344 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



she is capable of consuming. There is another line, as I think 

 of it, that is the line of ability, that is the amount of milk a cow 

 is capable of producing at certain times. Take a cow and increase 

 her feed gradually thirty days, then increase it a half pound 

 every other day ; do not increase heavier than that ; increase this 

 feed and if you find that cow giving a little more milk, paying 

 you for the consumed feed, keep increasing that feed gradually, 

 and she goes up gradually, you are caring for her nicely, and she 

 keeps going up until she stops. You give her more feed, she 

 eats it but does not go any higher in her milk flow, then she is 

 at the limit of her ability, and if you give her more feed you 

 waste this feed and worse, because it is going through the cow 

 and taxing her digestive system and causing her to work on that 

 feed. 



The first thirty days a man has plenty of time to know what 

 the cow is doing. If a calf takes the milk the first two weeks 

 you can feed her that way, but don't know whether she is paying 

 for her feed or not. 



The President: Gentlemen, Professor Holden is with us and 

 has consented to give us a ten minutes' talk on the extension work 

 at the college. 



Prof. McKay: Mr. Chairman, I believe Professor Holden is 

 absent at present from the room. In regard to the extension work 

 I might make a few remarks. 



Our part, as I stated last night, is to try and help the farmers 

 or dairymen of this State to improve their herds and, judging 

 from the talk we have had here from the different speakers, it is 

 quite necessary for the farmers that somebody at least should do 

 some work along that line. "We have with us here I\Ir. Guthrie, 

 a graduate of our school, a man th-at has spent some time with 

 some of the best feeders and best dairymen in this country, both 

 in the State of Illinois, this State and the State of Wisconsin. His 

 work will be to go among the farmers and induce them to keep 

 a record of their cows, weigh and sample their milk and send 

 the samples to some central point where they can be tested, 

 probably at the college. It is impossible for Mr. Guthrie to 

 cover this entire State, but it is possible to make a beginning, and 

 if he can make a beginning and show a man by demonstrations 

 that the work is profitable and desirable, I believe in the near 

 future that we will have a number of men in the field and I 

 believe that we will increase our production per cow from 140 



