The gazette-times. [volume] (Heppner, Or.) 1912-1925, 1915-01-21
BY II. T.. ERDMAINE.

1t surprising that such a cry should
go up. In almost every section feed
is much higher than it was in the
good old days" gone by. Help has
gone up and is still going. Land is
becoming scarce. There is little new
land to be occupied in this country,
hence the rising price. In some sec
lions of the Middle West land prices
have gone to what seems like the up
per limit. Prices Of beef have been
so high that the amount of money
invested In a herd of ordinary cows
is so to 100 per cent higher than it
was 20 years ago.
Because of these conditions many
have gone out of d~alrying, p%referring
to sell their crops rather than to have
expensive and often incompetent help
feed them to high-priced cows.
Need of Better Cows.
In other lines of manufacture there
have been similar decreases in the
profits. In many instances-for ex-
ample the manufacture Of shoes
the cost Of raw material and labor
has gone up faster than the price of
the finished product. To meet the
situation, shoe manufacturers in
stalled machines that enabled their
men to make better shoes in less time
than formerly. The result was that
while there is less profit on each shoe
now, each nan can do enough more
work to bring the profits up to or be-
vnnd yvhnt *hny utapa Thu oayna
thing was done in many other lines
Of production, and must be done in
the dairy industry If the greatest
profits are to be realized.
What the dairy industry needs,
more than anything else, to increase
the profits, Is better cows. | do not
mean pure breds, necessarily, nor ex-
pensive cows, but ordinary good COWS,
such as every dairyman car raise.
There is scarcely a herd that does not
contain some cows that are money
losers instead of money-makers. This
is shown in almost every herd test
that has ever been conducted.
Getting Good Average.
At the National Dairy Show at Chi
cago last year there was a demon
stration herd consisting Of nine cows,
mixed breeds and grades. No effort
was made to select unusually good
COWS, the aim being to get as nearly
as possible an average herd. In this
herd the best COW returned $2.77
worth of butter-fat for each 81 worth
of feed she consumed, while the poor
est COW returned but COO for each 81
worth of feed consumed.
Similar results are reported from
every part of the country. In bull
letin 1922 of the New York Expert
ment Station, an instance is cited in
which a cheese factory in one year
paid one patron $S77 for the milk
from eight cows, while it paid an
other man 50 less, 1868, for the milk
from 20 cows.
The most interesting thing about
this whole problem of poor cows is
the simple method by which produc-
tion may be increased. | refer to the
use of q good sire. No dairyman
should ever use a sire whose nearest
dams were not good producers, and
at this time--over 20 years after the
discovery and introduction of the
Babcock test-no dairyman should
ever buy a bull calf unless the seller
can show in black and white what
kind Of producers the dam and two
nearest grandams were.
Worth of Good Sires.
The question is often asked, what
Is a good sire WORTH" Let us fig
ure a little. Suppose a nan has 10
cows, producing on an average 200
pounds of butter-fat per year. From
these 10 COWS he should raise at
least four heifer calves each year, or
eight heifer calves during the two
years q dairy bull is usually kept.
When a good sire is mated to such
cows the resulting heifers will often
produce rs to $50 pounds more but
ter-fat each year than did their dams.
But suppose each of these eight
heifers produce only 80 pounds more
than thelr dams. Then during six
years the average milking life of a
COW, each heifer would produce 1870
pounds nor butter-fat than would
have been produced had the sire been
no better than the dam. One hun
bred and eighty pounds Of fat at Csc
is worth $45. Multiply this by eight
and you have $3.50, or the amount
that the extra quality of the sire has
added to the value Of the product of
his eight heifers. The man who is