26 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



off the farm, to be applied especially to the pastures and grass 

 lands? This return is made by many, in an indefinite and 

 uncertain way, by the purchase of grain and other food for 

 their stock. If this is done systematically, and the manure 

 made is fully saved, the necessary restoration to the soil can be 

 thus advantageously accomplished. It will not do to assume, 

 however, that if one feeds a cow well, even provided all the 

 grain be purchased, that full return is thus made to the soil for 

 the milk sold. Without going much into details, let it be sup- 

 posed that a cow is fed for two hnndred days in the year a 

 ration of four pounds corn-meal, four pounds wheat bran, and 

 one pound cotton-seed meal, and that half a ton of bran is al- 

 lowed " to help out the pasture," and that all this is purchased 

 outside and fed on the farm. The manurial value of the feed- 

 ing stuffs, computed on the same basis as in the case of the 

 milk, amounts in round numbers to $7.00 per cow. This leaves 

 only a small balance, it is true, between the sales and pur- 

 chases of fertility (so to speak) but it is still on the wrong side. 

 Buying feed, therefore, even on a liberal scale, does not offset 

 the injury to the farm resulting from the sale of the whole 



milk. 



The answer to the question, " Shall the milk be sold?" may 

 therefore be in the afiirmative, o\\\y pvorided the conditions are 

 all what they should be. 



In review, w-e see the most important of these conditions to 



be : — 



First. The possession of productive cows. 



Second. A steady and satisfactory market for the whole pro- 

 duct. 



Third. Such returns as shall certainly cover all the special 

 costs of selling milk, and still leave a fair profit. 



Reduce this to figures, and it means an average selling price 

 of four cents or more per quart, for the year, and never less 

 than thirty cents for a two-gallon can, or a gross receipt (in- 

 cluding a calf) of $85 to $100 or more per year from every 



cow. 



These are not prohil)itory conditions, as might appear 

 from the fiict that the average receipt of the Massachusetts milk 

 producer is less than three cents a quart, because this fact 

 is largely the producer's fault. He fails to maintain the price 



