No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 373 



means at his command to purchase the very best that money can buy, 

 that I am talking; he is not the man I have in view at all; he is a 

 very popular factor in society, but the man whose every wish is 

 obtainable is not the man I have in sight. It is the ordinary man, 

 like myself. I say this because I think .it will be best for us to 

 clearly understand one another 



I think that w^e to-day want a better dairy cow than ever before. 

 I say that, because I fear in many instances the farmer is keeping his 

 cows with but little profit. What is the profit on the dairy cow? 

 Is it that she simply pays for her keep, and makes a minimum of 

 profit? That is not going to pay off the mortgage, and clothe the 

 children, on the farm. The first thing we expect of a cow is that she 

 will pay interest on the money invested in her. If we take three 

 or five hundred dollars to the savings bank, we get three and one- 

 half per cent, interest, without the trouble of working for it. If 

 we put it out at interest, we get from five to six per cent.; as you 

 increase the risk, you increase the interest. When we invest it in a 

 cow, three and one-half per cent, is not enough, nor five, nor six per 

 cent., because we are not sure that we can get it back when we want 

 it. I find that in a herd of twenty-five cows it is necessary to 

 replace at least five each year to keep the herd in good condition. 

 Some of them may go barren, and some of them may lose part of the 

 udder, one may die. So I figure that on the money invested in the 

 Dairy Cow, I should have at least ten per cent, to equal the interest 

 on the same amount of money invested elsewhere. So if we pay 

 fifty dollars for the cow we should have at least five dollars profit 

 on her. The next practical thought is her feed. As I said before, 

 she should pay for her keep before we begin to make any profit on 

 her. And the labor; what does it cost to milk her three hundred 

 days in the year, Sundays and holidays included? At least ten 

 dollars more on that. So I figure that I must have at least ten 

 dollars over and above the cost of her feed, and the interest on the 

 money invested in her, before I begin to make money on her. 



Now, we have to have a better dairy cow, and I am very sure that 

 it is not of any particular breed. A man starts out thinking he is 

 going to make money right out of this particular breed, or that one. 

 Now, let me say that each particular breed have their use for special 

 purposes. I want to make myself clear on this point, because you 

 may infer from what I say later on, that I am not a believer in pure 

 bred cattle for the ordinary man. Yet I am a most firm believer. I 

 believe firmly that all the best things we have in our dairy herd to- 

 day are the result of careful breeding. We will take the superb 

 Holstein, which for two thousand years has been bred in Freisland, 

 Holland, w^here she is given a large amount of rather bulky feed, 

 with a view to producing large quantities of milk, without reference 

 to quality, and in which purpose they have succeeded. The Holstein 

 will produce a quart of milk — regardless of its interest — on the 

 feed given her cheaper than any other cow. Then we will take the 

 Jerseys and Guernseys, bred on the rocky Channel Islands, milk 

 high in fat and other solids and yellow, more scant in quantity than 

 i« that of the Holstein. They have been bred not so much to pro- 

 duce a large quantity of milk, as to produce one high in fat with a 

 large globule, easily churned when made into butter. They have 



