Fitzgerald leader enterprise and press. (Fitzgerald, Ben Hill County, Ga.) 1921-1964, 1926-07-08
PREDICTS MILK FAMINE
UNLESS DAIRYMEN
GET BETTER PRICES

American city dwellers are court
ing a milk famine by greatly under
paving the man who produces their
milk, is the opinion of Charles Staff,
secretary of the Larrowe Institute OF
Animal Economics. Prices consum-
ers are now paying for milk, makes
impossible "A decent living to the pro-
ducer who is fortunate if he can
get $500 day
Il takes I dairyman Tull half hour
daily to milk, feed and care for one
COW, says Mr.. Staff. A dairyman who
has twenty cows must put in ten
hours a day of solid work in looking
after them. Taking the average pro-
duction figures as basis, these twen-
ty cows will yield the dairyman a
gross return of $1,000 a day. Out of
this $1,000 he must charge up $500
for feed, hay and silage, and from the
remaining $500 must come taxes, in
terest on investment in equipment
and livestock, replacement of his cat
tie, straw for bedding, veterinary SER
vice, repairs to building and equip
ment, and man yother miscellaneous
items. Taking everything into con-
sideration, it would be very conserva-
tive to estimate these additional ex-
'penses. at $500 day, SO for his ten
hours of hard work, commencing not
later than FIVE in the morning, winter
and summer, rain or shine, dairy
man is fortunate if he gets for him
self $500 a day or zoe an hour. This
is less money than the poorest paid
worker in the city, and yet it requires
a man of no small intelligence to
properly feed and care for herd of
cows and produce milk of quality
that will pass inspection by the
Board of Health.
A drastic change in the existing
dairy situation must come if the dairy
industry is to be conserved, according
to Mr. staff. "The number of dairy
cows in the East is gradually dimin-
ishing. Young folks are not staying
on the farm and as the older people
reach the age when they feel they
can no longer bear the burden, they
also follow their children to the city,
or decide to give up their cows and
live on what means they. have avail
able. This is all very serious to the
city dweller, In the, not too distant
future, it seems to me that every
large city will find itself suddenly
confronted; with. milk famine, be-
cause the city folks have stoutly re-
sisted all efforts of the producer to
get fair living wage for his work.
And when that time of famine comes,
it will be too late to correct, the situa-
ton, because it takes years to build
up herds of dairy cows, and it will
not be easy to get dairymen back into
the dair ybusiness after they have
once gone out of it.
can increase of one cent to the
farmer for every quart of milk de-
livered to the city home would go far
toward remedying the present serious
state of affairs. The difference in
Tn hn fnr In
would not represent the price of a
single admission to a good movie
show, but the extra cent to the, farm
er would mean the difference between
starvation wage and living return.
If the dairyman with twenty cows
was paid one cent more per quart for
his milk, his net returns instead of
being $500 per day would be $500
per day, and the prospects are that
city folks would continue to get their
milk at a reasonable price over a
great many years, instead of finding
themselves confronted in two or three
years with the necessity of paying 10
or 20 cents a quart"
The individual dairyman can i'm
prove his own condition somewhat,
by the adoption of better methods
which will show him how to get the
extra dollar out of his business, ac-
cording to Mr.. Staff. A system of
cost records is of prime Importance.
This should include the weighing of
the feed and milk Of each COW and the
feeding of the animals. according to
their individual production. A saw
ing in feed, preservation of the
health OF, the cows and the production
fthe greatest amount of milk of
which the cows are capable, are
among the benefits to be derived from
weighing the feed for each cow APP.
portioned as closely as possible to hel