540 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



annual contracts must be given by the milk dealers to the producers in 

 order to guarantee a twelve month supply of milk for city use. But so 

 changeable are the conditions affecting a milk price from season to season 

 that no definite consideration of price can be made in this agreement 

 which will be satisfactory for an entire year. On the other hand some 

 consideration must be mentioned to make the contract binding. The plan 

 has, therefore, been adopted of perfecting these contracts by stating the 

 value consideration as the price which the Detroit Milk Commission 

 shall have fixed as the proper price for the month in question. Stand- 

 ardized prices have come in this way to have a real meaning and useful- 

 ness in the city milk trade. 



SUMMARY. 



The Detroit Milk Commission plan, it may be said by way of summary, 

 has had its success, first by accepting the task of seeing that Detroit had 

 an adequate supply of milk. Milk under this Commission plan was 

 a city utility the same as water, gas or electricity ajid the Commission 

 identified itself as being in the same class of boards as those of schools, 

 parks or water supplies. In brief, it took the form of an executive 

 commission rather than one of merely administrative or judicial duties. 



Second : The Commission benefited from the fact tliat both the country 

 milk producers and the city milk dealers appeared as organizations 

 thus permitting collective treatment of tlieir wishes and grievances. 

 Each of these organizations, indeed, monopolized its respective field of 

 service and the ciij consumer of milk would have had no adequate 

 protection as to price had it not been for the commission plan. 



Third : The plan accepted cost of production as the basis from which 

 milk prices to the consumer should be readied. These, of course, in- 

 clude dealers' costs as well as the dairyman's and a small jjrofit besides 

 was allowed. Prices like tliis the city consumer must expect to pay. 

 When more universal practices among the dealers and among the pro- 

 ducers shall liave standardized their costs no more just prices can 

 be asked for by the city consumer Hi an tliose based on expenses of 

 production. 



The work of the Commission has clarified the view that milk is an 

 indispensable city utility and it seems that an important step has been 

 taken toward a suitable supervisory plan for tlie city milk supply. 



