EIGHTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART III. 85 



Mr. Van Pelt : Yes, sir. Regarding the amount of cows that 

 could be kept there. I did not make a direct statement, because, 

 really the possibilities of an 80-acre farm are, as I believe, greatly 

 larger than I made them. I think that 50 could be kept very easily 

 where concentrated foods are purchased. 



Question: What provision would you make to replace those 

 cows ? 



Mr. Van Pelt : As I said before, they can be replaced in dif- 

 ferent ways. He can raise the calves on some other place, or else 

 when his cows go dry, he can sell them and buy more. 



Question: In your figures did you take that into account? 



Mr. Van Pelt : Yes, I took that into account to the extent that 

 I charged up interest against the cows. I charged one dollar per 

 year insurance against the cow^ ; that probably w^ouldn 't cover more 

 than accidents or deaths; but, as a rule, if one wanted to sell those 

 cows at the end of the period of lactation, it would be possible for 

 him to replace them for the prices received for them. There might 

 necessarily need to be some provision made, however, for other ex- 

 penses. 



A Member : It is my opinion, in replacing these cows, that you 

 haven 't taken nearly enough into account to replace them — to either 

 raise the calves, or go out and sell those cows and rebuy others. 

 That is the most expensive thing in the whole business. If you are 

 going to raise the calves, you don't get as good a calf as you got 

 a cow, only occasionally, and it takes three or four or five years to 

 get them ready to milk. 



Mr. Van Pelt : As a rule breeders try hard to improve each 

 generation. As you say, there are a great many disappointments, 

 a great many calves we think should be most excellent milkers, when 

 they come at their milking age, they are not what we expected. But 

 it isn't necessary to wait four or five years on a calf to become a 

 profitable milker. If they are profitable at all, they should be 

 profitable at 214 to 3 years old. 



Mr. Reeves: "While they are a source of profit, they wouldn't 

 come up to the mature cow ; you would have to cut your figures con- 

 siderable A three-year old cow is not much better than a two-year 

 old. 



Mr. Van Pelt: Heifers should produce, and in many instances 

 do produce more butter fat than I have estimated. Really I con- 

 sider the average amount of butter produced by the Iowa cow is 



