410 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



CO-OPERATIVE BREEDING AND TESTING 



By A. M. GOODMAN, Dairy Division, WasJiington, D. C. 



The first thing, to my mind, is, are we satisfied with our dairy 

 herds? I fear that too many farmers are, and yet on all sides we 

 hear dairymen bitterly complaining that the prices of commercial 

 feeds are exorbitant, and that the price of milk and other dairy 

 products are not high enough to enable a farmer to make a living. 

 I do not deny that feed is high, nor that the price of milk is low, 

 when considered from a standpoint of their food values, yet so long 

 as we expend our time and our energy railing about the prices of feed 

 and milk, we have not advanced very far from the stage where we 

 were crying for the moon. It does not seem to me that any man is 

 justified in finding fault with the conditions under which he is work- 

 ing, until he had done all in his power to help himself, nor do I be- 

 lieve that in going about any improvement one should center his 

 thought on the methods that most closely approach the impossible. 

 In other words, why should we worry about the price of feed, if we 

 are not studying the economical use of it, and why stew about the 

 price of milk, when we are milking many cows that do not produce 

 enough to pay for the feed they eat. 



The returns from the herd may be increased just as much through 

 reducing the cost of production, as through the increase of the sell- 

 ing price. This method of getting increased returns may not be so 

 exciting, but it is much more sure. 



Undoubtedly, the first thing to be done is to give attention to better 

 cows, and while we are working on this, to study means of more 

 economical feeding. I am not going to try to tell you where to buy 

 better cows, for I do not know where good cows can be bought, ex- 

 cept for very high prices. The original source of dairy cows is not 

 the cow dealers' yards, but the dairy herd. If we want good, produc- 

 tive cows, we must raise them. Breed the best cows we have to the 

 best bulls we can get the use of, and raise the female offspring. 



Before we do this, we should be very sure which are the best cows 

 to raise from and what is the difference in value of some of the higher 

 producing cows. The only way to know which are the best cows in 

 the herd is to weigh and keep records of the milk and amounts of 

 feed for each cow. That cow is best which converts most econom- 

 ically the largest amount of feed into milk and butterfat. Most 

 people who have never kept records of their herds believe that they 

 know the best and poorest cows in their herds, however, every day 

 records of the production of herds are showing that even the best 

 dairymen can not tell within fifteen thousand pounds how much milk 

 a cow gives in a year, even when they milk the cow daily. 



This may seem ridiculous to some of you; but think of your own 

 cows. Did the cow that stands by the door give 8,.500 or 10,000 

 pounds of milk last year? Did the cow at the other end of the stable 

 give 5,500 or 7,000 pounds? Do yon know that 1,.500 pounds of milk 

 at 11.80 per cwt. is worth f 27.00. How much did it cost you to feed 



