That was less than four cents a day for cow feed to produce two gallons of milk, or about two cents a gallon.

The wages of the girls who milked them and my wages for driving them amounted to three cents a gallon.

In other words, the cost of labor in getting the milk from the cows more than doubled the cost of the milk.

This was my first lesson in political economy.
I learned that labor costs are the chief item in fixing the price of anything.
The less labor used in producing milk, the cheaper the milk will be.

The reason wages were high in America was because America was the land of labor-saving machinery.