December, 1931] Daiey Faeming in Grafton County 



93 



The variations in the hours of man labor per cow for the different 

 groups of farms and some of the resulting relationships are recorded 

 in Table 82. Apparently, fewer hours of work per cow is an indication 

 of efficiencj' rather than of neglect on these farms. More cows, more 

 milking machines, better prices, better incomes, and scarcely less milk 

 production per cow are all common to the upper part of the table with 

 fewer hours of labor per cow. 



Table 82 — Relation of hours of man lahor per coir to cost of milk and 



labor income. 



This table may be taken to emphasize the dependence of efficiency 

 on size of herd. The more efficiency, the more cows. Over twice as 

 much done per hour on the average involved having three times as 

 many cows per farm. Sorted by number of cows per farm (see Table 

 79), four times as many cows resulted in an average of only half as 

 much time spent per cow. One factor depends on the other. 



Good production did not necessitate squandering time. The best 

 average production was obtained in the group having next to the best 

 labor efficiency ; the second poorest average production was in the 

 group having next to the largest average expenditure of time per cow. 

 Apparently, about the same proportion of farmers got good production 

 as poor with a small outlay of time. 



In addition to unhandy buildings for doing chores, labor systems 

 that are wasteful of time, and too few cows to justify washing the milk 

 pails, other causes that may contribute to excessive labor are long dis- 

 tances to the milk station, poor roads, and a lack of co-operation in 

 getting a suitable volume of product and adequate equipment for the 

 daily task of transportation. 



Distribution of Production 



Some effects of seasonal distribution are shown by means of the No- 



I vember-June ratio in Table 83. The average for 297 farms in this table 



! was 91 per cent as much milk produced in November as in June. Cost 



I of milk decreased apparently until a ratio was obtained representing 



about the same amount of milk in November as in June. Thus, with an 



