370 Twenty-Second Annual Report of the 



chusetts farm and attempting to save the transportation cost from 

 New Jersey to Massachusetts, and I am sure we shall succeed in 

 doing so." 



Dean Bailey and Mr. Walker are two of the most successful men 

 in American agriculture. We shall do well to take their advice — 

 farm well and produce our own products. 



Now, what are the opportunities ahead of us in this work ? We 

 have in these institutions 58,179 people. They are using about 

 30,198 quarts of milk, or 755 cans, daily. The freight on this 

 milk would amount to about $241.60 daily or $88,184 each year. 

 Adding the dealers' profits to this, we can readily see that a tre- 

 mendous saving could be made at nearly all of our institutions by 

 producing our own milk. There is no reason in the world why we 

 cannot produce it as cheaply as the average farmer; we can not 

 only do so as cheaply, but we can produce it a great deal better. I 

 am sorry to say that the milk purchased by the State is largely 

 bought of the lowest bidder and the quality would probably score 

 not far from 65. The quality of the milk produced on the State 

 institution farms as a whole would score very high — probably in 

 the neighborhood of 95. I believe there is real economy in the use 

 of good milk. 



We are using over 200,000 bushels of potatoes each year in these 

 institutions. The freight would amount to about $20,000 and the 

 dealers' profits as much more, which could be saved by home pro- 

 duction We are buying a million dollars' worth of meat a yea* 

 and one thousand dollars' worth of butter every day. Most of these 

 products could be produced on our own f arms with profit. 



We have frequently been asked why the per capita cost was lower 

 at some institutions with comparatively small amounts of land than 

 at other hospitals having great farms. The question seems to the 

 writer to be both fair and important, although he is unable to an- 

 swer it, and would be glad to become one of a committee to try to 

 find out why this is true. 



In making comparisons at institutions, care should be taken not 

 to select hospitals with new farms. New farms, as a rule, are 

 poorly equipped. It often takes years to build them up and profits 

 may largely go back into this building-up process. 



Sometimes the State's system of handling these farms is not 



