35 



onions and tobacco. A more profitable system in most cases 

 would appear to be that of perennial dairying, for which these 

 reasons may be advanced. 



First, where dairying does not continue throughout the year, 

 the market is general, and the prices of its products, if not low, 

 are not higher than those for the country at large. Producers 

 cannot secure private trade at the flush season unless they are 

 prepared to take care of their customers when the supply is short. 

 It is a business principle that the time to secure valuable trade is 

 when competitors find it difl3cult to provide for the wants of their 

 customers. To be able to furnish the goods at such times is to 

 demonstrate one's ability to do so at all times. So, in the butter 

 business, our best creameries and private dairies are able to defy 

 competition when they can furnish choice goods in uniform quan- 

 tity throughout the year ; while in proportion to the fluctuation in 

 their supply they are handicapped in finding satisfactory markets 

 for their products. 



When the creamery, with a large private trade which pays sev- 

 eral cents more than the general market, finds its cream supply 

 cut down to a low figure, it must either drop a part of its trade, — 

 which once lost is not easily regained, — or else supply this trade 

 with purchased goods, — purchased at a high price in a short sea- 

 son. This latter method either reduces the profits on purchased 

 products to very little, and perhaps even to a loss, or else entails 

 the risk of dissatisfaction and loss of custom by the substitution 

 of other and inferior goods for those with which customers are 

 familiar. 



If the creamery is co-operative, the patron's profit is less, be- 

 cause of a shrinkage in product when it is most needed ; if it is 

 proprietary, the price paid to patrons is regulated by the same 

 idea. With milk companies contracts are often made whereby 

 producers are paid for a regular product throughout the year, and 

 a lower price for the variable product above this minimum. Ob- 

 viously in this case the greater tlie fluctuation the larger the pro- 

 portion of milk which will bring the lower price. 



Farmers frequently fail to hold good contracts, simply because 

 they do not take care of their customers in the pinch. Not only 

 do they fail to reap the benefit of high prices in seasons of scarcity 

 for a surplus product at that time, but are forced to accept lower 

 prices at all times, because of inability to keep contracts in the 

 pinch. Milkmen with private routes do better, but they also ex- 

 perience difficulties in holding trade without a regular uniform 

 supply of milk. It must be obvious, to the dairyman who has 

 carefully studied the possibilities of the business, that the highest 



