646 SUCCESSFUL FARMING 



in some handy place in the bafn or milk room. The two hands on the 

 dial enable one to read the amount of milk directly. The milk sheet can 

 be made for the month, week or any convenient length of period. The 

 monthly record is the most popular. It is desirable to have a space for 

 tabulating ten-day periods for the reason that grain is usually fed in 

 accordance with the yield of milk. The amount fed should be adjusted 

 at least as often as every ten days. Some adjust it every week, but when 

 added for ten days the amount can be read directly without division. 



Records show that about one-third of the cows in the United States 

 are "boarders," or cows that do not even pay for their feed. When it 

 is remembered that so many cows are unprofitable, and that if records are 

 not kept, the daughters of these same unprofitable cows will be retained in 

 the herd, and in turn more than likely become unprofitable, the value of 

 records in dairy herd improvement is readily understood. Records show 

 that one-third of the dairy cows in the country should be killed. The net 

 profits of the herds remaining would then be greater than is now 

 the case. 



Cow-Testing Association Records. — Since it takes time to keep 

 records, groups of farmers find it economical to organize and employ a 

 man to keep records for them. This man is called a supervisor, and his 

 services enable a group of both small and large farmers to practice selection 

 based on production. Since the supervisor must visit each farm at least 

 one day in a month, only about twenty-five farmers can co-operate in 

 the hiring of one man. A supervisor can be had for from $500 to $600 a 

 year with board and room. If these twenty-five farms keep 500 cows, 

 the expense of keeping records by the supervisor method is less than though 

 the owners paid themselves for the time that they would take to keep 

 the same records. The supervisor weighs all feed given to the cows during 

 the day on which he visits the farm. From this data he figures the cost 

 of the feed by the month. In the same way he weighs the milk from each 

 cow and tests it for butter-fat. This enables him to calculate the pro- 

 duction for a month. He figures for the owner the value of the product 

 from each cow for the month at the price that the owner is receiving. 



Each cow-testing association is bound together by by-laws, contracts 

 and some sort of articles of confederation. In some cases the association 

 buys feed in carload lots so as to reduce the cost to the members. Such 

 an association must be gathered from a community covering a small area. 

 Some cow-testing associations stretch over considerable territory. 



Bull Associations. — One of the outgrowths of the cow-testing associa- 

 tion is the bull association. These associations are often formed from a 

 group of men within the cow-testing association. It is necessary that 

 the members keep the same breed of stock. These men own a bull, or 

 several bulls, together. The bull is kept in the community as long as he 

 is a good producer. A good producing bull is one that is a sure getter, 

 and whose heifer calves prove to be better producers as cows than their 



