28 ILLINOIS dairymen's ASSOCIATION. 



put and carried. The Chair appointed J. H. Broomell, J. L. Witbeck, Geo. 

 E. Morrow, E. P. McGlincy and J. R. Scott, as such committee. 



Song— E. A. Kimball, accompanied by Miss Kimball. 



Music, Ladies' Quartet— Mrs. Garwood, Misses Kittie Baker, Helen 

 Maltby and Kettle Ayer. 



Adjourned to 9.30 o'clock, a. m. 



THURSDAY MORN^G SESSION. 

 Met pursuant to adjournment at 9.30 a. m. next day. 



PRACTICAL DAIRY FARMING. 



H. B. GURLER, DE KALB, ILL. 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : I have been assigned the subject 

 of practical dairying, and I hardly know how to handle the subject without 

 giving my experience in the business, and perhaps a few theories. In 1869 

 I bought a farm and went to grain raising, but my yearly balance sheet soon 

 cried halt! and I halted. I saw that I must turn over a new leaf. I looked 

 over and studied the different branches of farming, beef and pork raising, 

 wool and mutton producing, and dairying. I made a new start, with cows 

 at the head of the list, next hogs, then sheep. After a few years I dropped 

 the sheep business, as it did not pay as well as the cows or hogs. I com- 

 menced dairying with twenty cows, such as I could buy in my vicinity, and 

 they were not very good ones. The first year I received $33 per head from 

 the cows for six months' milk taken to cheese factory, and made consider- 

 able butter after the factory closed. I patronized a factory two years, and 

 then, there being no factory in operation in my vicinity, I made butter (or, 

 rather, my wife did, with the help of the dog to do the churning) for several 

 years. I learned that my dairy produced 150 lbs. of butter per cow annually, 

 which did not leave me a satisfactory profit. I then commenced to test my 

 individual cows for percentage of cream and weight of milk. I found the 

 weight of milk to range from 18 to 40 lbs., and the percentage of cream to 

 be 7 to 20 in the different cows. I afterwards got an idea that this test was 

 not sufiiciently accuiate, and then I tested all my cows (forty in number at 

 this time), by setting the milk separate, and skimming and churning separ- 

 ate. In this test I learned that I had cows that would only pay for the feed 

 consumed, and that I had others that would pay a profit of $60 per year af- 

 ter paying for feed. Up to this time I had worked from necessity; I felt 

 that I must know my good and poor cows ; but from this time on I took much 

 pleasure in this work. I learned that the cow that gave 40 lbs. of milk per 

 day did not produce as much butter as the cow that gave 18 lbs. of milk. I 

 learned that the butter yield of my cows ranged from 8 to 20 oz. per day. I 

 commenced to weed out my unprofitable cows, and filled their places with 

 better ones, or with heifers from my best cows, and raised the heifer calves 

 from them. During this time I changed from summer to winter dairying. 

 By a few years of this work I increased the butter yield of my dairy from 150 

 to 266 lbs. per cow, and increased the profit above cost of feed, from $15 to 



