ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 29' 



all at market price, credit the cow with the amount of milk she 

 produces, sample it daily, test the composite samples at the end 

 of the week, keep a record of the amount of butter fat and the 

 amount of commercial butter and credit that at the market price; 

 in other words, carry a debit and credit account with every in- 

 dividual cow in the herd throughout the year. We have cows 

 that will make us butter for five and six cents a pound and other 

 cows that continually charge us fifteen or twenty cents a pound. 

 Now, I believe there is practically that variation in every herd. 

 We know that there are cows there that are unprofiatble from a 

 dairy standpoint, but we are continuing some of them simply as 

 an object lesson, for. the purpose of demonstrating that differ- 

 ence in the cost of production. We can better afford than the 

 farmers to do this and to demonstrate which cows will produce 

 economically and which will produce at a loss. 



There are some general characteristics of the good dairy cow 

 and we need to study her, we need to study the type' and the 

 kind of the cow that is most likely to prove profitable in our 

 herds. I am of the opinion that the best way to get a good 

 dairy herd is to breed it, feed it up and develop it. You will 

 notice there is a general similarity among all those cows of the 

 dairy type (referring to illustrations) and the general similarity 

 will best be described as what we term the "wedge" form, the 

 ''dairy" form. Cows take on that form by reason of being large 

 milkers instead of being large milkers because they are of the 

 wedge form. The demands upon the highclass dairy cow of the 

 best type are such as to develop width of the pelvis, spring of 

 the ribs and expansion of the digestive organs. These are the 

 maternal and milk-giving organs and their development is an es- 

 sential to the highest development of the milking function, con- 

 sequently a practical, profitable dairy cow must take on the 

 wedge form. On the contrary, we occasionally find cows having 

 that wedge form that have not good dairy qualities, so that it is 

 not an infallible evidence of dairy excellence, although it is a us- 

 ual accompaniment. So the capacity of these organs is the first 

 essential of the dairy cow; these things taken together indicate 

 the two factors that are of greater importance in determining dairy 



