46 VERMONT DAIRYMEN'S REPORT. 



(i.) ECONOMY OF MANUFACTURE. 



Under this heading one needs to consider means of econo- 

 mizing, either by lessening the cost or improving the plant. I 

 have divided the matter for convenience and clearness of discus- 

 sion under five sub-heads : 



(a) Machines. 



(b) Crude stock. 



(c) Methods. 



(d) Nature of products. 



(e) Character of products. 



(a) Economy in machines, i.e., cows, dairy apparatus, etc. 

 Some dairy authorities have been prone to look upon the cow 

 as a machine only, to speak of the food as fuel to run the engine 

 and of the milk as the product of machine work. This view is 

 one-sided and, in many ways, ill-conceived, yet for the pur- 

 poses of the present argument and classification, the cow may 

 well be considered as a part of the dairyman's plant or machin- 

 ery for manufacturing finished products. I have already said 

 that New England dairy cows average better, that is to say, 

 produce more than do Western cows. So far so good, but bet- 

 ter is not best. When the odds are so heavily against us, every 

 effort needs be made and here endeavor is readily directed. 

 L,et us turn for a moment to Vermont statistics. Some years 

 ago Hon. Victor I. Spear, then statistical secretary of the State 

 Board of Agriculture, gathered data in the course of his official 

 work showing the average butter production per cow for the 

 State. The result showed the average annual yield to be 156 

 pounds per cow, several entire townships being over the 200 

 pound mark and some below the 100 pound limit. The range 

 of production was from 92 to 259 pounds for entire townships. 

 Now 156 pounds is, I believe, a larger average production than 

 that of any other State in the Union. Yet it is far from what 

 it might be, far from what it ought to be. It is not a yield 

 which, at present prices for butter, for grain feed and for hired 

 labor will add largely to our wealth. The margin of profit is 

 dragged down by the keeping of unprofitable animals, cow 

 boarders. 



Before the Babcock test was devised, when ready, cheap 

 and accurate methods of estimating the dairy worth of individual 

 animals were lacking, there was valid excuse for keeping bovine 

 dead-beats. But no man of even ordinary intelligence can plead 

 inability to-day. A simple test is at hand, one that requires 

 but a minimum outlay of time, money, knowledge and brains. 

 Many a man who has used the Babcock test in a proper manner 

 to test the merits of his various animals has made more money 



