﻿COST OF MILK PRODUCTION ON WISCONSIN FARMS. 19 



products or would spell loss to producers at winter prices of feed 

 and usual prices paid for milk. It does not lay enough emphasis on 

 the value of pasture as feed, and reconciles the producer to an unduly 

 low price of milk in summer. " Pasture is cheap feed," farmers say; 

 no grain is needed and less work is required; so low prices in summer 

 are accepted with a shrug of (lie shoulders. Yet the cost of carrying 

 cows through the winter is part of the cost of producing milk on 

 pasture. Thus, though winter prices do not go so high as cost figures 

 would indicate, summer prices do not go so low. A more nearly uni- 

 form price throughout the year, as urged at times, would tend to 

 increase the concentration of production in the summer and would 

 defeat its purpose. Only in the market-milk zone can anything 

 approaching uniform price be effective, and then only when distrib- 

 utors are relieved of the burden of surplus milk, and on condition 

 that milk from outside the normal territory for the city supply be 

 kept off the city market, conditions which practically can not be met 

 in the present state of organization of producers and of their control 

 over production. 



Adjustment of prices in favor of producers is a slow matter, 

 requires continuous effort, and has not yet been wholly satisfactory 

 with respect to price. Pooling plans have met with some measure 

 of success in times of rising prices, but their story is not yet fully 

 told ; some of them have recently caused financial loss to participants. 

 Still this kind of effort warrants the support of every producer. 

 The individual producer must look to his own devices for im- 

 proving his situation with regard to current costs and prices. Each 

 needs to anatyze his own results to determine current relations be- 

 tween his costs and prices, and proceed to make the adjustments 

 necessary. These adjustments will usually be in the direction of 

 adequate feeding, prompt and thorough culling, constructive breed- 

 ing, and keeping expenses as low as possible. 



In the matter of individual items of expense, one must bear in 

 mind that low expense does not necessarily mean low cost if thereby 

 production is restricted. Most dairy farms are provided with silos, 

 although occasionally a farmer is found who does not yet believe 

 in the silo. Most of these who do not have silos will have them 

 when they can spare the funds necessary to build them. Silos are 

 investments rather than expenses, and pay good returns. Silage as 

 feed is itself relatively cheap and makes other feeds more effective. 

 Drinking cups call for a considerable outlay, but the effect on pro- 

 duction is so marked that more than one farmer has said that he 

 would not be without them if he had to install a new set each year. 

 In one case observed, a barn housing only six cows was provided with 

 cups. 



The matter of justifying the remodeling of stables to provide 

 more light and air, concrete floors, swinging stanchions, which add 

 to the health and comfort of the cows, is more difficult, as is also the 

 question of outlay for litter carrier, feed cart, chutes for hay, and 

 other labor-saving devices, the return from which is distributed over 

 a long time and is indirect. It is impossible to relate losses from 

 tuberculosis directly to poor accommodations for cows, but there is 

 small room for doubt that a relation between the two exists. Many 

 a farmer suffers a daily drain because of poor arrangement of his 



