pasture some distance from the home farm (Figure 6). The average dis- 

 tance of the rented or owned pieces of land not contiguous to the home 

 farm was 3.1 miles. One farmer operated a piece of rented land 35 miles 

 distant. The closest rented piece was less than a quarter of a mile distant. 

 Another farmer rented seven pieces of land and owned one piece away 

 from the farm. None of the pieces of land was closer than six-tenths of 

 a mile from this farm and the average distance was 2.5 miles. Of the 51 

 pieces of land rented by 26 of the farm units, 27 pieces were used for 

 pasture. Thus more than half of the rented places were obtained to be used 

 for pasture. As most of them were a considerable distance from the home- 

 stead, they were probably used to carry young stock with perhaps some 

 dry cows included. The relatively high incidence of rented or owned pieces 

 of isolated pastures that can be used only for carrying young stock or dry 

 cows indicates that much permanent-type pasture cannot be used to carry 

 milking cows. Thus for pasture feed in general, it can be concluded that 

 there is flexibility of use for most of the improved pastureland and some of 

 the permanent pasture near the farmstead. However, many permanent-type 

 pastures located at considerable distances from the farmstead are not flexi- 

 ble as to use, in that they can carry only dry cows and young stock. 



Most of the 62 farms surveyed had conventional stanchion barns. Only 

 a few had loose-type stabling. For the farms that had the loose or pen- 

 type stables, the space is quite flexible as to use. Usually with a minimum of 

 changing certain movable partitions or gates, the barn space can be used 

 to carry cows or young stock. For the 58 farms for which information was 

 obtained on conventional stanchion housing facilities, only 7 farms had 

 all their cow stanchions filled. The other 51 farms had either empty cow 

 stanchions or young stock tied up in stanchions that could have housed 

 milking cows (Table 16). On the average for the 58 farms, there were 

 about 10 full-sized stanchions that were either empty or used by young 

 stock. Like all cow stanchions these were flexible resources in that they 

 could be used to carry either cows or young stock. 



All of the farms visited had some parts of their barn facilities or- 

 ganized as calving, calf rearing, or young stock facilities. Without remodel- 

 ing, this space could not be used to carry milking animals and was there- 

 fore quite inflexible. The barn facilities were such that an average of 16 

 young stock could be housed on each of the 58 farms that provided records. 



Most of the dairy farms surveyed had the type of labor force that 

 could care for milking cows or young stock. However, several farms had 

 some family labor that could not perform all the chores associated with 

 milking. In most instances, these family workers were children or older 

 people. As they could not perform all types of chore work, their labor 

 functions were not completely flexible. But by and large, the labor forces 

 on most of the farms could care for either young stock or milking animals. 



A question with respect to labor utilization that is of some concern is 

 how the seasonal distribution of labor requirements are affected by changes 

 in the number of replacements relative to cows. In summer, chore work 

 and crop work compete for the farmer's time. By assuming a constant 

 annual chore workload for a dairy farm, the number of cows and heifers 

 can be varied to answer the question of how and by how much the seasonal 

 labor pattern requirements would differ. For example, using the chore work 

 requirements stated in Table 14, a dairyman who now carries 25 cows and 

 raises all his own replacements could with the same total annual expendi- 



35 



