6 N. H. Agricultural Experiment Station [Bulletin 302 



per cent by raising first-calf heifers. Only 26 per cent of the cows on 

 hand at the end of the year had been added during the year compared 

 with over 30 per cent on farms more advantageously situated. 



There is no consistency in the relation between the ratio of crop to 

 pasture land and the method of adding new cows to the herd to replace 

 those sold or otherwise eliminated, or to increase the size of the herd. 

 Thirty farms which had less than one acre of crops for each acre of 

 open pasture equivalent had added only 4.6 per cent of their ending 

 inventory by purchase and 21.8 per cent by first-calf heifers (Table 2). 

 But 51 farms, which apparently had too little pasture, having had three 

 acres or more of crop land to one of pasture, had added only 7.5 per 

 cent of their ending inventory by purchase, which is much less than was 

 the case on farms with 1.0 to 2.9 acres of crop land per acre of pasture. 

 Thus it is not the rule on these farms that greater amounts of pasture 

 in proportion to crop land are accompanied by more young stock. 



Cow Sales. There was a total of 4450 cows handled during the year, 

 of which 802 or 18 per cent were sold (Table 3) . This amounts to about 

 one-fourth of those on hand at the beginning of the year. Slightly less 

 than one-half of all those sold were slaughtered, supposedly because they 

 were considered no longer profitable. The others were sold to farmers, 

 or to dealers to be resold to farmers, as cows worthy of being retained 

 for productive purposes. Of those cows which were raised on the res- 

 pective farms where inventoried. 15.6 per cent were sold, compared with 

 22.1 per cent of those which had been purchased. 



The average price received was $67 per head for cows sold for produc- 

 tion and $28 for those slaughtered. The average price received for cows 

 sold for production was $10 less than that paid for cows purchased, this 

 difference being mainly due to high prices paid for out-of-state cows. 

 Grade cows that were raised on the farm and then sold brought $4 more 

 per head than those purchased and resold, compared with a difference 

 of $15 more in the case of purebreds. 



Those herds in which no breed predominated sold 26 per cent of the 

 total cows handled. More than three-fifths of these were sold for pro- 

 duction. This is inconsistent with the fact that there are no breeders 

 of purebred cattle among owners of mixed herds, and with the fact that 

 proportionately more replacements are purchased than in the case of 

 other herds. 



Fifty-four farms selling their milk and cream at retail sold nearly as 

 many cows proportionately as farmers who were selling at wholesale. 

 It is noteworthy that retail farmers sold 7.8 per cent of their cows for 

 production compared with 9.9 per cent for wholesale farmers, a differ- 

 ence of only 2.1 per cent. Some of these sales were an exchange for 

 fresh cows necessitated by a temporary shortage of milk. Many of 

 these farmers who were so advantageously located as to have a retail 

 milk market were not equally fortunate in being able to sell their entire 

 production at the higher price during all seasons. Thus they found 

 it more to their advantage to raise young stock than to produce a sur- 

 plus of milk beyond what is required for their regular or seasonal trade 

 and for which there is no ready market. Furthermore, skim milk af- 

 fords a cheap source of food for young heifers on the retail farms which 



