830 
‘Sht RURAL. NEW-YORKER 
May 10, 101!) 
Live Stock and Dairy 
Improving Poor Pasture 
My coming hayfield has very little 
grass on it. The low places have some, 
but the hills have nothing at all. What 
could I sow to give me enough hay or 
feed? What about Sudan grass or Ilillion- 
doll ar grass? Can it be depended on or 
not, and will part of this field sown to 
Winter rye this Summer furnish sufficient 
pasture for the next year? Would you 
advise clover of any kind sown with 
either of these for pasture another year? 
I also have a piece of land I would like 
to sow to oats. This is a two-year-old 
sod. but very low in fertility. What would 
be the best seed to sow, and what grade 
of fertilizer? Would plain acid phos¬ 
phate do? I have four acres sown to 
rye for early pasture, which I wish to 
turn down about the middle of May for 
corn. Is this a good cover crop, or would 
you advise some commercial fertilizer to 
be drilled before planting? n.F. c. 
Middletown, Del. 
The Sudan grass will make you as 
heavy a hay crop as anything you can 
sow, but do not sow till the soil is warm 
in late May, for it will not endure any 
frost. In the first experiment here it was 
badly thinned out by chilly weather. It 
can be put in with the attachment to a 
wheat drill, sowing 15 pounds an acre. 
Cut it as soon as the heads show, and you 
can cut it twice or three times. It is 
only an annual grass that must be sown 
every year. Then with more permanent 
grasses do not run the land in grass till 
it fails, but keep up a shorter rotation, 
and do not be afraid to plow under a 
good sod, for that is the only way always 
to have a good sod. You can get plenty 
of the Sudan grass seed from the Phila¬ 
delphia seedsmen. Adopt and stick to a 
good rotation of crops planned for the 
increased production of the main sale 
crop, probably wheat with you. and do 
not do any hop-skip farming. Your sec¬ 
tion is especially a grain section, though 
milk is rapidly becoming a popular sale 
crop. You should have a permanent pas¬ 
ture lot on which the grass is maintained 
by annual top-dressings of raw bonemeal. 
quart of milk; this should be borne in 
mind in making criticism of the various 
items entering into the total cost. 
I will explain briefly such of the items 
as seem to require explanation. I have 
figured silage at. only $5 per ton; but to 
offset this figure, which may seem too low, 
I have charged up 300 tons—all the silage 
we had—when as a matter of fact not 
more than 240 tons were fed to the cows. 
Under the head of labor I have had to es¬ 
timate the part time given by two men, 
but it cannot be far out of the way. The 
items for the first two men were the wages 
actually paid, including board. The 
charge for milk was the amount supplied 
to the dairy hands, so was in fact a part 
of their wages. On the credit side of the 
account, under “Milk supplied,” I have 
allowed for all the milk supplied to all the 
farmhouses except my own. which I paid 
for at the regular monthly rate. “Loss 
on cows sold and died” covers the actual 
difference between what I carried the cows 
at in the inventory and what I received 
for them when they were disposed of. 
One cow died, which, of course, was a 
total loss. The valuation of the dairy 
buildings ($20,000) may seem high, but 
this covers two barns, milk room, ice¬ 
house, etc., which could not be replaced in 
normal times for less money. You will 
note that the total milk produced in 12 
months was 163,021 quarts, an average 
of 3,260 quarts per cow of A milk. The 
figures follow: 
.CREDIT 
146,434 qts. milk.. $11,370 00 
1,825 qts. milk. . 127.75 
052 qts. cream. 642.60 
330 lbs. butter. 142.63 
- $12,202.07 
50 calves sold. 333.22 
9 calves raised. 57.50 
Feed sacks returned. 22.50 
$12,706.19 
DEItIT 
Feed— 
Feed bought. $1,384.00 
Silage. 300 tons. 1.500.00 
Hilo filling .. 323.11 
Hay: 15 lbs. per day per 
cow; 210 days at $20 per 
ton, about 80 tons. . . .... 1,600.00 
500 bu. beets. 125.00 
Pasture, 50 acres. 500.00 
Total. $5,432.11 
Labor— 
1 man full time. $866.00 
1 man full time.. 720.00 
1 man 4 hrs. per day ... 292.00 
1 man part time. 375.00 
Milk supplied men. 51.00 
Total. $2,304.00 
Incidentals— 
Ice. .875.00 
Dairy supplies . 140.08 
Depreciation, cans . 96.00 
Loss on cows sold and died. 529.00 
Hauling milk. 75 00 
Veterinarian . 94.75 
Total. $1.009.S3 
Overhead Charges— 
Depreciation, dairy build¬ 
ings, 2 per cent. $400.00 
Taxes and maintenance of 
dairy buildings. 200.00 
Insurance . 40.00 
5 per cent on investment: 
50 cows. $7,500 
1 bull. 125 
Dairy buildings. 20.000 
$27,625 1,381.25 
fair wages, they will find the cost pretty 
close to this figure. They might possibly 
get along with a smaller investment per 
ertw in dairy buildings, but even so that 
would not greatly decrease the cost per 
cow. I understand the average yearly 
production of dairy cows throughout the 
State is something less than 4.000 lbs.— 
1.815 qts. On that basis our milk would 
have cost us about 12c per quart. These 
figures show that the only hope of profit 
in the dairy business is in keeping good 
cows. We cannot hope to find a profit in 
an increased price to the consumer. That 
price is so high now that there is an ac¬ 
tual surplus of milk at present. But can 
anyone doubt if the price to the consumer 
could be reduced five cents per quart 
from present prices that the demand 
would not be greatly incre o 8ed? If tin* 
cost of distribution of milk can be re¬ 
duced a few cents, and if the cost of pro¬ 
duction per quart can be lowered by keep¬ 
ing only high-producing cows, the dairy 
business will be profitable for the owners 
of such cows. But the owners of average 
cows had better turn their attention to 
beef cattle or sheep. edgar boody. 
R. N.-Y.—This milk is graded “A.” 
The League price for 1918 for “B” milk 
averaged about 6.3 cents a quart. 
Total. $2,021.25 
Total cost. $10,767.19 
Profit. 1,939.00 
$12,706.19 
Quarts 
Milk sold . 146.434 
Milk supplied. 1,825 
Milk (as cream). 10.858 
Milk (as butter). 3.904 
Average per cow. 3,260 
Per cow Perqt. 
Cost feed_ $5,432.11 $108.64 
Cost labor. 2.304.00 46.08 
Incidentals ... 1.009.83 20.20 
Overhead .... 2,021.25 40.42 
Total cost $10,767.19 $215.34 6.6c 
Total receipts. 12.706.19 254.12 7.8c 
Profit ... $1,939.00 $38.78 1.2c 
Probably very few farmers would figure 
the cost of maintaining a cow for one year 
at $215.34, and if they knew in advance 
that the cost would be anything like as 
much as that they would hesitate before 
engaging iu the dairy business. But if 
they allow themselves and their family 
This is principally a dairy section. 
Crops are milk, potatoes, corn and oats. 
We receive League prices on milk. Po¬ 
tatoes, $1 per bu.; eggs, 38c; butter. 65c; 
calves, 14c; oats, 80c; corn, $1.80. With 
the exception of a few, most farmers are 
getting down ro the bottom of their grain 
bins and haymows. We plant American 
Giants for seed stock for Jersey potato 
growers. T do not believe acreage will be 
quite as large as last year. Farmers seem 
quite satisfied as to the milk situation. 
Potatoes are practically all gone by now. 
Washington Co., N. Y. f. c. s. 
Farmers are busing hauling out manure 
and getting in readiness for the Spring 
rush of work. Cows mostly all fresh; 
milk for April brings farmers about $2.80 
at the stations. Hay very high any scarce 
and brings $33 per ton. loose in the barn. 
Quite a large quantity of maple sugar and 
syrup have been made iu Franklin Coun¬ 
ty this season. Farm labor somewhat 
more plentiful than last year, and good 
men are asking from $40 to $50 a month, 
with board. Young pigs sell for $5 each. 
Butter in stores retails for 70c per lb. 
Franklin Co., N. Y. u. t. j. 
Mr. Jones (whose automobile has dis¬ 
appeared) : “Officer, my car is gone!” 
Officer Cassidy: “Sure, there’ll be another 
wan along in five minutes.”—Buffalo Ex¬ 
press. 
and the remainder of the land run in a 
three-year rotation of corn, wheat, wheat 
and clover. In your section and south¬ 
ward it is best iu sowing oats iu Spring 
to sow the Southern Winter oats, as they 
will make a heavier crop than the North¬ 
ern Spring oats here. The Virginia Grey 
Turf oats are good.* They should be got 
in as early as possible. You can get them 
in Norfolk, Va. Use on thin land 300 
lbs. of a fertilizer analyzing 2-8-2, or mix 
one-third dried blood and two-thirds acid 
phosphate, as your soil is not especially 
in need of potash. The rye you propose 
to turn down after pasturing will not 
amount to much as food for the corn 
crop. You would have done far better 
had you sown Crimson clover last Fall. 
I have never found that it pays to de¬ 
pend on commercial fertilizer to make 
corn. Better farm so as to have Crimson 
clover on the land in Winter for corn, 
and on this spread all the manure made 
as fast as it is made. When you get to 
making manure enough for your corn¬ 
field annually you will be on the road 
to SUCCeSS. W. F. MASSEY. 
The Cost of a Quart of Milk 
I have never seen any published figures 
covering the actual operations of a dairy 
farm for a year. Considering the uncer¬ 
tainty in everyone’s mind on the question 
of the actual cost of producing a quart of 
milk, the figures given below for our dairy 
during the year 1918 may be of interest 
to your readers. The farm is located at. 
Geneva, N. Y. Our herd of grade ITol- 
steins, taken month by month, averaged 
exactly 50 milking cows for the year. We 
have modern dairy equipment throughout, 
but there is nothing approaching “fancy 
farming” at any point. You will observe 
that I found 6.6c was the average cost to 
us of a quart of milk. I am confident that 
this figure amply covers the cost of pro¬ 
duction, because whatever items have had 
to be estimated, I have purposely made 
the charge liberal rather than scanty. Fur¬ 
thermore, I have given no credit to the 
dairy for manure. This is in spite of the 
fact that the manure is invaluable to us 
and doubtless amounts in money value to 
considerably over $1,000. But not being 
able to estimate its value with any degree 
of accuracy, I have thought it best to 
make up the figures without it and let 
those better qualified than I adjust the 
difference it would make in the final cost 
of a quart of milk. I will say here that it 
takes a variation of $800 iu my total cost 
($10,767.19) to make a variation of one- 
lialf of one cent in the final cost of a 
. . . . 
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