SEVENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART X. 611 



The point I wish to make is that in breeding and managing a herd of 

 any breed, a man may not be discouraged if for a time his herd is not in 

 the lead in puWic favor. With all breeds and at all times the process 

 of testing and of weeding out the inferior worlvers should be carefully 

 prosecuted, but especially in times of dullness or lack of active demand. 

 And the best of any of the breeds will prove profitable even in the dark- 

 est days of depression. Breeders of various breeds of sheep, swine and 

 poultry have also experienced these ups and downs in demand, but those 

 who have staid with the breeds they prefer, and have bred and man- 

 aged them intelligently, conforming more nearly to the quality of flesh 

 or fleece demanded by the best markets of the time, have found a steady 

 demand at paying prices, even in dull days, and have had a fair share of 

 prosperous years, owing to a turn in the trend of the markets or an 

 unusual call for animals of their breed from some particular district or 

 country, to be bred in their purity or used for crossing or grading pur- 

 poses for the production of a specific product for the time being in de- 

 mand land bringing unusually good prices. 



SYSTEMS FOR KEEPING MILK AND BUTTER RECORDS. 

 C. F. Doane, Maryland Experiment Station. 



This is an old subject, but it is a question that should interest every 

 man who depends upon his dairy for a large part of his income, and 

 who desires to increase the profits coming from his herd. Dairying is 

 one of the most profitable branches of agriculture when worked to the 

 limit of its possibilities, and it is not very profitable that any dairyman 

 is making as much as he should unless he is keeping a careful record 

 of the milk and butter yields of each individual cow in his herd. 

 Scientific dairymen, as well as practical dairymen, may find material 

 for consideration in that portion of this 'bulletin, tables and discus- 

 sion, dealing with the proper months in the lactation period for se- 

 curing a fairly average test when it is not desired to test every 

 individual in the herd every month she is in milk. 



Perhaps no single advancement along dairy lines has contributed so 

 much to the profits of the industry as the keeping of herd records, 

 which enable the owner to know the exact amount of milk and butter 

 produced by each individual animal, and thus determine if she is kept 

 at a profit or a loss. This system, where it has been applied, has some- 

 times doubled the actual profit received from a herd of cows, and in 

 some cases has turned a loss to a substantial profit. The producing 

 end of dairying has, in the past, and is even yet on many dairy farms 

 carried on in a most unbusiness-like way. The fact that communities 

 largely engaged in this industry are nearly always the most thrifty and 

 prosperous appearing is no refutation of this assertion; rather it is an 

 evidence of the possibilities of this ibranch of farming. 



The lack of the application of business principles to dairying is due 

 very largely no doubt to the fact that dairying is more complicated than 

 most of the other agricultural pursuits. Then, too, the fact that dairying 



