88 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



consequently when I get off a car I have to get off backwards. I 

 have been trying to get off for the last five stations, and I got to 

 get off and the conductor thinks I am getting on and pulls me 

 back again." 



That is exactly what we do when we do not keep records 

 of what our animals are doing for us. It doesn't make any dif- 

 ference how good an individual may be that we have in our 

 herd, whenever we mate her with an animal whose ancestry is 

 poor, and we don't know it because there are no records to show 

 it, that sire is the conductor that pulls us back again. 



In selecting our sires, we must bear in mind the fact that 

 without records we have absolutely no knowledge of what the 

 animal itself is doing or what its ancestors have done, or what 

 we can expect of the offspring from those animals. By keeping 

 records we of course put ourselves to more or less expense, it 

 takes more or less time, but when we stop to consider the time 

 which is lost and the money which is wasted by not keeping 

 records, we are in a position to realize whether or not we can 

 afford to take the time and put ourselves to the meagre amount 

 of expense that is necessary for keeping records from year 

 to year. 



Now, the breeder of dairy cattle, as a rule, realizes this. Many 

 of you have heard famous breeders who have been keeping 

 records for many years and they have told you the great value 

 received from keeping records. 



Sometime ago I was over in Sioux county, Iowa. I met 

 a young man, who had come from Holland, and he told be the 

 history of a part of his life. He told me that nine years prior 

 to the time I met him he came from Holland ; he had very 

 little money, as he said he never expected to own a cow or a horse 

 all he expected to do was to make a meagre living, but one of his 

 friends in America sent him a ticket to come, he hadn't even 

 money enough to pay for that, though he paid it in the first year 

 he was here and made besides, at farm labor, $300. Then the 

 second year he made $350; the third, $375, and then he did what 

 most all Hollanders, or anyone else does, he got married and 

 moved on a farm. The owner of the farm furnished everything 



