350 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



The literature of dairyings is a medium of communication of in- 

 dividual ideas, and when a man says he cannot afTord to take a farm 

 paper and "don't believe in book farmin' because it ain't practical," — 

 Oh, that word ''practical" what sins have been committed in thy 

 name — he arraigns nothing but his own inability to learn from the 

 experience of his fellow men, so the true status of dairy literature is 

 not that it is the whole thing, but that it is the most powerful link in 

 the chain, the most indispensable department in the battle of progress 

 against archiac methods. The pioneers and the investigators in the 

 science of dairying are the gunners, ideas are the ammunition, the 

 press is the artiller}-, the enemy are the mossbacks of conservatism 

 sitting on the tail of progress, and the battle flags of victory are even 

 now fluttering in the breeze upon the outer walls of the citadel. 



SELECTING DAIRY COWS. 

 (By F. B^. Mumford, Professor of Agriculture, Columbia, Mo.) 



In conducting the dairy business at a profit, the most important 

 factor is the selection of the cows that will comprise the dairy herd. 

 It matters not how skillful a dairyman may be in handling milk or 

 butter or how good a feeder he may be, if the cows in his herd are 

 inferior and low producers, he cannot hope to make a profit from the 

 business. 



It will not require any argument to convince the average man 

 that there is a very great difference among animals in their ability 

 to produce a given amount of product on the same food. One sheep 

 for example, fed a certain weighed amount of food will produce six 

 pounds of wool, whereas another animal fed in exactly the same way 

 will produce thirt}'' pounds. Some horses will consume a bushel of 

 oats and do very well if they manage to trot a mile in four minutes, 

 while other horses fed the same kind and quantity of oats will be able 

 to trot in two minutes. This is not due to any difference in the 

 methods of feeding or in the character of the food fed, but it is pri- 

 marily due to a difiference in the efficiency of the animal machine. 

 There are some cows, when fed a certain amount of food, that will 

 produce one hundred pounds of butter in a year; there are other 

 cows, subject to exactly the same sort of treatment receiving ex- 

 actly the same amount of feed that will easily produce two hundred 

 pounds in one year. We must therefore attempt to secure cows that 

 will produce a maximum yield with a minimum amount of feed. 



We are to look upon the dairy cow as a machine and she is a 

 machine that is able to consume the raw products of the farm in the 



