2^2 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



Mr. Cummings: I supposed the Grange was a farmers' in- 

 stitution. If we have any interests in it detrimental to the 

 farmers, I don't think they should be considered to any great 

 extent. I think if the farmer can get justice that is about all 

 he can expect. 



Question: I should like to ask Brother Cummings if he is 

 a Granger? 



Mr. Cummings: I have been for twenty-five years. 



President Tucker : Have you anything to say, Brother 

 Pattee, before we close? 



Mr. Pattee: I want to have one last fling at my friend, 

 Brother Bradford. I think your organization — if you organize 

 the milk business — can be better accomplished if it is taken as 

 a separate, distinct proposition. Made up as it is and with the 

 work it is doing in the east, I doubt if the Grange organization 

 is now adapted to this sort of thing, and whether it is or not 

 it would be a workable proposition to undertake this thing a:^ 

 Grange work. I think the Grange should lend itself to the 

 movement ; give the use of its halls and machinery, but this 

 is a distinct problem and the milk business of New England 

 should, in my opinion, be organized as a business, separate and 

 distinct. Now, with that in view, some of us — who have made 

 a study with the hope of perfecting such an organization — have 

 already evolved a plan which we hope to get into working 

 order this winter. Our plan is that these men around a com- 

 mon center shall group themselves into a local organization ; 

 then these will come into a county organization ; each county 

 organization shall elect some person who shall be the director 

 of that county in the great central organization, and the central 

 organization shall organize themselves, study markets, study 

 prices, terms of contract, forms and methods of shipment, and 

 it would be highly desirable that we have a dairy survey of all 

 New England to_ show us the advantages of different methods 

 of shipment. Such a survey has been completed in Windham 

 County, Conn., showing one man how he could, by using a 

 different container, save $123 a year in freight. He did not 

 realize how much it meant to him to ship in a different kind of 

 container. Incidentally, it was also shown to him under his 

 tests how much he would have received had he sold under the 

 Turner Centre svstem. and the difference was in favor of the 



