THE MILK SUPPLY OF MASSACHUSETTS 125 



Table 1 brings together all these data into a composite pic- 

 ture of the milk supplies of Massachusetts and its transit trade for a whole 

 year. The figures are for the year 1926, excepting those for shipments to 

 New York and the state production, these being for the year 1925.1 The 

 production estimate is that of the New England Crop Reporting Service 

 and is materially larger than that of the census of 1925. This latter in- 

 cludes only the production of cows kept on farms and amounts to 346,300,- 

 332 quarts. The use of this figure would reduce the estimate of the total 

 available supplies by 75,000,000 quarts. This difference would amount to 

 about .05 quarts per capita per day. Either estimate of production re- 

 quires a reduction of 5 per cent as a minimum for wastage and feeding 

 on farms, not more than 95 per cent of the production being available 

 for human use. 



Much of the total supply of cream and some of the milk is used for 

 making ice-cream. Moreover, much of the locally produced milk, especial- 

 ly in the summer, is used for other purposes than fluid milk consumption. 

 According to the census data approximately 15,000,000 quarts of milk 

 went into farm butter and about 25,000,000 quarts formed the basis for 

 the farm sale of butter-fat and cream. Thus about 40,000,000 quarts were 

 skimmed or separated on the farms. The amount of fluid milk used for 

 comrjercial ice-cream and baking is also unknown. Making the conserva- 

 tive assumption that an amount equal to only 25 per cent of the local 

 production went into all these so-called "surplus" uses, fluid milk avail- 

 able for consumption could hardly be greater than .40 quarts per capita 

 per day and might easily be lower than .35 quarts on the basis of the 

 production estimates of the New England Crop Reporting Service. On the 

 basis of the census estimates of milk product. on a reduction of .05 quarts 

 would be made. 



It is fruitless to attempt to estimate the per capita consumption of 

 cre.qm. An unknown amount of the fluid milk shown in the table was 

 made into cream. A large part of the cream went into the ice-cream trade 

 which also uses large quantities of sweet butter and condensed milk. 



The quantities of milk and cream shipped into the state are much more 

 definite than the uses to which the milk is put after it arrives, or than the 

 amount of the local production. Table 1 shows these requirements to a 

 high degree of accuracy for the whole year. However, the requirements 

 vary within the year. Table 2 shows the estimated daily requirements of 

 Massachusetts and Rhode Island for northern milk in the four sample 

 months of January, May, July and October. 



Table 2. — Estimated Daily Requirements of Northern Milk by Massachusetts 

 and Rhode Island. (Quarts) 



January 

 May 

 July 

 October 



a Total in Milk Equivalent^iiumber of quarts of niilk-j-ten times the number of quarts 

 of cream. 



1 Preliminary estimates of tlie New England Crop Reporting Service iudicate a produc- 

 tion for 1926 about one per cent greater than for 1925. 



