THE MILK CONTRACTOR 231 



from a large city to supply the city milk trade, or where railroad facilities 

 are undeveloped, or transportation rates unfavorable for creameries and 

 condenseries. Creameries pay more for milk than cheese factories but 

 usually less than condenseries, so that it is often possible for the latter to 

 convert creamery territory to their use. City milk dealers pay most for 

 milk and the growth of cities compels them to reach out further and 

 further for it, consequently they capture dairy districts that formerly 

 supplied the dairy manufacturers. Each business has its peculiar needs 

 and dairying takes on character in accordance with them, the purchaser 

 in each case being the power that shapes the development of the territory. 



Influence of Contractors in Dairy Districts. The influence of dealers 

 who buy milk from a few farms is small, even though the entire dairy 

 business of the country round consists in supplying such men. So also, 

 is that of a class of wholesalers who supply an inferior grade of milk to 

 cities having weak or badly enforced milk ordinances, for these men 

 succeed by picking up any and all sorts of milk at the lowest prices and 

 bother little about the development of the country so long as it produces 

 the milk they need. Dealers who are in the business in a larger way have 

 it within their power to lead the communities in which they operate into 

 the paths of sound dairying and some of them do so, but most fail to keep 

 in intimate contact with their producers and are surprisingly indifferent 

 and ignorant as to conditions in the dairy country on which they are 

 dependent. These men are satisfied to rely on the inspections of boards 

 of health to maintain proper sanitary conditions, and do not perceive 

 the advantages of supplementing such inspection, by the efforts of men 

 in their own employ who will keep them accurately informed as to the 

 conditions under which the milk they are buying and for the quality of 

 which they are responsible is produced, who also, will have an educative 

 influence, and who may be expected to establish cordial relations between 

 dealers and producers. The large dairy companies are doing the best 

 work for the producers. They have inspectors who instruct the dairy- 

 men in animal breeding and in the feeding and management of herds and 

 who earnestly endeavor to establish good feeling between the farmer and 

 the companies by helping each to an understanding of the others diffi- 

 culties. These inspectors employed by the companies are in a position 

 to win the confidence of the dairyman and so they have considerable 

 influence which on the whole has been used in a way to materially advance 

 the dairy industry. Many companies issue helpful reading matter to 

 their patrons, and occasionally one of them, for the instruction of its 

 dairymen, organizes an enormously expensive campaign, such as that of 

 the Supplees against tuberculosis. 



Basis on which Milk is Purchased. The basis on which dealers and 

 producers do business naturally varies; there may or may not be a con- 

 tract between the two. Where the dealer holds the whip hand he merely 



