232 



ILLINOIS DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



take the yield for that month and adding at the end of the year 

 something hke 5 per cent of the actual amount given. That is a 

 good deal closer knowledge than we are getting. There is not a 

 man that has a very firm opinion in his own mind as to which is 

 the best cow and whether she is profitable or not; but when they 

 take the scales and get the figures, there is plenty of evidence 

 that they have been badly fooled, and the cow they thought the 

 best was the most expensive cow in the barn. There is the 

 importance of knowing. 



My wdiole plea is to know what you are doing. If you are 

 selling milk to a creamery and are paid by butter fat, it is a sim- 

 ple matter to take a composite sample of this milk, and they will 

 test those samples for you if you have no Babcock test. 



Then I have another chart which I had not intended to in- 

 flict on you, but it figures in here. Basing it on the fact that 

 every product of the farm contains more or less of the same fer- 

 tilizing element as you buy at the store in the form of commercial 

 fertilizer, $100 worth of roughage from the farm sold at aver- 

 age prices takes off the farm from $65 to $95 worth of material. 

 In other words, you sell $100 worth of oats, straw or corn stover 

 and got to buy fertilizer, you have to pay somewhere from $65 to 

 $90 for it. $100 worth of crops, $35 to $1)0. $100 live stock 

 $6 to $11. $100 milk about $10, $100 of butter 11 cents.. Why 

 is butter so much lower than milk? Because the fertilizer is 

 there. The casein portion of the milk contains the nitrogen and 

 the nitrogen is the expensive element. 



Putting it on another basis. Here are some figures taken 

 from 32 different farms, just a few picked out. For every dollar 

 worth of feed consumed, 31 received $2.03 worth of dairy 

 products from his cow. This man only 99 cents worth for every 

 $1. That means that if you can produce your feeding for $1 

 and sell it in the market for $1 and make a margin, sell it to the 

 cow at the same price and she will work it tip and only returns 

 you 99 cents, and others as high as $2 worth of dairy products 

 for that $1 worth of product. 



