ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 217 



itable herd is a comparatively easy matter, within the reach of 

 any farmer who is able to keep cows at all? 



Ten years' observation of Illinois dairy herds and the indi- 

 vidual testing of more than 800 cows in forty herds, has given 

 the speaker positive evidence of the practical worthlessness of 

 about one-fourth the cows in these herds and the exceedingly 

 great efficiency and value of the best one-fourth. Both these 

 classes of cows are common in every community. As a rule 

 there are some of each in every herd. 



No Accounts Kept. 



It is equally surprising that these poor cows are not known 

 to the owner; their demand on his charity is not suspected. It 

 is very hard to find a dairyman who employs any means what- 

 ever of knowing the exact returns from each cow in his herd. 

 The ordinary dairyman has no idea of how much milk, butter 

 fat or butter each animal produces in a year, or how much it 

 costs to feed her. The natural result with the majority of our 

 dairy farmers is large investment of money and labor for too 

 small returns. 



Few if any herds we have tested contained no cows of low- 

 est fourth that produce only 133 pounds fat. Nearly every 

 herd also has some good cows producing over 300 pounds fat. 

 Have a profitable standard and raise this each year, selling all 

 cows that fall below this standard. This is easily done and it 

 requires much less energy to weed out the poor cows than it 

 does to continue to milk them. 



Such records as we have discussed indicate that one-fourth 

 of all the dairy cows in the state may be placed with Rose in the 

 same general class of high-producers. This is made still more 

 emphatic by the contrast of the poorest one-fourth of the same 

 554 cows, yielding an average of only 133^ pounds of butter 

 fat. 



The Mission of Rose. 



The 12-year record of Rose and her pioneer identification 

 with these discoveries (all made by weighing and testing the 



