90 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



their individual cows? You no doubt have heard many stories 

 ridicuHng the Ford automobile, and yet the sale of that machine 

 is still increasing-. You may go from the Atlantic to the Pacific 

 and you will find Fords everywhere. You will find the same 

 thing in the North and South. Three years ago when visiting 

 the home of the famous Scottish breeder of the beef type of 

 Shorthorns, William Duthie of Travis, Scotland, I was met by 

 him and his secretary at Aberdeen. After luncheon we were driv- 

 en out to his farm in his car, and to my surprise this wealthy 

 breeder was using a little Ford car. I made some remark about 

 it and he replied : ''It does nae look sae very handsome, but it is 

 efficient and carries you over a great, many miles of road with a 

 gallon of gasoline, and in addition is always ready to run." 

 When Mr. Duthie said ''efficient" he gave the reason for the 

 popularity of the Ford automobile. 



Now a motor car carries a speedometer which shows the 

 actual number of miles covered with each gallon of gasoline. 

 How many dairymen have a speedometer for their herd in the 

 way of a Babcock Tester and a pair of scales, in order to de- 

 termine if they are getting profitable returns for the feed their 

 animals are consuming? Every successful manufacturer has a 

 correct estimate made from time to time of the cost of producing 

 various articles. The weighing of milk and the testing of the 

 same at least once a month, should be a fixed habit on every 

 dairy farm, as it involves very little labor. By doing this and 

 calculating the cost of food consumed by the animal, a fairly ac- 

 curate estimate can be made of the cost of producing butterfat. 

 If I were operating a dairy farm I would not only test my cows, 

 but I would occasionally test the cream that I sent to the cream- 

 ery. This only involves the same principle as counting the money 

 you receive in exchange for grain sold, or anything else. It 

 takes a little more skill to test cream correctly, but a person with 

 ordinary intelligence can soon learn the whole process of correct- 

 ly testing cream as well as milk. 



A little over a year ago one Sunday, I found myself in a 

 little town in northern Iowa where the trains did not run on 

 Sundays. I wanted to go to a town i8 miles away, so I hired 

 an automobile. The car was driven by the owner who was one 

 of those wise fellows who could talk about anything, and of 



