834 THE PEOPLE'S FARM AND STOCK CYCLOPEDIA 



of summer. Before deciding to engage in the business, one 

 should take all these matters into consideration, for it is better 

 to let the calves run with the cows than to have all this work 

 for no profit. 



To make a butter dairy profitable, not only must a superior 

 article be produced, but it must be sold above the average mar- 

 ket price. Fortunately, the consumption of butter increases as 

 the quality improves, and the farmer who makes a first-class 

 article is not likely to hunt long for a market. 



Selecting the Cows. It will be a work of time to get a 

 herd of good butter cows, and my experience in buying leads 

 me to advise that the cows be bought largely with reference to 

 what they will bring for beef, so that if they prove unprofitable 

 for dairy purposes, you can get your money back from the 

 butcher. In looking back over my own experience, I see that 

 I have rarely found it profitable to buy high-priced cows, and 

 that many of the best I have ever owned were bought at a 

 moderate price. There are many farmers who have excellent 

 butter cows and do not know it. They do not feed well enough 

 to make a cow profitable, and the milk of each cow is not tested 

 separately to ascertain which gives the richest. 



Buy young, thrifty cows ; feed liberally, so that if they do 

 not give rich milk, or enough of it, they will soon fatten, and 

 then cull out all that are unprofitable. It will pay to raise the 

 heifer calves from your best cows, and in time you can raise 

 the standard of your herd, and largely increase the profits of 

 the business. If a cow will pay for her keeping on a weekly 

 product of four pounds of butter for a season of six months, 

 one that will produce seven pounds will give a good profit. 

 Mr. Williard, in his Butter Book, says : " The average annual 

 product of good cows in herds of from fifteen to twenty-five 

 animals, in good dairy districts, is about two hundred pounds. 

 Occasionally an extra herd will produce two hundred and fifty 

 to three hundred pounds per cow, while individual cows often 

 yield a much larger product." 



Testing the Cows. As the quantity of milk required to 

 make a pound of butter varies from eight to twenty quarts, it 



