52 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



the average cost of producing 100 pounds, there were ap- 

 proximately 500 cows, or one-half of them, that produced 

 100 pounds of milk for less feed than the average and about 

 500 cows that required more than this average to produce 

 100 pounds of milk. If a dairyman, by weighing the milk 

 from each individual cow, would sell all the low-producing 

 cows in the herd and keep only the best cows, he could re- 

 duce the cost of producing milk materially and thereby 

 increase the profits. Generally speaking, the cow that will 

 produce the largest flow of milk in a year will return the 

 largest returns above the cost of feed. 



In one particular cow testing association, the best cows 

 in the association returned seven times as much net profits 

 in a year as did the poorest cows in the association. In 

 another association, the best herd of ten cows returned 

 $1,475.20 above the cost of the feed they consumed, while 

 the poorest two herds in the association, comprising 36' 

 cows, only returned $1,213.95 above feed cost. In this 

 association, the ten best cows returned $265.25 more net 

 profits than did the 36 poorest cows. The average produc- 

 tion of the 36 poorest cows in this particular cow testing 

 association is over fifty per cent higher than the average 

 production of all the cows in the State. 



The average of all cow testing associations will show 

 practically the same degree of difference in the production 

 of the best and the poorest cows. 



There are two essentials that are necessary for econ- 

 omical milk production. The first one is good cows and the 

 second one is the care that they need to produce milk. 

 There is only one way by which you can determine the good 

 cow from the poor one in a herd and that is by weighing the 

 milk and testing it for its butter fat contents, by which the 

 average production can be determined for the year and the 

 poor cows eliminated from the herd. 



The testing can be done either by the dairyman himself 

 or he can join a cow testing association, if there is one in 

 his county, and have a tester do the testing. Where the 

 testing is done by the dairyman, it does not necessarily re- 

 quire much time. 



