A MESSAGE TO ONTARIO DAIRYMEN 



H. H. DEAN, Professor of Dairy Husbandry, O.A.C., Guelph. 



The year 1915 will be known in dairy history as one of the best ever experienced 

 by Ontario dairymen. The causes contributing to this year of success were plenty 

 of rain in nearly all parts of the Province, which made grass and all other kinds of 

 feed grow abundantly; good prices, due to the great demand for milk and its products 

 caused chiefly by the call for cheese as a part of the army rations; and also to the extra 

 efforts put forth by dairymen to increase their production. But the dairy business 

 cannot exist on past performances. The present and the future are of more importance 

 than the past. What of the future? What about 1916? These are the questions 

 anxiously asked at the opening of another dairy season. 



Grow more Feed than ever During 1916 



Some one has said, "We can judge of the future only by the past." If this be true, 

 we may be reasonably sure that so far as demand for dairy products is concerned, the 

 present year will be fully as good as last year. We may also expect that the dairymen 

 and cows will do their part, but the part the weather will play cannot be foreseen. 

 Farmers are peculiarly subject to adverse weather conditions. The dairy farmer, can, 

 to a certain extent, outwit the "weather-man" by growing a variety of crops, so that if 

 one fails another is likely to be successful. A season unfavourable for grass is usually 

 a favourable one for corn, hence the dairyman should grow plenty of both grass and 

 corn, so that a crop of feed may be assured for his cows. 



Keeping hungry cows on a farm is one of the biggest losing games in the whole 

 dairy business. A hungry cow is a discontented cow; a discontented cow is a poor 

 milker because her nervous energy is dissipated while longing for, or hunting for, feed 

 to satisfy her appetite, instead of being utilized for the secretion of milk. 



Weigh and Test each Cow's Milk 



The weighing and testing of milk from individual cows in the herd should receive 

 more attention than ever during the present year, in order that owners of dairy cows may 

 intelligently breed and weed out their stock. It would not be a wise policy for all 

 dairymen to discard at once all cows that fall below a standard of 6,000 lbs. of milk or 

 250 lbs. of butter in a year. Cheese factories and creameries, milk-condensing and 

 city milk plants would close their doors in many cases, if this plan were adopted immedi- 

 ately. But the method of weeding out all cows that do not reach a certain standard 

 should be systematically followed until the dairy cow owner is able to place in his stable 

 the following notice: 



"Every cow that enters here 

 Must give 10,000 lbs. a year." 



The Record of Performance and the Record of Merit are two organizations that 

 assist the owners of pure-bred dairy cattle to breed, own, and sell registered stock of 

 merit. The Cow-Testing Association is for the purpose of assisting the man who owns 

 grade or pure-bred stock to know his cows individually, as determined by the scales 

 and Babcock test. But the owner of cows need not wait for any of these to help him. 

 He should act on his own initiative and purchase a milk scale and tester, or arrange to 

 have samples from each cow tested two or three times during the lactation period. 

 Record milk sheets are furnished free by both the Ontario and Dominion Departments 

 of Agriculture. The time required to weigh the milk from each cow and record the 

 same is very short. No one can afford not to do this. It is good business to know how 

 much milk each cow is giving daily and what her milk tests, but there is an added 

 advantage, not commonly reckoned by cow owners, namely, that the records indicate the 



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