356 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



DISCUSSION, THE SAME OLD STORY. 



Opened by E. L. Bradford, Auburn. 

 (Stenographic Report.) 



They asked me what I would talk about, and I said, "The 

 same old story, I guess." So they put it down. Afterwards 

 the Commissioner asked me to talk about the railroad rates, and 

 I understood that I was to be let off on this part of the program. 

 However, there are a few things I want a little advice on, in 

 return for some of the advice given you so freely the past 

 year. There are two matters ; I have not been here every day, 

 and if I bring up anything that has been all worked over, you 

 need not tackle it again, but if it is new, I wish you would dis- 

 cuss it. 



One thing will be the tuberculin test. Something we have 

 paid a good many thousands of dollars to farmers for in the 

 last five or six years, to recompense them for many thousands 

 they had paid out to have their cows tuberculin tested. I con- 

 fess that my idea originally was that it would enhance the value 

 of our product, and I have not paid very much attention to the 

 farmers' end of this thing; I have worked almost exclusively to 

 get as much money for the product as I could — I ought to say 

 the Association has done some work in this way — and allow 

 the farmer as much as we could afford to after expenses were 

 paid. I have not studied feed problems nor breeding problems, 

 or anything of the sort ; I have had more than I could do with 

 efficiency to get the best results, the most money for our 

 product. My idea probably was, originally, that we would be 

 in enough better standing, or our product would, to recommend 

 it to the consumer, so it would pay what we have paid to the 

 farmer. That was not the proper method, considering how 

 much we have heard the last few days about pasteurizing milk ; 

 it does not seem to make much difference whether there are 

 tuberculosis germs in it or not, or other bacteria, as they are all 

 killed in the pasteurization process. Now, I do not see many 



