The Bulletin. 105 



the past, because feed has been very plentiful. We have had so much corn, 

 hay, cotton-seed meal, and refuse from manufacturing industries that it has 

 not cost us very much to feed our cattle. But prices have gone up year after 

 year, and now we must know how to select a ration so that it will not be 

 exijensive, and we must have cows which have a capacity for converting feed 

 into milk at a profit. 



Any dairyman can know these things for himself by putting in a system of 

 record keeping. If he will spend $3 for a spring balance, he can weigh the 

 milk of each cow every day. If these scales are in a convenient place it does 

 not take very much work to do this. When the man has finished milking 

 one cow he hangs the pail on the scales, which register automatically, puts 

 down the amount of milk on the milk sheet, and then goes along. It does not 

 take him a quarter of a minute a day, if the scales and the milk sheet are 

 arranged conveniently. In the same way he ought to test the milk from each 

 cow once a month. At the end of the year he will have the actual amount of 

 milk which each cow in his herd has protluced ; and by averaging up the 12 

 tests, and by applying the fat percentage each month to the milk of that month, 

 he will be able to know also how much butter-fat each cow produces. Then, 

 if he has the courage of his convictions, he can weed out the poor animals 

 from the herd. 



The fame of Denmark as a dairy country has spread over the world ; but it 

 was only a few years ago that Denmark was a beef-producing country, and 

 if you will bear with me for a few moments I will relate how Denmark 

 changed from a beef country into a dairy country, because I believe there is a 

 lesson in that for us. 



Through a succession of disastrous wars Denmark was reduced to poverty. 

 Also the market which they had for their beef was closed to them. As beef 

 production was the most important industry in Denmark, you will realize 

 what it meant to them to lose their marlvet. The farmers of Denmark had a 

 lot of beef animals in their stables, but no way to dispose of them. Land 

 was worth from $200 to $500 an acre, and the expenses of the war were to be 

 paid by taxation of the resources of the country. The most important 

 resource was the soil. In other words, the farmers' taxes were very much 

 increased, and many farmers found it impossible to make enough money even 

 to iiay their taxes. Then their homes were sold at sheriff's sale, and tliey 

 themselves came to this country to try to make a new home for themselves 

 and their families. Some farmers, however, remained in the country, and 

 began going into dairying. . 



At that time Danish butter was just beginning to get a reputation on the 

 Hn<'lish market. The average cow in Denmark in 18S4 produced 112 pounds 

 of butter in a year. It was really a beef animal. That year marked the 

 beginning of the" intensified dairy interest. The farmers began to select their 

 animals.^to weed out those which did not produce enough butter to make them 

 profitable to keep, and to select for breeding purposes those which showed 

 dairy (pialities. ^ ^, 



By organizing cow-testing associations which employed men for the inir- 

 pose of obtaining records from each animal in a number of herds, they were 

 able to do this work so successfully that in 1908 the average production per 

 cow had been doubled. In the same length of time the Danish nation, from 

 being practically bankrupt, had so improved financially that it was the second 

 richest nation in the world in per capita wealth. 



Now my contention is that if a whole nation can double its production per 

 cow in twenty-four years, a community can do the same thing in a much 

 shorter time. The Danish farmer started with beef animals, and these have 

 virtually been converted into dairy animals. , , , . 



In 1905 in Fremont, Michigan, it was my good fortune to be able to organize 

 the first cow-testing association in this country, on the lines followed in Den- 

 mark This association consisted of 20 farmers who clubbed together for the 

 purpose of building up their herds. They agreed to pay $1 per cow per 

 year So if a man had 20 cows he would pay to the association $20 a year. 

 Witli the money thus raised the association hired a man to come to the farm of 

 each member once a month and test the production of the cows. He comes 

 to my farm say, once a month, weighs out the feed I give each cow, and jots 



