34 BULLETIN 501, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
The feed cost on these farms seems to approximate 50 per cent of the 
total cost of keeping a cow where the cows depended on pasture with 
little or no grain during the pasture season; whereas, feed cost 
approximated 60 per cent on the farms where the pasture is limited 
and a grain ration is fed throughout the year. 
Labor, the second important item in the cost of producing milk, 
amounted to approximately one-fourth of the total cost of keeping 
a cow. 
All other items, including charges for shelter, use of equipment, 
use of bull, interest, depreciation, miscellaneous supplies, and a 
share of overhead expenses, amounted to approximately one-fourth 
the total cost of keeping a cow. The credits other than milk, includ- 
ing the value of calf, manure, and minor items, did not equal the 
miscellaneous costs other than feed and labor. 
Though it cost more to keep a cow that gives a high yield than 
one giving a lpw yield, the unit cost of the milk produced fell as the 
yield per cow rose. This decrease in the cost of milk per pound was 
much greater in the step from the poor cow to the cow of fair quality 
than in the step from the fairly efficient cow to the good cow or to the 
exceptional cow. Thus, from the standpoint of economic milk pro- 
duction, it appears that the first step in building up a poor dairy 
herd (that is, replacing scrubs with grades) is not merely the easiest 
step but also the one which promises the most for a given expenditure 
of money and labor. 
The actual cost of keeping the cows varied from year to year on 
the different farms as well as on the same iarm, yet the ratio between 
each item and the total cost was apparently quite uniform where a 
similar method of management was followed. 
LITERATURE CITED. 
(a) Rasmussen, Fred. 
1913. Cost of milk production. N. H. Col. and Exp. Sta. Ext. Bui. 2. 
(6) Lindsey, J. B. 
1913. Record of the station dairy herd and the cost of milk production. Mass. 
Agr. Exp. Sta. Bui. 145. 
(c) Trueman, J. M. 
1912. Records of a dairy herd for five years. Conn. (Storrs) Agr. Exp. Sta. 
Bui. 73. 
(d) Warren, G. F. 
1914. Some important factors for success in general farming and in dairy farm- 
ing. N. Y. Cornell Agr. Exp. Sta. Bui. 349; Reasons for larger profits 
on diversified farms, pp. 691-693. 
(e) Haecker, T. L. 
1913. Feeding dairy cows. .Minn. Agr. Exp. Sta. Bui. 130, p. 37. 
(/) Frandsen, J. H., and Haecker, A. L. 
1914. Dairy herd records for fourteen years. Nebr. Agr. Exp. Sta. Bui. 139. 
(g) Spillman, W. J., Dixon, H. M., and Billings, G. A. 
1916. Farm management practice of Chester County, Pa. U. S. Dept. Agr. 
Bui. 341. 
