158 Cooperation in Agriculture 



through them to the local associations. It furnishes the 

 agents and wagons for distributing the milk to the con- 

 sumers in the towns and cities, collects the money for 

 the milk and sends it to the district federations, maintains 

 correct relations to the municipal health laws, protects 

 the associations against litigation, looks after traffic 

 matters and public policy questions. It may also act 

 as a purchasing agent in securing the supplies used by 

 the local associations and may employ traveling experts 

 who will assist the local associations and the district fed- 

 erations in the development of their respective businesses 

 along the most desirable agricultural and organization 

 lines. All of the operations of the local associations, the 

 district federations, and the central exchange should be 

 exclusively under the control of the producers of the milk, 

 and each of these agencies should be conducted at actual 

 cost, the entire profit going to the producers. If the 

 producers do not care to undertake to distribute the milk 

 to the consumers, a similar organization is just as desirable 

 in protecting the producers in their dealings with the 

 established agencies of distribution. Without such a 

 united effort, the individual farmer is wholly at the mercy 

 of those who are organized to make an unreasonable 

 profit by distributing the products of the farm to the con- 

 sumer hi the towns and cities. 



In several cities, especially in the East, the consumers 

 have been supplied with milk furnished by cooperative 

 associations of producers. There is such an organization 

 in northwestern Pennsylvania, known as the Erie County 

 Milk Association. It is formed by dairymen hi Erie 

 County to distribute milk and cream in the city of Erie 



