No. 4.] ISIILK. 57 



have no difficulty now, when the fall comes, in advancing 

 our price to 7 cents for retail milk. It is so logical that 

 almost any pedler can see at a glance, if 3'ou sit down and 

 talk with him, that it is working to his advantage. If he 

 can get 1 cent a quart more for 200 quarts which he puts 

 out, that makes $2 a day, and it is a nice little profit to him. 

 It is not hard to get the consumers to pay it. Thc}^ are 

 willing to do so in Springfield. Now the price is not shifted ; 

 it is simply a matter of fact that the winter price is 7 cents 

 and the summer G. We all work in harmony, and we have 

 the milk business in the city of Springfield on a paying 

 basis, so that the middleman will get a fair livelihood from 

 it. He can pay his bills and save up something on this basis, 

 while prior to this he was getting as many prices on the 

 street as there were houses. Some milk was sold for less 

 than it could be produced for, and the result was, the farmer 

 had to stand the loss in the end. 



]\Ir. Ho AVE. That is just the material we have been try- 

 ing to work with, and it worked like this : they wouldn't all 

 come together to make the agreement ; there would be per- 

 haps four or five, perhaps three or four, who would stay out, 

 and those three or four would not onl}^ refuse to raise the 

 price, but would sell for 5 cents, even right in the winter, 

 when there was no possibility of making a profit. Often- 

 times a young man will start in and run his creditors as long 

 as ho can, and then in about six months he meets the farmers 

 he has purchased milk from, and all of his other creditors, 

 with about 5 cents on a dollar. 



Mr. Waters. I think it is much easier to form an asso- 

 ciation in Springfield than it is in Marlborough or Worcester. 

 In Worcester the producers have tried to form an association, 

 to raise the price of milk ; and the pedlers have tried to 

 raise the price of milk among themselves, and they couldn't 

 agree. The whole trouble comes in this way. We have a 

 certain class of farmers in and around Worcester who peddle 

 their own milk ; they are good farmers, but you can't get 

 them to raise the price of milk, or to come to any agree- 

 ment whatever with the rest. They are called producers, 

 and also pedlers. Jf they would come in with the farmers 



