l62 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



or you will be left behind it. I am sorry there are not any more 

 common farmers here today. As common farmers we have 

 got to get into line and produce something that the consumer 

 wants, and then we must have the price which will pay us for 

 making it. I think there will be no trouble in getting the price 

 when we get things into condition. 



Mr. GiLMAX. This question of reaching the indifferent man 

 has troubled the department for the last two or three years more 

 than anything else along the line of dairying. I want to say 

 that when we sent a man out to examine the stables and meet 

 the farmer face to face and talk the situation over, I cannot 

 recall a single instance where the farmer has not done what he 

 promised to do. I agree with the gentleman who last spoke, 

 that it will avail but little to send literature to them. It has 

 been our experience that they will not profit much by it. The 

 only way, it seems to me. to accomplish what we desire is for 

 the State Dairy Instructor to have an assistant and send him 

 out and let him meet the farmers on their own ground. We 

 need two men to devote their entire time to this dairy work, and 

 I believe we shall have no difficulty in impressing this fact upon 

 the coming legislature. 



F. O. Additon. 

 I was proud a few years ago to have Mr. Merrill come over 

 to my place. He did not criticize, so I took it for granted the 

 conditions w'ere fairly good. Our creameryman sent a man 

 around to the patrons. He wanted us to give him the names 

 of the poor patrons. The reply was, we do not have any poor 

 ones ; we handle a good product. I want to say to these men 

 who have spoken, do not place all the blame on the producer. 

 Inspect your creameries. I believe, Mr. Chairman, that there 

 is as much trouble with the products of the dairy after they 

 leave the producer's hands as there is on a majority of the 

 farms. Our wives keep the utensils clean, and the majority 

 of the barns are in fairly good condition. I have been into a 

 creamery w^here the butter w^as made under filthy conditions. 

 I have been into another creamery, as large as any in the State 

 of Maine, with one exception, where the utensils used, the cans 

 used, were kept in an old foundry building totally unfit for use. 



