No. 6. DEPARTiMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 413 



the one who does not always live up to the requirements of the law. 

 I made an effort to secure statistics from both the State and Fed- 

 eral Departments for the year just closed, but was unable to gather 

 any, hence the Committee is obliged to report without the usual 

 statistics, ordinarily so valuable. 



Let us hope, by way of conclusion, that the Committee did not 

 fail to impress upon this body the great importance of the dairy in- 

 dustry and its products so as to build up our soil condition and the 

 health of the nation, realizing fully that the dairy product fur- 

 nishes the nourishment of mankind from the cradle to the grave. 



The CHAIRMAN: Is there any discussion on this report? 



MR. DeWITT: Tioga county has more creameries and more 

 money invested in creameries, I think, than any other county in the 

 State. What I may say I do not wish people to think is a thing that 

 particularly belongs to Tioga county; but I wish to say it to warn 

 you fellows who have some little private institutions of your own and 

 some creameries, some skim milk stations and some cheese factories of 

 your own, not to be too free to give them up to large corporations 

 who will seek to destroy your little plants and build up a plant of 

 their own and then you are at their mercy. Such is the situation that 

 confronts the dairymen of our county today. Gentlemen, there was 

 a time when we had, all over that county, small institutions like 

 that I have been telling you about. We had small creameries run by 

 the farmers who had consolidated themselves, a few of them, to make 

 their own butter ; cheese factories which had consolidated in the same 

 ■^ay — a few of the farmers had come together and built some cheese 

 factories and made their own cheese. Just recently there was dis- 

 satisfaction, and not only recently, but this thing has been going 

 on for sometime. About 15 years ago some corporations crept in 

 there and set up a skimming station, a butter factory, a powdered 

 milk factory, two or three milk condenseries, and some of the patrons 

 of those are not just satisfied with the treatment they have been re- 

 ceiving. They held a meeting just the other day in one of the locali- 

 ties where I live, and in fact the milk from any farm goes to one of 

 these corporations, and they wished to have a talk, as the farmers, 

 I think, were entitled to have a talk with those people who were run- 

 ning this factory or condensery. They did not appear upon the scene, 

 but told them ''If you are not satisfied with our usages go somewhere 

 else." 



It reminds me of the fellow that died. He went to the good place 

 and he looked the books over and did not find himself recorded there; 

 finally he went down to the other place and they didn't find his name 

 recorded there and told him to go. He asked, "Where will I go?" They 

 said, "I don't care where you go, you ought to go back where you 

 came from." Now here is what I wish to tell you men who are in- 

 terested in the dairy business, that they had our little creamery, 

 they had our little skimming station and they had our cheese factory 

 all destroyed; we have nothing; we are just simply at their mercy, 

 and now the question that arises is to get those men together again 

 and try to get them together so that we can get our milk into another 

 channel of being manufactured. 



