ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 189 



necessary to have a more accurate means of determining a cow's 

 productive capacity. In past years, the abundance and cheapness 

 of rough food on the farm, the poor quahty of the stock and the 

 general lack of remuneration for the care of such cows, were ex- 

 cuses of some validity for lack of knowledge of the individual's 

 productiveness. The dairyman of the past has been allowed 

 to "go it easy." All this is changed now. The increase in the 



PROF. H. A. HOPPER, 

 Purdue University, Lafayette, Ind. 



value of land, the increase in cost of supplies, the greater dif- 

 ficulty in securing labor and the larger demand for dairy products 

 which is increasing each year, magnifies the necessity of testing 

 each cow and keeping only those that are profitable. We can- 

 not rely safely upon judgment. 



Importance of Testing. 

 When a man neglects to keep his business affairs firmly 

 in hand so that he may know his standing, we call him deficient 

 in ability. We would expect such a dairyman to keep an un- 

 profitable herd. On the other hand I have known numerous 

 dairymen who were careful about most of their business affairs 

 but who persisted in keeping unprofitable cows in their herd 

 because they were unwilling to use a dollar's worth of time to 

 add a hundred dollars to their profits. In the past a cow was 

 simply a cow; now she is either a faithful servant or a thief. 



