60 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



SELECTING DAIRY COWS. 



By 

 Hugh G. Van Pelt, Waterloo, Iowa. 



President : We are exceedingly fortunate this afternoon to 

 have with us Prof. Hugh G. Van Pelt, of Iowa, who is in charge 

 of the dairy work of that state. Will you have a specimen cow 

 brought in, Mr. Gilkerson ? Prof. Van Pelt will talk a few min- 

 utes about the cow that is brought on the platform and give us an 

 interesting discussion. I take pleasure in introducing Mr. Van 

 Pelt. 



Mr. Van Pelt : Ladies and Gentlemen : It always seems 

 that when I come to a state dairy association meeting I am com- 

 pelled to suffer the embarrassment of following my friend, Mr. 

 Schilling. We all know and appreciate the manner in which he 

 can talk and I always feel quite humiliated in trying to speak after 

 one of his excellent addresses. 



I was very much interested in what Mr. Schilling had to tell 

 you about the Iowa cow, namely, that she averages only 140 

 pounds of butter annually. I am not going to tell you that your 

 cow does not average more, but it is true that the average cow of 

 the United States is not doing any better than the Iowa cow. In 

 that state where we are milking 1,500,000 cows, we have thous- 

 ands that are producing 300 pounds of butter in a year, hundreds 

 that are yielding 400 pounds, scores of them that are producing 

 500 pounds, dozens of them 600 pounds and many individual cows 

 that are producing from 600 to over 1,000 pounds. In view of 

 this and the fact that the average is only 140 pounds, you can 

 readily see that there are a tremendous number of cows producing 

 less than 140 pounds of butter annually. 



This really is the situation and I want to say to you that I 

 believe it occurs in your district as well as in others, unless you 



