The Wisconsin tobacco reporter. (Edgerton, Wis.) 1877-1950, 1902-09-05
VALUE OF A RECORD.
To Succeed In Dairying You Must
Know the Character of Each Cow.

Know the Character of Each Cow.
1t is clearly evident to every well
posted man in the business of dairying
that there is large proportion of
farmers engaged in it who do not be-
lieye that they need to know more
than they now do in order to make
more money or to save the money they
have already made There is an enor-
nous waste going on upon nearly ey-
cry dairy farm. This waste often rep
resents hundreds of dollars annually,
but it is impossible to get the wasteful
farmer to see it because he will not
use the light that will help him see it,
says Hoard's Dairyman.
Take, for example, the refusal of so
many farmers to test their cows or to
keep record Of what they are doing
We never knew q farmer who set about
to keep milk and butter fat record
but what he confessed that the result
greatly surprised him. The effect of
such a trial Tor year is always to
cause the farmer to change his ideas
about his COWS. We have known such
a test to cause a complete change in
the character of the herd in five years.
Expressions like this would be made
by such men: IF L had any idea that
was carrying along such a number of
worthless COWS, | would have made
this test years ago."
A dairy farmer said to us once: ''The
keeping of record of my herd for
year caused me to buy a registered
dairy bull at once, and l paid a good
long price for him too. That was eight
years ago, and am making double the
money on my COWS today that I was
them
Now, that man carried along lot Of
worthless COWS for years just because
he did not believe that it would bring
him any profit to know better. He
commenced to read what others were
doing in this matter. Reading set him
to thinking, thinking set him to acting
in the right direction, and that soon
closed up a big leak. Here is a fact
that shows how important it is to
know what the COWS are doing:
The Minnesota experiment station
had two COWS that they were expert
menting with. Their names were
Shorty and Sweetbriar. The first year
their record was kept Shorty yielded
270 pounds.
But change took place, and for the
following six years the annual record
stands as follows: Shorty, 229 pounds
of butter; Sweetbriar, 4O5 pounds of
butter.
Had these two COWS been handled
with the same ideas that most farmers
handle their COWS the difference in
value and profit of the two would new
er have been known.
Ask some men why they do not in
stitute a system of keeping record
of their cows, and their answers will
be, ooh, it is too much work.. or
whats the use? I know all about
my COWS now," or, as one man put it,
"Well, suppose / did make test and
found l had lot of poor COWS. /
wouldn't want to sell them, because I
fodder" These answers betray d
weakness of sound business judgment
that these men ought to get rid of. In
reality it takes but little time if the
farmer will arrange for it, and it is
not true that the owner knows "all
about his cows" unless he has tested
them. The last mans objection amount
ed to saying that he had better feed
his fodder out at a loss than not feed
it at all. Most business men would
have said, "Keep your hay and grain
or sell them in the market rather than
feed at loss''
In fact, all that is needed to start
the average farmer on this road are
little American pluck and resolution
to know all he can know about his
own huSiDoSc~