CITY MILK SUPPLY. 347 



evidently tends, by steps however slow, to an equalization of the several 

 contending interests involved in the business of milk shipment. Such 

 complete information can be attained only through judicious organiza- 

 tion. 



At the annual meeting of the New York Dairymen's Association in 

 January, 1S73, Mr. X. A. Willard, the president, said that the dairy 

 conventions of the country are chiefly attended by cheese manufactur- 

 ers and others (dealers, &c.) not actnallj' engaged in fiirming. The 

 consequence is that while cheese manufacturers have become highly 

 educated in their employment, dairy-farmers have not advanced in a 

 proportionate degree. If farmers would come together and interchange 

 ideas freely, many of the now-existing evils would soon disappear. Mr. 

 T. D. Curtis, in speaking of the efforts toward better systems of market- 

 ing, urged the importance of strengthening the bonds of union among 

 producers by the establishment of farmers' clubs in every school-dis- 

 trict, these to be represented in town clubs, and the latter in county 

 clubs sending delegates to State organizations. 



In comparing the systems of milk-shipment pursued in different 

 regions, there will be perceived a, decided advantage in the Xew Eng- 

 land system of transportation by car-contract in lessening the differ- 

 ence between prices to first hands and prices to consumers. This 

 system has also brought heavy profits to contractors on the lines sup- 

 plying the Boston market. Under the stimulus of the high cost of 

 winter production, energetic efforts have been made to divert a i)ortion 

 of these profits to producers. For a time the project was entertained 

 of the assumption by associated producers of the entire business of 

 shipment up to delivery to city retailers. 



Limited enterprises of associated shipment have been carried out 

 successfully in different parts of the country. Failures have occurred, 

 as tiiey do in all other descriptions of business. They enforce the cau- 

 tion that in all such undertakings the field of operation with its local 

 conditions should be adequately studied, and that the one person to 

 whom must be committed the superintendence should possess the busi- 

 ness qualification which will enable him to cope with those details which 

 lie between the barn-yard and the city peddlers payments. Absence of 

 such competent superintendence being the natural precursor of failure, 

 its presence should be secured by that liberal com.pensation which will 

 be in effect the truest economy. The disposal of a car-load of milk 

 daily from a tolerably compact region of production would not appear 

 to involve serious difficulties, granted a united sentiment among ship- 

 pers and a trusty and capable manager ; otherwise, the case is quite 

 different. The variations in prices found within the same region of pro- 

 duction of themselves evince the minuteness with which individual 

 operators watch the sails of their enterprise, and the agent of asso- 

 ciated shipment must have a similar appreciation of the value of "mar- 

 gins" and the various other particulars which constitute the interval 

 between success and its opposite, in new regions including especially 

 the securemeut of reliable railroad service. 



As to enterprises involving heavy capital and extending over large 

 areas of country, risks would obviously be increased by the more com- 

 plex service and the greater distance between managers and individual 

 stockholders. For the present a preference is indicated for uuder- 

 taldngs of moderate dimensions, which, in succeeding, would make 

 more feasible the success of larger operations in the future. 



