164 



Then we go one more generation, the three-quarter-blood, marked as 

 true as any pure bred Holstein. She produced 474 pounds of butter fat. 

 There is just one step, one link in between this 474 pound producer and this 

 187 pound producer. It tells the story of the value of the pure bred sire. 



Now you people can all point to illustrations in your community where 

 pure bred sires have given similar returns in the butter fat, but can we be 

 sure that the feeding and management of the cows at the beginning were 

 just the same as the feeding and management of these grades later? And 

 so that is the object really of this piece of experimental work, to separate 

 those factors. 



Here we have one of the scrub cows, a steery appearing individual, and 

 yet she produced 183 pounds of butter fat. We know that there are some 

 scrubs in all of our breeds that are registered, so we must go further than 

 simply buy a pure bred animal. 



Here is the heifer by such pure bred animal. There wasn't much back 

 of him by way of production, but he was used simply because a few Guernsey 

 breeders in the state at that time, quite a number of years ago, were anxious 

 that we have some grade Guernseys as well as grade Holsteins and Jerseys, 

 but the bull did not increase the production to any extent. In this case this 

 heifer produced 2 per cent less pounds of butter fat than did' the scrub cow. 



Here we have the next generation from this same foundation. Here is 

 the grand dam. You have just seen the dam. The dam produced a little 

 less than the scrub grand dam of this heifer, but this heifer produced as a 

 two-year-old 435 pounds of butter fat, and she is a good type grade Guernsey 

 heifer. There you have the story. There is just the one link between. This 

 link comes between no increase, in fact a slight decrease, and then this big 

 increase in production. 



We might go farther in regard to that, but it is not necessary, and the 

 statements I make relative to the records apply to all breeds, but I do want 

 to give you, if I may, just a statement relative to the summary, where we 

 took all the scrub cows, took all the scrub daughters and took all of the 

 granddaughters, or the three-quarter-blood heifers, grade Holsteins, grade 

 Jerseys and grade Guernseys. All the scrub cows that came to the experi- 

 ment station averaged 3,900 pounds of milk and 185 pounds of butter fat. 

 The half-bloods or daughters out of those cows bred by pure bred sires, 

 produced 5,619 pounds of milk and 261 pounds of butter fat, an increase of 

 44 per cent in milk and 41 per cent in butter fat. The next generation, the 

 three-quarter-bloods, produced' 8.507 pounds of milk, that is the second 

 generation grades, and 379 pounds of butter fat, or an increase of these 

 granddaughters over the granddams of 117 per cent in milk and 105 per cent 

 in butter fat. So we have that increase brought about in that short time. 



HOW FEEDING INCREASES PROFIT. 



So much for the weeding and breeding. Just a few words in regard to 

 the feeding. It seems to me that one of the greatest sources of loss in con- 

 nection with feeding our dairy herds on the farm is the fact that too many 

 people feed all cows alike regardless of production. 



In one of our Iowa herds a couple of years ago the cow tester in checking 

 up the work at the end of the month of December found a man who had 

 milked ten cows for that month, had received a profit, or rather a net income 

 over cost of feed of $2.47. In other words he had milked and cared for these 

 ten cows for the full month of December and received in return a net income 

 of 24 cents per cow. The cow tester knew that the man was not dairying 

 simply because he loved the cows. He knew the man wanted the cows to 

 keep him rather than he keep the cows. We have too many people keeping 

 cows instead of the cows keeping them. The cow tester suggested that the 

 farmer change the method of feeding, that they start feeding the cows in 

 proportion to production. He suggested that they start grinding the corn 

 and oats, and he suggested that they feed a little better roughage than they 

 had been feeding. So they made these changes in the ration, and for the 

 month of January, with the same ten cows, none of them had freshened in 



