64: Dairy DEMONSTEATIO^' Work in ^ew York State 



unfair to the cow. Often clover hay and mixed grasses find their 

 only profitable market through the medium of the dairy. For 

 cornstalks, bean fodder, straw, and silage corn, there is no outside 

 market without the aid of the cow to turn this very raw material 

 into a finished cash product. These are large items on most 

 farms. It is both customary and correct to figure silage corn at 

 one-third the price of timothy hay. This year on that basis 

 silage is worth at least five dollars a ton. A conservative yield 

 of ten tons an acre returns fifty dollars to the farm. Silage is 

 a profitable crop at $30 an acre. What would I do this year 

 with my thirty acres of silage com without my dairy to turn it 

 into cash ? Why then pile all these costs on the cow, when she 

 is the factor that makes it impossible to operate the whole farm 

 at a profit ? This naturally brings me to my second head. 



PKOFIT from manure 



At the outset I wish to state clearly two facts, the first being 

 that it does not follow in logical sequence that a dairy farm must 

 increase in fertility. Alas, it is too true that I can point out 

 many that in spite of having had dairies on them for at least a 

 generation are not increasing in production. This is the fault 

 of the management, not of the dairy — reasons I cannot now 

 take up ; let it be sufficient to say, however, that such cases are 

 the exception, not the rule. The second fact I wish to emphasize 

 is this: Because the owner fails to use manure from his dairy 

 to the best advantage, it is as unfair to fail to give the cow full 

 credit for it as it would be to fail to give her credit for butter 

 fat lost through poor skimming or churning. 



There are always two values to a fertilizer of any sort — the 

 commercial value, based on the cost of the ingredients, and the 

 agricultural value, based on its power to grow crops. The two 

 are seldom the same ; the former may be much more or less than 

 the latter. What is the value of the voidings of a dairy cow for 

 a year? The average dairy cow will void- — -liquid and solid — 

 about 60 pounds daily, or almost eleven tons in a year. At $2 a 

 ton, a fair average commercial price for the nitrogen, phosphoric 

 acid, and potash that it contains, the value would amount to $22 

 annually. At present war prices for such ingredients, these values 



