346 ANNUAL, REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



different products are properly handled and marketed it is possible 

 that they will return you One Hundred Dollars per cow. I am well 

 aware that this assertion will be looked upon with considerable 

 doubt by many farmers who keep a small dairy that produces 

 scarcely more than enough to supply the home needs. To arrive at 

 the possibilities of a small dairy it is necessary to pay the same 

 attention to little details as the larger dairy. It should be arranged 

 so as to have the cows fresh at the right time to bring the best 

 resulis. This is not a visionary dream of the writer, for he has 

 proven the assertions to be facts in his own experience. 



A few years ago when the help question became a serious prob- 

 lem and it was necessary to reduce our operations on the farm, we 

 debated the question as to keeping any cows at all if we could buy 

 the produce needed for the same money as it would cost to keep two 

 cows. A little figuring showed that we could do so and thus save 

 the labor of caring for the cows, but we were confronted with, to 

 us, a more serious problem than the caring for the cows, and that 

 was, where to get a desirable article of butter, cream or milk, and 

 it was decided that we would have to keep the cows ourselves if 

 we expected to be supplied with the kind of products we desired. 



Then this question confronted us, is it not possible to make 

 those two cows (for that was all we thought our help Avould justify 

 us in keeping), pay us a good return for our labor over and above 

 their cost of keeping. We have succeeded in solving the problem, 

 and are well pleased w^th the results, although not satisfied that 

 we have reached the climax of the possibilities of a small dairy; 

 our cows, as well as other conditions, can be improved. We let 

 the dairymen select Avhat they wanted and we kept the culls, but 

 as we had been breeding dairy types, the culls proved to be fairly 

 good, but it took us some time to get them to bring about the 

 best results. We retail all our products to i)rivate customers, and 

 try not to have more customers than we have products so that we 

 can at almost any time furnish an extra pound or two of butter, or 

 a supply of cream, skim milk, buttermilk or cottage cheese, for we 

 find it more profitable to vary our production than to depend alto 

 gether on the sale of butter. If butter is scarce and high we try 

 to have plenty for all needs; if it is plenty, and the price low, we 

 try to increase the other products and thus cater to the desires of 

 our customers. We do not have a fixed price for butter, but vary 

 with the markets, onl}' we never come below twenty cents per 

 pound, no matter what the store sells for. Our breed of cows are 

 very sensitive on the matter of price and positively refuse to com- 

 pete with those cows that produce shilling and ten-cent butter. 

 The other products have a fixed price the year round, and thus we 

 have an advantage by increasing these sales when butter is low. 



We try to have our cows freshen at periods that will insure us a 

 constant supply of products for all our needs and bring us the 

 largest returns. We keep these two cows as a necessity to supply 

 our home needs of milk, cream and butter, consequently, we use 

 all of tliese in the home that is desired and the surplus is what 

 we sell ; we have nerer yet gotten into the custom of selling all the 

 cream and using the skim milk at home. 



I will now give you some figures for 1907 to show the possibilities 

 of a small dairv on our farm: 



