1^8 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



I notice that I am announced on the program from Garden Prairie, 

 111., which is an error, resulting from my reply to your Secretary dating 

 from that place. My home is in Minnesota, and proud of the attain- 

 ments she has made in the dairy industry within the past decade, I wish 

 to perpetuate the genial and profitable association of the past. 



Cheaper production and larg er profits for dairymen, involves so 

 much and carries the student of milk production into so many different 

 avenues of thought, that one is lost in the maze of details so intrica,tely 

 connected with the machine we make use of, to convert our farm products 

 into the most profitable commodi ty obtainable to the husbandman of the 

 soil, that one almost despairs of only mentioning a little, of much that 

 might be written on the economic production of milk and consequently 

 greater profits to the dairymen. 



The question of feeding dairy cows so that the animals employed 

 and the food consumed, will yiel d the farmer the greater possible benefit 

 isi a question of great importance. In order to feed economically, the 

 animal must be supplied with nutrients needed for milk production in 

 proper quantity and in the right proBfortions. If a cow gets more of a 

 certain nutrient than she make use of, the excess is worse than wasted, 

 because it not only helps to fill t he digestive tract with that for which 

 it has no use but energy is also wasted in expelling it from the system. 



In the discussion of the subject, I wish to make the balanced ration a 

 feature of vital importance and hope to make the matter so plain that 

 every farmer in the audience may understand it and realize the import- 

 ance of properly mixing his farm grown foods and in the right propor- 

 tions to realize the greatest possible benefit when feeding for the produc- 

 tion of milk. In the maintenance of her life, and make a reasonable profit 

 for her owner, a cow requires twenty to twenty-five pounds of dry mat- 

 ter, containing 2^4 to 2^/^ pounds of protein, 12i^ pounds of carbohydrates, 

 and % to % of a pound of fat, which is stored up in the body as fat, used 

 as a lubricator for the digestive tract and burned to furnish heat and 

 energy. Every farmer has carbohydrates largely in excess of his needs, 

 which is found in cornstover, timothy hay, millet hay, drilled cornf odder, 



