^^^ Illinois State Dairymen's Association. 



opportunity to investigate its status, and my experience leads 

 me to believe that only a few dairymen do know the cost of 

 producing one hundred pounds of milk. 



I started to gather statistics on this point a couple of years 

 ago, but did not succeed in getting much data. I went to one 

 of our oldest and best creameries and selected promiscuously 

 from their books the names of fifteen of their patrons and from 

 the records at the creamery I figured out how much money each 

 of these fifteen men had received from their dairy products in a 

 year. Then I hired a livery and drove out to see these fifteen 

 men to learn how many cows they had kept during that year, 

 and also if possible, the cost of keeping these cows. This is 

 what I found : The gross receipts from the creamery in one case 

 amounted to $25.00 per cow in a year, and the majority ranged 

 in the neighborhood of $20.00, but when it came to knowing 

 how much it cost them to keep a cow in a year, or how much it 

 cost them to produce a hundred pounds of milk, I could get no 

 data whatever. While these cases may be exceptional in regard 

 to profit, I think I am right when I say that only a small propor- 

 tion of our dairymen know the cost of production of milk. It 

 would not be difficult to figure out how much it costs a dairyman 

 to keep a whole herd for a year, and since the advent of the Bab- 

 cock Tester, it is not difficult to find out how much butter fat 

 the cows produce in a year. A farmer should test his cows 

 occasionally, but this has been advocated for a number of years 

 through the Agricultural Press and from the Institute platform, 

 and yet how many farmers do it? A number I know have pur- 

 chased Babcock Testers, and used them once or twice and then 

 put them to one side. They planned to test their cows right 

 along regularly, but when the day came for testing there was 

 something else required their attention and they put the testing 

 off and finally forgot all about it. One day they stubbed their 

 toes over the Babcock Tester and told the Hired Man to take it 

 up in the garret, and there it stays. And it is not because it 

 would not pay to use them, but I think it is because a farmer's 

 life is so independent that he does not have to. There is no one 

 to look after him, and he is responsible to no one for how he 

 conducts his business. 



I have some experience on this point and I am going to 

 confess it to you. Some years ago I was put in charge of a 



