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 southeastern Wisconsin and other adjoining states, Including Iowa,
 Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana.   This has provided an outlet for a
 large number of surplus dairy cop3 which ,re being roised in St.
 Croix county. We sometimes question the p'ractice of shipping these
 fine dairy cows out of the county because usually the buyers select
 the best cows of the herd which means that mnany of our herds are
 left with only the poorer cows as foundation stock.    Certainly this
 year the farmers who have raised their heifer calves and have a
 surplus of dairy cows have benefited by the increased demand for
 dairy cows.
                         Bull Association
      We now have three bull associations or bull rings operating
in the county. Each ring is made up of four farmers who cooperat-
ively own four bulls. These bulls are used on a herd one year and
then rotated to the other herds. All the members are testing milk
for production so that the bulls in use will be proven during the
course of the next two or three years, as soon as their daughters
come into production in the herds. All of the bulls which are being
used are sons of proven bulls Pith productivity indexes of 450# of
fat or better, and from normal cows with twice a day milking with
400# of fat or better. At the present time we have four Holstein
breeders, four Guernsey breeders, and four Jersey breeders in or-
ganized cooperative bull rings. St. Croix county has the honor of
having the only Jersey ring in the State of Wisconsin.
                     Meetings With Dairy Industry
     Meetings were held with the creamery and cheese factory
operators and boards of directors during the year.    These meetings
were particularly to discuss possibilities of diversion of milk
and cream to meet market trends. During the past year the Federal
government has been making hoavy purchases of condensed milk and
certain types of cheese. As a result of this, butterfat prices,
where the butterfat is to be used in butter, have been relatively
low compared to prices paid for fluid milk which is being used for
condensed milk or certain types of cheese. Several of the creamer-
ies have diverted all of their fluid milk to condensaries, thus
affording their patrons a better price than would be possible
through making butter. Some of our creameries have been putting in
equipment to handle fluid milk, and they are now sending their fluid
milk to condensaries. The trend over the county has been for farm-
ers to quit separating and sell whole milk. While the spread be-
tween milk and cream looks favorable, we have continued to encourarz
farmers to use skimmilk for dairy calves, hogs, and poultry. ThereC
seems to be no substitute that can be used that gives the some re-
sults at the price of skimmilk.
     One of the things which the creamery and cheese factory opor-
ators discussed at these meetings was the Quality Milk program for
St. Croix county. All operators were enthusiastic about the qual-
ity Milk program and solicited our assistance in conducting it on
a county-wide basis. We all appreciate that the success of a
Quality Milk program depends upon the whole-hearted cooperation of
the plant operators, and with this assurance it was a pleasure to
go ahead and conduct the Quality Milk program.