COST OF MILK PRODUCTION ON WISCONSIN FARMS. 17 
Milwaukee Milk Producers' Association, which looks after the inter- 
ests of its members, bargaining with the distributors with respect to 
j)rice and taking care of all the surplus. Milk is sold at a uniform 
price per can (of 8 gallons) delivered in Milwaukee. All producers 
get the same price except for the cost of hauling to the city. Two 
cents per 100 pounds is paid into the association fund by each member 
to help meet unavoidable manufacturing losses. Market milk usually 
commands a higher price than factory milk, because of additional 
requirements and because no by-products are returned. Conden- 
saries also pay somewhat higher prices than cheese factories for the 
latter reason. Outside the Milwaukee area practically all the milk is 
sold by test. Producers of high-test milk in the Milwaukee area 
usually plan to sell cream or have a special trade. 
Price quotations commonly available need considerable interpre- 
tation because of differences in practice. Condensaries usually quote 
a base price per 100 pounds of 4 per cent milk. Creameries and 
cheese factories pay for butter fat according to test, and quote prices 
as so many cents per pound of butter fat. Thus, comparisons with 
whole milk are made by a simple multiplication, usually neglecting 
the skim milk or whey value. However, unless the milk tests 4 per 
cent the farmer does not get the quoted price. ; Comparatively few 
get the quoted price, for if cows are milking heavily, especially if 
they are Hoist eins, the test is likely to be less than 3.5 per cent. Some 
factories pay a straight rate per pound of fat as shown by the test, 
others deduct from or add to the base price a fixed number of cents 
per pound for every tenth of 1 per cent by which the milk tests less or 
more than 4 per cent. This may have the effect of penalizing the 
farmer with low-test milk. Many condensaries maintain collecting 
routes and charge for hauling, saving the farmers the cost of making 
daily trips. These are perfectly straightforward and open practices, 
but they mean that many farmers do not and can not get for their 
milk the prices that quotations would indicate. 
The differences between quoted prices and what a farmer gets for 
his milk are likely to be still more marked when several months are 
averaged. The common average of monthly quotations reflects the 
true average, in which alone the farmer is interested, only when the 
sales of milk are the same for each month. To illustrate : A common 
average price of $3,624 was quoted in 1919 by a condensary. One of 
its patrons, using his actual monthly prices in the common way, 
found his average was $3.31, with a range from $2.55 to $4.05. But 
even with good Guernsey cows he did not get the base price for more 
than 6 per cent of his milk ; 65 per cent was sold in five months at $2.55 
to $2.91 while the quoted price ran from $3.29 to $3.40 in these same 
months. His true average price for the year, before deducting haul- 
ing, was $3.09, netting $233 less on his total sales than his " average " 
price led him to suppose. 
Other practices have been noted, all aiming to avoid unfavorable 
discussions among patrons about prices. In short, each producer 
must know definitely what he gets for his milk and why he does not 
get more. 
The normal price movement by months is also shown in Figure 3 
as the relative monthly prices 1907-1916 in Chicago. The highest 
