2 BULLETIN 1144, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
It would be desirable if these various enterprises could be made 
to stand on their own merits, and to some extent they do, but the 
decision with respect to the management of any one of them does 
not depend solely on the fact of a figured profit or loss in any season 
or period of years, but rather on how it fits in the general farm opera- 
tions. An enterprise will be continued as long as it pays better than 
any other which could be substituted for it, and as long as it con- 
tributes to the net income of the farm, either directly or indirectly. 
As indicated above, the typical dairy farm has several activities 
more or less closely related to each other, a fact which tends to 
obscure the relations between the income and expenses for each and 
affects the decisions which will be made from time to time as costs 
and prices change. 
The chief element in the cost of producing milk is feed, with labor 
next, the two together constituting two-thirds or more of the total 
cost. The remainder consists of a number of smaller incidental 
charges. In order to simplify the discussion as much as possible 
these are taken up separately. With the same purpose in view, milk 
production is considered primarily as an independent enterprise, then 
in its relations to the whole farm business. That the figures may be 
most generally usable, they are given as quantities to which anyone 
may apply prices or cost rates for any given time or locality. On 
the average, these basic factors of cost do not change so much or so 
frequently as do prices, although they show a wide range, suggesting 
the possibility of important changes in financial results to be brought 
about by changes in management. 
The figures presented were obtained through the cooperation of 48 
farmers during the calendar year 1920. These farms were divided 
into five groups, according to similarity in the more important factors 
of location, markets, feeds, herd management, and the like. Group 
A is made up of 12 farms in the eastern part of Sheboygan County ; 
group B includes 8 farms in the eastern part of Columbia County ; 
group C includes 11 farms west and south of Milwaukee in the Mil- 
waukee milk district; group D is made up of 8 farms also in the 
Milwaukee milk district, but lying in a compact group to the north, 
most of them in Ozaukee County ; group E includes, besides 7 farms 
in the southeast corner of Marathon County, 2 other farms of similar 
characteristics, but in other counties. (See Table 1.) The farms 
range in size from 17 acres to 2-40 acres, the size of herds from 3 cows 
and 1 heifer to 28.7 cows and accompanying stock cattle ; in produc- 
tion from 13,000 pounds average per cow, including dry time and 
discards, down to 2,830 pounds per cow for the year. Some of the 
herds were purebred, but most of them were grade herds, with or 
without some pure-bred animals. 
