342 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



Economical Production. — The farmers of Europe must constantly 

 guard the cost of production. Their land is very expensive, feeds are 

 much higher than here, and the selling price for dairy products but 

 ■slightly higher than here. In a German town of 30,000 population the 

 'highest retail price of butter last winter was 37c per pound, while in 

 Columbia butter sold at 35c. I visited several German farmers pro- 

 ducing the milk from which this butter was produced. It was produced 

 on land worth nearly $1,000 per acre. The grain fed included consider- 

 able cottonseed meal brought from the United States. Their labor bill 

 was, of course, less than ours. Milk sells at retail in the cities at about 

 the same as it does here. Under these conditions it is evident the farmer 

 must produce milk economically, or he could not live. He does this by 

 economical feeding and by selecting the proper individual cow more care- 

 fully than the average American dairyman. 



The spirit of carefulness and saving of little things is very notice- 

 able in the methods of feeding. I think, as a rule, their feeding methods 

 arc rather more rational than ours. Cottonseed and linseed meals seem 

 to be appreciated rather more abroad than at home, and are fed far 

 more generally. For hay, clover and alfalfa are mostly grown wherever 

 it can be on the Continent, and the importance of this class of feeds is 

 fully appreciated. On almost every farm of any size there is a fore- 

 man who understands correct feeding, and he decides the amount and 

 kind of feed to be used. This foreman, as a rule, has taken a course at 

 some agricultural school. 



Test Associations. — Of equal importance with the feed is the in- 

 dividuality of the cow as a factor affecting the cost of production. We 

 are now in the midst of a great agitation in America over the necessity 

 of better selection of dairy cows. This is one of the weakest points in 

 our dairy operations, and to better it we should consider the advisability 

 of establishing here what are known in Denmark as Test Associations. 

 Ten years ago the first Test Association was organized in Denmark. 

 Today there are over 300, and the system has spread with amazing ra- 

 pidity for conservative Europe. They are now also found in Sweden, 

 Norway, Germany and Holland, and are spreading rapidly, due to con- 

 stant agitation of the matter in the agricultural papers. 



Farmers owning about 1,000 cows form a co-operative association. 

 They hire a man, usually a student from an agricultural school, as 

 tester. This man visits each farm about once every three weeks. He 

 weighs the milk from each cow and tests it for butter fat. He also 

 weighs the feed given the cow. A record is then kept, showing the milk 

 and butter produced by each cow and the cost of the feed. At the end 



