﻿COST OF MILK PRODUCTION ON WISCONSIN FARMS. 17 



Milwaukee Milk Producers' Association, which looks after the inter- 

 ests of its members, bargaining with the distributors with respect to 

 price and taking care of all the surplus.. Milk is sold at a uniform 

 price per can (of 8 gallons) delivered in Milwaukee. All producers 

 get the same price except for the cost of hauling to the city. Two 

 cents per 100 pounds is paid into the association fund by each member 

 to help meet unavoidable manufacturing losses. Market milk usually 

 commands a higher price than factory milk, because of additional 

 requirements and because no by-products are returned. Conden- 

 sates also pay somewhat higher prices than cheese factories for the 

 latter reason. Outside the Milwaukee area practically all the milk is 

 sold by test. Producers of high-test milk in the Milwaukee area 

 usually plan to sell cream or have a special trade. 



Price quotations commonly available need considerable interpre- 

 tation because of differences in practice. Condensaries usually quote 

 a base price per 100 pounds of 4 per cent milk. Creameries and 

 cheese factories pay for butter fat according to test, and quote prices 

 as so many cents per pound of butter fat. Thus, comparisons with 

 whole milk are made by a simple multiplication, usually neglecting 

 the skim milk or whey value. However, unless the milk tests 4 per 

 cent the farmer does not get the quoted price. Comparatively few 

 get the quoted price, for if cows are milking heavily, especially if 

 they are Holsteins, the test is likely to be less than 3.5 per cent. Some 

 factories pay a straight rate per pound of fat as shown by the test, 

 others deduct from or add to the base price a fixed number of cents 

 per pound for every tenth of 1 per cent by which the milk tests less or 

 more than 4 per cent. This may have the effect of penalizing the 

 farmer with low-test milk. Many condensaries maintain collecting 

 routes and charge for hauling, saving the farmers the cost of making 

 daily trips. These are perfectly straightforward and open practices, 

 but they mean that many farmers do not and can not get for their 

 milk the prices that quotations would indicate. 



The differences between quoted prices and what a farmer gets for 

 his milk are likely to be still more marked when several months are 

 averaged. The common average of monthly quotations reflects the 

 true average, in which alone the farmer is interested, only when the 

 sales of milk are the same for each month. To illustrate : A common 

 average price of $3,624 was quoted in 1919 by a condensary. One of 

 its patrons, using his actual monthly prices in the common way, 

 found his average was $3.31, with a range from $2.55 to $4.05. But 

 even with good Guernsey cows he did not get the base price for more 

 than 6 per cent of his milk ; 65 per cent was sold in five months at $2.55 

 to $2.91 while the quoted price ran from $3.29 to $3.40 in these same 

 months. His true average price for the year, before deducting haul- 

 ing, was $3.09, netting $233 less on his total sales than his " average " 

 price led him to suppose. 



Other practices have been noted, all aiming to avoid unfavorable 

 discussions among patrons about prices. In short, each producer 

 must know definitely what he gets for his milk and why he does not 

 get more. 



The normal price movement by months is also shown in Figure 3 

 as the relative monthly prices 1907-1916 in Chicago. The highest 



