METHODS OF .CONDUCTING COST STUDIES. 
11 
Form 26 -FM 
U. S. Department of Agriculture 
Office of Farm Management. 
Farm of 
Post Office 
REPORT OF FEEDING LIVE STOCK FOR THE M0N1H OF iPctcrfets 19 W 
Fill oat this blank on the last day of the month or as soon as possible 
thereafter 
Put down the number of head of each group and age of animals that you owned 
on the last dav_ of the month. 
Enter the" various kinds of feeds used during the month at the head of each 
column under "Average Daily Feed," 
Under these feed headings and opposite the namo of the stock, fill in the 
average daily ration. Give the ration in terms of quantity per head per day 
except where animals (as beeves 1 hogs, sheep, and poxutry) are fed in groups, 
when the ration may be 3tated in terms of total quantity of each feed per 
day for each group. 
Number 
of -head 
on hand 
on last 
of month 
Average Daily Feed, (pounos />£* "cad) 
Kind 
and age 
of 
stock. 
6k&\C(rtw 
J&tan 
TniiA 
sJiiagi. 
Hay_ 
Straw 
(Inc. 
bed- 
ding 
Field 
past- 
ured 
HORSES: 
V. r ork , 
3 
/o t 8 
/s 
Driving , 
/ 
1 
8 \ 
15-21 
\A'/Odafd 
Other.. 
1 
1 
Colts, 
/2 
3 
2 
/O 
s J-/0(tmd 
COWS 
Milking , 
2 
2 
4- 
3D 
j 
/2-2/cfy. \B-/0da4^ 
Dry, 
3 
4*xk 
& 
20 
B 
CATTLE 
1-2 yrs. 
5 
1 
1 
■ 
2D 
0-1 yrs. 
4 
?5%at£> 
B 
Dulls, 
/ 
^ 1.25.. 
JO 
B 
1 
Beef, 
l 
1 
1 
! 
SHEEP: 
2+ 
i 
$MMfcL 
HOGS: 1 
Breeders j 
1 
■ / 
Pigs j 
O-b r.os. . 
1 
POULTRY 
75 \7lcr<xu 
%W-f&L 
<l 
Fig. 4.— Feed report blank. 
It may readily be shown by figures for a 20-year period that many 
dairymen in almost any given dairy section, from an opportunity cost 
standpoint (occasionally stressing more or less violently the various 
assumptions), have lost money practically every year, and the con- 
clusion may be drawn that dairying as a business is decidedly unprofit- 
able. It would require but a brief survey of actual conditions in a 
locality, however, to make clear that the farmers had nevertheless 
prospered, that homes had been built and improved, fairly adequate 
standards of living maintained, money placed in the bank, and mort- 
gages paid off, so that, altogether, one might say that dairying was a 
fairly prosperous business. From an efficiency standpoint, that is, 
