No. 4.] REPORT OF SECRETARY. xvii 



ing a situation which can onlv result in one way in so far 

 as our dairies and the dairy business are concerned, namely, 

 that our dairy animals will have to be brought from the 

 middle west at a greater expense, and consequently with a 

 great increase in the cost of producing milk. 



Our farmers are already finding it more profitable to 

 grow fruit, vegetables, corn, or even hay, and ship these to 

 city markets or to country towns where very few of these 

 crops are grown. Our vegetables, in particular, go to supply 

 the summer hotels of New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, and 

 Canada, while we receive milk from these sections where, as 

 yet, the dairy business is about the only thing the farmers 

 can do, although few of them are getting a satisfactory price 

 for their milk. If the farmers of Massachusetts could get 

 G cents a quart for milk at their farms, the cows would soon 

 return to our State and there would be little heard about the 

 dairy question. It is absolutely impossible to expect our 

 farmers to produce a 10-cent article for 3I/2 or 4 cents. The 

 public is now getting what it pays for and no more, and 

 just as soon as there is a willingness on the part of the con- 

 sumer to meet the farmer half way, our cities will be supplied 

 with plenty of clean, fresh milk. 



Undoubtedly the solution of the milk question, and in 

 particular that which bears on the product itself, will never 

 be settled until milk is paid for on its merits, and your 

 secretary firmly believes that there will be no great improve- 

 ment in the product until a system of grading and standard- 

 ization is adopted whereby the product and not the dairy 

 will be the important item. Along with such a change in 

 our present system there will have to be established milk 

 stations where tests will be made and the farmer paid ac- 

 cording to the quality of the milk he produces. 



A paragraph from the report of the secretary of this 

 Board in 1884 is interesting in that it shows that the milk 

 question is no new one : — 



The produelion of milk to supply our towns and cities is a branch 

 of husbandry that in late years has not been satisfactory; the farmers 

 have allowed shrewd contractors to control the supply and sale of 

 milk, and have accepted prices lower than the cost of production. 



