The Lynden tribune. [volume] (Lynden, Wash.) 1908-current, 1921-06-23
MILK COSTS
ABOVE PRICE
DAIRY INDUSTRY REPORT.
ED TO BE IN BAD SHAPE
King County Dairyman Reports
Cost of Production at 1922 a
Hundred for SO Base Product

The cost of producing milk received
another airing recently in one of the
Seattle papers which stated that the
industry as whole was in poor finan-
cial condition and faced destruction
If no remedy was found for present
conditions. In this connection Tom
Owens, who runs large dairy in the
Lake Samamish section, says that it is
costing him $2.12 hundred to pro.
duce milk that is 3.6 per cent butter
fat. That is his barn cost alone, repre-
senting feed, labor and other barn ex-
penses and does not include the over
head of his farm, insurance, taxes, de-
probation and upkeep which run as
nigh as $14.00 day which divided by
the 21OO pounds of milk he is produc-
ing makes another cost of 67 cents per
hundred pounds. This added to the
$2.12 makes his actual cost practically
$3.50 a hundred against $165 being
paid by the condensaries and $2.07 the
Seattle milk commission price.
Besides his pasturage Mr.. Owens is
feeding about four pounds of grain a
day-one-half the winter ration
five pounds of hay at $23 a ton. He
has cut his herd down to only his best
producing COWS and when it is shown
that he has six cows which alone are
giving 60 gallons of milk a day it is
easy to see that he has a producing
herd.
One of the troubles with the milk
business as Mr. Owens sees it is what
he calls the grass farmers, or the men
who do not make any effort to have
their cows come fresh in the fall
These men figure on having their
cows fresh in the spring when they
get pasturage and carry them through
the winter season dry on hay. This
throws heavy production on the sum-
mer months when there would natural
ly be more than the average amount
of milk if all farmers We're rotating
the time when their COWS would fresh
en,and makes a supply that the dis
tributors in the cities cannot take
care Of
If the producers are to continue this
over production in the summer months
Mr.. Owens suggests that they separate
their milk, sell the butter fat to the
churns, and feed the skim milk to hogs
or to veal. in any event they 10 not
get a price for it in Seattle that pays
to ship it and the shortage of produc-
tiOn in the winter months makes ii
Improbable for the condensaries to
operate.
Another cost that enters into the
distribution of milk and one which
Mr.. Owens says must be reduced, is
the wage received by the milk drivers.
The price of milk is now on pre-war
basis, but milk wagon drivers are re-
ceiving 1928 a day as against $500
day before the war. The average re-
tail milk route will carry less than 300
quarts of milk, but allowing that num-
Der the difference in the wage would
amount to more than a cent quart.
OF course it is true that good deal
of the milk handled by the distributors
is wholesaled and some of the drivers
carry as much as 600 to 700 quarts.
but at the same time few of the retail
drivers carry more than from 200 to
$50 quarts. No one wants to see wages
cut. but Mr.. Owens believes that some
of the readjustment should be distri-
buted and not all of it passed on to the
producer. There are about so quarts
of milk in a hundred pounds and that
added to the present price would help
pay the producers bills.
The father of Mr.. Owens herd Is
HOLLYWOOD Veeman Segis which has
won first prize at the Portland show
two years in succession. He also won
first prize last year at the Idaho state
fair, at the Lewiston stock show, at
the Yakima fair and at the Puyaliup
fair. A junior two-year-old in the herd