304 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Mr. Brooks. We have in Springfield a co-operative milk 

 association, and our system of doing business is of a differ- 

 ent character from those which have been described. I 

 suppose we average about three cents a quart for our milk at 

 the farm. Our milk association has proved a splendid thing 

 for those farmers who had nothing to do with it, never sub- 

 scribed to the stock, and never sent any milk there, in this 

 way : it has compelled tho peddlers, who could not get milk 

 where they had formerly been getting it, to pay a higher 

 price for milk to those farmers who kept out of the associa- 

 tion than they h:id been paying the same men before, and 

 the farmers who have not joined the association have re- 

 ceived more for their milk than their next-door neighbors 

 who have, because the peddlers, being unable to get milk 

 of us, were obliged to get it somewhere or give up their 

 business. They hated the association so desperately that 

 they would not give up the business, and it is that bitter 

 spirit of the middle-man that is keeping us back ; but we 

 are outgrowing it, and there are milk routes offered 

 occasionally to us, and nol)ody is buying milk routes to 

 any extent outside of the association. The old peddlers 

 hold on to their old trade, but new men are shy about 

 cominsr in. 



Mr. MvEiCK. Arc you not shy about buying any more 

 routes, and don't you l)uild up your trade better without 

 buying them? 



Mr. Brooks. 1 said they were offered us ; I did not say 

 we were buvina; them. 



Major Alvord. Is it not a fact that the great load that 

 the Springfield Milk Association is carrying is the large 

 amount of money that they have paid for the intangible 

 thing called '• milk routes"? 



Mr. Brooks. It is, sir. We had farmers who were 

 large milk producers who wore so in sympathy with the 

 milk peddlers, — one was a nephew and another was a 

 eousin, — that they Avould not consent to come into any 

 organization unless the organization would agree to buy out 

 these men and pay them for their routes, which is a differ- 

 ent thins. You might as well buy out the Piutes on the 



