No. 4.] MARKET MILK. 107 



means a lot of money, time, bother and a gilt-edged educa- 

 tion. The opposite is likely to be the case. A few weeks ago 

 there was an important conference of dairymen at Amherst, 

 Mass., which represented all the ISTew England States ; and 

 as a result of that meeting, a simple, decidedly inexpensive 

 and yet reliable means of testing cows was reached. This 

 was based on the deductions made from 700 trials by Prof. 

 J. L. Hills, director of the Vermont Agricultural Experi- 

 ment Station. The plan includes just two things: weighing 

 the milk of each cow three days a month ; and the sampling 

 of it twice or thrice during the year. Simple directions will 

 be given, so that any farmer can do the weighing himself; 

 and the testing will be done by creameries, experiment sta- 

 tions or through some other arrangement. Please note the 

 simplicity of the plan. Each farmer who will take an in- 

 terest in the work will be provided with a small card of in- 

 struction, so simply and carefully arranged that a school boy 

 could do the work. The initial cost need not exceed $5 for 

 a good-sized herd. Dues or fees, nominal or none. The same 

 work for the second year will cost much less. You will see 

 this does away with salaried men to do the testing, but it 

 means many less times the work as usually conducted. The 

 Denmark plan of salaried officials is probably a little more 

 effective, but conditions are somewhat different in jSTew Eng- 

 land, and we must modify our plans accordingly. The es- 

 sential thing is to get a start, and then we will have unlimited 

 opportunity to grow and make a system as elaborate as seems 

 advisable. 



Do not make the mistake of believing that you can guess 

 about what the individual cow is doing ; there is too much 

 " guess-so " dairying already. You may have seen figures 

 recently published in " Hoard's Dairyman," giving the re- 

 sults of the performance of 100 herds selected from 6 differ- 

 ent creameries, and representing approximately the average 

 conditions therein. Of the 100 herds, there were only 38 

 that made a profit to their owners; Gl herds caused a loss; 

 and 1 broke even. The average cost for an entire year of 

 keeping the profit-making cows was $37, and the average cost 

 of keeping the losing cows was $34.82, — a difference of a 



