No. 5. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 411 



these cows last year? Did it cost you twenty-iive, fifty, seventy-five, 

 or a hundred dollars each? 



If a man cannot answer these questions, I fail to see how he can 

 claim to know much about his herd. 



You may say that weighing and testing is all right, but it takes a 

 lot of extra work, but the men who are doing it will tell you that 

 they spend no time so profitably as that devoted to weighing milk, 

 studying rations and keeping their records. 



Probably the two men with whom you do the most business are the 

 feed dealer and the man to whom you sell the milk. You keep an 

 account with these men, or at least, they keep an account with you. 

 The cows handle all these goods when they convert the feed into 

 milk. Isn't it a business proposition for you to keep a record with 

 them; not with the herd, merely, but with each individual? If you 

 hire three men, so you keep an account with all of them? No; you 

 keep an account with each of them. 



As already suggested, this work takes considerable time if prop- 

 erly carried out. This one objection is being rapidly overcome 

 through the organization of co-operative cow-testing associations. 

 A cow-testing association is a little organization of twenty-five or 

 twenty-six farmers, who own together four or five hundred cows. 

 The Association employs a young man who has had farm experience 

 and special training in dairying — a man who can make the Babcock 

 test, and compute rations. 



This man weighs the feed and milk of all the cows in the Associa- 

 tion, tests the milk of each individual cow for butter fat and keeps 

 a complete record of all the feed consumed. He also watches the 

 feed markets and studies the analysis of feeds, so that at any time 

 he can figure out the most economical feeds to buy. The operator 

 or tester spends one day a month with each herd, if the herd is not 

 over thirty cows, and on departing, leaves with the farmer a com- 

 plete record showing how much every cow has produced; what the 

 product sold for, and how much it cost to feed each cow. You will 

 agree with me that it means a good deal of monotonous work to keep 

 all these records. That is the reason the average farmer does not do 

 it ; he considers it too much bother. By having the work done in this 

 co-operative way, there is no bother, as the tester does all the weigh- 

 ing, testing and record keeping. The important thing is that the work 

 is done. The cost of this work is found to be about |1.50 per cow per 

 year. You will say, "why shall I pay a man to do what I can do just 

 as well myself?" Do you do it? Do you keep a record? Most of 

 you do not. You hire men to milk and plow, and help with, don't 

 you? You can do all these things. Isn't it more important to hire 

 "two men, if necessary, to keep the record, than to saw wood. 



There is not time to take up the feedings that have been made 

 through the cow-testing associations, but I wish to say before leaving 

 the subject that up to July 1, there were seven such associations in 

 Pennsylvania. They were located as follows: 



Kennett Square (started 1910) 



Downingtown (started 1911) 



Canton, (started 1913) 



Milan (started 1913) 



Knoxvllle (started 1913) 



Rugargrove, (started 1914) 



Altoona, , (started 1914) 



