632 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



An expression often heard among members of cow-testing associations 

 during the first year is, "The cow I thought was my best cow is actually 

 the poorest," which shows that impressions of the relative profitableness 

 of the different cows in the herd, if formed without actual records, may 

 be exactly contrary to the truth. 



It is possible for the farmer, by weighing, to ascertain the amount of 

 milk that each cow in the herd produces, and ever since the invention of 

 the Babcock test he has had an easy means of knowing the fat content of 

 the individual cow's milk. Very few farmers, however, have taken ad- 

 vantage of this opportunity; not because it would not pay them to do so, 

 but largely because testing is tedious work, and requires care, regularity, 

 and time to make it accurate. Many farmers have bought Babcock testers 

 and have started in to do this work, but have given it up for the above 

 reasons. It has the nature of an extra chore, and is apt to be neglected 

 under the pressure of other work. To be successful, a system for obtain- 

 ing these data must be independent of other work on the farm. 



THE ELEMENTS OF ECONOMY. 



In order to be able to decide intelligently which cows produce milk 

 and butter economically and which do not, it is necessary to know three 

 things about the individual cows in the herd. First, how much milk 

 they give; and this must be known for a year, because a cow has to be 

 fed for three hundred and sixty-five days. Second, how much butter fat 

 there is in each cow's milk, for upon this depends the market value of the 

 milk. And third, in order to form a correct idea as to the economical 

 utilization of the feed, it is necessary to know the amount of feed con- 

 sumed by the cow. 



The cow's ability to convert feed into dairy products economically can 

 not always be judged by net profit in dollars and cents, as this profit is 

 dependent also upon the skill of the feeder and the sagacity with which 

 he selects low-priced and at the same time suitable feeding stuffs. In 

 other words, the same cow might yield very different results with different 

 owners; therefore, in judging of net profits, the man as well as the cow 

 should be considered. For this reason, cows in one herd should not be 

 compared on this basis alone with cows in another herd, nor should the 

 summaries of whole herds be thus compared. The product must be com- 

 pared with the feed consumed in order to form an accurate opinion, and 

 that cow is a good dairy cow which has the ability to convert a large 

 amount of feed into a correspondingly large amount of valuable dairy 

 products with the least waste. In the absence of any such system as the 

 feed-unit system, whereby all feeds are brought to a common basis re- 

 gardless of their cost, it is perhaps not practicable to express absolutely 

 the exact degree of economy in the production of dairy products. 



The dairyman usually fixes a certain quantity of butterfat as a mini- 

 mum, and if a cow does not reach that production she is deemed unde- 

 sirable and disposed of. The cow tester's duty is to study the individuality 

 of each cow in the herd and teach the farmer to feed her so that she will 

 reach her maximum production consistent with an economical utilization 

 of the feed. 



