FORTY-FIRST ANNUAL CONVENTION 139 



our herds, by selecting and retaining only profitable individuals 

 and by the use of good sires in building up these herds. 



It will not be a difficult matter to induce your cows to yield 

 double their present amount of butterfat. After that has been 

 done there will still be the possibility of doubling the produc- 

 tion again. 



If you could realize the wonderful possibilities on the farm 

 today for those who will solve just this kind of problems, you 

 would be surprised at the wonderful results that can be accom- 

 plished. 



I believe that one-third of the 22,000,000 cows being 

 milked in the United States are not any more than paying for 

 their feed, another third are being milked at an absolute loss, 

 which means that all of the profit that is being made from dairy- 

 ing is derived from one-third .of the cows, while the remaining 

 cows that are now being milked are eating up a portion of the 

 profits that this small percentage of individuals are making. 



Were we to allow ten minutes for milking and feeding each 

 of the unprofitable cows that are now being milked in the United 

 States 700 times a year, then divide this time up among the 

 farmers in the United States, we would find that on the average 

 farm some man wastes annually 27.2 ten-hour, days each year. 

 This is practically a month and represents the farmer's vacation, 

 which he does not get. He has chosen to milk during his vaca- 

 tion period while the business man goes abroad. These are 

 merely facts, and all the man who milks cows needs to do to 

 prove them is to join a testing association or begin regularly to 

 weigh and test the milk of his cows. The only reason we arc 

 milking unprofitable cows today is because we have not realized 

 the value of the milk scales and Babcock test; or, in other words, 

 we have not made a study of the individual cow. 



In fact, there are many most excellent lessons that are to be 

 learned about cows, their selection, their feed, care, etc., that can 

 be learned only from the cows themselves ; and, as much as I 

 appreciate those lessons which I have learned out of dairy 

 papers, books and in school, the greatest lessons I have ever 

 learned have been taught me by the cow herself. 



