No. 4.] CLEAN MILK. 425 



ducer, who spends his energies in raising grass and clover 

 for hay and corn for silage, green crops for summer feed, 

 and the milk goes to Boston or elsewhere at the very lowest 

 price the contractors or peddlers can buy it for. The farmer 

 no longer husks his corn or threshes his grain ; everything 

 grown is used as coarse fodder. He buys his grain and con- 

 centrated feeds, which indirectly helps to keep up the fertility 

 of his farm. He has given up some of his laborious tasks ; 

 he has been forced to this, but it is a luxury that has to be 

 paid for. This taking of milk, preparing it for market, mix- 

 ing and pasteurizing, cooling and rebottling, delivering to 

 peddlers, collecting bills, keeping it up to the standard, pay- 

 ing fines, keeping it cold and the bacteria reduced to board 

 of health regulations, etc., all cost money. 



For the last few years the straight price paid by milk con- 

 tractors in the fifth zone has been 28^ cents in winter and 

 2QY2 ill sunmier, amounting to an average of 2iy2 cents for 

 the milk delivered at the railroad station, which is approxi- 

 mately the price which the average milk producers receive. 

 This is considerably less than half, a little more than one- 

 third, for 8-quart cans which really hold 8^-2 quarts, the rail- 

 roads, milk contractors and retailers getting all there is 

 between that and the retail price, — the price which the con- 

 sumer has to pay for the milk in Boston. It is undoubtedly 

 true that milk contractors can transact their part of the busi- 

 ness far more cheaply and more successfully than any one 

 else. But there is one thing which they cannot do, and that 

 is, change milk, by any process whatever, so that it will be 

 better than or as good as "just as the cow secretes it." And 

 in the matter of keeping the milk pr act icall]/ in this condition 

 the farmer holds, right in his own hands, if he will, a mo- 

 nopoly which nobody can take from him. The public is fast 

 becoming educated to the fact that this is the only 7'ig/d milk. 

 This fact once estal^lished, such milk will command gen- 

 erally a higher price at retail ; and milk that has, by what- 

 ever cause, ever been in such condition that it 7ieeds pasteur- 

 izing, sterilizing, rectifying or any other doctoring, must, 

 notwithstanding the additional cost thereby involved, bring 

 a less price. The result would seem to be that farmers pro- 



