1890. J PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 197 



extend out on the lines of cheap and quick communication 

 till the limit of consumption is met, or the extreme cost of 

 transportation allowed to the business is reached. 



The first circle of farms contiguous to a town is usually 

 given to a retail business, the farmers themselves transport- 

 ing the milk by team, and delivering direct to customers. 

 This gives the producer all the money there is in it, and 

 makes the business an exceptionally profitable one. It is 

 easily admitted that there is no other line of special farming 

 pursued among us that proves so profitable, measured by 

 money returns alone, as the milk business, where the profits 

 of production are augmented by the profits of delivery, and 

 the same man takes both. There are exacting requirements 

 connected with it : the unseasonable hours ; the never-endiuij 

 confinement of the seven days of the week, and the three 

 hundred and sixty-five of the year ; the wear and tear of 

 team ; the petty trade with individuals ; the vigilance re- 

 quired in collections ; and the ever-occurring annoyances to 

 which one is continually subjected. All these conditions, 

 and many more that might be enumerated, demand a com- 

 pensation. He who subjects himself to them is entitled to 

 all there is in it, and receives none too much. With this 

 kind of work I have no comparisons to make. As a rule, 

 no one has grit, perseverance and iron endurance enough to 

 keep him welded to the exactions of this business, with all 

 its profits, longer than to carry him through an emergency, 

 or lift him to comfortable circumstances financially. Having 

 accomplished this much, these farmers, or milkmen, as they 

 are usually denominated, fall back on some less exacting line 

 of work, and make room for less exhausted energy. 



Back of the delivery wagon lies the wholesale milk trade. 

 In addition to the business law referred to, which calls the 

 use of these contiguous lands to milk production, and which 

 would under its mandates require that they be devoted to 

 this product, there seems to be further causes for the wide 

 attention given to the business over so extensive districts. 

 Business is gregarious. Without stopping to study the 

 causes or discuss the propriety of this, we simply call atten- 

 tion to its results. In sight of the retail milk trade the 

 wholesale business necessarily starts up. The fact of the 



