XIV 



THE FARMER AND THE PARCEL POST 



ON" the Pennsylvania Railway en route from Phila- 

 delphia to Washington, on the twenty-second of 

 June, 1914, I fell into conversation with a gentleman 

 who owns a farm twelve miles from Fredericksburg, 

 Virginia. Gossiping about the various things con- 

 nected with farm life, I discovered that he had estab- 

 lished a small dairy. He told me he had been North 

 to examine various appliances looking to the shipment 

 of dairy products by parcel post. Living, as he does, 

 twelve miles from the railway station, the daily deliv- 

 ery of milk for consumption in Fredericksburg, Rich- 

 mond, or Washington, is a task of great magnitude. 

 The idea which was in his mind was that if he could 

 ship cream by parcel post, he might secure a profitable 

 market for his dairy products and at the same time 

 retain the skimmed milk for feeding to pigs and young 

 calves. 



Experience has shown that the shipment of cream to 

 butter factories in the large cities there are none 

 other in this part of the country is altogether un- 

 profitable to the farmer. At the prices which are paid, 

 which at the best amount to about twenty-four or 

 twenty-five cents per pound of butter-fat, the farmer 

 cannot make expenses. It requires nearly twenty-five 

 pounds of milk to make one pound of butter-fat, and 



this amounts to only a little over a cent a pound for 



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