ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 175 



WHO SHALL BREED THE DAIRY COW. 



PROF. E. DAVENPORT, URBANA, IL1 



This paper is intended as a protest against the common practice in 

 dairy districts of buying cows fresh, milking them one season and sell- 

 ing them dry to the butcher. 



The dairyman gives as his reason for this practice, that to him the 

 cow is simply a machine to coirvert feed into milk, and that when one 

 piece becomes inefficient he must secure another; that his barn room and 

 pastures are limited and that he cannot afford to fill them up with dry 

 cows or young cattle; that to keep a dry cow idle for two months., or oue.-- 

 sixth of her time, is to take off all her profit; that to raise young cattle 

 means that half of the herd will always be unproductive, and finally 

 that his business is to produce milk and not to raise cattle, and he cites 

 the fact that the farmer does not manufacture his binder nor his culti- 

 vator. 



This line of reasoning is just near enough to the truth to be dan- 

 gerous. It is true that commonly the operator does not produce his own 

 machinery and cannot afford to do so; and yet it is generally true that 

 it is more economical to produce wo or more merchantable articles at a 

 time than to produce one, and frequently, if not generally, the profits are 

 all in the residues. Let me instance a common example in cattle raising. If 

 the farmer undertakes to turn all his corn into beef he must grind the grain, 

 or suffer the loss of a large portion of his feed. On the other hand if 

 he is willing to produce pork as well as beef he puts the hogs behind the 

 steers and avoids both grinding and the loss. The former cannot com- 

 pete with the latter no matter how strenously he insists upon being a 

 producer of beef only. So it may very well be that the dairyman is 

 wrong in his reasoning, even though his arguments are convincing to him- 

 self. 



