PRIMARY RESULTS 93 



it may be permissible to value them at their estimated 

 market value at the date of the valuation. The former of 

 these methods is in every way preferable, as being less likely 

 to introduce values outside the farmer's own experience 

 in fact, reference to market values should only be had in 

 the absence of data essential to a calculation of true cost. 



(6) Milk 



The calculation of the cost of milk production has received, 

 probably, more attention than that given to any other 

 agricultural commodity. It is the only home-produced 

 article of food for which the Government has attempted 

 to fix prices based on cost calculations. This fact is explained 

 partly by the importance of milk to the consuming public, 

 which made it necessary during the period of food control 

 so to regulate prices that the supply would be maintained 

 without undue exploitation of the public, and partly by 

 the assumption (probably erroneous) that milk production 

 lends itself more readily to cost determination than do other 

 forms of farm produce. 



Nothing has illustrated more clearly the confusion of 

 thought on the question of what constitutes the cost of an 

 article, and the need for careful consideration of questions 

 of method and principle, than the public discussion of milk 

 costs during the past few years. The attempt to cost 

 separately for ' winter ' and ' summer ' milk (a distinction 

 not recognized by the cow), the application of fictitious 

 market prices to foods such as roots and straw, guesswork 

 calculations of the cost of herd-maintenance, and so forth ; 

 all of which have been commonly made, indicate a looseness 

 of thought and a lack of principle which make it impossible 

 to arrive at conclusions even approximately accurate. 



It is necessary to consider very carefully what, exactly, 

 are the items entering into the cost of milk. An attempt 

 was |made in the earlier stages of the work to keep the costs 

 of the various age-classes of dairy stock in water-tight 

 compartments ; the plan was to ascertain the cost of the 

 young stock, up to the time of the first calf, by recording the 



