82 ILLINOIS DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



supply. Through farmers' institutes and through meetings like 

 this which we attend throughout the state, we are able to do 

 some good. Buttermakers attending these meetings take part 

 in the discussions and get information in this way. 



Our field men are doing another line of work; they are 

 testing herds. You know Mr. Glover has been doing this work 

 for some years in northern Illinois; Mr. Hopper has recently 

 commenced testing herds in Southern Illinois, so we get a good 

 deal of information valuable to the dairymen all over the coun- 

 try, and valuable especially to the men where these tests are 

 being carried on. They visit those farmers regularly, have the 

 milk weighed and keep a record of the weights, and they are 

 able to suggest something in regard to rations so that cows can 

 be fed more economically and produce milk at less cost, and 

 they are able to point out the cows that are not paying for 

 their keep. These results are applied by dairymen living in 

 that neighborhood, so we are gradually raising the standard of 

 production so that our cows, instead of making about 151^4 

 pounds of butter will average a great deal more. 



You heard last night of these large records, in some cases 

 running up to six and seven hundred pounds. It is not possi- 

 ble for all dairymen to attain this, but they should have some 

 result to aim at and try to bring their cows up to 300 pounds of 

 butter a year. 



We have shown at the university that two cows standing 

 side by side, fed on exactly the same rations, in the case of one 

 cow the butter would cost three times as much as the other. You 

 see there is a great field for investigation along this line and a 

 great field for dairymen to improve their cattle along the lines 

 of economical production of milk and butter. 



Another way in which we reach the dairymen and butter 

 and cheesemakers is our annual conventions. We have a stock- 

 breeders, corn growers', and dairymen's convention held at the 

 university every year. The dairymen's part has not been con- 

 nected with the convention as long as the others but, owing to 

 the necessity for instruction in these lines and the demand for 



