SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK—PART II 91 



kind. Two years ago we had a herd, up in the neighborhood of Waterloo, 

 where they had teen testing their cows for about three years, from which 

 34 head of grade stuff was sold that year, the stock ranging from calves 

 to aged cows. The high cow at that sale brought in $139 and the average 

 price for the herd was $131.50, the sale taking place early in the fall. 

 We were interested to know how much more those men paid for this 

 stuff than they ordinarily paid for untested cows in that vicinity and 

 found that the best cow at farm sales — just ordinary cows — sold as good 

 milch cows, and the best of them brought from $90 to $100. The average 

 was something less than $90, so this price was an increase of 30 per cent. 

 So we say the cow-testing association is responsible for the increase in 

 sale price of from 20 per cent to 30 per cent. 



We have an ideal in the livestock business, and we have an ideal to 

 work for in the dairying business, and the quickest way to get at that 

 ideal is thru the cow-testing association, whether you are in the pure-bred 

 business or not. We find that the Cedar Valley Association now has a 

 large proportion of pure-bred breeders in it and yet five or ten years 

 ago there were but two or three pure-bred breeders there. In the Pioneer 

 Association we have gone so far that every man has a pure-bred sire, and 

 every man in that community has a silo, while some of them have three 

 and some four silos. We find, too, in the association work that the feed- 

 ing proposition is a big thing. Feed your cow a more economical ration 

 and increase the production by feeding a good deal less feed than you 

 were feeding previously. I think I can illustrate my point by what hap- 

 pened to one of the members in the Clinton Association. When the tester 

 came around in December he found that the man was feeding a ration 

 of ear corn weighing 8.9 pounds, oats 3 pounds, oil meal and bran 1.5 

 and cotton seed meal 1 pound, a total of 14.4 pounds a day, and the 

 cows were giving about 25 pounds of milk. The tester asked him if he 

 thought he couldn't cut down feed and get as much milk, so they made 

 a grain mixture weighing 7:3 pounds on which they wanted to get as 

 much milk as on the heavier feed, but the surprising thing about it was. 

 that when January came around it showed that every single cow in that 

 herd increased in milk production. During January they gave 563 pounds 

 of milk more than they had in December and made 28 pounds more of 

 butterfat. In December it cost $80.60 to feed and in January $48.66 to 

 feed them. In December he made a profit of $2.47 for the 10 cows— less 

 than 25 cents apiece for taking care of those cows and milking them, and 

 in January, instead of a profit of $2.47 he got a profit of $40.39, an in- 

 crease for the month of nearly $39, turning loss into profit. The trouble 

 was he was feeding too much grain, too much ear corn. 



There are several other interesting things to come up. I have 

 sketched this briefly and if there are any questions at any time, do not 

 be afraid to ask them and I shall be glad to answer them. 



Qxjkstion: What did he feed them in place of the corn? 



Mr. Barker: He fed more oil meal and cotton seed meal. He made 

 a mixture of 200 pounds of corn and cob meal, 100 pounds of oats, 150 

 pounds of oil meal and 200 pounds of cotton seed meal, and he fed them 



