372 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



butter. This cow has not yet been tested under most favorable con- 

 ditions and I think she will easily make 500 lbs. of butter a year when 

 tested under favorable conditions. She is a cow that is higher and 

 more upstanding, and more of a special dairy type and less of a beef 

 type than the other Shorthorn cow I have just shown you, with all the 

 indications of a persistent milking habit. This cow milks twelve 

 months and we have great difficulty in drying her off. I think if we 

 were to milk her as we did the Holstein she would milk almost as 

 long and perhaps maintain nearly as good a percentage of flow during 

 the period. She has the persistent milk habit as strongly established 

 as any cow of her breed that I have ever seen, and few cows of any 

 breed that have it more firmly established. The ancestry back of this 

 cow has been "developed for several generations we know of and just 

 how much farther we do not know. 



Here is a cow of the same breed but of a different type. You will 

 notice in the first place that she is in poor flesh. That cow in ten 

 monhs gave only 3.059 lbs. of milk, but it only made 128 lbs. of butter,* 

 3059 lbs. of milk and only 128.4 lbs. of butter. Her feed cost 18.4 cents 

 for every pound of butter she produced. Her net loss at the end of 

 a ten months" test v/as $1.07. 



I was impressed when Dairy Commissioner Wright was speaking 

 about the shrinkage in the creameries of this state. If we could have 

 a corresponding shrinkage in the dairy herds of the state and have that 

 shrinkage produced by eliminating the inferior cows, it would be better 

 for the dairy industry. If we could eliminate the cows of that type 

 and class that did not produce a profit and replace them with good 

 cows there would be greater profit left to the man who owns those 

 cows. That is the problem that confronts the dairymen to-day. There 

 has been a marked reduction in the cost of producing butter and thait 

 has not reached its limit yet; we are going to improve our methods 

 until we reduce the cost much more and I hope that we may not lose 

 sight of the quantity. I hope we may increase the quantity. The 

 farmer is confronted to-day with higher price feed than he had ten or 

 a dozen years ago when these creameries first began to be established 

 in large numbers. He has not been able in the products that he feeds 

 into the milk, into the manufacture of the product that he feeds, to 

 reduce the cost of production. The feed costs him about 25 per cent 

 more, in some cases more than 25 per cent more than ten years ago. 

 Labor costs more than it did then. There has been an increase in the 

 expense from these sides and, in connection with that, he is farming 

 on land that has about doubled in value in the past ten or a dozen 

 years, so all the products he feeds into the manufacture of milk on the 

 farm to-day have greatly increased in value and he is confronted with 

 even a more difficult problem on the face of it than the creamery man 

 has; he is confronted by labor and high priced land, with high priced 

 feed and high priced labor and with producing a product that is not sold 

 for much more. It means that he has to radically change his methods and 

 I believe the dairy future in this state was never as bright as it is today, 

 because I think those conditions which I mention are going to impel 



