CHAPTER II 

 COMMERCIAL ASPECTS OF MILK-SUPPLY 



THE fact that so large an amount of arable land in 

 the United Kingdom has been laid down to pasture 

 during the last few decades is constantly adduced as one 

 of the most striking proofs of agricultural depression. 

 But those who bring forward this argument generally 

 omit to mention that one effect of this increase of 

 pasture land has been the development of a really 

 j stupendous business in the sale of fresh milk to the 

 towns. 



Down to about the year 1875 large centres of popu- 

 lation in this country were supplied with milk either 

 from farms situate on their immediate outskirts, or from 

 cow-sheds in which the milch cows were housed within 

 the limits of the city or town. Milk produced at farms 

 any distance away was used mainly for the making of 

 butter or cheese. Various causes combined to change 

 these conditions. The towns swallowed up their rural 

 suburbs; the urban populations greatly increased; the 

 consumption of milk per head of the people developed 

 in an even greater ratio than the increase in the popu- 

 lation ; the old conditions of milk-supply were no longer 

 generally practicable; while the growing competition 

 from foreign and colonial butter and cheese led to the 

 seeking of wider outlets for the sale of that fresh milk 



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