June, 1940] Farm Management in Colebrook 13 



hand stripping. An inspection by the field man revealed that some 

 of the milking machine equipment had not been kept up. On some 

 farms the valves were leaky, rubbers were worn, and the general 

 efficiency of the milking process curtailed. 



Harvesting Hay 



In the harvesting of 2,750 tons of hay on 1,905 acres, 18,400 hours 

 of man labor and 13,495 hours of horse labor w^^re required. This is 

 an average of 9.7 hours of man labor per acre or 6. 7 hours per ton. 

 Sixteen operators required more than 10 hours per acre and 15 over 

 eight hours per ton. In general the men with the larger labor re- 

 quirements did considerable hand work in such practices as bunch- 

 ing and raking. The ability to organize a small crew^ so that all the 

 men are doing really productive and essential labor seemed to be the 

 chief explanation of low labor requirements. The five operators 

 with hay loaders had an average labor requirement of 5.3 hours per 

 ton. but eight operators without loaders used fewer hours. 



The harvesting of hay is the chief field operation on these dairy 

 farms and about a third of the operators do not use efficient prac- 

 tices in getting the crop cured and under cover. 



Silage production 



The story of roughage production would not be complete with- 

 out reference to the two farms which produced silage. On the basis 

 of hay equivalent, assuming that three tons of silage are equivalent 

 to one ton of hay, more man and horse labor are needed but less land 

 is required for silage production. However, most of the labor on 

 silage comes in the spring and fall and so the requirements do not 

 seriously compete with hay harvest. Silage does compete with pota- 

 toes to some extent in labor requirement but a small acreage of 

 silage can be grown without serious conflict and without limiting the 

 potato acreage to any great degree. The most serious conflict came 

 at harvest time and both operators were able to harvest corn silage 

 advantageously before potato harvest began. 



Table II. — Comparison of machine milking operations on eight farms 



Minutes Minutes 



machine operating Pounds milk stripping 



time per cow drawn per minute per cow 



Farm No. A. M. P. M. A. M. P. M. A. M. P. M. 



t 



