“The commission has therefore selected as a base, representing cost of production and a fair profit, the average sale price per one hundred (100) pounds over the years 1908 to 1915, inclusive. The result of course does not represent present value, due to the large advance in cost of feed and labor since that time. The quantity of feed and labor per one hundred (100) pounds of milk, however, is the same in both periods. Considering the eight-year period as a base and distributing feed and labor on a basis of 100 per cent total, the commission developed the following ratio: Nineteen per cent home-grown grains, 19 per cent mill-feeds (wheat, bran, wheat middlings, hominy, cottonseed meal, oil meal, gluten feed, dry salt), 35 per cent hay (including silage valued at the ratio of three tons of silage to one ton of hay), 27 per cent labor. “It was agreed by the commission that variations in the prices of those four units represent with sufficient accuracy, when applied according to the above ratio, the increase or decrease in the cost of production of milk. The only criticism made to this base or this plan was by a minority of the members of the commission, that the price to the producer during the eight-year period referred to was not satisfactory to them. “From the monthly price reports issued by the Department of Agriculture, the farm prices of home-grown grains and hay are obtainable, and from a reliable trade journal published in Milwaukee the wholesale prices of mill-feeds are obtainable. The average over the eight-year period from these records is as follows: Corn, $1.107 per hundred pounds; mill-feeds, $1.306 per hundred pounds; hay, 55.7 cents per hundred pounds. “It appears fair to the industry that it is entitled to the same proportionate increase in the price of its product as has occurred in the elements which make up the product. From the records of the Department for November, 1917, the beginning of the period under consideration, the following prices prevailed, obtained from the same sources: Corn, $3.089 per hundred pounds; mill-feeds, $2.3655 per hundred pounds; hay, 78 cents per hundred pounds. “The commission has considered from the evidence and such information as was obtainable that the price of labor in November represents 50 per cent advance over the average for the eight-year period. Using the proportion of feed and labor and prices over the eight-year period, and comparing with November prices from the same source of information and on the same products, we find the following ratio of increase: