THIRTY-FIFTH ANNUAL CONVENTION. 31 



This is a good cow and 6000 pounds skim milk makes $18.00. 

 I don't know what you consider skim milk worth here, but ac- 

 cording to Mr. Henry's experiment, it is worth 25 cents a 100 

 if corn is worth 35 cents a bushel. Corn being worth about 60 

 to 70 cents a bushel, consequently doubles the value of the skim 

 milk. You see I have estimated the skim milk very conserva- 

 tively. We can get around the cities 40 to 50 cents a 100 for 

 skim milk. We are selling our skim milk at 70 cents a 100. It 

 must be sweet. So I say this is a very conservative estimate at 

 30 cents a 100, making $18.00 — the calf $2.50. You may ob- 

 ject to that and say a calf is not worth anything. A good dairy 

 calf is worth something always ; bull calf worth nothing. Con- 

 sequently the increase from a cow, other than butter fat, is 

 $48.00, and that reduces the cost of $102.00 quite a bit, and com- 

 pares favorable with the cost of labor, interest and other items. 

 I tested a herd not long ago, and this was the result : 20 

 cows produced on an average 3000 lbs. of milk. Cost of keep- 

 ing of cow was $102.00, for 20 cows $2040.00. The average 

 production of milk for one cow was 3000 at 4 per cent, 7000 

 gallons. 7000 gallons cost $2040.00. The cost of a gallon of 

 milk was 29 cents. We are actually getting 12 cents a gallon 

 estimating on the butterfat basis. 30 cents a 100 for skim milk 

 and sell at 12 cents for 4 per cent milk. It cost 29 cents to pro- 

 duce that milk and we only got 12 for it, consequently there was 

 a loss of 17 cents on every gallon of milk those cows produced. 

 At the end of the year, this herd lost $1190.00. But the value 

 of the manure, $27.50, and the calves we have reduced the loss 

 to $590.00. Some of you probably have heard the story of the 

 boy at school studying physiology. The teacher was instructing 

 them on the functions of the body, the eye was to see, the ear to 

 hear, the fingers were to feel, the nose to smell and the feet to 

 run. And then a little boy cried and said: "I must be made 

 wrong, my feet smell and my nose runs." That is the case with 

 a good many dairy cows. We kept a record of this herd, and 

 there were three cows, and this was the return from those three 

 cows: 320 lbs. of butterfat, $68.50; skim milk, $63.00; value 



