 tect them from tuberculosis and other diseases. In so doing he com- 

 plies with a large part of the health requirements. With herd records 

 kept but one day in a month the best cows can soon be identified ; and 

 if a purebred bull of good quality is used, only a few years are 

 required to develop a productive herd and bring about the conditions 

 just indicated. 



The main object, therefore, of the field work that is now in progress 

 in the South and West, and of the cow-testing association work in 

 the North, is to establish the use of the herd record and the purebred 

 sire. In order to further this work in every possible way all reli- 

 able records from these various sources are collected in Washington^ 

 compiled, and interpreted, so that the results may be of most use in 

 educating the dairyman. 



