340 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



fourteen days record. It does not tell what that cow Is worth as a 

 producer for the whole period of her lactation and it is a wrong idea, 

 and an idea that is, I believe, keeping back the development of our 

 pure bred dairy stock very much, and some of the breeders' associa- 

 tions at present are beginning to awaken to this fact and allowing 

 only yearly records to go into their registry and when all our dairy 

 breeders come to this we will have taken a long step in breeding dairy 

 cattle. 



The question of feeding, — we know little about feeding today. We 

 don't know how much roughage or grain, what proportion we ought to 

 give to a dairy cow. We know approximately, perhaps, but yet we 

 know that there is much to be learned on this question. In this state 

 and in most of the western states the roughage that is grown on our 

 farms is the cheapest product of the farm and yet we buy high priced 

 grains to feed to our dairy cattle, but whether we are feeding too much 

 of that grain, whether we cannot grow more roughage at home and 

 reduce the cost of a pound of butter we do not know, — we do not know 

 sufficiently in regard to the amount of protein it takes to produce a 

 pound of milk. Some experiment stations have done good work along 

 this line yet we find a good deal of diversity of opinion, showing we 

 have still some knowledge to gain along the line of feeding. 



One of the questions that is going to be of importance in the future, 

 I believe, is the question of flavor in butter as it may be produced by 

 the feed that the cow eats, in other words — can we feed for flavor. I 

 believe there is much In this if we would once get down to some 

 scientific basis and know. We are not certain that certain feeds do not 

 give flavors to our product; we notice there is a great deal of difference 

 between butter in one section of the country and another, but we don't 

 know whether the difference comes from different feeds or not. We 

 have men claiming it does and men claiming it does not. We do not 

 know, also, whether or not feed will change the constituents of the 

 fats in butter. If you will travel in sections where they feed large 

 quantities of cotton seed meal and huls to their cows and see the but- 

 ter before it was colored, I think few of you but would pronounce that 

 butter oleomargarine. It has every characteristic in many ways of 

 oleomargarine, and yet it is pure butter. In other sections you will 

 find different characteristics in butter. This is due to the different 

 concentrates that go to make up the fats in butter. And whether we 

 can control the body of the butter by the feed, we know too little 

 about it altogether; it is a question which should be taken up and 

 given thorough investigation and thorough study. 



Another question which is going to be of importance is the ques- 

 tion of natural color in butter. We find in the summer time our herds 

 producing rich, yellow butter; we find our dried feeds in the winter 

 give white butter. Somebody out to take up a line of experimental 

 work to find what feeds in winter would produce a rich summer 

 color. That question has not been investigated to any great extent and 

 in order that it may be productive of good results, and it may be 

 something we will have to look to in the future if we are going to pro- 



