146 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



Cost of Butter Production. 



I have said that henceforth the key-note of New England 

 agriculture must be "cheap production, and superior qual- 

 ity." Have you ever computed the difference in the cost of 

 butter production, under favorable and unfavorable con- 

 ditions, and fully realized the magnitude of the rewards 

 of dairy improvement? Let us appl^^ the figures to this 

 problem. 



I will assume that the net cost of labor and keeping of 

 a dairy cow, after making due allowance for the value of the 

 skimmed milk, buttermilk, and fertilizing material, retained 

 upon the farm, is forty dollars per annum. With these con- 

 ditions, the cost of production per pound of butter will be 

 as follows : With a herd so well bred and developed that it 

 will produce an average of three hundred pounds per cow, 

 per annum, the cost will be thirteen and one-third cents per 

 pound.* With a yield of two hundred pounds, it will cost 

 twenty cents pe:^ pound ; and of but one hundred pounds, 

 it will cost forty cents per pound. When the market value 

 of butter is but twenty cents per pound, as with most sum- 

 mer dairies, the former would receive a profit of six and two- 

 thirds cents per pound, which would afford a profit of twenty 

 dollars per cow, and of four hundred dollars on a herd of 

 twenty cows. The second would realize no profit, though, 

 in common with the rest, he would have the benefit of a 

 cash home market for the food consumed. The third would 

 lose twenty cents on every pound manufactured ; an average 

 of twenty dollars per annum on each cow kept, and four 

 hundred dollars on a herd of twenty cows. This .represents 

 a difference of eight hundred dollars in the annual financial 

 results of these two extremes in dairy practice, and of sixteen 

 thousand dollars in twenty years of such practice. 



Let us approach this subject from another stand-point, and 

 apply it to winter dairying. We will assume, as before, 

 that the net cost of lal)or and keeping is forty dollars per 

 cow ; the average annual butter product, three hundred 

 pounds ; the market value, twenty-five cents per pound, — 

 not a high average price for winter dairies. On this basis, 

 the gross receipts would be seventy-five dollars per cow. 



