54 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN S ASSOCIATION. 



errors were brought before us the more apt we were to 

 correct them. The main point to consider was the stock 

 from which we got our milk. One trouble was that we 

 kept too many cows that did not pay, that ate up the 

 profits of the good ones. The average cow gives about 

 3,000 pounds of milk per annum. It should be from 5,000 

 to 8,000. The worth of the animal was measured by what 

 it produced over and above what it cost to keep it. The 

 way to get good stock was to raise it. A few years since 

 he thought he was losing money by raising calves because 

 he could buy them cheaper than he could raise them, and 

 so concluded to buy ; but he soon found he was paying 

 much more for the cheap animals — they proved to be the 

 dearer. He selected his cows from choice stock — both dam 

 and sire. He could raise good cows this way. When he 

 had bought them he never got as good ones as he could 

 raise. You didn't notice the expense of raising them. 

 There was another defect— we were putting on the market 

 goods that did not get sold. There was just one of two 

 remedies that must be adopted for this : One-half of us 

 must go out of the business, or we must produce only half 

 of the year. Let the Eastern people manufacture the dairy 

 goods in summer, and we would make in winter. Those 

 were the most important of our failures. We asked the 

 cow merchant to fill up the gaps in our cow ranks, and lost 

 by it. Another trouble : — But few of us were educated to 

 the business. We started out here thinking we could 

 make and sell produce as cheaply as the Eastern people, 

 but we found that to get high prices we had to make goods 

 that would bring them. We were improving, though ; we 

 fed cattle better. A few years ago it was not an extraordi- 

 nary thing to see hides stretched on farmers' fences ; but 

 we have got past that. The average farmer can now, 

 without a shudder, throw to his cattle an extra peck of 



