VERMONT DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 107 



milk business, but which can be drawn upon at any time should 

 a strike or climatic condition produce a shortage of milk in 

 the city. 



A third firm of Boston wholesalers run a car through New 

 Hampshire to the Vermont line at White River Junction, con- 

 trolling' creameries in this state from which they draw occa- 

 sional supplies of milk and cream when the supply in the mar- 

 ket demands, and which they hold in reserve as a possible 

 source of further supplies should the market require. 



Any figures on Vermont's sale milk business must necessa- 

 rily be somewhat vague and based on generalities, but I esti- 

 mate that the direct sale milk industry in Vermont approxi- 

 mates 44,000 quarts per day, with a contingent interest of 

 considerable more in creameries and cheese factories owned or 

 controlled by Boston milk wholesalers as a possible source of 

 supply for the Boston market in case of trouble. The value 

 of this business is hard to estimate, because the milk shipped 

 to Boston brings a much smaller price than that retailed by 

 the producer among his neighbors, but 45,000 quarts at two 

 cents per quart amounts to $900 per day, or $328,000 oer year. 



Very few people are aware at first thought, or until they 

 have studied into the question, of the great difference in in- 

 terest and motives between sale milk dairying and butter and 

 cheese making. The butter maker is interested in producing 

 the greatest amount of butter fat possible. He cares nothing 

 about the quality of any individual quart of milk; but with 

 scales, Babcock tester and multiplication table he figures on 

 the total amount of butter fat which his cows will produce in 

 a week, month or year. It is a good deal the same with the 

 cheese maker. But when we come to the sale milk producer 

 we meet an entirely different condition of affairs. Speaking 

 in a general way — barring a few exceptions to be noticed later 

 on — he cares nothing whatever about the quality of the milk, 

 but looks only at the quantity. He is not engaged in produc- 

 ing butter fat but in producing quarts. He buys cows that 

 will yield the greatest quantity. If he raises his own calves 

 he breeds from the cows that are the heaviest milkers. This 

 condition of things tends to develop by breeding and selection 

 a race of animals which give poorer and poorer milk so far as 

 total solids is concerned. Let a community which has been 

 producing milk for a local creamery stop and begin the ship- 

 ment of milk to Boston; and inside of two years the average 

 milk produced in that place will decrease two or three per 

 cent, in total solids. 



Were it not for two things this tendency would continue in- 

 definitely, how far I do not claim to be able to predict 

 athough it would be extremely interesting as a matter of curi- 



