THE MILK QUESTION. 41 



than any other known. With the better cows and better 

 care more cream is obtained, and thus more money. The 

 good stock has a much greater advantage than in any exist- 

 ing system of selling milk, Avhere, in the general market, if 

 not so poor as to be wholly rejected, the produce of one 

 dairy stands on a par with all others. There is but one 

 qualification necessary ; owners of really inferior stock, and 

 neglectful at that, will reduce the average of the factory 

 both in quantity and quality. The cream from such farms 

 should be absolutely rejected. 



The testimony is uniform, that the effect of substituting 

 the Fairlamb plan for the old system of home butter-making 

 has been a wonderful relief to the farm household. On any 

 farm where milk-selling has taken the place of butter-mak- 

 ing, this relief can be fully appreciated. This cream-gather- 

 ing butter-factory system afibrds precisely the same benefits 

 in saving domestic labor. In short, wherever a creamery of 

 this kind has been established, it is pronounced a blessiug to 

 the community.* 



If you are making milk, anxious to sell it, and have to 

 depend upon a limited market, don't go into competition and 

 ruinous rates, but join your neighbors in maintaining a fair 

 scale of prices. 



If living near any place which consumes the milk of 500 

 cows or more, do not let the season pass without leading in 

 a co-operative movement for a dairy or depot for joint 

 delivery and general distribution. 



If you are shipping milk to a distance, especially to Boston, 

 join at once in putting the Massachusetts Dairy Company, 

 and others like it, into active and successful operation. 



If producins: milk, but still wisely declining to sell the 

 w'hole article unless you can get five or six cents a quart for 

 it, a believer in skim milk and butter-milk as economical 

 food for all kinds of live creatures on the farm, and also 

 anxious to be rid of home l)utter-making, help to start a 

 factory in your neighborhood on the cream gathering plan. 

 Don't hold back to see how it will work, and, above all, do 



* January, 1883. It is said that the proof of a pudding is in the eating. As 

 evidence of the beneficial results of these butter-factories, a greater number arc now 

 in process of organization in Maine, Massacliusetts, and Connecticut, tlian were in 

 existence in New England when this paper was written ii. e. .\. 



