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THE LANCASTER FARMER- 



57 



Laune in the ''Journal of the Royal A!;iicul- 

 tural Society" for 1SS2, he names the live tol- 

 lowing coarse grasses as moat valuable for 

 permanent pasture : 



DavUjUs glonicrula—OYchRxH grass. 



Festuca pralensis — Meadow fescue. 



Festuca elathr—TdW fescue. 



Phleum pnUense — Tiniotliy. 



Alo2jecunis 2}r(Ucnsis — Meadow fo.\tail. 



He says these five should form the bullc of 

 all good pastures ou good soil, either for sheep 

 or cattle. The most valuable liner grasses, in 

 his opinion, are : 



Cynoxuriis cristattis — Crested dogstail. 



Festuca durivscula — Hard fescue. 



Poo trivialis — Rough meadow grass. 



Agrostis stolcmifera — Fiorin. 



Fistuca ovina — Sheep-s fescue. 



^roia/ai'escens— Golden oat grass. 



In much smaller proportion he would use 

 permanent red clover, or cow grass, alsike 

 and white clover. He would always put in 

 some yarrow. " All rye grasses, or nearly all, 

 die out after once seeding." He omits sweet 

 vernal altogether. 



What is best for each of the various por- 

 tions of the United States jn-obaljly no oue 

 yet knows. We are trying to (ind out. For 

 the moister portions of the North the above- 

 named list seems to be a good one, with proba- 

 bly, this modification : Place the poa pralensis, 

 June grass or Kentucky blue grass, in place of 

 poa trivalis, and agrostis vulgaris, red top, in 

 place of agrostis stolnnifera. and for the drier 

 portions of our country, to the coarser grasses 

 add arrhenatherum avenaceuni, tall oat grass. 



We will not puzzle our farmers with numer- 

 ous long lists of mixtures at a mere guess, 

 but give a few of the best and advise experi- 

 menting each for himself. A great point is 

 gained when a farmer ventures to deviate 

 from the usages of his fatlier or neighbors. 

 Many have fallen into certain practices, often 

 without very substantial reasons. In future 

 articles we shall speak of the peculiarities of 

 some of the grasses which seem most promis- 

 ing to us. —Pro/". W. J. Bealof Michigan Agri- 

 cultural College. 



THE MILK SUPPLY OF CITIES. 



The milk question, so far as it concerns the 

 supply of large cities and towns, and the re- 

 lation of consumers and producers, has been 

 lately receiving much attention in dif- 

 ferent parts of the country. None too much, 

 however, for the whole business, certainly in 

 the Atlantic States is demoralized and unsat- 

 isfactory to the producers. 



The production of milk for sale has largely 

 increased of late, until there is at all times a 

 full supply, and frequently a surplus, within 

 reach of all tl>e large cities. Taking advan- 

 tage of this fact, knowing ilie perishable na- 

 ture of the product and the inability of most 

 farmers who have begun to make milk largely 

 to take care of it at home, or manufacture it 

 profitably, the dealers have steadily crowded 

 down the price. The receipts of the milk 

 producer have thus decreased, while the con- 

 sumers have derived no benefit, the retail 

 selling price being held as high as ever. The 

 margin for the middlemen has been gradually 

 widened, without any material improvement 

 in the milk service or other good reason. The 

 retail peddlers do not receive much beyond a 



living, and the gain has .been mainly to the 

 wholi'sale dealers and large operators. As a 

 rule, the producer now receives less than one- 

 half, and in many cases only one-third, of 

 what tlie consumer jiavs for the milk. 



Producers have for along lime realized that 

 they were receiving less than their fair sliare 

 of the gross proceeds of the milk, and have 

 known that oftentimes they actually pro- 

 duced it and sold it at a loss. Vet, once settled 

 in this line of fitrming, an entire change can 

 only be made at a sacrifice, and many have 

 conse(iuently submitted to freiiuent and even 

 constant losses. Matters have gone from bad 

 to win-se, until it has come to be an accepted 

 fact that milk producers must and will accept 

 whatever the dealers choose to offer, regard- 

 less both of the original cost and of the final 

 selling price. The large jobbers liave boasted 

 of their power and have combined to make it 

 more effective. 



Naturally, reaction has at last taken place. 

 Milk producers have been driven to co-operate 

 to protect their interests, and organizations to 

 this end are forming in many places. A de- 

 termined revolt against the encroachments of 

 " the trade" was made in Orange county, N. 

 Y., a year ago. The results were such as to 

 show, " by the book," that the income of the 

 dairy farmers of that county, has been at least 

 S800 per day greater than it would otherwise 

 have been, for a whole year. This amounts 

 to a large sum. It has given impetus to simi- 

 lar movements elsewhere, and there is at pres- 

 ent special activity in the New England Milk 

 Producers' Association, which includes the 

 territory supplying Boston and vicinity, the 

 Hoosatonic Valley Association, of Connecti- 

 cut, and similar organizations ou all the rail- 

 way lines delivering milk for New York and 

 Jersey City. 



These organizations take, first, the crude 

 form of combinations of producers to fix and 

 maintain the price for milk on the farms of a 

 given district. This supposes all pure, honest 

 country milk to be equal in value, or, at least, 

 to have a minimum value. None of the 

 movements thus far have attempted to estab- 

 lish a price to the farmer of more than three 

 and a-half cents a quart average for the year. 

 The "farmer's price" has been fixed at less 

 than this in most cases. Certainly thi.-i is 

 reasonable, and any one candidly examining 

 this subject must agree that, while milk costs 

 the city consumer six cents or more per quart, 

 the producer is fairly entitled to four cents, 

 and ought to be encouraged and helped in any 

 proper action necessary to obtain it. 



When once well organized and so managed 

 as to feel their power and make it felt, the as- 

 sociations of milk producers will find a wide 

 field of usefulness before them, and, if guided 

 aright, they will win the hearty co-operation 

 of all consumers. The interests of these two 

 classes are identical. The nature of this all- 

 important article of food is such that there 

 are peculiarly strong reasons why the pro- 

 ducers and consumers of milk should earnest- 

 estly strive to bring themselves nearer to- 

 gether. There is ample opportunity for this. 

 As at present conducted, the business of city 

 milk supply is unsystematic, wasteful and ab- 

 surd. It sui)ports at least twice as many 

 middlemen of different grade as are necessary, 

 and there is no question of the possibility of 



reducing the cost of transporting the milk 

 from the farm and delivering it to the city 

 family at least one-half. Properly organized 

 on a scale commensurate with the extent and 

 importance of tratlic, tha total cost between 

 producer and consumer for any of our Eastern 

 cities can be reduced to two cents per quart. 

 This ought to be insurins: an average cost to 

 the one of six cents and an average receipt of 

 four by the other. To this end the milk pro- 

 ducers' associations should, in time, apply 

 themselves, and they naturally will. Al- 

 ready, indeed, the members of the Farmers' 

 Milk Company, of Orange county, N. Y. 

 (which, as a corporation with fair capital, 

 owned by dairymen, has taken the place of 

 the Erie Milk Producers' Association), are 

 arranging to sell their own milk in New York 

 City after the 1st of April. 



Nor is this all. It will become the duty of 

 these milk as-sociations to arrange tor lessen- 

 ing the cost and improving the facilities of 

 milk transportation by rail, as well as to sys- 

 tematize city delivery ; to classify or grade 

 the merchantable article of milk and raise the 

 commercial minimum standard ; to aid in pre- 

 venting adulteration and fraud, and to insti- 

 tute some means of sanitary inspection of the 

 farms and stables where the milk is made. 



It is plain, therefore, that this movement, 

 becoming so general in the milk-producing 

 districts, cannot be overrated in importance. 

 These new organizations should commend 

 themselves to every producer and every con- 

 sumer of milk, and certainly should embrace 

 both in their active membership, for upon 

 them devolve the duty of solving this whole 

 great problem of the reformation, so much 

 needed, in the milk supply of our large towns 

 and cities. 



SOURCES OF TRICHINiE. 



An extract from Dr. Detmer's report to the 

 Government upon trichnai in hogs as taken 

 from Coleman's Rural World, says .• 



" That I am correct concerning the princi- 

 pal resources of trichna; in hogs to the bad 

 habit of our farmers have of leaving hogs that 

 die of swine plague and of other diseases, too, 

 uuburied, will appear from the following : As 

 is well known, we had very little swine plague 

 and very few losses from that diseases in the 

 West in 1S83. The winter of 1S82-S3 was a 

 severe one, the spring of 18S3 w.is wet, pour- 

 ing rains were frequent, and the summer fol- 

 lowing rathir backward and cool, all condi- 

 tions unfavorable to the preservation and de- 

 velopment of the swine plague germs (dioplo- 

 coceus suis). In August, when I announced 

 my trichinaj investigation, I examined mostly 

 last year's hogs, over a year old, and found 

 3i per cent, trichinous ; in September some 

 younger hogs, or hogs less than a year old, 

 commenced to come in, and I found only 2.43 

 per cent, affected, in October, when most of 

 the hogs examined were less than a year 

 old, the percentage came down to 1.62 per 

 cent, and in November, wlien nearly all the 

 hogs examined were young animals the very 

 low percentage of .73 was reached. Besides 

 that in some of the hogs found to be trichinous 

 the trichina; were already calcified, or in a 

 state of calcification, which shows that the 

 same cannot have recently invaded the ani- 

 mal organism and were probably over a year 



