LABOR REQUIREMENTS AND MILKING MACHINES. 7 
cost factor in the production of milk. Excluding the hauling of 
milk, the labor cost represented 18.9 per cent of the total cost." 
Table I. — Relation between man labor employed, crops grown, and stock Kept 
on farms in the areas studied. 
FARMS WITHOUT MILKING MACHINES. 
Area. 
Number 
of farms. 
Average 
size 
(acres). 
Number 
of men 
employed 
per farm 
per year. 
Acres of 
crops 
raised per 
farm. 
Acres of 
crops per 
man. 
Number 
of dairy 
cows per 
farm. 
Number 
of dairy 
cows per 
man. 
53 
60 
191.4 
146.7 
2.16 
2.14 
73.8 
90.75 
34.2 
42.4 
30.8 
20.5 
14.3 
Michigan- Ohio and Illinois 
9.6 
FARMS WITH MILKING MACHINES. 
56 
100 
213. 9 
166.4 
2.12 
2.22 
71.4 
98.3 
33.7 
44.3 
34.9 
23.7 
16.5 
Michigan-Ohio and Illinois 
10.7 
As is shown in Table I, the farms studied in the Michigan-Ohio 
and Illinois areas have a larger proportion of their total acreage in 
crops than those studied in New York. They raise more crops per 
man employed and keep fewer dairy cows. From the standpoint of 
the labor they employ, their organization is much better than that 
of the New York dairy farm, in that there is much more uniformity 
between the help required to care for the herd and that needed to 
care for the farm crops. Even upon farms of this type, however, 
the milking machine has become important, owing to the scarcity of 
dependable farm labor and of good hand milkers. 
The use of the mechanical milker did not affect the number of acres 
of crops cared for by one man on the farms studied in either the New 
York or the Central States areas, but in both of these localities a man 
was able to care for and milk more cows on those farms having milk- 
ing machines. On the New York farms having mechanical milkers 
16.5 cows were kept per man, as against 14.3 cows per man on those 
farms which depended upon hand milking. The farms in the Michi- 
gan-Ohio and Illinois areas having milking machines kept approxi- 
mately one cow more per man employed than those without machines. 
The milking machine made it possible to increase the size of the dairy 
without increasing the amount of labor needed to care for it. 
SIZE OF HERD AND LABOR REQUIREMENTS. 
Table II shows that large dairy farms require proportionately less 
labor to operate them than do farms keeping small herds. The same 
fact is brought out in a different way in Table III, where it is shown 
that it requires more time to care for a cow in a small herd than one 
in a large herd. 
