JO ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN S ASSOCIATION, 



lamentable fact, our average yield is too low. We feed sixty cows to> 

 produce the milk that fifty ought to make. In times of high prices 

 we might endure this ; at present it presses us severely. This ques- 

 tion of a high average is really a most vital one. Were we to know 

 the number of cows we keep for nothing, were we to know the num- 

 ber, we keep at an absolute loss, we should be struck with horror. 

 ^' Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise," may be sometimes 

 true, but where ignorance is loss and ruin, 'tis folly not to be wise. 

 Is it a fact, as often asserted that as the dairy increases our average 

 decreases; if so, why is it so? The principal reason is, I think^ 

 that for years we have been pursuing a suicidal course, regardless of 

 many warnings. We have been selling our best calves to the butcher^ 

 raising few or none of our own cows and depending on the culls and 

 scalawags of the North-west to supply our dairies. This slaughter of 

 the innocents must cease. We must raise our own cows from our 

 best calves, and when we have done this we shall find our average 

 much increased, and consequently our production cheapened. It will 

 be of little use for us, however, to raise our own calves if we do not 

 take particular pains to raise good ones. In order to raise a good 

 average of calves, it is necessary that the cow should be a good milker 

 and that the calf be sired by a male of a good milking breed. This 

 is a matter of the most vital importance. A first-class male is a 

 necessity in every well conducted dairy, and the man who uses a 

 poor, infirm beast merely because he gets him cheaper, is very blind 

 to his own interest. 



The importance of this question of a large average yield can 

 hardly be exaggerated ; it is the foundation of all successful dairying. 

 The man who gets from his cows an average of 2\ gallons, will pros- 

 per, while his neighbor, who gets 2 gallons, will lose. Simply because 

 one man makes a profit, even it be a small one, while the other man 

 gets back barely what he gives and sometimes less, and consequently 

 never gains. I firmly believe that this matter of small and decreas- 

 ing average yield, has injured the dairymen of the North-west more 

 than disease, accidents and low prices combined. We must con- 

 stantly bear in mind that it is on the profit we live ; on the excess of 

 receipts over expenditures. This fact alone will account for those 

 case-^, with which we are all familiar, where men with small dairies 

 and small fanns have prospered, while others whose annual sales 

 have been much larger have lost money. We mxi^t get the dead- 

 heads out of our stables, we mud make a better average in the future 

 than in the past or the depreciation in prices will ruin us. 



