The ranch. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1902-1914, 1906-07-15
THE DAIRY
What Does Your Butter Cost?

What Does your Butter cost!
How many of all the great hosts of
creamery patrons in this country do
you suppose ever faced this question
suuarely and fairly? asks Hoard's
Dairyman. Would they buy anything
in the world without finding out what
it costs? Do we realize that as farm
ers we must buy every pound of but
ter our COWS produce? That is true.
The farmer is a merchant, in the sense
that he buys the butter from the COW,
paying her what it costs in feed and
labor. How many do you suppose
really have settled down to the con-
viction that the kind of COW we use
governs the cost very largely. You
can Judge of the number who believe
that, by looking at their COWS as you
drive through any dairy section. Yet
it is the COW more than the feed that
makes the difference in cost. The
Dairyman has been declaring that fact
all these years, yet it has made but
few believe it of all the great number
who keep COWS and make scarcely any
profit-many times a dead loss-from
them. Here is another solid fact to
prove the Dairyman's assertion:
GTOl. Ill, VI JllC INchooo o5i ACUi
tural college, states this experience.
Fifteen average COWS were purchased
and their record for year was kept.
One COW charged S1a cents a pound
for the butter she produced. The cow
No Is charged "a cents pound. Five
of them charged an average OF 3 cents
a pound. Another group charged l5.S
a pound another 20.4. Farmers all
over the land are stumbling around
and over such facts and doing MOTH
ing to come to a clear judgment ABOUT
the COWS they keep. They think they
can know enough in the way they are
doing to tell the profitable COWS, put
Prof. Err could not, until he institute
ed the plan of keeping some sort OF a
yearly record. Think of the thousands
of men who are keeping COWS by the
dozen, which COWS charge "a cents
pound for the butter they produce, and
their owners never knowing anything
about it, Prof. Err found that by sell
ing off over half of those COWS he
could make $140 profit. If he kept
the whole of them he could not make
a penny of profit. How will we correct
this evil?
Cd By keeping a yearly record,
weighing the milk and making a fat
test every seventh week. 1t will not
be long before you will have an idea
which COW you should sell. Gull the
herd down to those that pay.
~ Improve the conditions that
surround the COWS; make their milk
making conditions comfortable; ventl-
late and tighten the stable
CD Study the principles OF sclen.
tifc feeding; don't be scared at the
idea of doing a little hard reading and
study. Get Prof. Henrys book on
Feeds and Feeding and learn the
principles of right feeding for milk.
(4) Get bull of some decided
dairy breed; buy good one; COM
mence to raise well bred dairy heifers
and develop them into good profit
making COWS. Half of the COWS Wera
not born to produce milk profitably.
They are the product of the un-cow-
like ideas of the men who produced
them. There was no thought or brain
work put into their breeding. How
can they do any better? Any man who
will travel the road, we have indicat-
ed, will, in a short time, see a won
derful difference in the profit of his
dairy labor and then he will see that
it is mighty important to know his
COWS and what their butter costs.