_Dr._
850 lbs. bale Hay, at $22 per ton $9.35
1,000 lbs. Corn Meal, at $1.35 per 100 lbs 13.50
400 lbs. Bran, at $1.30 per 100 lbs 5.20
200 lbs. Fine Feed, “Shorts,” at $1.55 per 100 lbs 3.10
20 bundles of bedding Straw, at 10c. 2.00
Paid man for care and milking, $1 per week 14.30
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Total expenses for 100 days $47.45
_Cr._
1,200 Quarts of best milk (12 quarts per day) at 7c. $84.00
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Money profit in 100 days $36.55
Or, to put it in another way, the six hundred quarts sold actually
brought in forty-two dollars cash, and the entire six hundred quarts
used at home cost five dollars and forty-five cents. The cow cost, say,
sixty-five dollars. The entire care, which was not paid in the surplus
of milk above twelve quarts per day, is charged in the expenses above.
The manure produced, if sold, would more than meet interest on the cost
of cow, and any depreciation in value by increasing age. Allow the above
average to be kept up only two hundred days in a year, and at the end of
that time suppose the cow is sold for half price (thirty-two dollars and
fifty cents), and a fresh one substituted, there would still be a gain
of forty dollars and sixty cents for two hundred days, or for a year a
profit of seventy-four dollars and ten cents.
With good feed the sixty-five dollar cow will keep up a full supply of
milk at least twenty-six weeks, and then be worth forty dollars for
continued milking and breeding. Sell her then and buy another fresh
cow for sixty-five dollars—a loss of fifty dollars a year. The above
liberal allowance of forty-seven dollars and forty-five cents for feed
and care one hundred days, amounts to one hundred and seventy-three
dollars and nineteen cents a year. Adding the loss of fifty dollars for
purchasing two fresh cows, makes the total annual expense two hundred
and twenty-three dollars and nineteen cents. This would make the supply
of milk, twelve quarts a day (four thousand three hundred and eighty
quarts), cost about five cents a quart, or not quite fifty-one cents for
ten quarts. This is not an exaggerated estimate for a sixty-five dollar
cow, renewed every twenty-six weeks. The feed and care may be very much
less than the above forty-seven dollars and forty-five cents per hundred
days, by saving all waste foods suitable for a cow, and by securing
pasturage seven or eight months, and especially when a cow can be cared
for by members of the family, thus saving fifty-two dollars a year.
Taking the country as a whole, probably fifty dollars will ordinarily buy
a cow that will, on fair feed, average ten to twelve quarts per day for
the first six months after calving.