92 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



considerable value. I believe much more attention would 

 be given to the kind of cows that are kept if we thought of 

 them as markets for our labor, silage, alfalfa and other 

 feeds. Here is one place where the farmers may have the 

 market largely under his control. 



The Agricultural Colleges and dairy specialists are of- 

 ten criticized because they are trying to increase the pro- 

 duction of cows and are losing sight of, or not paying 

 enough attention to the marketing or selling of the milk or 

 cream. That may be true in certain cases, but it must be 

 remembered that the keeping of dairy cows or any class of 

 livestock is a marketing proposition, because this livestock 

 is the market for a large portion of our farm crops. By 

 keeping more efficient animals we are marketing these 

 crops to better advantage. 



It is a well known fact with dairymen, that profitable 

 production of butterfat, or, in other words, an efficient 

 dairy herd must be made up of high producing cows. Sup- 

 pose, for example, that you have two cows in your barn at 

 home standing side by side. You have kept feed and milk 

 records for the last year. One of these cows produced 100 

 pounds of butterfat, while the other produced 300 pounds 

 of butterfat. The low producing cow has taken up just as 

 much of your time and labor as the higher producing cow 

 and has also occupied just as much room in your barn. In 

 other words, the overhead on the two animals has been the 

 same. You have no doubt fed these cows in the same man- 

 ner — each one getting a big fork full of hay and a small 

 measure of grain a day, in the winter and pasture during 

 the summer. If it cost $100 a year to feed and care for 

 each one of these cows, including interest on the invest- 

 ment, overhead expense and labor, and butterfat sold for 

 an average of 50c per pound, the higher producing cow 

 has returned a profit of $50 while the 100 pound cow has 

 been kept at a loss of $50, or in other words, you have 

 practically paid $50 for the privilege of milking and feed- 

 ing the lower producer. If your herd was made up of ten 

 cows and half of them were of the kind that produced only 

 ll00 pounds of butterfat and the other five produced 300 



