HAMPSHIRE COUNTY FARMERS' MONTHLY 



DAIRY RECORD SUMMARY FOR OCTOBER 



56.6 Per Cent of Cows Are Being Fed More Cjrain Than is Necessary. 

 Can Dairymen Do Better? 



Cows Giving Lbs. Milk Per Day 

 Lbs. Milk Per Lb. Grain 7-10-20 i 20 1-30 | 30 1-46 | Above 40 | % 



The dairy summary for October shows 

 that 56.6% of the cows reported are giv- 

 less than 3.1 lbs. of milk per pound of 

 grain. This practice, if continued, will 

 result in the accumulation of grain bills 

 which will be burdensome next spring 

 when fertilizer, lime and seed have to 

 be purchased. In the next group, VZ.SVr 

 of the cows are giving from 3.1-3.5 lbs. 

 of milk per pound of grain. For cows 

 giving less than 30 lbs. of milk per day 

 this, too, is excessive grain feeding. This 

 leaves only 36.19(- of the cows that are 

 being fed grain according to production. 

 It would seem that this heavy grain feed- 

 ing was caused by short pastures were 

 it not foi' the fact that reports in other 

 months have shown the same tendency. 



The common feeding practice was 

 learned by farmers at the time when 

 grain was cheap. At that time it did not 

 pay to make any special effort to grow 

 good crops of hay and silage as a pound 

 of digestible nutrients could be bought 

 in grain cheaper than it could be raised 

 on the farm in the form of hay and silage. 

 Times have changed and it is time that 

 our feeding practices be revised to meet 

 present conditions. 



No Chance for Higher Prices 



At dairy schools held recently in this 

 County, Professors -J. B. Abbott and C. J. 

 Fawcett pointed out that maintenance of 

 the necessary "spread" or "margin" be- 

 tween the cash cost of production and the 

 sale price of milk depends upon keeping 

 cost of production down quite as much 

 as upon keeping sale price up and that 

 there are times when market demand and 

 competitive .supply are so unfavorable to 

 higher prices that the only hope of main- 

 taining an adequate spread lies in effect- 

 ing drastic reduction of costs. 



Quite aside from whether the present 



is such a time or not, knowledge of how 



to reduce costs is useful knowledge to 



have at any time. The whole discussion 



"was based on the kind of cows and the 



kind of feed most prevalent on our farms. 



As ordinarily fed, the feed charge 



against a cow that averages 25 lbs. of 



milk per day for the .seven months winter 



feeding period will be about as follows: 



30 lb. silage=63001b.s. @0.4('=.$25.20 



12 hay =2520 1.5('= 37.80 



10 grain=2100 2..5<'= 52.50 



Total winter feed cost 



$115.50 



Such a cow gives about 25 pounds of 

 milk per day or in 210 days 5250 pounds. 

 5250 lbs. milk @.$3.00 per cwt.=$1.57.50 

 52.50 " " 2.50 " " = 131.25 



52.50 " '• 2.00 " " = 105.00 



Little Profit in Feeding Operation 



With milk at .$3.00 per 100 the! 

 "spread" between cost of feed and value 

 of product is sufficient to render the feed- ' 

 ing operation reasonably profitable. Un- 

 der such conditions, fairly representative 

 of the conditions which have prevailed in 

 Mass. for many years until within the 

 past year, dairymen found it profitable 

 to feed as many cows as possible and de- 

 pend upon the feeding operation rather 

 than upon farming the land for their 

 profit. 



With milk prices down to $2.50 or even 

 as low as $2.00 per 100, not to the faimer 

 the margin on the feeding operation is \ 

 inadequate, or even entirely non-existent, ' 

 and the dairy farmer appears to be fac- 

 ing bankruptcy. That, bluntly, is the 

 present condition. 



What can the dairy farmer do about 

 it? Can he get materially higher prices? 

 Not a chance! The market is getting all 

 the milk it requires, and more, at present 

 1 prices. Prices are bid up to higher levels 

 only when demand equals or exceeds sup- 

 ply- 



Must he quit? Not necessarily. How 

 about seeking a profit from the crop pro- 

 duction side of the enterprise instead of 

 from the feeding operation? Isn't there 

 a rea.sonable chance of making a profit 

 in growing hay at $30.00 a ton and silage 

 at $8.00 a ton? And is it not entirely 

 possible for the dairy farmer to feed 

 more and perhaps better home grown feed 

 in proportion to purchased grain and thus 

 pay himself instead of some one el.se for 

 producing it? 



Certainly it is. One dairy farmer in 

 Berkshire County made such a change 

 last winter and reported a net saving of 

 $8.00 a month. Others have reported 

 gi'eat saving in the grain bill by changing 

 to a higher protein grain, feeding less of 

 it and more hay and silage. 



With cheap grain or fairly high priced 

 milk it was good business to keep as many 

 cows as possible and depend upon the 

 feeding operation for profit. With higher 

 priced grain or cheaper milk that system 

 of management becomes suicidal, and 

 profit must be sought more largely from 

 farming the land. 



CLOVER FAILURES 



Many Follow Failure to Lime 



There is no myth about the decline in 

 culture of red clover, if we may rely upon 

 Farmers' Bulletin No. 1365 titled "Clover 

 Failure," issued by the U. S. Department 

 of Agriculture. Figures given in that 

 publication show that while the acreage 

 in cereals was increasing over the twenty- 

 year period from 1899 to 1919, and it 

 would be expected that the acreage of 

 clover would naturally follow along the 

 same lines and show an increase dui'ing 

 the same period, that this is not true. On 

 the other hand, instead of paralleling the 

 cereal acreage, the figures .show that even 

 in the very heart of the clover area the 

 acreage of clover decreased over the 

 twenty-year period of 1899 to 1919. 



What I his Means 



Clover is the best legume to grow 

 in rotation with small grain and hoed 

 crops, and no system of crop rotation is 

 complete without a legume, because other- 

 wise it is not economical to maintain the 

 soil fertility. In fact, the benefits to be 

 derived from the regular use of a legume 

 in the rotation have been so often pointed 

 out that they no longer need be em- 

 phasized, and of all the legumes at pres- 

 ent known, red clover is by all odds the 

 best fitted for use in the 3-year and 4- 

 year crop rotations popular over the 

 country. The steadily increasing con- 

 cern over clover failure emphasizes this 

 fact. Farmers want to grow clover. They 

 realize its importance, and fear the eff'ect 

 which lack of it may have on the yield 

 of their other crops. 



"With few exceptions, legumes require 

 plenty of lime, and red clover is one of 

 the three legumes used in the United 

 States which is especially sensitive to the 

 lack of lime in tne soil. Not only does 

 it remove relatively large quantities of 

 lime per ton of hay, but it cannot get the 

 lime it needs as readily as can such crops 

 as lye and buckwheat. The work of 

 various Agricultural Experiment Stations 

 has shown that lime is lost by leaching 

 and removed by crops, and that conse- 

 quently cultivated lands tend to lose lime. 

 Red clover does well on new land, but as 

 the years pass the lime in the soil is lost 

 and success with red clovei' becomes less 

 frequent. The evidence of this statement 

 rests not on direct experiment in which 

 the lime has been lemoved from the soil 

 until clover would not grow, but on hun- 

 dreds of experiments made by Experi- 

 ment Station workers and by farmers 

 which show that red clover can be grown 

 again when lime is added to soils that are 

 known to have lost much of theii' lime or 

 that were always poor in lime, and on 

 which red clover failuies were common." 



Demonstrations by County Agents 



The same Farmeis' Bulletin also re- 

 Contirnii-d (tn pni^v 10. column 1 



