22 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



take thirteen millions of cows that are averaging three 

 hundred and twenty pounds of fat in a year, and produce 

 all the products necessary for this nation. Can any one 

 here stand up and give good reasons for keeping thirteen 

 million more cows than is necessary to produce the dairy 

 products that we need? 



I was in Washington recently, attempting to get an 

 increased appropriation for tubercular eradication, and I 

 drifted into the Dairy Division where they have got thou- 

 sands of records of herds. I found one herd of four cows, 

 just four cows, that had returned above the cost of feeding, 

 over $531. I found another herd of twelve cows that re- 

 turned $150 less than that. Why was that man keeping 

 twelve cows that weren't returning him as much above the 

 cost to feed as the neighbor with four cows? It is the 

 problem that confronts the dairy industry, and we hear 

 this said, it comes to you constantly: ''Why, if you get all 

 cows capable of producing three hundred and twenty 

 pounds of fat in a year there will be such an over-produc- 

 tion that dairy products will not be worth anything. We 

 can't get the cost of production." There was never a 

 greater fallacy uttered by anyone than that. 



Let us look at this for a moment. The man with the 

 four cows placed on the market not quite 38,000 pounds 

 of milk in a year, and the man with twelve cows placed 

 upon the market 48,000 pounds of milk in a year. In other 

 words the man that made a profit of one hundred and fifty 

 dollars more with four cows, placed on the market ten 

 thousand pounds less milk. 



Friends, efficient production doesn't mean over-pro- 

 duction, but when men begin to be efficient in production 

 they are not going to produce more than the market will 

 demand and will pay a fair price for. It is the low-pro- 

 ducing cow, the cow that does not pay for feed consumed 

 is the one that is producing the surplus, and it is the sur- 

 plus very largely that determines the price of all our dairy 

 products. Let us get that firmly fixed in our mind. 



One of the most outstanding examples of how surplus 

 affects the market and how low-producing cows produce a 



