406 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



same basis. We hear a great deal about the wonderful 

 orchards of our State, yet all the horticultural products, includ- 

 ing all vegetables other than potatoes, are valued at only $18,- 

 000,000. It might be well, however, to consider a few possi- 

 bilities for bettering our showing, basing our consideration on 

 the following facts: 



The dairy department of the University of Missouri has 

 several farmers scattered over Missouri whom it is keeping in 

 close touch with and aiding in the development of a dairy 

 herd and farm. These men are called dairy co-operators. 

 The results obtained on one of these farms are extremely 

 interesting. 



In 1909 a student in the University from Lawrence county, 

 who was specializing in dairy husbandry, was called home be- 

 cause of permanent injury suffered by his father. The farm 

 was at that time an average dairy farm. A grade Jersey bull 

 was at the head of the herd, which consisted of about twenty 

 cows, all grade Jerseys or Shorthorns. When this young man 

 went home he took three things on which have been based his 

 success. The first was a pure-bred Jersey bull from the Uni- 

 versity herd. The second was a pair of milk scales, and the 

 third was a Babcock tester. His father thought they had a 

 pretty respectable herd, but in six months they had sold eight 

 of the twenty cows because they were proved unprofitable. 

 Here and there he bought cows to replace these, trying to get 

 good milk producers. He used the bull on the cows he had 

 selected and kept because of the record for milk produc- 

 tion they had made. At the end of the first year of keeping 

 records it was found that the cows averaged 180 pounds of 

 butter for the year. Three years later it was found that the 

 herd averaged 300 pounds of butter for the year. This re- 

 markable record was all made under very ordinary conditions. 

 The scales and tester and pure-bred bull with intelligent feed- 

 ing will do the same thing for any other farmer in our great 

 southwest. 



If every farmer in Missouri would increase the production 

 of his herd from the average annual production of 140 pounds 

 of butter to 300 pounds, instead of Missouri supporting 850,000 

 cows in order to produce $32,000,000 worth of dairy products, 

 we could dispose of 454,000, keeping but 396,000, which would 

 do the work of the 850,000 now kept. Or if we should keep 

 the 850,000 cows with their annual production increased to 



