no BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



the butter fat from 19.7 to 26.7 cents. The creamery money 

 returns for $1 spent for feed varied from 42 cents to |1.57. 

 The profit and loss account, for the several herds, varied all 

 the way from a gain of 122.57 per cow to a loss of $21.68 

 per cow. In other words, the average cow of one herd 

 made $22.57 worth more butter than her food cost, while 

 the average cow of another herd made $21.68 less than her 

 food cost. Thirty-two of the 100 herds made a profit over 

 and above the cost of food, and (]S^ failed to do so. And 

 this in the dairy State of Vermont ! The average produc- 

 tion of butter per cow was about 175 pounds, which is 

 above rather than below the averao;e. The average milk 

 production is not stated, but it must have been in the close 

 vicinity of 4,000 pounds. 



The publication of this data raised a riot in our State. It 

 was freely asserted that the name of the party who carried 

 out the investigation had been slightly mispronounced. His 

 name was L3'^on. Such survey as I have been able to make 

 of the data leads me to believe that the cost of feeding is if 

 anything overestimated. The hay, for instance, is rated at 

 full sales price, $12 a ton. And yet this cost, an average of 

 about $37, is very much below the amount which it costs us 

 at the Vermont station to feed our cows. But it is, how- 

 ever, the comparative rather than the absolute figui'es which 

 are of interest; and, however much one may pick flaws in 

 some of the details, the main proposition is clear, — that in 

 a very considerable share of these cases so low a money re- 

 turn was received at the creamery as to make the enterprise 

 at best a doubtful one. The relationship of improved l)lood 

 to the result is of interest. The cows in nearly half the 

 herd were said to be grades or mixed. Yet these figure in 

 but one-third the cases where a profit was returned. Or, 

 phrasing it in another way, in 60 })er cent of the herds 

 where material profit over food cost was gained either Jersey 

 or Guernsey blood was present in sufficient quantity to be a 

 dominant factor, though they made up but 40 per cent of 

 the total number. Of course an investigation of this kind 

 is faulty, in that it takes no cognizance of the worth of the 

 skim milk ; of the mamirial values of the feeds brought onto 



