98 Bulletin No. 34. 



a, long term of service and, if a good cow, should go on making 

 milk and money for her owner for years. 



As there is a wide difference in the capabilities of steers to 

 make beef, so is there a still wider difference in the capabilities of 

 cows to make butter. The intelligent dairyman, the business 

 farmer, puts himself in a position to know which of his cows are 

 being kept at a profit and which are not. The only way to do 

 this is to determine and keep a record of the amount of milk and 

 butter fat given during the year by each individual cow in the 

 herd. The amount of butter fat given during the year is the 

 first test of the value of a dairy cow. The scales and the Babcock 

 test must be used to determine this. 



The books of the creameries of Salt River Valley show that 

 there are many dairy cows that, during the last four months at 

 least, have not given their owners a profit; sixteen patrons of one 

 qreamer} 7 , milking one hundred and forty cows, have received but 

 little over a dollar and a half per month per cow. Ever} 7 cream- 

 ery patron should at the end of the month divide the amount of 

 his creamery check by the number of cows in milk, thus getting 

 the gross receipts per cow for the month, then compare this with 

 the amount he could have gotten by renting his pasture and con- 

 clude whether or not the difference has paid him the interest on 

 his money invested in cows, the pasturage of his dry cows, and 

 for the work of milking and delivering his milk to the factory. If 

 the difference happens to be in favor of renting pasture, possibly the 

 growth of the calves that are being fed on the skim milk from the 

 factory will restore the balance to the right side of the account. 

 If, even then, the difference in favor of the dairy cows is too small, 

 let the man who wants to know the truth compare his profits with 

 those of his neighbors before he concludes that dairying does not 

 pay. He will find that some of his fellow patrons are getting hand- 

 some returns. The question is, Why the difference ? The an- 

 swer is, The cows. 



As truly as there is a typical beef animal, broad, low, and 

 blocky, just as truly is there a typical dairy animal, but of a dif- 

 ferent type. Sometimes we find a profitable combination of beef 

 and butter in the same animal, but it is the exception rather than 

 the rule. While the scales and the Babcock test should be de- 



