86 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



affairs. The speaker believes that a period of education or of 

 ripening of opinion must come before rash action or broad ac- 

 tion can be taken. Your worthy Commissioner is taking a nec- 

 essary step in thus placing the problem well to the front in his 

 institute work. 



I trust that it may not be regarded inappropriate for me to 

 say that at my suggestion the New England Afilk Producers' 

 Company is to take a new and I believe advanced position in the 

 effort to secure a voice in the price of their milk. It was voted 

 at their meeting in Boston in January that a thoroughly compe- 

 tent man be secured and an adequate price be paid to insure 

 such a man. One is to be sought who is at once an organizer 

 and a diplomat. He is to be placed in an office in Boston. His 

 work is to be to master the problem of transportation, to learn 

 minutely the cost of distribution of milk in Boston, to arrange 

 on amicable terms with the contractors of the milk supply in 

 Boston, if possible, to secure a steady price by the year and to 

 aid them in steadying the price for the city ; also to acquaint 

 the consumer with the fact that condensed milk contains far 

 more bacteria than new and whole milk and sells for much 

 more per pound of milk solids than whole milk, in short that 

 it is a very inferior milk, and to invite attention to this fact 

 from the Boston Board of Health, that has found so much fault 

 with the milk supply and by broad denunciations of some 

 milk, conveyed the impression to the consumer that all milk 

 is filthy and likely to be diseased, thus playing into the 

 hands of the condensed milk companies. Tlie mayor and the 

 press in the language of excitement have inculcated the same 

 false belief. The press carries heavy advertisements of con- 

 densed milk. To counteract these influences and to reach the 

 ear of the consumer is a difficult task but one that must be ac- 

 complished. The consumption of whole milk has heavily de- 

 creased in Boston and of condensed milk greatlv increased under 

 the onslaughts of the agencies named. This is abnormal to 

 Boston, it not occurring elsewhere to the same degree. H Bos- 

 ton can be made to know the truth and milk consumption come 

 back to its normal amount, and in keeping with the increased 

 population of the city, there would be no surplus milk at fair 

 rates left for the market. Then, too, the producers must be 

 made somehow to feel that a dollar to the company is a far 



