1922.1 Cost of Manual Labque in Mile Pboduotion. 



117 



The men on the farm are well paid, and have every third 

 Sunday off in addition to their half-day holiday a week ; yet in 

 spite of the precautions taken to get clean milk the labour bill 

 per cow per week is comparatively low. In December, 1921, in 

 affcending to 105 total head of stock (40 milk cows, 2 bulls, 

 14 calving heifers, 14 feeding bullocks, 14 heifers 1-2 years, and 

 21 yearling heifers) there are employed : — 



l stockman at £3 5 per week. 



1 man „ 2 12 „ „ 



1 land girl „ 2 „ „ 



1 woman, part time ., 10 



1 odd man on Sunday „ OH ,, „ 



At a total cost of £8 13 „ „ 

 of which, when 17 per week is charged to the cows, the labour 

 bill in direct attention amounts to Bs. 6d. per cow per week, or 

 3d. per gallon of milk produced. 



In many parts of Yorkshire, particularly the industrial area of 

 the West Biding, and to a smaller extent some parts of the North 

 Biding, milk producers have been heavily handicapped as far 

 as their labour bill is concerned by the fact that the whole hold- 

 ing is subdivided into a series of small divisions each with its 

 s parate sets of buildings. Thus in the case of Farm P, a farm of 

 125 acres (90 per cent, grass) in the West Riding, the land was 

 a few years ago rented under 10 different landlords, and the herd 

 of 50 cows was housed in five distinct sets of buildings each two 

 or three hundred yards apart. The lighting of these farm 

 houses, with their three sets of windows on the ground and first 

 floor respectively, suggests that each, original small holder was 

 partly engaged in the occupation of farming and part of his time 

 taken up at the hand looms, many of which are at the present 

 time still in existence in the neighbourhood. Up to quite recently 

 the labour bill in the production of milk on Farm P has been 

 particularly high, partly because of the high rate of wages which 

 has to be paid in the vicinity of an industrial town and partly 

 because of the uneconomic use made of that labour, when the 

 cows were distributed over five sets of buildings. On this farm 

 the labour bill in direct attention to 50 cows amounted in 1920 

 to £18 5s. fid. per head per year, or Is. Od. per cow per week, 

 and 8Jd. per gallon of milk produced. On the adjacent holding, 

 which was bought by the tenant some five or six years ago, 

 wooden buildings have been erected out of material obtained 

 from the disposal sales in which 40 cows can be stalled under 



c 



