CHAPTER XII. 



Alfalfa and the Dairy 



MAKING A MARGIN 



The most enthusiastic advocates of alfalfa are dairy- 

 men. The market price of milk is quite well fixed and 

 the price of butterfat at the creameries remains, in the 

 different seasons, pretty much the same year by year. 

 Hence, the problem of increasing his financial returns 

 must depend upon the dairyman's being able to increase 

 the volume of his product or to decrease the cost, or both. 

 If he is selling butterfat at a profit of five cents and he 

 cannot force the price any higher, it is the sensible thing 

 to decrease the cost per pound and thereby enlarge his 

 profit. 



The dairyman who buys all his feed has but little mar- 

 gin. To raise enough clover calls for considerable land. 

 Alfalfa will yield a large bulk of excellent feed from a 

 few acres of well treated land. For profit he must raise 

 more feedstuff and buy less. The Kansas station reported 

 that with common scrub cows fed on alfalfa hay and 

 Kafir corn meal it was possible to produce butterfat at a 

 cost of seven cents a pound. 



SOME MHiKING TEST VALUATIONS 



The New Jersey station as a result of a very pains- 

 taking milking test reported : ( i ) In a ration where 



