ILLINOIS DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 139 



I have started in selecting cows. It is a simple matter. A 

 farmer can do this, and ought to do this in his herd. Every 

 since the invention of the Babcock test, people have advocated 

 this advanced dairy work and the farmers have been asked to 

 put this system in operation on the farms, it is talked from the 

 agricultural platform and through the agricultural press. I am 

 more acquainted in Michigan, and we have some systematized 

 dairy communities and hold meetings. I have asked audienecs 

 for those who practice this system of selecting to hold up their 

 hands, and you would be surprised to know that in a dairy meet- 

 ing you could count them upon the fingers of one hand who put 

 this system in operation on the farms. I do not know why it is. 

 They believe it is too hard work and something they can't do. 

 Any one can do it. Any one can run a Babcock tester. Some way, 

 the average farmer don't start the machine. Lately, I have made 

 up to my mind there is a better way to do this. Maybe the Danish 

 people have got at the right method in testing and selecting dairy 

 cows. You know that several years ago they began a system of 

 this kind. I heard it from a young man from Denmark, an 

 official tester, and I take his word for it. The government be- 

 came interested in this question. They conceived the idea they 

 first could get the majority of the dairymen there to put in opera- 

 tion this system of testing upon their cows, and if they got an}' 

 good out of it, that it must be through co-operation. They 

 began to organize co-operative cow testing associations in Den- 

 mark eight years ago. The little kingdom of Denmark is about 

 one-fourth the size of Michigan — I don't know about Illinois. 

 In eight years they have organized there, and have in operation 

 over 400 co-operative testing associations. The idea has taken 

 well. If we believe men who have been there, we can't help but 

 believe it would be good to bring that system across the water, 

 and have it in America. People tell us, that on the average the 

 profit in Denmark, from this test system, has been increased 75 

 per cent. In numerous instances individual increases have been 

 100 per cent. 



Up in Michigan the Dairy Food Department believe they 



