The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1916-04-20
What Does II Cost TO Produce
a Quart Of Milk?

people and other business men
employ expert efficiency counsel
ors to strictly account for all
items of cost of production, trans
portation and doing business. L.
w. Lightly, dairying expert Of
the Pennsylvania Department OF
Agriculture says that the farmer
can use business methods with
good results. To place the dairy
on a profit-making basis, Mr..
Lightly says:
THE farmer is a manufacturer
and should be a business man
and cannot begin too soon to do
some careful cost accounting.
In the production of a quart of
milk enter many items of cost.
The feed cost is the largest and
the next is the labor cost, then
follow the buildings and the cost
of delivering the milk at the sta
tion or creamery. The interest
and depreciation on the stock and
equipment is an important item.
Taxes and other miscellaneous
items, six or seven in number,
all help to swell the cost. Ex-
perts at Cornell University COM
piled cost figures obtained in New
Hampshire, Massachusetts, Con-
necticut. New Jersey and New
York and found that the average
cost of keeping a COW a year
ranged from S10767 in New
York, to $63. lin Massachusetts.
THE New Hampshire figures
were obtained by keeping a strict
record of twenty.six farm herds
in a COW testing association for
one year. The cows were above
the average Of the state in quail
ty and production. The average
cost of keeping the cow for a
year was $147.73 and the aver
age cost of a quart of milk from
these twenty-six herds was $.042
The New Jersey cost Of milk is
the same and the figures were ia
ken from the work of the Agri-
cultural Experiment Station herd
which has better animals than
the average on the farms. Con-
necticut and Massachusetts re-
spectively found the cost of a
quart of milk $.046 and S.052 the
figures also taken from the work
of the Experiment Station herds.
The New York figures were OBJ
tanned by keeping careful records
of TIA farm herds consisting Of
abont 5000 cows during two
years. In 1912 a quart of milk
$.051 and in 1918 a quart cost
$.044 on the average.
Here is something strange.
In 1918 feeds were higher, labor
was higher, cows were higher
and yet the cost of milk dropped
seven-tenths of a cent per quart.
Why this change? Invariably
when we begin to keep records
of the production of the cows,
the cost of production is reduced.
So long as we keep no records,
we keep boarders and not a few
robber cows. Let me show you
what the Cornell Investigators
found in 1912. An average loss
was sustained by the owners Of
$40 cows of $4,000 per cow, for
while the average milk produc-
ton per COW was about 1,500
quarts the year through. Cows
to make a profit had to produce
fully twice as much milk during
the year.
Wherever and whenever we
keep records of the production
of our herds we find from one
third to two-thirds of the cows
we feed are not making ny prof
it and often we sustain consid-
cradle loss by keeping such indi-
vidual cows. The most practical
most economical and altogether
the best way to keep these re-
cords is by the organization Of
cow-testing associations. At a
very small cost to the individual
farmer, a strict accounting and
record of production can be kept
of every individual COW in the
entire community. Theseneigh-