74 



must use questionable market milk. Milk must not only be pure but 

 it must be within reach of the man in average circumstances. The milk 

 problem, therefore, has economic as well as sanitary importance. Indeed, 

 since I have been studying the question, I have come to believe that it is 

 mainly an economic question. 



For years we have been wrestling with the problem in Rochester 

 as you have in Philadelphia. We had always looked at the problem from 

 the standpoint of bacteria and infant mortality and we made little head- 

 way. A year or so ago we began to view it as a business proposition; 

 and because of our failures along sanitary lines, we made an economic 

 survey of the entire dairy industry as it affected our city, and this is what 

 we found. We discovered that upwards of 800 farmers were producing 

 milk for our city, many of whom were shipping milk to you also, so that 

 we have a mutual interest in this investigation. Most of these men are 

 dissatisfied with the business. In a study of western and central New 

 York we found that a large number of farmers had given up wholly or 

 partly the milk business. Of 674 farms offered for sale, 439 were dairy 

 farms. We found the farmers complaining of scarcity of labor, and as a 

 result they were not cultivating their tillable land. We found them buy- 

 ing expensive cattle feeds instead of raising them. We found them breed- 

 ing low-grade stock, using scrub bulls which never should have been 

 permitted to live. We found them taking no pains to keep disease, par- 

 ticularly the dreadful tuberculosis, out of their herds. We found them 

 each one drawing a few cans of milk down the same road to the little 

 railroad stations for shipment to the city. We found many other wastes 

 and duplication of effort. 



Why were these farmers doing these things in such a poor and un- 

 satisfactory way? The answer invariably was that the business from 

 their point of view was not sufficiently profitable to make it worth while 

 for them to do it in any other way and that they could not do otherwise 

 than subordinate dairying to their other farm work. The results of our 

 investigation gave support to these contentions. 



At the present time the producer does not receive for his product 

 a due proportion of the revenue paid by the ultimate consumer. At 

 least this would appear to be the case when his risk, investment and 

 labor are contrasted with that of the distributor in the city who takes 

 for his services one-half of the proceeds derived from the sale of the milk. 

 The average yearly price paid the producer for milk is four cents per 

 quart; the average retail price received by the distributor is eight cents 

 per quart. The average investment required for operating a dairy farm 

 in western New York, producing 160 quarts of milk daily, is $9,000. One 

 dealer in the city can easily deliver the milk of three such farms. His 

 total investment rarely exceeds $2,500. Thus, three farmers in the 

 country with an average investment of $27,000 receive no more for their 

 product than does one distributor in the city with not more than onQ- 



