THE DAIRY.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 852, 8 January 1879, Page 4 (Supplement)

THE DAIRY.

THE LOWEST COST OF A POUND OF MILK.

The most important fact for farmers to know is the lowest practical cost of a «iven product. The elements that go to fnake up this knowledge are very diverse, and if every dairyman could answer accurately the heading of this article he would have more knowledge than anyone at present possesses. This is a humiliating confession, but it is nevertheless true. It would, at first thought, seem an easy matter to determine the oost of a pound of milk. The simplest method to determine it, in reference to a particular cow, would be to keep an accurate account of her food, attendance, and yield of milk for a season ; but this would only give the cost of milk from that particular cow, which might be less or more than that of another cow of the same breed. 'Then suppose we were to take twenty native cows, so called, and accurately determine the cost of food and attendance and the yield of milk for one year, this would give us the facts necessary'for estimating the average cost of a pound of milk from these twenty cows ; 1 hut these oows might be very unlike in their yield of few of them producing a pound with one-third less food than otbers-and thus not giye the lowest practicable oost of milk, even from native cows, since selections could be made that would yield much more milk from the same food. It will thus be seen that the lowest practicable coat of milk of a given breed can be found only from the selection of a large number of the best cows of that breed. If attention had been given to the selection of the best cows of a given breed, and accurate weighings of the milk made on so krge a scale as to test the best eapagitiea of the breed, so that we might find the proper i ayerage, and then if we had studied practically the most economical food to produce the best quality of milk, we might find, with great precision the lowest practical cost of milk for ftie breed j; W the data has not yet been found to : determine this except for individual cows .or herOa; and fn these cases only an approximation can be given.

The few points we have mentioned only go to show how extensive and complicated are the questions that arise in finding the lowest practicable cost of a pound of milk. All these questions would have been solved long since had agriculture' been pursued with the same intelligent care that k shown in manufacturing enterprise. . The beat data at hand for the solution of this question is found in the report of Colonel Zadock Pratt, made to the New York Agricultural Society of his dairy of native cows, commencing with the year 1857 and ending with 1865, or nine years, with an average herd of 58 cows for the whole period. The average production of milk was 4642 lbs. per cow per annum. In the year 1863 he kept two cows, and had an average of 5671 lbs. of milk per cow. This is the best case on record of the continued yield of native cows, in such large numbers and for so many years. These cows were fed, in addition to pasture and hay, during the milking season, two quarts of oats, corn, and buckwheat, ground together. Let U3 see how near we can approximate to the cost of this milk. If we supposed the land on which the cow is pastured to be worth 100 dollars, and interest to be six per cent., the cow to be worth 40 dollars, and the annual interest on her value to be 10 per cent., and hay to be worth 8 dollars per ton, the account will stand :

Value of cow §4O, 10 per cent. ... §4 0 Pasturing 6 0 4SO }bs, of ground feed 3 60 Two tons of hay at §8 10 0 Labour over value of manure 5 0

"Whole cost of 4642 lbs of milk or 77 per cent per lb. ...834 60 Thi3 would make 464 lbs. of cheese, or 200 lbs. of butter, as Colonel Pratt actually produced, per cow. If this was good creamery butter, worth 30 cents, per lb., it woujd yield a profit of 25 lols. per head. —National Live Stock Journal. ♦■ EFFECT OF BONES ON DAIRY FARMS.

As an evidence of the great value of a. dressing of bone-dust upon dairy farms, we have the testimony of an English agricultural writer of high repute, and the author of a Royal Agricultural Society's Prize Essay, This, gentleman states that sinpe bone manures have been applied to the Cheshire pastures, the product of the soil in herbage and cheese has been greatly increased; in many cases have been aotually doubled. The increase of stock kept in the locality has been from 30 to 50 per cent., and in one case, of a farm of 160 acres, the number of feeding stook has been enlarged from 20 cows and 3 colts, to 35 cows, 8 feeding beeves, 16 yearlings and heifers, 5 horses and 3 colts. But at the same time it is true, the quality of the cheese has been [to some extent deteriorated, except where the most skilful management has been applied to the manufacture ; the richer herbage being found to produoe milk whioh requires the greatest care and skill in every step of its manufacture into cheese.