30 ESSEX PAST AND PRESENT 



terms as the wholesale man thought fit to offer him. 

 Not only was there a big difference in favour of the 

 middleman between the price at which the farmer 

 sold and that at which the consumer eventually bought, 

 but, after having been in operation some years, the 

 society discovered what it had not known before 

 that when the wholesale dealers bought from the 

 farmers the ' barn gallon ' consisted of 17 pints, though 

 when they resold to the milk distributors they reduced 

 the ' barn gallon ' to 16 pints a supplementary benefit 

 to themselves of I pint on each * barn gallon ' handled. 



So there was further organized, in 1896, an Eastern 

 Counties Dairy Farmers' Co-operative Society, Ltd., 

 with a view to arranging for the sale of members' 

 produce, not direct to the householder, but certainly 

 direct to the retail distributor, in order that one 

 middleman at least the wholesale dealer should be 

 eliminated. At first the society adopted the commission 

 system ; but this it afterwards abandoned in favour of 

 purchasing outright from the farmers, under contracts 

 which required them to forward specified quantities of 

 milk, either direct to the society's own customers or to 

 the headquarters in Water Lane, Stratford, E. Here 

 there is a well-arranged establishment, on which about 

 800 has been spent, the appliances provided including 

 a complete refrigerating and pasteurizing plant. The 

 society draws supplies from fifty-two farms, and the 

 quantity of milk dealt with in the six months ending 

 June 30, 1905, was 369,698 gallons. The average 

 prices paid per gallon to the farmers are 7^d. in the 

 summer and gjd. in the winter. 



From these headquarters at Stratford the manager 

 makes contracts with retail distributors throughout the 

 East End of London. One of these distributors is the 

 Stratford Co-operative and Industrial Society, Ltd., 



