154 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [P. D. 4. 



these figures are fairly representative of what good Vermont 

 dairymen are doing. I beheve the figures for income show the 

 case better than it is, because I have appHed the average price 

 for the year, although, as you know, the largest milk flow is in 

 the spring months, when the prices are well below the average 

 given. 



Figures taken by Dr. Lindsay, director of your Massachu- 

 setts station, show a higher cost of producing milk in this 

 State, and a larger loss. Dr. Warren of Cornell, in an address 

 before the New York Dairymen's Association, as reported by 

 "Hoard's Dairyman," stated that, charging labor at 20 cents 

 per hour, it cost on the average $2.57 per hundred to produce 

 milk in Delaware county, while the price received was SI. 65 per 

 hundred. 



Some of you will say that these figures are wrong, because 

 you know of many dairymen who are making money, paying 

 for farms, accumulating savings bank accounts, etc. I answer 

 that this does not prove my reasoning false. The labor of car- 

 ing for dairy cows usually comes before and after what is a 

 normal day's work for every other class of people; therefore the 

 labor cost is cut down. A farmer may raise hay and grain at 

 lower prices than the market price for which he could sell them; 

 he may possess some capital, so that his interest charge does 

 not have to be paid out of pocket. If these items are dis- 

 regarded one can figure money in dairying. But such items are 

 not disregarded in figuring costs by the handlers of milk or by 

 any other business concerns in the country. If a farmer puts in 

 sixteen hours a day he should have pay for his overtime. He 

 is just as much entitled to interest on capital invested as is the 

 milk contractor, the manufacturer or any other class of business 

 man, and he is entitled to receive the market price for raw 

 materials which he uses in his business. 



When farmers begin to figure and reason in this way they see 

 the necessity of not only lowering the cost of production, but 

 also the necessity of better prices for dairy products, which 

 means better marketing. We have seen within the year the 

 feeling of indignation and wrong felt by dairymen over the 

 prices they are receiving break out in a series of milk strikes in 

 several places in the eastern part of the United States. These 



