VERMONT AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 65 



health of the animal, and what they can eat and make use of 

 more than that goes to make milk or beef as the case may be. 

 A half starved cow will not give much milk, neither will one 

 that is shivering with the cold. Make the stables warm and 

 comfortable, with good ventilation. The successful dairyman 

 must have good cows, for it does not pay to feed poor ones. 

 How can he get good ones? There are two ways. If he has 

 plenty of money he can buy them, but most men will not sell 

 their best cows unless they get a big price for them. 



Another way, and I think the way, is to raise them from 

 his best cows, using the best full-blooded sire he can find. To 

 know which are his best cows he must use the scales and Bab- 

 cock test or set the milk of each cow separately for a day or 

 more at intervals and see just what each cow is doing. Weigh 

 each cow's milk and test carefully and then he can tell 

 which cows to raise calves from, which cows are paying a profit 

 above their board, and which are boarding on him and running 

 him into debt. Dispose of all cows that do not pay a profit. 

 When the heifers become cows test them and dispose of all 

 that are not first class. In a few years the cows will be much 

 better than when* the weeding process was begun. It seems 

 strange that so many men will keep cows year after year and 

 never know or even try to find out how much butter each cow 

 produces. When I first began the business of dairying on my 

 own account we had a mixed herd of natives, Durhams, Devons, 

 and a little Jersey blood, which would produce about 150 pounds 

 of butter each, yearly, on an average. I had read of some 

 dairies that were making 300 pounds on an average, which set 

 me to thinking what I could do to improve mine. It was be- 

 yond my means to sell my cows and purchase such cows as 

 those, so I began testing what we had by setting some of the 

 milk of each cow in glass tumblers and comparing the color and 

 thickness of the cream. This was a very imperfect way of 

 testing, but it was a starting point in securing the end in view. 

 Next we set the whole mess of each cow for one day by itself 

 and stirred the cream to see how much butter it would make 

 and the quality of the butter as to its color, solidity, etc. This 

 was a more satisfactory method than the first but was too much 

 work and trouble to be done very often. This was before we 

 had heard of the Babcock test. Now we use that and find it 

 very convenient and accurate. It has been the means of a great 

 improvement in the general average of production in our dairy. 

 The past year we were determined to know just what each cow 

 would do, so we weighed the milk of each cow at every milk- 

 ing through the year, and tested them at intervals with the 

 Babcock test. Also we kept an account of each churning 

 through the year so as to know just how much butter was made. 



