106 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



increased, a subdivision, with a contractor or wholesale dealer, 

 and the pedler or retailer ; and as the field of supply widened, 

 still another division, requiring a collector to gather the milk 

 from the farms, thus putting at least three parties between 

 the farmer in the country and the consumer in the city. But 

 this multiplying of middle-men, each of whom receives a 

 share of the proceeds, if not of the profits of the business, is 

 not the worst feature in this method of marketing the farmers' 

 milk, but it is the division of responsibility, in consequence of 

 which the consumer is liable to impositions without the power 

 of placing the blame where it may rightfully belong. Each 

 man's interest is too much a personal or a selfish interest. 

 The farmer cares onlv to have his milk clean enough and good 

 enough to pass the contractor ; the contractor only seeks a 

 full supply of such milk as his pedlers will buy ; the pedlers 

 are only anxious to secure enough of such milk as they can 

 sell and make the greatest profit. 



Farmers who sell their milk for the city trade, expect, and 

 even require, the contractors to take all they produce during 

 the flush of the season, and to get along with a lesser quantity 

 during the seasons of short supply. The consumers require 

 a steady supply all the time, and an extra quantity whenever 

 they may have occasion to call for it. Now, what must be the 

 result? Either the contractor must provide for a fluctuating 

 market by engaging more than he ordinarily requires, or the 

 pedler must find some method of making his milk elastic, so 

 that what would go into a small cup to-day will fill a large 

 one to-morrow. 



It is claimed by parties who ought to know, that Boston is 

 better accommodated in her milk-supply than any large city 

 in the country, and yet we have reason to doubt if there has 

 been even a single gallon of perfectly sound and unadul- 

 terated or "undoctored" milk sold in that city for years. This 

 seems to be the general opinion of the farmers ; the contract- 

 ors, so far as we know, do not deny it, and if we may believe 

 what "everybody" says, the pedlers know it, and the con- 

 sumers, with only an occasional exception, seem to have 

 accepted it as a matter of course, until they have actually for- 

 gotten how really pure country milk looks or tastes. 



Now, until the consumers of milk in Boston learn what 



