MILK RECORDS 8 1 



produced butter enough to pay a handsome profit 

 to the owner, while others that required the same 

 feed, care and time spent in milking, did not make 

 butter enough to pay for the food they ate. One 

 man who kept twelve cows got more money for the 

 milk of three of them than he did for that of all the 

 other nine put together. 



To cite an example of a single dairyman in a 

 Western State, eleven heifers in his herd gave, 

 during the first milking season, 2,807 pounds of but- 

 ter, which netted 20.4 cents per pound, an average 

 of $51 for each heifer. With an allowance of $40 

 for feed, he had a net average profit of $11 per head. 

 In the absence of a daily record he might have been 

 content with the result and gone on in blissful 

 ignorance of the fact that five of the heifers, instead 

 of giving a profit of $11 each, actually lost for him an 

 average of $8.20 each. Neither would he have 

 known that six of the heifers gave him an average 

 profit of $27. Further, he would not have known 

 that if he had not been the unprofitable owner of 

 the five poorest heifers, his whole profit, instead of 

 being $121, would have been $162, or $41 more 

 profit with no more than half the work. The last 

 statement is the most important, for many dairymen 

 could reduce their herd one-half (and the labor and 

 capital as well) and still be making more profit. 

 This is the great lesson which the dairy farmer needs 

 to learn to-day, for it is the foundation of profit in 

 dairy farming. 



Accurate records necessary. Guesswork is ex- 

 pensive to the dairyman. Even the best judges are 



