1907] DISCUSSION, 185 



the people, as a class, are no dififerent from those of other 

 towns, but you let a milkman announce that he will sell milk 

 a half a cent a quart cheaper than the others, and that is the 

 man that is going to get the trade over and above the other man 

 who tries to keep a good sanitary stable. That is not an 

 encouraging state of affairs. The question is, therefore, how 

 is a man going into the business of milk farming in the state 

 of Connecticut, I mean into the business of running a clean 

 sanitary well-kept milk farm, when he is face to face all the 

 time with that sort of thing. Such a man may spend a good 

 deal of time in building up a trade, but I venture to say that if 

 today or tomorrow some other milkman comes down a half 

 a cent in the price of milk in the town in which he resides that 

 that man's customers will leave him by the score. Now those 

 are facts that you have got to meet. You cannot deny but 

 that today it is not quality but cheapness of the article that 

 you are obliged to deal with. I have seen how this works 

 out time and time again. I produce sterilized butter. I had 

 a customer that I furnished for three years. Another man 

 went to that house and he said, " I will sell you your butter 

 for twenty-five cents a pound during the summer, but during 

 the winter I must have so much more." I could not sell my 

 product for that. The fact is the farmer has to meet this 

 competition everywhere. There is only one salvation for the 

 farmer, and that is to organize like a trust, to get together in 

 farmers' meetings and gradually v/ork out a solution for this 

 trouble. Talk over these things and come to some agreement. 

 There is not a farmer in the state of Connecticut but what can 

 get some benefit by coming together in these meetings and 

 helping to talk these things over. The trouble is with the 

 farming class that it is indifferent to its own interest. How 

 many people are there represented in this room compared to 

 what there ought to be if the farmers took the interest that 

 they ought to in their own business? Why, if they did, this 



