612 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



has given some profit under all but the most adverse conditions has 

 rather led the farmers to believe that they were doing pretty well any 

 way, and it was better to let a good thing rest as it was. It is very 

 easy to tell if a bunch of fattening steers or hogs have paid for the corn 

 they have consumed. A farmer can easily determine if a field of corn 

 has produced sufficient grain to pay for the work and fertilizer. These 

 calculations are simple, the results even obvious. It is fairly easy to 

 tell if a herd of dairy cows, taken as a whole, have paid for their food, 

 though the problem has become a little more complicated, owing to the 

 necessity of considering the value of the by-products, such as the skim 

 milk and the manure. But to get the greatest value out of a herd one 

 must go behind returns from the entire herd. It is not enough that the 

 herd pays as a whole. The question concerns the product of each 

 individual in the herd. Does every cow in the herd pay a profit on her 

 feed? Fortunately, or unfortunately, as one may regard it, all cows do 

 not produce the same quantity or quality of milk. Though they may 

 belong to the same breed, or may be even closely related, they can not be 

 depended on to be equally valuable. This makes it necessary for each 

 cow to resit upon her own merits, and for the owner to determine the 

 individual merit of each animal. In this particular feature is where the 

 greater number of dairymen fail to apply business methods. Many 

 dairymen, who are thoroughly grounded in the scientific and practical 

 end of feeding, who understand the importance of good care and good 

 surroundings for the cows, have failed utterly to realize the value of this 

 most important part of dairying, and fail to keep any record of what the 

 cows in their herd are doing. It is doubtful if one dairyman in ten keeps 

 any records whatever, except, possibly, a roug'h idea of the total amount 

 brought in by the herd during the year. 



The lack of knowledge of the value of each cow in the herd leads 

 nearly always to unusual and needless losses, from the fact that in 

 practically every herd where no record has been kept there will be 

 found a relatively large per cent of the cows that are not paying for the 

 feed they consume. \\Tiile the herd as a whole may pay a profit this 

 profit will come from a few cows in the herd, and the other animals 

 will either barely pay for their keep, or will consume some of the profit 

 from the better animals. The majority of the herds in the State have 

 individuals tliat could be sold for beef, and leave a herd that would 

 pay a greater profit on the food consumed, although with a smaller num- 

 ber of animals. This has (been the history of every herd where a sys- 

 tem of herd records has been introduced. The writer has yet to hear 

 of a solitary case where the owners have adopted such a system, and 

 have not found cows that they were keeping at a loss. 



There are so many ways that suspicion may be allayed as to the true 

 value of a cow. For instance, many dairymen think that because an 

 animal has a strong strain of Jersey, or other dairy blood, they are 

 almost of necessity profitable dairy animals. The truth is that many 

 of the most worthless animals from a dairy, or any other sitandpoint, 

 are found among the full-blooded animals of all dairy breeds. We 

 have had at this Station a number of Jersey cows that would not pay 

 for the feed they consumed, while in the next stalls stood cows that 



