42 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



Now, this gives us some idea as to the profitable cow. 

 In the group of deep-bodied cows, there are souie twelve 

 animals. They charged us from 10.8 to 12.8 per pound. By 

 examining each individual cow as the cost of production in- 

 creased, we found that the additional cost was in every case 

 measured by the amount of extra flesh carried, the sparest 

 cow making it for the least money, and as we found the 

 shoulders a little more filled out and hip points and pin 

 points a little rounder, they charged us a little more for butter, 

 and so on until we reach the style of thigh shown in Group I. 

 In short, the whole secret of economical production, we found 

 to be in the capacity of the cow to digest, in the first place, 

 and secondly, the disposition she would make of her food. 

 We have carried this on for five years to make sure that there 

 is no mistake about it. Cows have been sent to the Minne- 

 sota Experiment Station by people who were interested in 

 certain breeds. We have been very glad to receive them 

 and give them the very best of care, adjusting our methods 

 of handling to their individual peculiarities just as much as 

 we do to our own, with a view of making this a certainty 

 and there is no mistake about it. 



During the last two winters we have been making a little 

 closer investigation, making chemical analysis of food stuffs, 

 ascertaining the exact amount of dry matter consumed by 

 each cow, and also the exact amount of digestible nutrients 

 taken by each animal; then crediting her with the milk and 

 butter yield, and in all our work we found that the principle 

 seemed to hold good in every trial. The prices given you in 

 the first year's work were when oats were worth from 28 to 

 30 cents a bushel, bran from |11 to |12 per ton and other feed 

 stuffs in the same proportion. I give you the price of food 

 so that you can make comparisons with present prices. The 

 cows were charged |5.60 for timothy hay, 35 cents per bushel 

 for ground barley, 30 cents for oats, |26 for linseed meal, |14 

 for corn meal, |11 for bran and |3.50 for pasture, although 

 the season w^as very short, probably less than 90 days. 



We commenced the year's record with the Monday near- 

 est the first of January, and we do it for this reason. Every 

 Monday morning we balance a ledger account with every cow 



