286 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



If running water is not convenient, greater care should be 

 used in cooling to prevent it from becoming tainted. Cold 

 milk that has been well cared for will give better satisfiction 

 to customers than warm, even to those near at hand, while 

 with those at a distance cold milk is a necessity. 



We come now to the disposal of the milk. I have some- 

 times thought that persons patronizing well-managed cream- 

 eries, if they did not have to furnish a stated supply and 

 had their skim-milk to raise choice stock with, were better 

 off than those who sell their milk at the low price they are 

 obliged to accept. Those living near a good market for 

 milk, and engaged exclusively in its production, will find it 

 the safest course to dispose of it themselves, especially if 

 dependent upon it for a living. If one can secure a trust- 

 worthy man to peddle the milk it will greatly relieve the 

 producer from the strain that comes from carrying on a farm 

 at the same time. It will also give him an opportunity to 

 look more carefully after things at home. This is not 

 always an easy thing to do. Those selling milk at their 

 doors would naturally produce other things and look to the 

 milk as only a partial source of income. Each person must 

 decide for himself after considering his situation in life, the 

 character of his farm, its location, and his willingness to be 

 confined. Perhaps it may be well to glance at some of the 

 things in the business that are obstacles to success. Though 

 we usually have good seasons, with an abundance of forage, 

 we sometimes have dry ones, with a scarcity. If we buy a 

 few superior cows that please us, we also purchase many 

 inferior ones that disappoint us. If we pay high prices for 

 new milch cows, we afterwards trade them off or sell them 

 at an exceedingly low price. Sometimes they become new 

 milch when we expect them to ; at others, they surprise us 

 by calving too soon, to their own injury and our consequent 

 loss. 



Sometimes sudden death overtakes them, while at other 

 times they linger along with obscure ailments until we are 

 quite ready to welcome their removal. I might speak of 

 our trials as milk pedlers, telling how kind but unappre- 

 ciated friends come on to our milk route with skim-milk 

 added to new, and with a lower price for a fraudulent article 



