STATE DAIRY ASSOCIATION. 289 



was from 150 to 200 pounds of butter per cow. Some localities aver- 

 aged two hundred pounds, some about one hundred and fifty. Now we 

 found that wherever farmers had given any attention to the feeding 

 problem and to the handling and management of the cows, that there 

 was a difference generally of about fifty pounds per cow in yield. 

 Where the farmers had no local meetings and were paying little or no 

 attention to the method of handling and feeding cows in some localities, 

 the average for the creamery ran down to 135 pounds per cow. Now 

 that shows that so far as the average dairyman is concerned, the first 

 lesson for us to teach him, is how to handle the cows that he has, 

 rather than to try to persuade him to get the kind that he has not, be- 

 cause when we attempt to do the latter we certainly shall fail. There 

 will not be one farmer in five hundred who will change the kind of cow 

 he is now using during his life time, and there will not be one dairyman 

 in a hundred who will use a dairy-bred cow. There is not one dairyman 

 in a hundred who is fit to handle a pure-bred cow. Now there is where 

 we come to this difficulty. What is the use in urging upon farmers to buy 

 or get a kind or breed of cows who are not at all in sympathy with those 

 cows, and who have not the disposition to give those cows the kind 

 of treatment that they need? Before you attempt to keep thoroughbred 

 cows, you should study your problem and train yourself to take care 

 of the common cow that you have, and get from her all that she is 

 capable of producing. If you do not succeed with the common cow — 

 that is, if you do not succeed in getting from her, her possibility, why 

 should you succeed with the cow that is far more difficult to manage 

 and requires better accommodations and better care than does the com- 

 mon cow? 



Now this is the first step in successful dairying. You have got 

 these cows, now the question for you to determine is, what steps must 

 you take to get the most out of the ordinary cow? We have now to 

 work that out. We find this peculiar discrepancy: while the common 

 cow on the average farm in Minnesota gives about 150 pounds of but- 

 ter, and I am told in Missouri about 130 pounds of butter per year, 

 the common cow at the Minnesota Experiment Station yields 290 pounds. 

 I have about forty complete yearly records of just ordinary cows, which 

 came to me by mere chance, all except three or four of them being 

 selected by parties other than myself. Now if the common cow will 

 do for me, you might say, with proper care and management, nearly 

 doubly as much as she will do on the farm, what process is it necessary 

 for the farmer to follow to get similar results ? I used to think these 



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