THE MILK AND CREAM TRADE. 139 



decrease that may have occurred in any given year embraced 

 by the returns. 



Such a study will be found valuable as a guide, particularly 

 when it embraces five or six consecutive years, showing the 

 tendency of the period in respect of numbers a guide as to 

 holding cattle or selling them freely. I have had these returni 

 since they were first issued, now more than twenty years ago, 

 and have found them always a valuable forecast of the future, 

 in reference to the price of stock. These remarks are now made 

 in the interests of farmers who go in for the milk trade ; farmers 

 who depend wholly or in part on the markets for their calving 

 cows ; and indeed for all farmers whom they may concern, 

 whether in the milk trade or out of it. 



The returns are not absolutely correct in every item, but 

 they are at all events approximately so each year in succession, 

 and therefore they supply for comparison data which are suffi- 

 ciently accurate for purposes of estimate and forecast. There 

 are, it appears, a few farmers here and there who decline to fill 

 in their returns an unpatriotic thing to do. But for these, 

 and for inaccurate returns in other cases, the statistical returns 

 would be absolutely reliable. 



Consumption of Milk. 



The consumption of milk by the people of our great centres 

 of population has increased enormously in the past twenty years, 

 and the milk trade is of supreme importance to the dairy 

 farmers of Great Britain. There are various reasons for the 

 increased consumption of milk, as a beverage and in various 

 cookeries, the first and foremost of which is the improved posi- 

 tion of the working classes. Without railways the trade in 

 country milk was impossible, save within an easy distance of 

 our towns and cities. The Food Adulteration Acts have also 

 been a wholesome caution to milkmen who were inclined to be 

 too free with the cow whose tail is of iron ; but the time has 

 arrived for them to be extended and made more stringent. 



Then again, many members of the medical profession recom- 



