20U STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE 



twenty-nine animals constituting- the orig-inal herd. The feed alone, including- 

 pasture, came to .$1,042.89, or ^35.96 per cow, leaving $21.19 per cow as the cost of 

 care, milking and making butter. 



TIhe net profit from the year\s transactions amounts to $277.58, as shown by the 

 above accounts. This, however, does not, by any means, represent the total benefit 

 to the farm. For several successive days the manure made in the barn was 

 weighed, the average beihg 1,600 pounds per day. The floors of the stable and 

 gutters are practically water tight, and there was little loss of fertility when the 

 cows were in the stable. 



Since a minimum amount of bedding was used the manure consisted almost 

 entirely of the solid and liquid excrements of the cows. Its entire weight for the 

 winter was approximately one hundred arad fifty tons. After April 15th the cows 

 ran in a pasture lot adjacent to the barn during the day, where a part of the 

 manure at least was wasted, distributed over an area where it was not badly 

 needed. It is safe, ho^yever, to estimate the total tonnage of manure hauled to the 

 fields at two hundred tons. The cows -were well fed and the manure could not 

 fail to contain a high per cent of fertilizing material. No exact money value can, 

 of course, be ascribed to it. 



It should be said in concluding ihe discussion of this phase of the subject that 

 the cost of care, milking and incidentals, $21.19 per sow, is unduly high. The chief 

 factor in that amount is the milking. For various reasons, including the good of 

 the herd itself, it was found necessary to milk in a short time both morning and 

 night. This necessitated the ejuployjueut of a larger number of mihvers than was 

 economical, and, since the milking was done largely by students who had to come 

 from distant rooms and make a change of clothes for a short period of work, it in- 

 creased the price per cow to five cents per day. 



(98.) 



NOTES ON INDIVIDUAL, COWS. 



It was inevitable that the method followed in purchasing should result in bring- 

 ing into the herd some unprofitable cows. The herd had necessarily to be sifted 

 by the performance of the cow her first year. It was part of the plan to record the 



