292 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



which amounts to about a cent a pound for the summer six 

 months, and during the other six months it has been twenty- 

 three cents for an cight-and-a-half quart can. Now, the 

 question is, Can the farmers by any associated effort do any 

 better? We have baeu in the habit here for the last fifteen 

 or twenty years of acting in an associated way in disposing 

 of our milk through the medium of our cheese factories, 

 which, until the last two or three years, have taken our milk 

 during the summer months, and the milk contractors have 

 taken it during the winter months. Can we do any better by 

 associated effort in creameries ? In North Brookficld they have 

 a creamery, — one which is flourishing, and good dividends 

 are paid ; I should say better than those that you have men- 

 tioned in Amherst. This is a large milk-producing section. 

 We live by milk ; by it" we support our families, pay our 

 taxes and educate our children. Perhaps there is no section 

 of Massachusetts which produces a larger amount, with the 

 same natural facilities for it, than we do. Had we better, 

 instead of sending our milk to Boston at the prices named, 

 put our milk into butter, keeping our skim milk at home? 

 I can well believe the statements which have been made by 

 Mr. Burnett and by Major Alvord touching the value of skim 

 milk. For four years I had a creamery on my farm ; the 

 product of about a hundred cows was made into butter, 

 mainly sold in the home market, at adequate prices. The 

 sweet skim milk was fed to pigs or to calves, and the results 

 were very satisfactory. Now the farm is run down, and I 

 have to buy fertilizers to keep up fertility. 



There is another question which is so nearly allied to this 

 that I shall be pardoned for diverging a moment upon it. 

 Our milk has to travel about one hundred and ten miles to 

 get to Boston. We hope in the next three months to be 

 able to send it to Boston over the Central road, a distance of 

 only sixty-three miles. Up to the present time we have 

 been in the hands of one firm. It is the only firm that runs 

 a milk car over the Boston & Albany. We are at the mercy 

 of this firm. Without desirino; to charge them with any un- 

 fair dealings, we are, I say, in that position. Now, we have 

 this impression, that the milk contractors of Boston are go- 

 ing to manage in such a way that they will continue to con- 



