20 BULLETIN 1069, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



duction. Through the weighing and testing of the milk it lets the 

 farmer know which are the high testers and persistent milkers. The 

 careful weighing and testing of the milk has caused many an intelli- 

 gent dairyman to say : " The cow I thought was the poorest turned 

 out to be one of the best in the herd." 



The cow-testing association can accomplish much, but there are a 

 few things it can not do. It can not compel a dairyman to dispose 

 of his poor cows if he is determined to keep them. It can not make 

 him feed according to production nor practice economy in the man- 

 agement of his dairy herd. It can not require him to dispose of his 

 scrub bull and buy a better one. It has never yet demanded the 

 planting of legumes and the building of silos. It can never compel, 

 but it will always encourage and point the way to economical im- 

 provement of the herd, of the farm, and of the dairy business. 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS. 



1. A tabulation of 18,014 yearly individual cow records showed 

 that as butterfat production increased from 100 to 400 pounds there 

 was a regular increase of about $16 in income over cost of feed per 

 cow for every 50 pounds of increase in average production of butter- 

 fat. 



2. As production of butterfat increased from 109 to 396 pounds, 

 the returns above the dollar expended for feed increased from 35 

 cents to $1.52. 



3. Tabulations of the records by herds gave results similar to the 

 tabulations of individual cow records. 



4. The records show that cow-testing-association cows are seldom 

 fed 'beyond the point of economical production. 



5. The average milk production of 21,234 cow-testing-association 

 cows, each on test 12 months, was 6,077 pounds, and the average but- 

 terfat production was 248 pounds. These figures are about 50 per 

 cent above the estimated averages of all the dairy cows in the United 

 States. 



6. Cows having high average production of milk and butterfat 

 averaged high in income above feed cost regardless of breed, age, 

 weight, date of freshening, and geographical location. 



7. The cows having an average milk production of 3,250 pounds 

 had an average income of $32.25 over cost of feed, while the cows 

 having an average milk production of 13,250 pounds had an average 

 income of $218.19 over cost of feed. The average production per cow 

 in the latter group was about 4 times as great and the average income 

 over cost of feed was nearly 7 times as great as in the other group. 



8. This bulletin is based on the tabulation of the figures in 120 sets 

 of records from 96 cow-testing associations. 



o 



