FIFTIETH ANNUAL CONVENTION 97 



of the bovine species, is about as sensible as it would be to 

 select a president by drawing a name from a box containing 

 the names of all the men in the country." The importance 

 of selecting cows is known by most dairymen but for various 

 reasons a large number do not do it. You can all readily 

 understand that the only basis for intelligent selection or 

 feeding is a reliable system of record keeping. Experience 

 has shown that but a few dairy farmers will keep regular 

 systematic records necessary in order to know what each 

 cow is doing. The system need not be elaborate or of such 

 a nature that it will require a great deal of time. But it 

 should be such that at the end of each day or week or 

 month you can look at your record sheet and see what the 

 cows are doing. Your agricultural college, no doubt, has 

 sheets for the purpose of putting down daily or weekly 

 weights of milk from each individual cow. It takes only a 

 few seconds to weigh and record the quantity of milk from 

 each cow and mark it on a sheet tacked up in the barn for 

 that purpose. Once a month a fair sample of the milk 

 should be tested for butterfat and that is used as a basis for 

 figuring the amounts of butterfat produced by individual 

 animals. The amount of feed eaten is recorded in the same 

 way and the cows should be fed according to the old relir 

 able rules of production. If you feed your grain in a half 

 gallon measure, find out how much this measureful of 

 grain weighs and use that as a basis for giving the cows the 

 amount they should have. Weigh a forkful of silage and 

 hay once a week and use this as a guide in feeding the 

 roughage. A set of scales for weighing milk and feed will 

 pay for themselves many times over if they are used. Know- 

 ing the amount of food consumed and the amount of milk 

 1 and butterfat given will then form the basis which will 

 enable you to have the necessary information for selecting 

 your better or profitable cows and culling out the unprof- 

 ; itable ones. Fortunately the cow testing association of 

 I which you are no doubt familiar offers a practical way of 

 I getting the information at a comparatively small cost con- 

 sidering the value of the information. There are twenty- 

 three of these associations now operating in Illinois at the 

 ( present time, but you need more of them. 



