268 



DAIRY FARMING 



ones, rather than leave half of the barn empty. A cow that 

 is much too poor to keep may yet pay as well as an empty 

 stanchion. Of course, if the farm has too many cows for its 

 area, it will pay to sell the poorest ones and decrease the 

 number. In regions like Jefferson County that are well 

 adapted to dairying and not adapted to many other things, 

 herds of 20 to 30 cows when kept on farms that are large 

 enough for the herd, are usually more profitable than small 

 herds. Of course the number of cows should not be increased 

 out of proportion to the farm. On the other hand extremely 

 large herds are a disadvantage because the farm family is 

 ordinarily not able to do the work and too much labor must 

 be hired. 



TABLE 41. RELATION OF NUMBER OF Cows AND MILK SOLD 

 PER Cow TO LABOR INCOME. 585 FARMS, JEFFERSON 

 COUNTY, NEW YORK 



230. Summary of Size of Dairy Farms. Unless a dairy 

 farm keeps four or five horses, it cannot take advantage of 

 the great economy in human labor that comes from the use 

 of four-horse machinery. But each horse ought to raise 

 20 to 30 acres of crops so that this calls for 80 or more 

 acres of crops. If 25 cows and young stock are kept, 

 there will usually need to be 60 to 100 acres of pasture. 

 This calls for 140 to 200 acres of land, a very common size 



