Types and Market Classes of Live Stock 



189 



McDowell points out that if no expenses except cost of feed are 

 considered, 1 cow that produced 450 pounds of butter-fat a year would 

 have returned as much net income as 20 cows with an average produc- 

 tion of 100 pounds, and had all expenses been considered, the results 

 would have been even more striking. He found that the cost of 

 roughage was about the same for all groups, regardless of production. 

 The cost of grain was considerably higher for the more productive cows, 

 but it was much lower per pound of butter-fat produced. The in- 

 creased income from the higher producers should be credited in part to 

 better feeding, but it was evidently more largely due to better cows. 



Mention is made of one herd of 91 cows that in one year produced 

 a total income of $58 over cost of feed, or 6U cents per cow. One reason- 

 ably good cow can easily surpass the record of this entire herd, and 

 how much easier it is to feed 1 cow than 91, and how much easier and 

 cheaper it is to handle and milk 1 cow than 91! And it so happened 

 that another member of the same testing association owned 16 cows 

 that averaged 306 pounds of butter-fat and $75 over cost of feed. 



Tests of purebred dairy cows were conducted at the Pan-American 

 Exposition at Buffalo in 1901 and at the Louisiana-Purchase Exposition 

 at St. Louis in 1904. In a six-months test at Buffalo, the least profit- 

 able cow gave an average return over feed cost of 6.4 cents daily, and 

 the most profitable cow returned 33 cents over feed cost daily, or 5 

 times as much. At St. Louis in a 120-day test the least profitable cow 

 returned 1.6 cents over feed cost daily, and the most profitable cow 

 returned 42.1 cents, or 25 times as much. 



High producers consume much more feed than low producers, but 

 they produce much more milk and butter-fat per pound of feed. This 

 is shown by the following table ^ which covers careful, complete yearly 

 records for five years on four farms located in Michigan, Wisconsin, 

 Pennsylvania, and North Carolina: 



Relation of yield and feed cost, per cow, to feed cost per 1 00 pounds of milk produced 



ij. S. Gates: Some Outstanding Factors in Profitable Farming, U. S. Dept. 

 Agr. Yearbook, 1915, p. 117. 



