128 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



making use of all the machinery and equipment at his command. 

 On 75% of the farms we find the farmer has his plant equipped 

 with milk cows, his labor is utilized in caring for these cows 365 

 days during the year, and at the same time he is not putting his 

 cows to full capacity or, in fact, in most cases only giving them 

 enough raw material to keep their blood circulating, maintaining 

 their body tissue, and perhaps enough to supply energy to be 

 burnt up by their necessary exercise, but not enough of this feed 

 to supply the required material to produce the maximum amount 

 of milk and butterfat. 



By daily weights brought about through the efforts of 

 the cow testing association, the man is able to know what the 

 maximum amount of feed is in watching his milk sheet. We 

 have an incident very illustrative of the results of feeds where 

 two brothers were feeding grade dairy cows of practically equal 

 capacity. One started with the idea of feeding according to pro- 

 duction. The first month the majority of the cows freshened, 

 and gave an average butterfat production of about 35 pounds. 

 The second month they averaged about 33 pounds butterfat per 

 cow, and the third month showed only a slight decrease in pro- 

 duction. The other herd was not fed according to the amount 

 of product they were producing, but fed about one to two pounds 

 of grain per day. These cows averaged about 35 pounds but- 

 terfat the first month, the second they had dropped to about 30, 

 and the third month the decrease was still greater, dropping to 

 about 25 pounds butterfat. At this time the feeder of this herd 

 was somewhat alarmed on comparing his records with his broth- 

 er's, and decided to take the information as it was given by the 

 tester and commenced to feed according to production. His 

 cows were then fed to hold their production equal to the previ- 

 ous month. It was very evident that his herd of cows were 

 anxious to produce more butterfat and milk, if they only had 

 been receiving the raw material from which to manufacture the 

 product. This condition no doubt, exists in the majority of 

 herds where weighing and testing is not done. The influence of 

 the tester as he goes from farm to farm, figuring out balanced 

 rations which are most adaptable to the economical production 

 of milk and butterfat, is an exceedingly important feature. We 

 have found many herds that have increased from 30 to 40 pounds 



