20 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



the dairy business. If you have two of these essentials and lack 

 in one, it does not make any difference which one, you cannot 

 make money in the dairy business. Poor cows, with the best of 

 care, you are not going to make any money. Or the other cows, 

 if you do not feed them the right kind of feed, are not going to 

 be profitable, and if you have the best cows and feed a balanced 

 ration, but do not give proper care, you will not make any profit. 



The question arises, "Where can we get the good cows? If 

 there are only about one-fourth of the million cows in the 

 State of Illinois that are really worth keeping, where are we go- 

 ing to get the good cows? There are not enough good cows in 

 the State to go around, only a few, comparatively speaking, in 

 the State. We could not all have pure bred cows if we wanted 

 them." I want to state that if you have the right kind of a 

 grade cow, which you can all get — i5-i6ths, or nearly full 

 blooded, you can all make money in the dairy business. These 

 cows cannot be registered, but the production will be practically 

 the same as pure bred cows. The first essential is to select the 

 breed that you like best, the breed that is best suited for your 

 locality or for the market that you have for your milk or but- 

 ter fat. After you have selected the breed that you like best, 

 that is best suited for your case, stick to that breed. Do not 

 change from one breed to the other. If you do, you are not 

 going to make much headway. After you have decided upon 

 the breed of cows which you want, put the best bred sire that 

 you can get at the head of the herd, raise the heifer calves from 

 the best cows, and in that way you can soon have a profitable 

 herd. 



How are we going to tell which is a good cow and whidh 

 is a poor cow^? Can we tell the difference between the good and 

 poor cow by looking at them and passing judgment? These 

 charts that I have prepared here are statistics mostly upon my 

 own herd, but this chart represents some cows which were pur- 

 chased by the University of Illinois in the Elgin District a few 

 years ago. They were bought from four herds. They selected 

 what they thought w^re the poorest and best cows in the herd, 

 took them to the University, and at the end of the year had 

 these statistics. 



