Vermont Dairymen's Association. 33 



the dirt. They use the unwashed milk pail to catch the cream. 

 I have even known one to set a covered twenty gallon can under 

 the separator, to run a rubber pipe from the cream spout down 

 through the vent hole of the cover and to leave it there, running 

 the cream in from several separations until the next gathering 

 occurred. They wash the separator once a week, possibly ; I am 

 not sure that they do it then. 



We hear much about education along these lines, that we 

 must teach them the wrong of such actions. I am tired of that 

 kind of nonsense. It needs something more stringent. Educa- 

 tion is all right in its place, but is no remedy for nastiness. A 

 good dose of refusal does that kind of patron more good than all 

 the talking you can do in a year. As long as you will take that 

 kind of stuff, you will get it, but when you commence to cut it 

 out you will get it in better condition. Somebody says "I know 

 the stuff isn't fit to take, but my competitor's team runs right by 

 their door, and if I refuse it, they will leave me and go to him." 

 If it comes to that, let his competitor have it ; but in nine cases 

 out of ten they won't leave you ; and in ninety-nine cases out of 

 a hundred, it will prove to be just the thing that was needed. The 

 point is right here: If you refuse a bad lot of milk or cream, he 

 knows enough to realize that it is bad, and will not risk refusal 

 or his reputation, — if he thinks he has got any, — by offering it 

 to another party. If he has any pride, you have aroused it by 

 telling him of the facts ; and if he hasn't the sooner you find it out 

 and are through with him, the better. 



The test and the price. The most senseless thing a creamery 

 man ever did was to cut his patrons' test for the sake of raising 

 the price. The test is at the bottom of much of the patrons' dis- 

 trust of the creameryman, and the latter is largely to blame. 

 Many of our patrons are intelligent ; they take pains to know 

 what their milk and cream ought to test and are on the watch for 

 us. They want pay for the last point there is in it, and some even 

 more. I verily believe that if you should give some patrons the 

 whole world and fence it, they would want the sun, moon and 

 stars thrown in. 



Some one says "My competitor uses those methods ; I must 

 or go out of business." I know better. No man has to go out 

 of business because he uses square business methods and does 

 business in a square, business-like way. The sooner that we get 

 down to a straight business, and do business honestly and squarely 

 and in a businesslike way, the better for us as creamerymen, and 

 the better satisfaction it will give our patrons. Make your test 

 honestly and make your price come to it. Don't make your price 

 and then fit your test to it. 



