18 REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR OF THE 
broaden the work, until the accumulated data shall be such as to 
carry conviction to every one who shall carefully consider the 
results obtained. 
During the past four years Doctor Goessmann, of the Massa- 
chusetts Agricultural Experiment Station, has been conducting a 
series of experiments to determine the cost of the production of 
milk from different cows and upon different rations. 
He estimates that twenty per cent of the fertilizing value of the 
food is sold in the milk, and that eighty per cent may be saved by 
the adoption of proper methods for securing it. From the total 
cost of food he deducts eighty per cent of the value of its fertiliz- 
ing constituents and thus arrives at the net cost of the food, 
As an average for the four years, having the first year two cows, 
three the second, six the third and nine the fourth under experi- 
ment, he finds the variation in the cost of production of milk, 
comparing the least profitable cow upon the least economical 
food with the most profitable cow upon the most economical food 
to be as follows: 
—# 












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It will be seen that, as an average of the four years trial, the 
total cost of milk produced from one cow in the herd was about: 
three and three-quarter times as much as from another, and the 
net cost about five and one-half times as much from one cow as 
from another. 
This then we may consider as the result due to the differences 
SSS 
in cows and in food, and that the animals were above the average 
of our dairy cows is shown by the average milk product obtained. 
But if we take the general variation of all the cows, we shall 
find upon the average that the variation in total and net cost of — 
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