66 X. H. Agr. Experiment Station- [Bulletin 260 



two causes, either a lack of control of the time of freshening or un- 

 certainty as to the best practices in that respect. Of course, milk can 

 be produced much more cheaply on pasture feed, but prices are better 

 in the winter and spring-freslieninp: cows are seldom fed to produce 

 as well as fall-freshening cows. A fall and winter production consider- 

 ably better than spring and summer could be easily accomplished by 

 breeding cows at the proper time, and probably the increased produc- 

 tion incident to more care and better feeding would contribute to 

 larger labor incomes. Very likely, the Grade A producers, who rep- 

 resent a rather selected group of dairymen, in so far as they are able 

 to meet certain rather exacting requirements, are nearest right in sea- 

 sonal production with a November-June ratio of 103, even tliough a 

 rigorous rating requirement does not leave the matter entirely to vo- 

 lition. CatherAvood found Grade A producers in New York had a No- 

 vember-June ratio of 104 while the farms that sold Grade B milk aver- 

 aged only 53.^* He also says : "In general, on the farms with the best 

 milk markets, the cows are bred to freshen in the fall and are fed the 

 most grain and silage. This results in high production per cow." 



Labor EflBciency 



With relatively high-priced labor and the possibility of substituting 

 machine for hand methods, labor efficiency becomes a very important 

 factor in farm management. He who would make money out of hiring 

 labor must so organize and direct his business that he can make better 

 than average use of labor. The farmer's personal income is largely 

 from his ow^n and his family's labor, and for that reason his interests 

 should tend to be served by high wages rather than low. However, 

 this condition does not prevail with a falling price level because wages 

 drop more slowly than the prices of things which the farmer sells. 



The average for all workers on these 395 farms was 231 man work 

 units of productive labor per man. The corresponding figure for 578 

 farms in Livingston County, New York, in 1928 w^as 223.^ While prac- 

 tically the same basis was used for computation in both cases, the small 

 amount of difference in the two results is not significant. The meas- 

 ures previously given in Table 27 are, of course, not sufficiently accu- 

 rate to justify precise comparisons. 



Although a work unit represents the amount of work that an aver- 

 age man accomplishes in 10 hours, there are many reasons why the 

 average accomplishment of a region should fall below a theoretical 

 limit, say, of 300 Avorking days. In computing Avork units, no alloAV- 

 ance is made for repairs and other unproductive Avork. The difficulty 

 of providing a uniform supply of productive AVork month by month 

 and Aveek by Aveek is apparent to ever}- person Avitli farm experience. 



Milking Machines 



Estimates by 326 farmers regarding the time necessary to do the 

 work in caring for their cows a year averaged 162 hours per coav. 

 There Avere 96 of the number that had milking machines, and their 

 estimates averaged 130 hours per coav. The remaining 230 averaged 



