ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 55 



no corners, and I don't believe I get a bagful of spoiled silage; 

 we cut off the corners about eight inches. 



Mr. Shermer: In a round silo you wouldn't have any corners 

 at all; wouldn't that be more profitable.? 



The Chairman: I think that a good many of the new silos 

 are made round, perhaps more than square. 



Mr. Monrad: Down in Indiana I met a gentleman who 

 had a round one; it had twenty feet staves and was ten and 

 a half feet in diameter. He fed about twenty-five head. 



HOW TO INCREASE THE PROFIT OF OUR DAIRIES. 



H. B. GURLER, DE KALB, ILL. 



(Read by Mr. Joseph Newman in the absence of Mr. Curler.) 



That there is need of increasing the profits of our dairies all 

 will admit. How to do it is an important question, — one that 

 thousands of dairymen are studying and many thousands should 

 be studying it that are not. 



With our present available information as to how we may 

 improve in our work, we should and are improving faster than 

 at any previous period in the history of the dairy work of 

 our country. 



The dairy herd as we find it on the farm is the foundation 

 on which we as a rule must build, or rather it is that from 

 which we are compelled to select material for the foundation 

 of our future herd. 



There are many ways in which the profits of most herds may 

 be largely increased. The first thing I would recommend a 

 dairyman to do is to make himself acquainted with each individ- 

 ual cow of his herd. By this I do not mean simply that he 

 should know each individual cow but that he should know what 

 quality of work she is doing for him; whether she is making him 



