Connecticut western news., 1901-01-24
DAIRY BOOKKEEPING.
Records That Are Important rnt
 Easy to Keep.

Easy to Keep.
 The bookkeeping part of the man- Agement of a large dairy Is of the greatest importance, since on the sta tistical and other data the whole han ding of the herd depends. The follow Ing plan of keeping the records of | large Vermont dairy Is given through The Country Gentleman by J. Wilder and shows how carefully all points are looked after by those who make dairy ing their whole business. Mir. Wilder says:
 Cloudland farm has a herd of l57 Jerseys, old and young. Our main business is butter making. Our cows are part full blood, registered, and part are grades. We have now S1 cows and 26 2-year-old heifers to come in be- tween this date and March l. The in- tention Is to keep herd of 100 cows, the limit of our stalls. In building up this herd the plan Is to bring 1t to 300 pounds of butter each year and over. weeding out all that do not come up to this standard. For this purpose the proprietor engaged me to come April l, 1899, and institute system to keep rec ord of all the animals.
 Our general average is about 05 cows In milk from the 80 cows. We have six mixers. Milking begins at In the morning and 5 at night, letting no oth- CT work prevent the rule being com- piled with. We have six milking sheets covering seven days, recording the weight of each cows milk morning and night. This Is added up, and the weeks result Is recorded In a special book arranged for 13 weeks (one quar- ter). My plan Is to test the COWS the last week of the first month in the quarter and the first week In the last month of the quarter. l add the two tests together and divide 1t by two to get the average for the quarter. This gives the butter fat, which Is extended into q column for that purpose. Then In the Inst column add 20 per cent to the butter fat to get the pounds of but ter each COW produces In the quarter. This gives me the pounds of milk, but ter fat and butter for the quarter ac- cording to the calculations made.
 have herd ledger. with two pages for each COW. The left hand page shows name of COW, herd number Qf registered, register number). the date of birth of COW, dam and sire and date of dropping calf. If the calf Is to be raised, Its herd number. name, sex and the sire, If registered. are added; If sold, to whom sold and when; If veal. ed, so record 1t. On the right hand page Is recorded the average test, milk yield. butter fat and butter for each quarter. Adding the four quarters to. gether gives the production for the year. From that we estimate the vairC of the COW. whether she is T.. 9. a . to keep in the dairy. Of course Il hel!,l with her first calf has much for con. sideratlon-her sire. age when she drops her calf and the general points for a good cow-to decide whether to give her another years trial or not.
 Just Ecre l wish to ask If the two trials In quarter Is a safe plan to de termine tEc quality of the COW for keeping or rejecting or can I adopt a better system of accounting to obtain the knowledge desiredf I am green in herd accounting, never having exam. ined how others keep their records, and desire to have the best or as good as any one.
 have another book in which keep all the dates of service. with name of sire and when due to drop tine calf This l report to the man in charge of the barn two or three months In ad. vance, so that he can be on the lookout and properly provide for the COW in a box stall.