50 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



under certain conditions, as bottled milk, put np as avc do 

 it. 



Mr. Geinnell. What do you pay the fanners? 

 Mr. Weld. We try to make contracts with the farmers 

 for two, three and four cents a quart, that will make an 

 average for the year of three cents a quart, delivered at our 

 bottling station. Of course we would prefer to pay a little 

 more than the general price for milk, because we want to get 

 the milk of the best farmers, and we do not quarrel with a 

 man if he insists upon having three cents for his milk during 

 one of the summer months, when the market price would 

 not ])e more than two or two and a half cents, and so our 

 contracts are a little above that price. Probably the prices 

 we pay would average three and a half cents per quart dur- 

 ing the year to the farmer. 



Mr. Geinnell. What is the loss in breakage? 

 Mr. Weld. There is a great deal of loss in breaking. I 

 cannot give the figures exactly, but it may be called a heavy 

 loss. The breakao;e is rather in the handiino- of the boxes of 

 empty bottles than in any other way. There is a certain 

 loss from stolen bottles, which it is very diificult to stop. 

 People will use a bottle and deny having had it. For in- 

 stance, a family that is in the habit of taking two bottles of 

 milk regularly will one day take three, and of course we are 

 glad to sell that third bottle of milk ; but the bottle, which 

 is worth about twenty cents to us, is very likely to be lost, 

 because only two will be returned next day : the driver will 

 forget the odd bottle. We have, however, systematized 

 things so now that we charge a driver with his bottles, and 

 he is obliged to account for them ; and if we charge a driver 

 twenty cents for a bottle that he does not return, it does not 

 occur a great many times before he recollects. But there 

 is another thing which we cannot stop. We are obliged to 

 start our wagons with three hundred quarts of milk quite 

 early ; the routes are some of them long, and the wagons at 

 this time of the year are otf as early as foui- o'clock ; people 

 are not up and we have got to leave those bottles in some 

 convenient place. Other people know where our drivers 

 leave those bottles, and occasionally a bottle is stolen. The 

 driver on his return trip will be told by the parties whom 



