176 



The Dawn of a Xew Constructive Era 



Results from 

 Good and 

 Poor Cows 



An Example 

 of Successful 

 Dairy Opera- 

 tion 



in the labor. Much of the work may be saved ; much of the work 

 may be done to better advantage by doing things a little dif- 

 ferent, and possibly locating a little differently. Fourth, is poor 

 equipment. Many of you are not sufficiently equipped to handle 

 the milk and get.it to market in good condition. Fifth, is the 

 cattle tick, which will be spoken of later; and we trust that the 

 cattle tick will be eradicated in a very short time. Also, one of 

 the most vital things is the lack of home grown feed. Among the 

 farmers we have visited within the past three or four months, 

 those people having no home grown feed were contemplating 

 selling their dairies because they could not afford to buy feed 

 from the market. 



Now, these apparent disadvantages are being overcome. 

 One of the best ways of farming here is by getting better cows. 

 It is essential that we have this. We have a farmer at New 

 Iberia who just bought a few cows. One of them had a year's 

 record of 600 pounds of butter fat. When you compare that with 

 a cow producing 100 to 150 pounds, you may see the difference. 

 Another way is by weeding out the poor cows by herd record 

 work. One of the dairies in the northern part of the state had 

 35 cows. It started the record work there a little over a year 

 ago, and three or four months ago we began selling cows that 

 were proving they were not paying any profit. After eight cows 

 were sold, and by better feeding of the remainder, we sold as 

 much milk as we had from the original 35. By this record work 

 better methods are being introduced; better care is being taken 

 of the milk; better feeding is resulting; better care of the cows; 

 and it gives the farmers a better chance to plant for home 

 grown feed. This record work along the dairy line, I believe, is 

 the most important part of the work that we do. I might say 

 that the Live Stock Extension Service is supervising the record 

 work of some of the dairies in this state, and some interesting 

 results are found. 



Two years ago a visit was made to a dairyman. After ex- 

 plaining the advantages of keeping records of each individual 

 cow he decided to keep a complete record of his herd. Each 

 cow's milk was weighed each night and morning and a butter- 

 fat test was made once a month. Each cow was charged with 

 the feed she had eaten. At the end of the year four cows were 

 sold that were making no profit at all. The second year cane tops 

 were used with corn for silage. Four cows were added to the 



