80 Agricultural Experiment Station, Ithaoa, N. Y. 



these individual variations the larger number of the animals may be 

 fairly judged by their records as made. For instance, Bertha produced 

 milk at $.85 a hundred weight and fat at $.18 per pound; her twin 

 sister, Jennie, under the same conditions produced milk at $ . 75 a hun- 

 dred weight and fat at 1. 15 per pound. Both of them were surpassed 

 by Beauty and Cora, cows of like age and breeding, and so the com- 

 parison of others might be made. A single one is perhaps striking 

 enough to merit attention. Glista and Belva are cows in outward 

 appearance very similar and of nearly the same age and weight; Glista 

 required seventy-four cents worth of food to make 100 pounds of milk, 

 Belva forty-nine; nearly 50 per cent less. Belva produced a pound of 

 fat for fifteen and one-half cents, Glista for twenty-one cents; consid- 

 erably more than one third more. It is also of interest to note the 

 varying cost of milk and fat in the different months of the year. This 

 is shown in detail in Tables VIII and IX. 



In Table VII the cost of milk is obtained by dividing the total cost 

 of food for the year by the total number of pounds produced during 

 the year. In tables VIII and IX the cost per month is obtained by 

 dividing the value of the food consumed in any given month by the 

 amount of milk and fat produced in that month and the figures are 

 therefore relatively lower because the amount consumed in the months 

 when the cows were dry or partially dry is not taken into account, and 

 figures are given only in the months where the cows were milked dur- 

 ing the whole month. These tables show what might have been 

 expected, that milk produced upon pasture is produced at a lower cost 

 for food or that it costs more to produce milk on dry food in the winter 

 than in the summer on pasture, and in this case the larger number of 

 cows were fresh in the winter. But some other generalizations of interest 

 may be drawn from these tables. It will be seen that the highest cost 

 both for milk and fat was in the months of March and April, the lowest 

 in June. It will be seen too that in the month of August the cost was 

 higher than in either July or September. November also was a month 

 jn which the cost was relatively high. We have found that in the 

 three months of April, August and November we have the greatest diffi- 

 culty in getting a satisfactory return for the amount of food used. The 

 cost of individual cows is also worthy of notice. It will be seen that 

 one cow, Pet, produced milk for eleven cents per hundred weight in 

 June, and that two cows, Cora and Pet, produced fat for three and a 

 half cents per pound in the same month, and it "vsill be seen a little 

 further on that in this month these cows had nothing but pasture. 



