Connecticut western news., 1880-07-28
OUR COWS AND THEIR VALUE.
Some Most Interesting Facts and
 Figures on Cheese and Butter.

At the late convention of the American Butter and Cheese Association, the President of the Northwestern Dairy mems Association, Hon. G. P. Lord, of Elgin, Ill.,, read paper in which he estimated the number of milch COWS in the United States at over 13,OOO, ,OOO, requiring the annual product of 52, ,OOO,- 900 acres of land for feed, giving en- ployment to $50, ,O0O' men, and requiring the labor of 866, 500 men. Estimating the COWS at Ss3O each, the horses $8O, and the land at $3O per acre, together with $20O, 100000 for agricultural and dairy implements, and the total amount in- vested in the industry is $s2, 219, ,28O, 900. This is considerably more than the amount invested in banking and the commercial and manufacturing interests of the country, which is $1, 800, 964, ,596. The cattle and horses require two tons of hay annually or its equivalent. If it is estimated that 5,0OO,OOO COWS are fed with grain for winter dairying, and that the horses daily require six quarts of oats or corn during the year, they will consume 28, ,383, 300 tons of hay, S4, ESQ., 900 bushels of corn meal, 84,37O,O 900 bushels of oat meal, 1,250,O00 tons of bran, 3O,0OO,000 bushels of corn, and 300, ,O0O bushels of oats, of total value of 1884, 459, 400. To this should be added the labor of 65O,OOO men at $2O per month, $156, 1000, ,OOO, making the annual value of $5O4, 459, 400, or an average of $38 80 per COW.
 Accepting twelve cents per gallon as basis for computing the value of the milk product, and 446 gallons the average yield per annum (this being the average in sixteen States in 186O), the 13,000,O0O COWS produce annually 5, E93,- 100000 gallons of milk, worth $695, 76O,- 900. Analysis shows that three and half pounds of milk contain the same kind and amount of nutrition as one pound of boneless beef. About fifty per cent of a fat steer is boneless meat, so that it will require 20,65O,OOO steers of l, 400 pounds weight to produce the same amount of nutrition as the annual milk product. Such fat steers would sell at $4,50 per cwt., or $63 each total of $1, 300, $50; deducting for hide and tallow, $26O, 19O,OO0, leaves the meat value $1, ,O4O, 76O, ,OOO. This gives the food value of the milk product in the United States annually. Willard, in his Practical Dairy Husbandry," says that milk at twenty-four cents per gallon is equivalent in value to boneless beef at nine cents per pound. It is false economy, therefore, that substituted meat for milk as an article of food.
 The same authority (Willard) states that fifty per cent of the milk is used in making cheese and butter, and forty-one per cent is consumed in liquid state. The Department of Agriculture, 1877, estimates there are 1000, GOO, 900 pounds of butter and 3OO,OOO,OOO pounds of cheese made annually in the United States. At twenty-seven pounds of milk for one pound of butter, and nine and half for one pound of cheese, the total amount of milk used would be 29, 95O,- 100000; add forty-one per cent of the product for consumption, the total pro- duction is 50, 752, ,325, GOO pounds, within @ small fraction of one per cent of the estimate made.
 The caseine in the milk used for making butter, if utilized for cheese, would produce annually 1,890,OoO, GOO pounds, and besides there is annually run off in the skinned milk, buttermilk, and whey 2OO,OOO,OOO pounds of milk sugar, which, if saved, would have 8 market value greater than the entire annual sugar crop of Cuba.