122 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



of a sire you are using- you will feel that he should be replaced 

 with a good sire, one whose ancestors were milk producers, I 

 would feel that I had accomplished a great deal. You could 

 absolutely change in one generation and place your herd on the 

 profit side of the ledger by the use of a real dairy sire. 



The greatest improvement I ever saw in cows was after 

 I went down to Arkansas in 1907, went out in the hills and se- 

 lected cows with absolutely no pure blood in them, got them 

 home, gave them good feed, bred them to purebred sires. The 

 official records show today that the descendants of these cows 

 are producing twice as much butterfat as the average cow in 

 the United States is producing. This demonstrates clearly what 

 you can do by the use of a good sire. 



The man who uses poor purebred or scrub sires gradually 

 breeds downward. I did not mean to dwell on this when I 

 started to talk to you about the Proper Equipment for Profitable 

 Dairy Farming, but I do say that the beginning of the equip- 

 ment for such a dairy farm that is to return profit, is a good sire. 

 I speak of that first because we are surrounded with cows that 

 need breeding up. Fifty per cent of the cows that are not mak- 

 ing a profit fail because they are not bred properly and the other 

 fifty per cent fail because they are not fed properly and are not 

 properly cared for, so when we have looked after the selection 

 of the dairy sire, and breeding up the cattle, the other equipment 

 should be so arranged that the cows will be better cared for and 

 better fed. Professor Lee has given you a really vital sugges- 

 tion, that is— LOOK TO YOUR BARNS! I agree absolutely 

 with what he has said, because in traveling so much I naturally 

 see the barns out over the country and the thing that has seemed 

 to stand out above all other things regarding these barns is that 

 although they may be large and show the prosperity of the 

 farmer, nevertheless you very seldom see more than one window 

 in a barn, and I have often wondered why they put that in. 

 (Laughter). I once asked a fellow that question and he said 

 he did not' want to have to carry a lantern around all day. 

 (Laughter). When the first man built his barn he evidently 

 did so without any plans, his neighbor went over and saw it and 

 built one just like it. When you built yours, didn't you do the 

 same thing? When we build barns without windows, we actu- 



