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 the 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 
k^pt 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 analyze 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 
