98 
American Agriculturist, August 16, 1924 
Some Facts About the Dairy Business 
An A. A. Wednesday Evening Radio Talk Broadcast from WEAF 
w 
ITH the fluid market in the cheese 
country (where costs of production are 
lower) higher than in our own Hudson 
River territory where costs of production 
By MARK G. DuBOIS 
Editor of Poughkeepsie, N. Y., Sunday Courier 
are greater, and prices in both territories now and 
for months past, ruinously low, many students 
of milk marketing problems and tendencies are 
wondering if the time is not near at hand when it 
will become necessary to try to save the dairy 
industry from destruction at its own hands. 
Every producer will tell you that it is impossible 
to make milk at a profit for three cents a quart or 
less, which is the net return today for three per 
cent, milk on many thousands of dairy farms that 
sell over four million quarts of milk a day in the 
New York city markets. 
The Warren formula, which is 
standard, fixes the average cost of 
three per cent, milk at six cents a 
quart. Competition between market¬ 
ing agencies of the producers is 
steadily driving prices down, while an 
unprecedented demand for fluid milk 
is keeping the supply up. 
The basic price for milk is fixed in 
New T York city markets. The most 
convincing explanation I have heard 
of the inflation in the cheese country, 
four hundred miles away, is that New 
York, Rochester and Buffalo dealers 
have been competing for milk there, 
while in the remainder of New York 
territory the producers have been 
doing the competing. 
There is a market for every quart 
of milk offered. Fluid sales were never 
heavier or growing more rapidly than 
today except that the June supply this 
year showed a marked falling off of 
several million quarts. Strange to say 
in the face of this diminished supply, 
June price this year net at the farm 
was only $1.34 per cwt., while last 
year with a heavier volume, it w r as 
$2.00. Cooler weather this year may 
have lessened demand. 
It seems casual and commonplace 
to say that it “No longer pays to 
produce milk.” I have heard it often 
in the past and I have seen prices drop 
to what seemed ruinously low levels— 
yet the industry has marvelously 
survived and grown in service and 
value. Not in cash or property 
values, but in service to human welfare, 
which is the highest of all values. 
Figures of milk production in New 
York, the Empire Dairy State, show an 
almost magical increase for the war- 
period and the interval following. 
Demand has kept pace owing to 
unprecedented educational methods to 
inform the public of the true value 
of milk as a food. Fresh raw milk 
men in the universe. It is a real gift—if involun¬ 
tary—they cannot afford to make it and if we 
cannot help to standardize prices and marketing 
conditions to insure them a fair return for their 
labor and investment, thousands of them will 
soon have to go out of business, which will be a 
great public misfortune. 
It takes years to build a good dairy. The herd 
must be selected with skill and care; disease must 
be eliminated and kept out. No lout can produce 
milk of the standard to which our public is 
accustomed. Our best dairy farmers in New 
York State have earned prestige by years of 
receiving 
CPE at for the 
oh ISW'TTHArr JUST 'W0KrTE*H)L J 
Copyright by the New York Tribune Co. 
THE BULLISH CORN MARKET 
-Darling in the New York Herald Tribune 
as a looa. Jfresn raw milk is the 
most popular soda fountain drink of the day. 
Truly we have discovered a fountain of eternal 
youth, for all great scientific authorities agree that 
milk has incomparable virtues as a builder of 
nerve force and muscular energy. 
Dairymen in the last decade have kept pace 
with every demand for quality in the product of 
their herds. The type of cattle has been carefully 
selected for high production and increased butter 
fat; costly balanced rations are in general use. 
A pound of feed costs almost as much today as a 
quart of milk. Dairymen have met every demand 
of health officials and inspectors of the milk 
companies to safeguard milk and keep it clean and 
free from disease. Millions are being spent today 
to give consumers the finest milk supply in any 
part of the world for the cheapest price—much 
less than cost of production. 
It is true that New York State dairymen are 
making today a magnificent contribution to the 
commonwealth and common welfare. They are 
giving more to humanity than any large group of 
application to a business which keeps them hard 
at work from 12 to 16 hours a day, every day in 
the year. They know what good milk is and have 
no rivals or peers. The product they sell to the 
public they use on their own tables—fresh and 
delicious. 
Now for some idea of the amount of milk 
produced on our farms and handled in the New 
York city markets: 
In June, 1924, New York City took 3,758,745 
forty-quart cans of milk and cream; this amazing 
total was exceeded in June, 1923, by 173,538 cans 
—milk enough to float the Leviathan and to make 
the Woolworth Building a very small island with 
a little spire sticking above the flood. 
An idea of growth is given by figures in 1909 
with a delivery of only 1,225,917 cans; 1915, 
1,539,372; 1916, 1,589,281. The current year is 
the first to show a falling off for more than twenty 
years. We need more quality milk, not less. 
And also, I should say, both public and pro¬ 
ducers need education as to sound and correct 
methods of milk marketing. W’e have passed the 
day when we may expect to buy a good article at 
less than it costs to produce it. Trusts and 
monopolies controlling all industry except agri¬ 
culture will not sell except at a profit; they meet 
losses by stopping production. 
The great volume of milk used in the New York 
market comes from a territory covered by one 
large farmers’ marketing agency—the Dairymen’s 
League. If the League marketed all milk or even 
the most of it for producers, the problem of 
standardizing conditions would be simple. It is 
confused by the introduction of competitive sales 
agencies representing both dealers and farmers' 
cooperatives. A study of this situation is being 
made by Prof. Warren of Cornell. It is also 
attention from a group conference 
committee representing some of the 
competing elements which handle most 
of the milk produced'. The future o: 
dairying depends upon the ability anc 
sincerity with which this work is done. 
Such figures as I have quoted refer 
to three per cent, milk at present 
prices. Statistics for the whole year 
ending March 31, 1924, show return 
to the farmer for all milk of $2.31 per 
cwt. This figure includes the butter 
fat premium of an average of 19 cents 
a year; obviously the return to the 
farmer for three per cent, milk was 
$2.12 per cwt. The Warren formula 
show r s the average cost of producing 
milk on the farm in New York State 
during the year 1923, as $2.82 per 
cwt. Costs are higher this year, 
Comparing cost of production with 
the average pool price of $2.31, shows 
that it cost 51 cents a cwt. more for 
production than was received by the 
farmer for nearly five billion pounds of 
milk. The outlook this year is much 
worse. No scheme of diversified 
farming can balance it. 
In the matter of milk prices it is of 
the utmost importance that the New 
York farmer be protected in his 
market as a reward for modern 
methods of production, additional 
investment to protect health and 
efficient marketing through a farmers’ 
organization. The braiding up of a 
market to meet potential conditions 
which we can see as of vast public 
importance in the immediate future 
should not be discouraged. 
Better quality product is what we 
all look for. Dr. Monoghan, Health 
Commissioner of New York City, has 
written to me inviting producers to a 
conference to find if possible better 
ways and means of protecting quality 
production and insuring to producers a 
fair return for their efforts. 
Referring again to higher prices paid for cheese 
milk in Lewis County. I have assumed that the 
cheese factories had sold some fluid milk to compet¬ 
ing city dealers; but an expert informs me that a 
better price for cheese milk is determined bv 
efficiency of cheese-factory operation and market 
price of cheese. However that may be the net 
price to farmers for three per cent, milk paid by 
cheese factories in Lewis County in June was 
$1.57; League price, same place, $1.17; Sheffield 
Farms, $1.68; League and Sheffield deal in fluid 
milk and are manufacturers—but the League 
carried cost of surplus in fluid milk prices and 
Sheffield makes no deduction. 
Differing market methods and their affect on 
prices at the farm may be illustrated by three 
years’ return in the cheese section, where the 
average for the pool for the three June months 
shows a total of $3,763,977.01 lower than cheese 
returns; during the same three months Sheffields 
paid $2,932,736.21 more than cheese factory 
which estimated on volume of pooled milk shows 
{Continued on page 110) 
