Spirit of Jefferson. [volume] (Charles Town, Va. [W. Va.]) 1844-1948, 1922-01-31
DO CONTRASTING AssocIA-
TIoNS PAY?
(From the Chicago Produee.)

Inc rapid growth OF coW-teSt1ng
associations in Wisconsin and
throughout the country is in itself
proof that cow-testing associations
do pay.
A mans cows are paying because
he knows their records and feeds
according to production.
4 Hundreds of millions of dollars
worth of feed are consumed annual
ly by our diary cows. The net in
come is large or small, according to
the way that feed is used. When
feeding and breeding the income
rapidly expands, yet a few real
scrubs on any diary farm will de-
fate the net income.
In this country 100000 farmers
furnish feed and care for 23,000,-
600 diary cows. Because of low
producing dairy cows a large part
of that feed is wasted. Weighing
out expensive feeds to a low-produc-
ing cow is like shoveling coal into
the fire box of leaky boiler; and
the farmer who keeps such cows is
! seldom bothered with an income
/ tax.
Like a factory, the dairy COW
transforms raw -silage,
hay and cOncentrates-into the
/ finished product-milk. In that
way she furnishes a market for our
feeds. Whether tina market be good
or bad depends in part upon the way
the COW is fed and in part upon the
COW.
! There is no better way to market
/ ne feeds grown on the farm than to
feed them to high-producing herd
OF dairy cows. The cow takes corn
silage, grain and clover hay and
converts them into a product for
| winch there always is ready sale.
| l IS much easier to send the butter
| rat to the creamery than to haul
hay to town. Yes; and in the long
run 1T is generally much more prof
liable, because it keeps the soil
fertility at home. Instead of selling
hay and grain that may 20 to en-.
rich the soil in some far-distant
state, or in a foreign country, the
wise dairy farmer markets such
products through high-producing
dairy cows.
In selling feeds to dairy cows the
farmer has wide choice of markets
bad, good and very good. If a
wheat buyer offers a cent or two a
bushel more than other buyers, he
gets our wheat; if wool buyer Of
1ers half a cent pound more for
our wool we sell our wool to him:
put II one cow returns 3 from
dollars worth of feed and another
only ~, we scarcely notice il.
mere is difference of dollar every
time each of these two cows eats a
dollars worth of feed, and FREQUENT
~ within year this difference is
enough to buy a hundred-dollar
Victory bond. We believe much.
more attention would be, given to q
cholce OF cows if we would think of
them as markets for our labor and
for corn silage, concentrates, and
clover hay. Here is one place
where the farmer has the market
largely under his control.
! According to careful estimates.
/ the average dairy cow in the United
| States produces annually about
1000 pounds of milk and 100
pounds of butterfat. According to
10000 yearly individual cow records
Just tabulated by the Department Of
Agriculture, the average cow-testinp
association cow produces $3.50
pounds. of milk and GAG pounds of
Dutterfat a year. The worlds
records are 37,381.4 pounds of
milk and 1,205.09 pounds of butter
Tat. The average dairy cow seems
70 nave plenty of room for i'm
provement.
The keeping of individual cow
records is easy. To test a half
dozen samples of milk for butterfat
requires about half an hour, and the
weighing of the milk, the estimating
OF the weight of the roughage, and
the weighing of the concentrates
require but little time. The testing
OF a composite sample of each cows
milk from two consecutive milkinps
once month furnishes the figures
from which the yearly production
records can be computed. Any man
competent to care for a dairy herd
can easily learn to make the butter
fat test and to keep feed and produc-
ton records.
Is COW testing worth while?
Ask the dairyman who has recently
joined cow-testing association and
he will seldom answer mo-" Ask
the dairyman who has seen the prof
its of his herd more than doubled
through the work of the association
and he will not answer mo" Ask
the breeder of high-class, pure-bred
dairy cows after he has sold a bull
calf from record COW for a thous-
and dollars, and will always answer
Eyes"
Contrasting is not worth while to
the dairyman who makes no use of
the records and who continues the
doubtful practice of former years. !.
but COW testing is worth while to the
dairyman who desires to feed and
breed according to known produc-
ton. In dairy-herd Improvement.
knowledge alone is nothing, but
action is everything. To the man
who belongs to cow-testing associa-
ton, who studies the individual rec
ords Of his dairy cows, and who Sc
lects, feeds, and breeds according to
these records, COW testing is and
always will be worth while.