PART V 



State Dairy Commissioner's Report for Year 1917 



W. B. BARNEY, Commissioner 



Never since the organization of this department in 1886 has it 

 heen confronted with problems more ditficnlt of solution than it 

 was this year. 



With grain and all kinds of agricultural products selling at un- 

 heard of prices, it is difficult to convince the farmer-dairyman that 

 he should be patriotic enough to keep his cows, feed them ensilage 

 made from corn that would sell for $1.20 per bushel, oats worth 

 60 cents per bushel, bran costing $37.00 per ton, oil cake $56.00, 

 gluten feed $56.00, cotton seed meals $55.00, and all other feeds in 

 proportion and then sell his dairy products for less money, per- 

 haps, than he would have received had he marketed his products 

 in their raw state. 



It is perfectly natural that the dairyman should feel that he 

 should have fair compensation for his labor, but it is a physical 

 impossibility for him to do so if he does not get an increase in 

 the price for his milk, butter, cheese and other dairy products 

 somewhere in proportion to the extra cost of feed he has used. 



The following from Wallaces' Farmer, October 5, 1917, has 

 bearing on this point. 



"Butter averaged 43 cents for September, 1917, which is by far 

 the highest September price on record. But with corn at $2.10, 

 the corn price of butter was 83 cents, leaving a loss of 40 cents 

 a pound. This is unquestionably an exaggeration. Corn, which is 

 ordinarily our best live stock food by which to measure production 

 costs, has temporarily lost all sense of balance. Just as a matter 

 of interest, we have used something altogether different from corn 

 as a measure of butter values, namely Dun's Index Number. On 

 the basis of the standard ratio between Dun's Index Number 

 and butter during the past ten Septembers, we find that butter 



