138 ILLINOIS DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



dollar and some cents to make 100 pounds of milk. One cow 

 produced butter fat as cheap as 6^4 cents, and one cow charged 

 58 cents to make a pound of butterfat. Mr. Gurler has had cows 

 in his herd make milk for less than 40 cents. The best cow in 

 his herd charges l l / 2 cents. I think on the average it was about 

 12y 2 cents in Mr. Gurler's herd the year I tested it — the feed 

 cost. We did not take into consideration of the case the calf 

 or fertilizer the animals return to our lands. We calculated 

 the calf pays for the cow's care, while the manure will pay for 

 the labor of taking care of and milking her. 



Mr. Lea : — In testing those herds the third year they gained 

 more than in the second year. A dairyman asks me, since they 

 got all the feed they wanted to eat the second year, where did 

 the feed go when it did not go into butterfat the second year? 

 That is on dairy herds, special dairy breeds. 



Mr. Glover : — I do not just get the meaning of the question. 



Mr. Lea : — A cow eating a certain amount of feed one year 

 and another year eating a certain amount, why would she give 

 more butter the second year than the first? 



Mr. Glover: — Perhaps for two reasons. In the second year 

 those cows had not quite recovered from their first year's feeding 

 so they did not respond quite as quickly to feed the second winter 

 as the third. Moreover, some of those recorded the second year 

 were not taken into consideration the third ; some of the cows 

 dropped out were low producing animals. To illustrate the point 

 I might say, those cows that Prof. Haecker has upon the one 

 ration do not respond to grass ration when they are turned out 

 so quickly as those fed on proper amount of feeding. Another 

 thing, I might go a little further in the third year's work, perhaps 

 the cows were in a little better physical condition. I might go 

 still further and add that I never yet have had a herd that will 

 produce exactly the same amount of butter per cow. I expect 

 jii this herd about which I have read, as increasing from 227 lbs. 

 to 337 lbs. of butter, this year will not exceed 337 lbs. per cow. 

 I look for a decrease rather than an increase. 



