No. 4.] ECONOMICAL MILK PRODUCTION. 91 



FACTOES AFFECTING ECONOMICAL MILK PKODUCTION. 



C. H. ECKLES, PROFESSOR OF DAIRY HUSBANDRY, UNIVERSITY OF 

 • MISSOURI, COLUMBIA, MISSOURI. 



The day of cheap feed for cattle as well as cheap food for man 

 is past in this country. Never before in the history of the 

 world has such an area of wonderfully fertile and easily tillable 

 land been brought into use within the. span of a lifetime as was 

 done in the Mississippi valley during the past century. As a 

 result of this enormous increase in the production of foodstuffs, 

 and the low price which resulted, both the American consumer 

 and the American farmer developed habits which they do not 

 propose to give up without a struggle. The consumer, on the 

 one hand, became accustomed to cheap food, and it was only 

 a few years ago that the standard price of milk in my State 

 was 5 cents per quart. Now, when there are no immense areas 

 of new land to bring into cultivation, and the population is 

 catching up with the production of food, the inevitable result is 

 higher prices for food, and the consumer is certain some one is 

 robbing him because the cost of living has advanced. The 

 consumer does not realize that the farmer who produces the 

 food to-day is making only fair wages, and on the average 

 probably less than he did ten or twenty years ago. 



On the other hand, the tendency on the part of the farmer, 

 with cheap feed for his animals, with a soil of great fertility to 

 draw upon, has been to develop most wasteful habits in pro- 

 duction. For example, it is only since feed became so high 

 that it is impossible to carry on a dairy business with poor 

 cows, that the milk producer has begun really to give attention to 

 the selection of the individual cow. 



It is the necessity of the times that is compelling the adoption 

 of business systems in dairy farming operations. At present a 

 large portion of the United States is in a period of transition 

 from a temporary to a permanent condition of agriculture. 



