154 Cooperation in Agriculture 



Oil Company. They have strict and often arbitrary 

 rules to which all farmers who sell to them must conform. 

 For example, the Bordens at one time would not buy milk 

 from Holstein herds, nor could farmers feed ensilage to 

 the cows. These large corporations generally erect as- 

 sembling stations in the country, where the dairymen 

 deliver the milk in cans and where they are paid for it 

 at a rate per hundred pounds. The milk is there mixed, 

 cooled, and bottled. It may also be clarified and pas- 

 teurized. It is then packed in ice and shipped in milk 

 cars under refrigeration, if the railroad will provide it, to 

 the city, where it is received and distributed to the con- 

 sumers in the wagons of the corporation. A big fight 

 over the furnishing of refrigeration was waged by the milk 

 shippers in 1911 with the Philadelphia and Reading 

 Railway. The assembling stations are also equipped with 

 cream separators and with butter-making machinery to 

 be used when there is a surplus of milk. These large 

 corporations may own a number of dairy farms, where a 

 portion of their milk supply is produced. These farms 

 are often run as demonstration farms. The most ap- 

 proved stock barns are erected, silos are built, the herd 

 is wisely managed, and a crop rotation system is adopted 

 that is designed to influence the agricultural practices of 

 the community along progressive dairy farm lines. The 

 small dealers usually have no bottling stations in the 

 country, but receive the milk in the city in cans. They 

 take it to their business places, where it may be bottled 

 or peddled from the cans to the consumer, though this 

 latter practice is prohibited under the laws and regulations 

 of many of the cities. 



