EXPEtllMENt STATION BtJLtfiTiNS. 637 



Butter fat production even is a different sort of dairy farming from 

 the production of city milk. Milk for the city comes from the herds of 

 specialized dairj^men using costly equipments under inspection and is 

 a daily whole year round task. Butter fat production is usually a side 

 line to some general farmer, is uninspected by city health boards and 

 may be done in the favorable timas of the year only; since butter fat 

 is easily kept in cold storage. The important differences between butter 

 fat and fluid milk are plainly too numerous to let the price of the one 

 fix the price of the other. 



Under the conditions prevailing in the Detroit area, cheese price quo- 

 tations would be a less safe guide than those of butter in reaching a just 

 price for fluid milk. Two-thirds of the food nutrients of milk are indeed 

 used in the making of cheese but the business itself is not carried on 

 within the area purveying to Detroit and the few other regions of 

 Michigan in which it is practiced are too remote to supply any con- 

 siderable amount of milk to the metropolis. 



At the subsequent meetings of the commission, milk prices were set 

 at new amounts so as to follow seasonal changes in costs of production 

 and other altered conditions. An interesting test was begun at an 

 early meeting to tr}^ out the merits of the "cash and carry" retail scheme 

 as applied to milk marketing. The most discussed point in the dis- 

 tribution of milk is the plainly heavy costs of making deliveries from 

 house to house. The commission provided for four stores in suitable 

 parts of the city where consumers could buy bottled milk at three cents 

 per quart less than the price at which milk was delivered. The bottle 

 loss whicli totals up so heavil}^ against the dealer in the usual system of 

 milk handling was to be stopped under this plan by making the milk 

 buyer return a bottle at each purchase or else pay for a new one. No 

 large amount of interest in this experiment, however, was shown by the 

 consumers and after a few months it was dropped. 



THE :milk surplus. 



Another problem second only in importance to that of milk prices was 

 that of the milk surpluses and shortages and this was taken up by the 

 commission at an early meeting. Milk surpluses and shortages as these 

 annual over supplies and deficits are called which occur in the milk 

 trade of every city are the result of a natural misfit between the city's 

 demand for milk and the country supply and their banefulness can 

 scarcely be over estimated. 



The city consumption of milk while continuous from day to day the 

 .year round is very much greater during the summer and fall months 

 than in the spring or winter. Natural conditions are the cause of this 

 since the warm weather of summer and fall stimulates tlie use of milk 

 in all its forms and it also causes spoilage through the greater diffi- 

 culties of preservation to the average householder. There is no easy 

 relief from this situation and only witli the coming of cool weather and 

 the consequent change of diet does the demand decrease and tend to 

 equal the supply. 



Milk production also varies immensely according to the season of 

 the year being largest in the spring, smallest in the fall and medium in 

 the winter. The dairyman disting-uishes these three periods in order as 

 the periods of pasture feeding, that of part pasture and that of stable 



