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IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



his Guernsey cows. Now, I am no breed man; that is, I do not believe 

 in praising up a breed that I am using and I'unning down every other 

 breed. We have five or six grand breeds of dairy cattle. He has a 

 Guernsey herd that is a full blooded herd. I think he said his annual 

 production of butter amounted to about $101.00 a year; then he 

 values his skim milk at 15 cents per hundred, bringing up the annual 

 production of his herd to $117.50. Mr. Griswold, at La Crosse, Wis., has 

 bred Guernsey cattle that he graded up to an -annual production on butter 

 alone of $100 a year, taken from the creamery report. Is there any dual 

 purpose cow in the state of Iowa that will do that? 



I have read the statement in Wallace's Farmer that there are herds 

 of cattle in this state that will produce beef animals and also produce 

 300 pounds of butter a year. I challenge the statement. I would like to 



Gurnsey cow "Meistress Joe", owned by Charles S. Besley, Edison Park, III. 



have any man or number of men make a sworn statement, taken from the 

 creamery books and showing the number of cows they milk, as to what 

 they are doing, because I do not believe there is a herd of full blooded 

 beef animals in the state of Iowa that will give 300 pounds of butter 

 a year. A number of years ago, when I first started in the cow business 

 in Iowa, I was fortunate in picking up a few cows of the dual purpose 

 type to milk. We had a sire in that county that would give grand good 

 milkers, a shorthorn registered bull, but he never gave a steer calf that 

 was worth taking to Chicago any more than our dairy steer calves were, 

 but he was a good begetter of heifers and cows. The first cow I bought of 

 this sire was in the spring and I turned her out on grass, gave her a little 

 screenings, but nothing very heavy, but that old cow, under the condi- 

 tions I raised her, came through in the spring and gave me over twelve 



