54 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Sept.,. 



dressed beef. To balance the ration, a part of the corn must 

 be traded for cottonseed. Even at that, the one hundred 

 lorty pounds of dressed beef represents nearly one thousand, 

 four hundred pounds of corn, on which freight must be paid 

 in case we are manufacturing instead of farming. Naturally 

 the freight rate on refrigerated beef is much greater than on 

 corn, but it is never ten times greater. In the long run, then, 

 we cannot grow our own beef unless we also raise our own 

 corn or its equivalent. 



There is but one possible error in my conclusions. Perhaps 

 we can grow roughages so much more cheaply than can other 

 sections that we can afford to buy all of our grain and still 

 turn a profit from the feeding of stock. As a matter of fact, 

 however, this is not the case. Roughages- in New England, 

 hay, clover, alfaffa, corn stover, or straw,- cost as much or 

 more than in any other northern section. 



We Can Hold Our Raw ^lilk Market Against All 



Competition. 



The only live stock product on which this fundamental law 

 does not hold is raw^ milk. A\'e can hold our own in this 

 field. Milk is a bulk product and it may be that in prodiicing 

 it we can afford to buy all of our mill feeds and raise only 

 our roughages. At the same time the market milk industry 

 does not begin to furnish a solution for all of the natural stock 

 land in New England. The reason is that if all of our 

 farmers farm as Avell as they know how — say, in response to 

 higher prices as brought about by more demand for milk 

 products as developed by educational propaganda financed 

 by farmers, but run by people who know the game : — if 

 all of these farmers do really good farming, there will be no 

 market for all of the raw milk that New England can produce. 

 The production of milk in New England can easily be 

 doubled, and this within a very short space of time. In fact, 

 one great cause of past low prices has been the fact that 

 there has in reality been something very close to over-pro- 

 duction, or at least a quantity sufficient to make it a ques- 

 tion of supplying a market rather than of marketing a sup- 

 ply. This always leads to low prices. 



If the dairy cow is to be the solution of our New England 



