ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 109 



We cannot stand so much wholesale killing of the best in this 

 business except to the lasting hurt of the industry. 



There are three weak spots in the dairy industry today and 

 one of them, is the inefficient cow. It costs too much to make 

 milk. We must have better cows so that a larger proportion of 

 our corn meal and oil meal, of our clover and alfalfa shall go with 

 the milk can and a smaller share into the dung heap. 



If we are to have better cow^s w^e must breed them, and we 

 must do it ourselves ; by well known methods which have succeed- 

 ed everywhere. When I say these things to dairymen, I am met 

 by the objection that it costs too much to raise a cow : that 

 dairymen cannot afford the milk to start the calf. I suppose 

 the same objection will be raised here and now. If so, I will 

 say that the dairymen will soon be forced into rational breeding 

 or he will do worse. 



A cow is a component part of a dairy plant, just as much 

 as are barns and shipping stations, and the production of her suc- 

 cessor is a ''fixed charge" upon the business just as taxes and 

 insurance, and the business of economic milk production will 

 never be on an established basis until a supply of cows of high 

 efficiency is assured. 



It is not enough that Jones and Smith are able by peculiar 

 shrewdness to get all the good cows and thereby thrive partly 

 at the expense of Thompson and partly at the expense of the 

 consumer but it is that we need to inaugurate practices that w-ill 

 establish the dairy business as a w^hole upon a sane and safe 

 basis so far, at least, as fundamentals are concerned. 



There is a persistent call amounting almost to a demand 

 upon the Station for more field w^ork ; for more personal advice ; 

 ana this is good. But what dairymen need most to do now 

 is to avail themselves of w^hat is perfectly well known, and not 

 to be told some new thing. There is no royal road or short cut 

 around the situation and we cannot much longer stave off the 

 responsibility of raising cows. The average dairyman is inter- 

 ested at once in all questions of feeding but he turns the sub- 

 ject vrhen the matter of breeding is raised. He is putting large 

 amounts of costly feed into exceedingly poor machines and he 



