110 tLLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



get a dairy breed, leave that old dual purpose cow out, you cannot 

 make a success of it. Some cows have the natural ability and 

 some have not to convert food into milk, others convert it into 

 flesh. Now these dairy breeds have been bred for this purpose 

 to convert food into milk instead of flesh. One fellow said he 

 believed in short horned cows and spent a lot of money buying 

 that kind. They had been crossed until they had nearly obliter- 

 ated their milk supply. You can set this down as a fact if you 

 want short horns, by proper feeding and proper care for a few 

 generations you can get good milkers, but when you have done 

 that you have taken away her beef properties. You take these 

 so-called general purpose cows and you will not get good milkers. 



Let me give you an illustration : At the last National Dairy 

 Show Mr. Rabild had charge of this demonstration work. He 

 asked me to come and help him with the work. We selected six- 

 teen cows that freshened about the same time, this is to illustrate 

 the difference in cows. We took these cows and fed them, we 

 kept a large placard and put down the amount of milk each time, 

 the cost of her feed, what she cost to produce a pound of butter 

 fat and how much she returned for each pound of feed invested. 

 Of the sixteen cows some averaged $2.00, the poorest was 86 

 cents. Take that herd, and that herd could be called a represen- 

 tative herd, the conclusion would be fair and safe. Now the 

 diagram showed that if we could take out the seven poorest cows 

 and put in their place seven as good cows as we kept, in one year 

 we would make as much as we would in two years with the pres- 

 ent herd. • 



The average man who is keeping cows is putting in two 

 years time for what he could accomplish in one year if he had 

 good cows. 



Then another thing the product must have proper care. I 

 was in Ohio last spring, a man told me they thought they had the 

 best dairy man anywhere around. I met that man. He showed 

 me what he got from those cows. He said : ''You do not believe 

 it?" I said: "I did not dispute you." He said: '1 want you to 

 come out home with me." I said: ''That is what I would like 

 to do." I saw those cows and saw him milk those cows and 



