52 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOriATION. 



where the farmers' wives are. I would hke to ask the question 

 of the professor from Iowa as to which of the types of cows he 

 has mentioned would be most profitable for a farmer upon his 

 small farm of from forty to sixty acres, keeping from two to four 

 cows, as many farmers do. Now, for the average farmer, who, 

 with his wife, does the work, and the wife cares for the milk, 

 which cow is the most profitable, and what is the best feed.? 



Prof. Curtiss: I want to say first that there ought to be 

 more farmers and farmers' wives here. I believe that the 

 farmers of this locality with forty to sixty acres of land, ought 

 to keep more than from two to four good cows, whether of one 

 type or another. Where he raises as much wheat as you 

 evidently raise here you can produce all you need to feed your 

 cows, providing you use the bran from your own wheat. I 

 believe that either of those special dairy types of cows will be 

 profitable if you want to turn all of your products into dairying, 

 but, if you want to raise some beef, you can use the other 

 type and raise profitable steers. I do not .think it can be 

 definitely stated that either one or the other would be most 

 profitable under all conditions on a farm of that size. When a 

 farm is larger, several hundred acres say, probably it is more 

 difficult to convert all the feed of the farm into dairy products, 

 then, there may be advantage in keeping some animals of the 

 other kind; but situated as you are here, in close proximity tO' 

 the St. Louis market, and with abundance of cheap feed, there 

 is no reason why you should not send to market all the pro- 

 ducts of the farm of almost any size, either in the form of milk 

 or butter or cheese. I recognize that not all small farmers can 

 have a silo, but you can all raise and feed roots, though I concur 

 with what Mr. Spies said about the advantage of a silo. I 

 didn't see very many exaggerations in that paper and I want to 

 heartily commend it as a good paper. The farmer on the small 

 farm can utilize the root crop without going to the expense of 

 constructing a silo and buying machinery, which is, of course, 

 necessary, and then, again, the silo is short-lived, six to eight 

 years at the best, you must have the machinery and the power, 

 it requires an investment of several hundred dollars at least to 



