420 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



Receipts 



80,000 pounds of milk $1300 



Five veal calves 47 



Four heifer calves 60 



One calfskin i 



Eighty tons of manure 80 



Total $1488 



Upon balancing his account the farmer often finds as here 

 illustrated that he is just about " breaking even." The dairy 

 is furnishing a market for his crops and his labor. If it were 

 not for the dairy, much time which is put on the cows would not 

 find profitable employment. The dairy provides employment 

 the year round with emphasis on the winter months, while 

 the growing of hay, oats, and corn give summer employment 

 mainly. Furthermore, the farmer may find that, while he can 

 produce good ensilage, the corn is caught by the frost three years 

 out of five and that the attempt to produce merchantable corn 

 is a precarious undertaking. 



Everything considered the farmer decides that in spite of the 

 showing on the balance sheet he can do no better than to continue 

 to produce milk. But if he is thoughtful he will ask himself the 

 question, How can I increase my production of milk without a 

 proportional increase in cost ? By looking over the herd record 

 he finds that his best cow, Bedelia, gave 13,500 pounds of milk 

 testing 3.8 per cent butterfat, whereas the poorest cow, Lily, 

 gave only 4860 pounds of milk testing 4.2 per cent. The milk 

 from Bedelia was worth $1.675 P er hundred or $226.125 ; that 

 from Lily was worth $1.725 per hundred or $83.835. The total 

 charge against Bedelia was $168.70 and that against Lily was 

 $131.20. The profit on Bedelia was $57.42, while the loss on 

 Lily was $47.37. A further study showed the farmer that if he 

 could dispose of the poorest five cows in the herd and replace 

 them with cows as good as the average of the other five, his net 

 profits on the herd would be $260. The leading purpose of 

 milk and feed records is to eliminate the " boarders " and fill 

 the barn with high producers. 



The cost-accounting method is suited especially to testing the 

 competing elements in a given type of farming. The general 



