Moscow, USSR Travel Notes (1957)

State Farm, outside Moscow Sept. 5.

LESNIE POLJANA = PRARIE AMONG THE FOREST

2,000 acres; milk cows.

1, 000 tons milk produced a year

HOLMOGOR cows

Best cow produces 44 kilos of milk,

40% of the cows give from 6 to 8 1/2 thousand kilos of milk a year.

Butter fat: 3.76 %

In spring and autumn all animals are inspected

Inspection of milk every day by the people in charge of farm.

Each district has a control office and officials come and inspect farm.

People who work with animals must be healthy.

In the end "The best control is the people".

They raise all the feed for cattle. Get a concentrate from outside.

Alfalfa is grown and cut twice a year or something similar.

260 226 cows, 220 of them milking 550 pedigreed cattle in all

Milk is shipped in cans [illegible]

230 people work on farm all year round and not more than 20 extra hired in the summer.

(Astrakan is the breed of beef cattle)

(Moscow milk supply: The main milk organization has branch offices where different farms supply milk and they have factories where the milk is bottled. Litre of milk costs 2 rubles and 20 kopeks; loose milk is 2 rubles and 10 kopeks.)

7 April to October 5th is the growing season Cows are milked three times a day: between 3:00 a.m. and 5, 11 am. and 12:30, and 6:00 p.m. and 7:30.

House Visited on State Farm: Woman works with the baby calves. She is married and has one child—a boy. [7 rs.]' No running water in house, no toilet. Has TV, and radio [illegible]. There is a bath house for the group and special machinery for cleaning toilets. Wages for the woman are 800 rubles a month. Her husband works in factory nearby and makes 1,000 a month. Married 8 years.

How heated for winter?—STOVE

Small calves consume 6 litres (each) of milk a day