Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1873 edition. Excerpt: ...while in other cases, in different years, upon the same calculation, the whey has been more than worthless; so that it is not safe to place a high value upon it. Now, if the Massachusetts farmer in the dairy sections will take a careful inventory of all the capital invested, keep an exact account of his own labor, and all the labor employed on the farm for the year, with all the expenses attendant on the management of the farm on the one side, and all the sales, together with the support of the family, on the other, and when the balance is struck, if there is found more than the interest of the capital invested, then milk can be produced for less than two and a half (2) cents per quart. I am confident, from the best information I am able to obtain that a careful analysis of the whole matter would fail to give six per cent, interest on the capital invested. I have examined the cost of help at cheese-factories, and find it will require a dairy of at least twenty cows to bring an income sufficient to balance the account; and will require a less amount of help than the farm that will support the above number of cows. Thus on the one side labor alone is requisite, while on the other labor and capital are required. "But," says one, " would it not be better to sell the milk, and let the cheese be made farther from our markets?" I reply, that all the milk cannot be sold, as there is a greater supply than demand. I find, also, from one town in Worcester County, where a car was run daily to Boston for the transportation of milk, the price paid to the farmers for their milk, delivered at the car, during the last summer, was one and one-fourth (Ij) cents per pound, and as a quart of milk weighs but a small fraction over two pounds, the price would...
