Mexico Missouri message. (Mexico, Audrain County, Mo.) 1899-1918, 1913-08-07
it is a matter of business economy tc


buy them.
No farmer need be afraid to buy feed
| for his dairy cows provided he knows
what to buy and how to buy them
He must have those feeds that con.
tain the elements lacking In the home
! feed, and then again, he must own
cows which will make the best use
of the feeds he buys. This means the
scrubs must be kept out of the herd
Dairy farmers on a small place must
buy bran, oil meal and barley, and he
must at all times study the question
of feeding as carefully as any other
| branch of the business, because upon
this proper feeding depends very large
ly the success OF his dairying.
But no matter how much good feed
the farm will produce. nor how much
the owner may be willing to buy from
the market, he will surely fail unless
he owns the right kind of cows. Have
nothing to do with beef blood. Stick
| to the two dairy breeds. Perhaps no
other subject has so much written and
! talked about at the dairy meetings as
the dual purpose COW. Some farmers
| imagine that they can produce an an
imal that will make good beet an an
| ter as it is needed. Never was there
| a greater mistake. If we are going
in for dairying let us use COWS that
are bred for milk and butter and not
| for beef. If we are going in for beef
we have no use for the wedgeshaped,
bony big paunched dairy type of COW.
Let US select the breeds that best
pleases our taste, providing it is a true
dairy breed, and then stick to that By
the use of pure bred bulls any careful
man can, within FIVE or six years. build
up herd that will produce the very
best results and a great deal less ex
pense than he could by going into the
market and buying pure bred at the
start.
We believe that the right way to run
a dairy is to grow up with the cows.
Select the best calves every year, and
by this we mean those from cows that
produce the greatest amount of milk
and butter, use nothing but pure bred
bulls and by keeping up this process
of selection a man will soon be sur
rounded with herd of which he may
be proud. 7
In selecting calves from the hes
cows, guess work Is not to be thought
OF. The Babcock tester is the detec-
tive that spots the worthless COW ev-
cry time and the tests must be care.
fully made in order to know just what
the herd is doing, There are thou
sands of COWS in every state today that
are not giving enough milk to pay for
their feed, there are thousands of 9th.
ers that are not paying for one-half OF
their feed. yet their owners go on, year
after year, caring for these sortless an.
imals because they are able to hide
their shortcomings in the product OF
| the general herd
A farmer may own six COWS that
will produce every year a profit OF
from $75 to 500, but II he has. In ad.
dtion, six others that do not pay for
! the feed they consume, he is simply
! trying to- lift himself with a boot
strap and is working against himself
| all the time.
The Babcock tester is now an easy
matter to tell exactly just what each
COW in the herd is doing, what 1t pro
duces every day, and how rich the pro.
| duction is in butter fat. The young
heifers must also be tested. At frs
many OF them will not prove profitable
but as the true dairy blood works it.
self into the herd, the per cent. of non
! profitable ones will grow smaller.
There is absolutely no use on the
small farm, or any other for that mat
ter. for the COW that will not pay her
owner from $50 to 500 net profit per
annum.
We know OF a farm OF 40 acres near
Elgin. Ill. on which is kept a herd
OF from nine to ~ COWS Nine cows
are now being MIXED and the regular
ly monthly gross income from these
nine cows runs from s115 to $125 per
month. The work Is all done during
| the winter by one man, a young Ger
man who is good dairyman. and who
runs his place on scientific principles
During the summer he hires some ex-
ira help, but laments the fact that he
has no orchard or enough small fruit
to enable him TO keep a man all the
! year around.
Poultry raising is the true adjunct
of dairying and ought to be hitched up
with fruit raising on every farm where
orcharding is not a strictly CONNER
! cial business.