Page 21

Wisconsin Dairymen's Association.
following, (1) the amount of labor required to keep daily records of
the cows entered for yearly records, (2) the expense connected with
the monthly testing of the cows, (3) the fear that the production of
their cows would not show up favorably in comparison with the many
cows with exceptional production entered in the competition, and fi-
nally, we fear, a lack of appreciation among the rank and file of our
farmers of the wide variations in the value of different cows and of
the Importance of keeping an account of the production of individual
cows In order to ascertain which of them produce milk at a profit and
which, if any, do so at a loss. The fact that there is an appreciable
proportion of the cows on the dairy farms in this and other states
that do not produce enough milk to pay for the feed they eat and the
labor spent on them, has not yet been sufficiently impressed on the
minds of many farmers to make them test their cows. This work
of cow testing, as you may know, is carried on In this state under the
auspices of your association in the cow testing associations and is
being conducted very successfully, but on a much too limited scale.
Instead of a dozen cow testing associations within our state, we ought
to have hundreds of them and would have them too, if our farmers
in general appreciated the importance of this work and its value to
them, to a similar extent as do European dairy farmers.
The first yearly records in the competition were completed In October,
1910, and since then a bunch of cows have finished yearly records every
month, until we now have 275 records of production of milk, milk
solids and fat, by 271 different cows. By the time the results for the
production of the cows during the last month are in, this number will
have swelled to over 400. Of the yearly records now completed 113
are of Guernsey cows, 58 of Jersey, and 100 of Holstein cows.
The average production of these 271 cows for the year was as
follows: 10687 pounds of milk, 1387 pounds of solids and 445.9 pounds
of butter fat. The highest record was that of the Holstein cow, Caroline
Paul Parthenea, 77784, bred by Henry Schaefer and owned by R. J.
Schaefer, Appleton, Wis., viz., 888.2 pounds of butter fat from nearly
22000 pounds of milk containing 2800 pounds of milk solids, for the year
ending September 19,1911. This cow is now seven years old, she dropped
a calf September 26, 1910, and again October 16, 1911, about one week
too early, two dead twin bull calves. She freshened twice, therefore,
within about a year and still made the.remarkable production of milk
solids and fat stated. The feed of the cow eaten during the year
was as follows, according to the statements furnished by the breeder
each month: 2083 pounds wheat bran, 2084 pounds Ajax flakes, 1878
pounds gluten feed, 850 pounds hominy feed, 248 pounds ground barley,
367 pounds corn meal, 10726 pounds silage, 1200 pounds green corn, 600
.1
l 4
21