50 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



is used. This person collects the milk from the forms, and 

 delivers to the consumers. This service is worth lully two 

 .cents per quart, perhaps more. To support the retailer or 

 route owner foirly, and still yield the formers four cents, milk 

 so delivered should average 61 cents for the year. A margm 

 of half a cent is necessary to insure safety in these cases, and 

 should ffo to the retailer or the producer, according to which 

 one assumes the risk of the surplus milk. There is almost a 

 certainty of such a surplus at times, and this system admits 

 of no good means of saving it. 



3d. The remaining class includes all shipping milk for 

 .delivery at a distance, where transportation has to be paid. 

 The charge for transportation is the first additional expense. 

 As a rule^'this is now exorbitant. There is no reason why milk 

 should be charged a cent or a cent and a half a quart, 50 

 to 75 cents per hundred weight, when a barrel of sugar or of 

 flour, weighing twice as much and worth four times as much, 

 is carried'double the distance for half the money. Half a cent 

 a quart, or 25 cents per hundred weight, is ample for freight 

 on milk, enough to cover all the special focilities needed. 

 AUowimr the farmer 4 cents and the carrier one-half cent, there 

 Temains"2l cents to pay for the service of delivery and risk of 

 coUection,"^ leaving the retail price of city milk at 7 cents a 

 quart. It cannot well be less, and this is low enough. Con- 

 sumers generally are willing to pay this price for a good arti- 

 cle. The ruling price in Boston and New York this winter is 

 8 cents for "dip-milk"; and much is sold at 10 cents in 

 private cans and bottles. At 8 cents retail the producer is 

 entitled to at least 4^^ cents as his share, or 38 cents for the 

 81 quart can. Hovf many get it this month? 



"^Two and a half cents per quart, or about one-third of the 

 selling price, will doubtless be regarded as too large a share 

 for the city retailer. With the prevailing system of small 

 and independent milk routes, the retailer cannot make a living, 

 delivering at the consumer's door, upon an allowance of less 

 than this? It must be remembtred that a large allowance has 

 to be made for what is known as shrinkage. This loss in 

 delivering milk at retail averages at least ten per cent, of the 

 quantity liandled. Seemingly improbable at a glance, this is 

 .an established fact, that the retailer who buys 100 quarts of 



