90 Cooperation in Agriculture 



They associated themselves together and employed a 

 tester whose business was to test the cows of each member 

 twice a month. He kept a record of the milk, determined 

 the butter-fat, and weighed the feed consumed by each 

 cow. The dairymen thereby knew which cows returned 

 a profit, which barely paid expenses, and which were 

 supported at a loss. The Danish farmers eliminated the 

 unprofitable cows, bred from the best, developed the 

 cooperative method of handling the dairy industry in 

 other ways, and by adopting the cooperative plan as a 

 system of conducting their business have made Denmark 

 the most progressive dairy country of the world. Twenty- 

 five years ago the Danish cow averaged 112 pounds of 

 butter-fat ; now her annual average is twice that amount, 

 while the average yield of milk per head, including heifers, 

 is often 750 to 800 gallons per cow. In 1911 there were 

 530 of these cow-testing associations in that little country, 

 supported mainly by the farmers and receiving in addition 

 a grant of $30,000 to $35,000 from the Danish government 

 for their advancement. The Danish farmer buys feed 

 in the United States, pays transportation charges to his 

 country, maintains his herd on high-priced land, and com- 

 petes successfully with the American dairyman in the 

 English market. 



All of the leading dairy countries of Europe have adopted 

 the cooperative cow-testing plan, and the movement has 

 recently been spreading in the dairy sections of the United 

 States, especially in the dairy states of the Central West. 

 In 1910, there were more than 200 of these associations 

 in Canada, and in 1911, there were nearly 100 associations 

 in the United States. 



