EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETINS. 539 



ISIany solutions of this milk deniaiid and snpply misfit have been 

 offered. The fact that it is governed by natural causes makes its 

 remedy diHicult. Nearly all large city dealers have at their country 

 receiving stations or at tlieir city plants appliances for turning milk 

 surplus into by-products. But this is no real solution of the difficulty 

 since it is plain at once that high grade city milk cannot profitably 

 be turned into milk powdei', butter, cheese or condensed milk. The 

 dairyman producer is totally witliout facilities for handling a surplus 

 so that the surplus and shortage difficulty seems to be permanently a 

 feature of the milk trade. 



At any rate since it is impossible for the regular dairymen pro- 

 ducers to furnish an adequate supply of milk in this shortage season city 

 dealers must secure their supplies from new fields of production. This 

 frequently requires long shipments of milk from distant places in the 

 state which frequently must be paid for at a great loss to the city dealer. 



The Commission canvassed many schemes for dealing with the surplus 

 and shortage question. In the end the plan was adopted of distributing 

 the misfortune of these misfits as equitably as possible between the dis- 

 tributors and the producers. The dealers must pay during the time of the 

 spring months surplus full city prices for all milk used by them for 

 ordinary city purposes. The balance of the milk, however, which the 

 dealer must take during this time must be paid for at a rate which 

 represents the receipts of the dealer from milk used for inferior lines of 

 milk manufacture. There was but little complaint to the Commission 

 over the justness of this principle and other than the practical difficulties 

 in agreeing upon the details of the surplus it has given satisfaction to 

 all concerned. 



The correction of the shortage difficulty allowed even less room for 

 reform on the part of the Commission than was true of the surplus. 

 The price of milk was raised during these shortage months as high as 

 during any other time of the year. This of course called out the great- 

 est amount of milk possible from the dairymen since all were desirous 

 of receiving the higher price. This together with emergency purchases 

 from the more distant parts of the state enables the city to tide over 

 its deficit until the coming of cold weather which once more enables the 

 regular milk area to meet the demand. 



UNIFORM MILK PRICES. 



The making of uniform milk prices throughout tlie Detroit area was 

 also another useful result from the commission's work. The bulletin of 

 the Department of Agriculture, No. 639, "The Market Milk Business of 

 Detroit in 1915" speaks on page 27 of country milk prices as follows: 

 "The prices paid to farmers by the various dealers competing with one 

 another in the market milk business of the city varied considerably. 

 Milk dealers as well as the farmers were dissatisfied with conditions." 

 The making of an official milk price by the commission ended all this. 

 Varying only as distances from the city varied or as there were differ- 

 ences in the quality of milk the milk price quotation was now uniform 

 throughout the whole area selling to Detroit. 



The Commission's prices have indeed proven almost indispensable in 

 the working scheme which is used between the Michigan Milk Producers' 

 Association and the city dealers' organization. As is well known 



