No. 4.] MODEEN DAIRYING. 07 



Mr. Sneath further says : " Our business does not permit 

 us to raise more than 125 calves annually, which will not 

 fill up the ranks; therefore we purchase enough of the best 

 cows we can find every year to make up the deficiency." 

 Now, mark the following words and the judgment they con- 

 vey : " but of these we have to discard 75 per cent to secure 

 good milkers." 



That statement will give us very fair judgment as to the 

 number of the average cows in the country which will yield 

 5,000 pounds of milk annually. At the standard per cent 

 of butter fat, viz., 4 per cent, that gives us only 200 pounds 

 of butter per cow in one out of every four. The average of 

 Massachusetts would hardly enable Mr. Sneath to put a cow 

 in his herd, for the average of Massachusetts is only a little 

 above 3,000 pounds. 



One of my neighbors, a Mr. Merriman, who was a very 

 successful handler of cows, informed me that he worked for 

 six years in buying the best cows he could get for $40 each, 

 to build up a herd that would yield 200 pounds per cow. 

 It required the purchase of over 100 cows to secure a herd 

 of 25 of this character. 



I used to see men in the army that could handle a com- 

 pany of a hundred men, but go to pieces on a thousand; 

 that could handle a thousand men, but go to pieces on a 

 brigade; that could handle a brigade*, but go to pieces on 

 a corps ; that could handle a corps, but could not command 

 an army. God has set limits in your comprehension and 

 power of handling men and also of handling dollars. Many 

 a man can do a ten-thousand-dollar business who will go to 

 pieces on twenty thousand dollars; and that one question 

 of the limit applies as well in war, applies as well in dairy- 

 ing, applies as well in commerce. But it is a mighty good 

 thing to find out what your limit is. The difficulty that I 

 have noticed among men is, that they are satisfied not to 

 find out what that limit is. It may be that it is a prophetic 

 sense that they have, and they do not want to dispute it. 



For a man to engage in a race for speed and to bestride a 

 draught horse would lie a proposition no more ridiculous 

 than it would be for a man to engage in a contest for butter 



