76 



N, H. Age. Experiment Statiox 



[Bulletin 260 



One should not make tlie mistake of assuming that no enterprise can 

 add to the profits of a dairy farm unless it pays equally as well as milk 

 production. The advantage may lie in keeinng hired men and horses 

 busy witli a small remuneration when otherwise they would be idle 

 and contribute no value at all. 



Even without any other enterprises, good production per cow and 

 the et¥icient use of a milking machine may enable a person to get a 

 reasonably well organized business in the production of wholesale milk 

 alone. Sixty of these farms averaged over 15 cows per man and many 

 did better. With an average of 20 cows for each man, one already has 

 a labor efficiency of 300 work units per man, and M'ith a production 

 of 6,000 pounds of milk per cow the yield per man would be 60 tons 

 of milk. 



The beginning of a period of low and decreasing prices should be 

 accei)ted by the dairy farmer as a challenge to rid his farm of all jioor- 

 producing animals by vigorous and thorough culling. Before ]irices 

 have recovered, he should find it possible to replace poor animals with 

 good ones. Farming like other business should be vigorously over- 

 hauled occasionally for possibilities of saving labor, and a depression 

 period is the accepted time to do it. The world moves. The only thing 

 that does not change is change itself and that even may become accel- 

 erated. 



Miscellaneous Factors 



Hill and Valley Farms 



In Table 66 the farms were grouped in relation to distance from 

 market and from the better roads and soils of the Connecticut River 

 valley. Using as crude a measure as cali])ers on the map, there were 

 93 farms that were within one mile, as the crow flies, of the Connecti- 



Table 66 — Hill and vallci/ farms and distances to market. 



cut River. There were 302 outside this distance. The total capital in- 

 vested in the smaller group averag(Hl $14,376 ])er farm, while the other 

 farms had an average of only $10,237. That the increase in incomes 



