NEW YORK MILK COMMITTEE 141 



for seven cents, when good milk costs eight cents, you are facing 

 the situation that is going to happen. I have asked what the re- 

 sult would be. I believe the results will be that the retailer who 

 buys milk on the basis of its sanitary quality, and pays accord- 

 ingly, will get the highest quality of it, purchasing it, of course, as 

 economically as he can. He may, in turn, find himself in deep 

 water financially if he brings his milk up to a grade higher in sani- 

 tary quality than the public has intelligence enough to buy. So, 

 in the last analysis of the milk situation, the stumbling block in the 

 improvement is the disinclination of the consuming public to pay* 

 for sanitary milk, what it reasonably costs to produce it. Now, 

 this result came very largely as a surprise to me, because I had 

 no conception that the situation had improved so rapidly. By 

 leaving the details of the business of milk making entirely in the 

 hands of the producer and holding him accountable for results, 

 the quality of the milk has greatly improved. Our inspector went 

 once or twice per quarter to see the dairies. The financial returns 

 of those dairies depended, of course, upon the inspector's finding 

 everything all right. The dairymen could not afford to take 

 chances by being slack in their methods, because the inspector was 

 likely to drop in at any time, and it might cost him quite a good 

 many dollars, for half a cent in the price of milk, for a quarter, is 

 a factor that cannot be overlooked in the present economics of 

 milk production. The result was that those producers were pretty 

 careful at all times to see to keeping things so that there would 

 be no danger of falling into the grade below and losing the quarter's 

 rate on their milk. In other words, instead of fighting the in- 

 spector, as has been done in too many cases, they have gotten on 

 extremely pleasantly with all concerned. 



THE CHAIRMAN: The last address reminds me of a very short 

 story. A friend of mine who had a colored servant, severely 

 reprimanded him for some failure to follow his directions. The 

 colored man said, "Master, you can't expect a Daniel Webster 

 brain for a dollar a day." I think that consumers should know 

 that they have got enough to keep intelligent men on the farms, 

 and we have got to pay them enough to enable them to have the 

 proper help to do their work. I know that for three-quarters of a 

 cent more we can get very good conditions on a great many farms, 

 but we have got to pay them or the men cannot afford to produce 

 good milk, and there is no reason why they should be forced to do it. 



Now, we have come to the matter of the results of this meeting, 

 and I am going to ask those of you who have anything to discuss, 

 as to these resolutions, to do so in the very briefest time possible, as 

 we have very little time at our disposal. 



